Extremism and Civil Disobedience--another long one, friends

 I've been thinking a lot about free speech and civil disobedience recently.  I suppose some of this has to do with recent events and movements.  To be honest I don't feel overly connected to or invested in most of them.  Still, I'm a-thinkin' here.  Specifically, I've been thinking about a quote relayed through a friend of a friend, "Civil disobedience is still disobedience." (In otherwords, it's bad.)  On the other hand, I've been thinking about Henry Steele Commager's "Who is Loyal to America?" article from 1947.  This was written as the Cold War was ramping up and political and social conformity (uniform hatred and fear of all things Soviet) was expected if you didn't want to be called a traitor to America.  Here's a bit of his answer.

"True loyalty may require, in fact, what appears to the naive to be disloyalty.  It may require hostility to certain provisions of the constitution itself, and historians have not concluded that those who subscribed to the "Higher Law" were lacking in patriotism.  We should not forget that our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past--Jefferson and Paine, Emerson and Thoreau--while we silence the rebels of the present.  "We are a rebellious nation," said Theodore Parker, known in his day as the Great American Preacher, and went on:  'Our whole history is treason; our blood was attainted before we were born; our creeds are infielity to the mother church ;our constitution, treason to the fatherland.  What of that?  Though all governors in the world bid us commit treason against man, and set the example, let us never submit.'"

To go along with that, here's a tiny portion of Martin Luther King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." (1963)  His whole letter is on why civil disobedience is okay, but he also throws in a new angle.  Civil disobedience isn't just about highlighting injustice.  The attitude if its participants and the causes they promote matter, too.

"You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."
I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.
Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. ... If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."