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At only 5’2”, Ben Ferencz was not an imposing figure. But during the course of his life, he became a giant in the areas of international criminal law, in prosecuting war crimes, and in the quest for world peace. He died earlier this month (4/7/23) in an assisted living facility in Boynton Beach, FL. He was 103.

Ferencz was born in the Transylvania region of Hungary in 1920. A few months after his birth, at the conclusion of World War I, Transylvania was annexed into Romania. His parents fled Romania and the persecution Hungarian Jews faced at the hands of the Romanian government. They  made it to the United States and settled on the lower east side of Manhattan in New York City. After high school, Ferencz attended City College of New York and eventually attended Harvard Law School, where he studied under Sheldon Glueck, who was researching a book on war crimes. His association with Glueck and the war crimes research would have a profound and long-lasting influence on the rest of his life.

After graduating from Harvard in 1943, Ferencz joined the Army and was assigned to Camp Davis in North Carolina as a typist. Ferencz didn’t know how to type or fire a rifle, so he was given the duty of cleaning latrines. With some training, he was eventually assigned to the 115^th AAA Gun Battalion, anti-aircraft artillery unit. He landed on the beach at Normandy, and went on to fight in the fated Battle of the Bulge.

In 1945, near the end of World War II, Ferencz was assigned to the headquarters of General George S. Patton’s Third Army, and was tasked with setting up a war crimes branch. It was in this job that he witnessed firsthand the atrocities committed by the Nazis on Jews and other “undesirables” in the concentration camps of Buchenwald, Mauthausen, and Dachau. Ferencz collected evidence at each of these camps that was later used to convict Nazi war criminals.

Years later, when discussing his experience in the concentration camps, Ferencz said, “Even today, when I close my eyes, I witness a deadly vision I can never forget — the crematoria aglow with the fire of burning flesh, the mounds of emaciated corpses stacked like cordwood waiting to be burned. I had peered into hell.”

After the war, when he left Germany, Ferencz vowed never to return, the memory of what he had seen haunted him so badly. But he had only been back in the states for a few months when the Army reached out to him and asked him to return as a civilian to work on prosecuting war criminals. Big name Nazis like Hermann Goring and Rudolf Hess had already been prosecuted, and Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union left it up to the United States to prosecute the lower ranking war criminals. Ferencz worked under Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor, helping Taylor investigate and prepare cases against Nazi doctors who had experimented on concentration camp inmates, as well as industrialists who availed themselves of slave labor from the camps.

It was during these investigations that Ferencz discovered previously secret documents from the Einsatzgruppen (Action Groups). The Einsatzgruppen were tasked with following the Nazi Army as it invaded the Soviet Union, and kill all the Jews, gypsys, gays, and communists they could find. The reports were detailed documentation of how the Einsatzgruppen had gone from town-to-town rounding up the “undesirables” and executing them. One such document, later labeled exhibit 179 at trial, detailed how, in Kyiv, troops summoned all Jews to present themselves to the Nazis. About 34,000 people responded. The Nazis stripped them of their clothing and took anything of value from them, then spent the next several days executing every single one of them.

As part of the agreement that ended the war, Germany was bifurcated, with Russia having control of the eastern part of the country and the United States having control of the western half. The U.S. wanted to rebuild West Germany, if for no other reason than to have a foothold in Europe that would be a barrier to further expansion by the Russians, who despite being a partner with the U.S. in World War II, had become a Cold War rival. The war crimes trials were dragging on, and were creating friction between the U.S. and West Germany. Taylor was under pressure from his superiors to conclude the trials so the United States and West German could move forward.

The push to conclude the trials angered Ferencz. He had found documents—literal murder receipts—that needed to lead to prosecutions. Yet, the U.S. was seemingly willing to turn a blind eye in order to move forward. Ferencz petitioned Taylor not to allow the murders of millions of innocent people to go unanswered. Taylor sympathized, but the pressure to wrap up the trials was mounting. Finally, he told Ferencz, who had never prosecuted a case in his life, that if he could organize the trials while doing his other duties, he could move forward with the prosecutions. Ferencz had suddenly gone from an investigator to lead prosecutor of Nazi war criminals.

One of the first challenges Ferencz faced was choosing who to prosecute. Based on the documents he had at his disposal, he literally could have charged thousands of former Nazis. There wasn’t enough time or courtroom space to prosecute everyone. Ferencz chose to focus on those that had the highest rank in the Nazi military, as well as the most education.

At trial, Ferencz called no witnesses. Instead, he relied on the treasure trove of Einsatzgruppen reports as his evidence. The defendants claimed simultaneously that the documents were fake and that they were simply exaggerated to impress superiors. When that didn’t work, they argued that they were only following orders.

In the end, all 22 defendants were convicted. Thirteen were sentenced to death, and four were actually put to death by hanging before the United States changed course and stopped the executions.

Ferencz stayed in Germany following the trials, participating in reparation and rehabilitation programs designed to benefit victims of Nazi persecution. He also had a hand in negotiating the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany in 1952 and the German Restitution Law of 1953.

Ferencz and his family returned to the United States in 1956, and he set up a private law practice in New York along with his old boss, Telford Taylor. Among their legal work, Ferencz and Taylor represented Jews who were used as forced labor by German industrialist, Friedrich Flick.

Following the Vietnam War, which he opposed, Ferencz left his private legal practice to push for an international criminal court that would serve as the highest court in the world dealing with crimes against humanity and war crimes. His book, Defining International Aggression: The Search for World Peace, was published in 1975 and made the case for an international criminal court.

From 1985-1996 Ferencz served as a professor of international law at Pace University. During his time at Pace, Ferencz continued to advocate for an international criminal court. He gave speeches and met with lawmakers, but the going was slow. Finally, in 2002, his dream of an international criminal court came to fruition. Surprisingly, it was the United States that was most resistant to the court. Although Pres. George W. Bush signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the agreement that created the court, the treaty was never ratified. To this day, U.S. citizens are excluded from being brought before the court.

Throughout his life, Ferencz was a principled man. He applauded the conviction in the International Criminal Court of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, founder of the Union of Congolese Patriots, who were accused of ethnic massacres, torture, rape, and mutilation. He was also highly critical of the execution of Osama Bin Laden by the United States, which he called “illegal and unwarranted” in a letter he penned to the New York Times. He believed that Bin Laden’s execution undermined democracy and that the captured Bin Laden should have instead been referred to the international criminal court.

If you travel to The Hague, you can walk the Benjamin Ferencz Footpath, which was dedicated in Ferencz’s honor in 2017. In 2018, a documentary entitled Prosecuting Evil was released on Netflix. The film documents Ferencz’s life and details his work on behalf of the international criminal court and world peace.

For his tireless work, Ferencz has received many awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal, the Governor’s Medal of Freedom from the State of Florida, and the Pahl Peace Prize from the Country of Liechtenstein. He has also been interviewed in several documentaries (in addition to Prosecuting Evil), including Ken Burn’s The U.S. and the Holocaust, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 11/9, and David Wilkenson’s Getting Away with Murder(s).

In 2017, CBS’s 60 Minutes did a profile on Ferencz. That profile was my introduction to the life of Benjamin Ferencz. I have admired his life, his work, and his principles ever since. Here is the 60 Minutes profile. (Click on “Watch on YouTube to see the video.)

An investigation conducted by the nonprofit public interest group, ProPublica, found that for more than two decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted gifts totaling millions of dollars from Harlan Crow, a Texas-based billionaire and real estate developer. In addition to accepting the gifts, Thomas failed to report receipt of the gifts on his annual financial disclosure form, a document required of all federal judges.

It gets worse. In 2004, the Los Angeles Times did an investigation into Thomas’ habit of accepting extravagant gifts from donors. Following the story published by the LA Times, Thomas’ annual financial disclosures indicated he had stopped accepting the gifts. But he hadn’t. Instead, he had just stopped reporting them.

The ProPublica story comes in the aftermath of another potential ethical violation committed by Thomas. In 2021, in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, Thomas failed to recuse himself from a case in which his own wife was involved.

Following the revelations from the ProPublica investigation, reactions were all too predictable. Democrats lashed out at Thomas’ behavior, some even calling for his impeachment. Republicans defended Thomas, impugning the motivations of “leftists” rather than actually defending the fact that Thomas had received millions of dollars worth of unreported gifts.

It’s the predictability of these reactions that I want to focus on. As a nation, our politics has become so divided that we no longer can agree on even the most obvious issues. Rather than looking at Thomas’ behavior from a right vs left perspective, I want to look at it from a right vs wrong perspective. It’s not always easy to distinguish right from wrong in politics. But in this case, I think distinguishing between the two is pretty clear-cut and easy.

Let’s start from the premise of what we should expect from a Supreme Court Justice. At a minimum, a Supreme Court Justice should be impartial, or at least as impartial as a human being can be. In the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, a Supreme Court Justice should just call balls and strikes. They should apply the law, not their political leanings or beliefs. They should be above reproach in their personal lives. They should not have any entanglements or personal interests that unduly cloud their judicial judgement or restrict their independence. Not only should they not have dealings that cloud their judgement, they shouldn’t have dealings that give the perception of bias or influence. To be certain, Supreme Court Justices, like anyone else, will live their lives as they see fit, with friends and acquaintances of their own choosing. However, because they are Supreme Court Justices, it is imperative that those relationships not influence—or give the perception of influencing—their legal decisions.

This is the minimum we should expect. After all, these Justices serve on the highest court in the land. Their decisions impact millions of people every day. We, through the Constitution, give Justices of the Supreme Court a tremendous amount of power. We trust them with carrying out one of the most important roles in our society. At least in theory, only the best of the best of the best of the nation’s attorneys ever rise to the level of Supreme Court Justice. It is an honor and a privilege to serve on the Court. Our expectation of those who serve should be high.

Oddly, although other federal judges are bound by an ethical code of conduct, Supreme Court Justices are not. In recent years, there has been a push to implement an ethical code of conduct for the Supreme Court, but the Justices have resisted, while simultaneously paying lip service to the imperative of ethical behavior. Congress has toyed with the idea of implementing an ethical code for the Supreme Court, but to date, they have failed to do so.

Even without a written code of ethics, does Justice Thomas’ behavior rise to the level of what we should expect from a Supreme Court Justice? Forget his politics. Forget his legal philosophies or decisions. Just focus on Justice Thomas’ behavior. Would such behavior be acceptable for the President, a Member of Congress, or a Senator? Would it be acceptable for any political appointee or bureaucrat? Would it be acceptable for your local dog catcher? I think the answer is obvious. We should not countenance the taking of expensive gifts by government officials, whether reported or not, particularly from someone in a position to influence the official’s behavior.

Former federal prosecutor and current President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Noah Bookbinder, made this point on Twitter after hearing Justice Thomas’ claim that Harlan Crow is simply a friend, and that he was counseled by his fellow Justices that there was no need to report the gifts:

“Have any of you had a friend pay for a vacation for you? How about a really expensive one? And then do it again? And again? It’s certainly not something that’s happened to me, and I don’t think it happens to regular people in the real world.

“For Justice Thomas to think that this is such a normal occurrence that it was not only okay for him to accept these fully paid vacations again and again, but that he didn’t even have to report it does not pass the smell test. Add to it that this is someone who apparently became a friend after Justice Thomas assumed a position of great influence and power, and it smells even worse.

“Most government employees are scrupulous in reporting gifts, usually much smaller and often from personal friends, as required on personal financial disclosure forms. This explanation does not comport with lived experience for most people in positions of responsibility.

“This shows why there needs to be an enforceable code of conduct for Supreme Court justices. But it is so far beyond what anyone should have thought acceptable that it also requires an investigation.”

I agree with Bookbinder’s thoughts. Justice Thomas’ behavior is so far beyond the pale that it should be obvious to any objective observer that it was wrong, unethical, potentially criminal, and worthy of further investigation. Opinion on the matter should not be determined by political beliefs or party affiliation.

As I said previously, this isn’t a matter of right vs left. It is a matter of right vs wrong. Any Justice, no matter his or her political beliefs or judicial philosophies, should be held to account for this type of behavior. Can’t we at least agree that any Supreme Court Justice or other government official that takes millions of dollars of gifts, particularly from someone in a position to influence their decisions, should be investigated, and if appropriate, punished? Or are we so divided that we can’t even agree on that simple premise?

ADDENDUM: There’s something about this story that I’m afraid I didn’t make clear enough. While it is true that Clarence Thomas didn’t report the gifts he received from billionaire Harlan Crow, the much more important part of the story is that Thomas accepted the gifts in the first place. Accepting the gifts is the unethical (and potentially illegal) action. Not reporting them is just proof of his intent to cover up his unethical (and potentially illegal) behavior.

ADDENDUM 2 — After I first published this post, ProPublica came out with another story detailing how Harlan Crow bought Clarence Thomas’ mother’s home in 2014, remodeled the whole thing, and has allowed Thomas’ mother to remain in the home rent-free ever since. At the same time, Crow bought two empty lots in the neighborhood from Thomas, and the went on to sell off the lots. Just as with the luxury travel Crow gifted Thomas, Thomas failed to report the transaction.

In response to the story, Crow claimed that he purchased the home with plans of turning it into a museum dedicated to telling Thomas’ story of going from a working-class neighborhood in Savannah to the highest court in the nation. Of course, that statement doesn’t explain: 1) why he immediately remodeled the home; 2) why he also bought the vacant lots only to sell them, or; 3) why he has allowed Thomas’ mother to remain in the home without paying rent.

With all of these revelations, and considering that Crow, who sits on the board of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank that often files amicus briefs with the Supreme Court, it seems clear that Thomas should be investigated by the court, by Congress, or by both. This should not be a partisan issue. Thomas’ ethical lapses and crimes (if any) are against the Court and the people of the United States. All Members of Congress, regardless of their party affiliation, should want to know the details of Thomas’ relationship with Crow. Sadly, while Democrats have called for an investigation, Republicans have been all too happy to dismiss the conservative jurist’s behavior.

ADDENDUM 3 — As you can probably tell, I feel strongly that the revelations in the ProPublica stories should be investigated, but others are calling for impeachment. Mehdi Hasan does a great job of laying out the case for impeachment, and compares it to a similar case against Abe Fortas, a liberal Supreme Court Justice.

It’s sad to say, but mass shootings in the United States have become so common, that it is easy to view them from a distance, to be detached. After all, the shootings happen somewhere else, to someone else. Sure, they’re horrible, but for most of us, they don’t really affect our lives. Until they do.

This past Friday, one person was killed and ten were injured when a gunman opened fire at a house party in Macomb, Illinois. Macomb is the home of Western Illinois University, where I went to college and where I received a Masters degree this past summer. I spent several years in Macomb. I walked the streets of the town. Many of my friends lived there and walked those same streets. To think that a mass shooting took place there is hard to fathom.

I heard about the shooting in Macomb on my way to Nashville. I was going there to watch my son play rugby for the University of Tennessee. I couldn’t help but think about the shooting in Macomb, a college town, and how it related to my son, who lives in Knoxville, the home of Tennessee’s flagship university. Unlike past shootings, this one was hitting close to home.

After my weekend in Nashville, I packed up and headed back to Wisconsin. As I was driving, another mass shooting took place. This one in the town I had just left. It happened at a private elementary school in the Green Hills area of Nashville. Six people were killed, including three children under the age of ten, two teachers, and the assailant. It’s a horrible, terrifying tragedy, and it happened not too far from where my daughter lives and where my son was playing rugby the previous weekend.

The shooting in Nashville was the 129^th mass shooting to happen in the United States since the beginning of the year. One-hundred-twenty-nine mass shootings in less than three full months. Think about that. In the first ninety days of 2023 there have been 129 mass shootings in the United States. Most countries don’t have 129 mass shootings in a decade. Yet, in the United States, we average more than one mass shooting per day.

I’m horrified. In fact, every American should be horrified by the amount of gun violence in this country. Yet, our elected leaders do precious little to try to stop it. It’s easy to blame Republicans, who routinely offer “thoughts and prayers” to the victims and their families, while mindlessly wrapping themselves in the Second Amendment and posing for Christmas cards while holding assault rifles. But I’m old enough to remember when Democrats controlled both the House and Senate and still didn’t pass comprehensive gun reform. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

I don’t claim to have all the answers when it comes to gun reform. What I do know is that our current gun laws have resulted in 129 mass shootings so far this year. It may be true that we can’t completely stop mass shootings, but there are things we can do to reduce the amount of gun violence in the United States and make it harder for those who mean us harm to get the guns they need.

For instance, why don’t we have universal background checks? Ninety percent of Americans support universal background checks, yet Congress can’t seem to muster the political will to get it done.

In the Nashville shooting, the shooter legally purchased seven different guns while being treated for an emotional disorder. Would a background check have stopped the shooter from getting the guns used to kill the innocent children and their teachers? That’s hard to say with any certainty. Even so, the point remains that a universal background check would help keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.

Why do we allow our fellow citizens to purchase assault rifles? In 1994, an assault rifle ban was implemented in the United States. It lasted for ten years before in expired in 2004. During that ten-year period, mass shootings decreased 37% and fatalities from mass shootings fell 70%. After the ban expired, between 2004-2014, mass shootings increased 183%. That’s why two-thirds of all Americans support a permanent ban on the sale of assault weapons.

Other common sense gun reform laws include banning high capacity magazines, passing safe gun storage laws, and creating a gun registry. There is a lot more that can be done to help curb gun violence that falls far short of a complete ban on gun sales (no one is credibly calling for such a ban), and which doesn’t violate the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

We can either push our elected officials to pass meaningful, common sense gun reform, or we can continue to sacrifice our children on the alter of the gun lobby. That is our choice. And we already know what happens when we do nothing.

ADDENDUM: Dr. Jesse Ehrenfeld is the incoming president of the American Medical Association (AMA). Here is what he said in the wake of the mass shooting in Nashville:

“I’m livid. My colleague lost her child in the Nashville shooting. So this is personal... Because thoughts and prayers will NEVER be enough.

“This is not just a tragedy, it’s a public health crisis that has serious societal and economic effects on our health care system, communities, workplaces, schools, law enforcement agencies and courts. According to the CDC, nearly 49,000 Americans died due to firearms in 2021 – a 28-year high – and tens of thousands more were seriously injured, devastating families in small towns and big cities alike. 1/3 of all firearm-related deaths are homicides, almost 2/3 are suicides.

“The AMA has called for efforts to curb firearm violence since the 1980s and has advocated for policies that support extending waiting periods, strengthening background checks, restoring the ban on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines & regulating ghost guns. Congress must earmark appropriations specifically for firearm violence research efforts. Congress must increase funding to CDC and NIH for research into the prevention of firearm-related morbidity and mortality. Congress must take action.”

There’s nothing more important in life than having a loving, mutually supportive relationship with your spouse or significant other. And there’s nothing more important to a successful relationship than learning to communicate with one another.

In this video, you’ll learn the challenges we all face communicating with our loved ones, and you’ll see how successful couples communicate with each other.

Enjoy!

Back in 2021, I compiled a list of the best places to live in the world. The results were a bit surprising, especially considering how relatively poorly the United States scored. The list was based on a combination of how happy the citizens of each country were (based on the World Happiness Report), how free those citizens were (Based on the Human Freedom Index), and the cost of living in each country.

For the period of 2019-2022, Finland was the happiest nation on earth (Finns were also the happiest people on earth from 2016-2019). During that same period, the United States was the 16^th happiest nation. There’s a lot that can be said about why people in Finland are so happy and why people in the United States are, comparatively speaking, so unhappy. Philosophy and psychology researcher Frank Martela, who teaches at Aalto University in Finland, says there are three keys to Finnish happiness.

1. Finns Don’t Compare Themselves to Their Neighbors – Finns live by the motto “Don’t compare or brag about your happiness.” They really take it to heart. They also don’t flaunt their wealth. Most Finns, regardless of how relatively wealthy or poor they are, live very similar lives in very similar homes. In Finland, success isn’t living better than your neighbors. It is living very much like your neighbors.
2. Finns Embrace the Benefits of Nature – Every year, Finns get four weeks of vacation during the summer months, and most spend at least part of that time immersed in nature. Whether hiking, canoeing, or camping, Finns routinely enjoy getting away from the modern conveniences of life to enjoy the outdoors, whether in the countryside or in urban parks. They find that time spent in nature increases their vitality, well-being, and gives them a sense of personal growth. They also fill their homes with greenery to mimic the benefits of being out in nature at times of the year when it is not as easy to get outdoors.
3. Finns Trust Each Other – A “lost wallet” experiment run around the world showed why Finns trust each other so much. In Finland, researchers dropped twelve wallets around Helsinki to see how many would be returned. Of the twelve, eleven were returned to the owner of the wallet. Finns tend to highly value trust and honesty. Relatively small, polite gestures like holding the door for someone or giving up a seat on the bus or train tends to increase the trust that people have in each other. These gestures are common in Finland.

Do these three things sound like the way we live our lives in the United States? If not, maybe we should do something about it.

I’ve had sinus issues for years. Since 1995, I’ve had three sinus surgeries, and I’m pretty sure I’m due for another one. Over the past few months, my sinuses have been all stuffed up, and it’s making me constantly dizzy. Trust me, it’s not much fun.

In December of last year, I called a clinic where I had been treated before to make an appointment. Since I hadn’t been there in almost twenty years, they required that I get a referral from my family doctor. To be clear, my insurance didn’t require the referral. The clinic did.

I called my family doctor and couldn’t get an appointment for three weeks. So for three weeks, I suffered with dizziness that, at times, was debilitating. When I finally saw the doctor at the end of December, he gave me some antibiotics and made a referral to the otolaryngology clinic.

It took a couple of weeks just to make the appointment with the otolaryngologist, and even then, they couldn’t get me in for two months. During my two month wait, the dizziness worsened, and I had to see my family doctor again, who gave me another course of antibiotics, along with a steroid. It didn’t help.

Finally, I get to see the otolaryngologist this week. A couple days ago, I received a packet of information in the mail from the clinic confirming my appointment and letting me know what the cost of the doctor’s visit is going to be. For this appointment that I’ve had to wait three months for, it is going to cost $714.13. Just for the appointment. Not for any treatment. Not for any medication. Just to walk in the door and be examined.

Thankfully, I have pretty good insurance. Even so, my portion of the bill is $568.15. Granted, it’s early in the year and I haven’t met my deductible, but $568.15 for a simple appointment with the doctor? Come on.

To give you an idea of how ridiculously expensive $714.13 is for a single doctor’s appointment, here’s how it compares to a few  items we normally wouldn’t purchase without giving it some thought and looking for the best deal:

• 3-Day Pass to Disney World: $327.00
• XBox Series X: $499.99
• Dell Inspirion Business Laptop: $579.00
• 3-Nights at the Hyatt Place Orlando : $612.00
• Samsung 65″ Crystal Clear Smart TV: $647.99
• 10-sessions with a Personal Trainer: $650.00
• Apple iPhone 13: $679.78
• A Single Doctor’s Appointment: $714.13

In the United States, the average person has less than $400 in savings. That’s a horrendous statistic when you consider that the United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet. This one doctor’s appointment, without any treatment or medication, would wipe out the savings of most Americans. That’s insane. There has to be a better way.

If I lived in almost any other first-world democracy in the world, my taxes would pay for universal healthcare that would cover this doctor’s appointment. One of the criticisms I hear about the healthcare systems in countries with universal healthcare is that it takes too long to get an appointment. That may be true in certain circumstances (for instance, elective surgery), but keep in mind that I’ve had to wait nearly three months for my upcoming appointment, and I had to see my family doctor twice in the interim, once to get the referral and once because my symptoms worsened. Neither of those appointments were free, so add that expense to the $568.15 out-of-pocket cost for my upcoming appointment.

Of course, the biggest criticism of universal healthcare is that it will raise our taxes. This is true, but when you factor in what you’re already paying for health insurance, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses, universal healthcare is cheaper.

The more important point to make about universal healthcare is that people can actually afford to take advantage of it. I am eternally grateful that I have the financial wherewithal to pay for my upcoming doctor’s visit. Sadly, not everyone can. So, they live with the often debilitating symptoms of easily treated injuries and illnesses. Their lives are negatively impacted, maybe even shortened, because, even with insurance, they can’t afford to go to the doctor.

It should be a point of shame for Americans that our healthcare system is the most expensive in the world yet has the worst outcomes of any healthcare system among developed countries. At the moment, the United States is the only nation in the developed world not to have some form of universal healthcare, and we join countries like China, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a handful of other third-world countries that rely completely on private healthcare, which is another way of saying, everyone fends for themselves when it comes to taking care of their healthcare needs.

It’s time that the USA join the rest of the developed world in offering their citizens universal healthcare. The citizens of the wealthiest nation on earth deserve the best healthcare system in the world.

If you had to choose, would you choose more time or more money? I suspect most people would say they’d choose more time. More time to spend with their loved ones. More time to explore the world. More time to pursue hobbies or passions. More time to learn more, do more, see more. And yet, most of us spend the majority of our time pursuing money. Why is that?

The easy answer is, we need the money that our work provides to live our lives. We have bills to pay and families to support. Any travel plans we might have rely on the money we make from our jobs. For the most part, our hobbies and passions require money to pursue. All of this is true, as far as it goes.

But if we look closer, we find that there’s more to it than that. For many of us, we spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make more money. Many of us obsess over it. Trust me, I’m not immune to this trait, although I try to be balanced about it. Sure, I’d like to have more money, but not at the expense of my freedom, my happiness, or my peace of mind.

Maybe that’s the important thing: Balance.

I used to work with a guy that sacrificed his present for his future. His focus was on what his life would be like when he retired. He wanted to spend his time golfing, visiting with his kids and his future grandchildren. He wanted to travel with his wife. They made plans. They put money away for future travel. They scrimped and saved. He loved to golf, but only rarely did it, knowing he’d have plenty of time to golf to his heart’s content when he retired. He planned to retire at 60 and then start enjoying the life he desired. He died at 57.

My friend never got to experience the life he dreamed of and planned for. Planning is important, but not at the expense of the present.

Life is short and it doesn’t make sense to sacrifice now for an unguaranteed future. It doesn’t make sense to sacrifice our time—which most of us think is the most important thing—for money. If we do, we’re selling our time—our most important commodity—at an hourly rate. Usually, a pretty cheap hourly rate. And I don’t think any of us wants to do that.

If you’re not familiar with Lucias Seneca, let me tell you a little bit about him. He is known officially as Lucias Annaeus Seneca the Younger. He lived in the time of Jesus Christ (4 BC – 65 AD) and was a stoic philosopher. He wrote primarily about moral issues, and his writings have become central to stoic philosophy and the stoic movement.

In his essay “On the Shortness of Life,” Seneca tackles this idea that life is short. Seneca has a different take. If you’re interested in reading the entire text of Seneca’s essay, you can find it here. For our purposes, I’ll highlight a few passages that will give you a good idea of what Seneca was talking about, and about the challenges we all face when determining how to apportion our time and priorities.

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

“Why do we complain of Nature? She has shown herself kindly; life, if you know how to use it, is long. But one man is possessed by greed that is insatiable, another by a toilsome devotion to tasks that are useless; one man is besotted with wine, another is paralyzed by sloth; one man is exhausted by an ambition that always hangs upon the decision of others, another, driven on by the greed of the trader, is led over all lands and all seas by the hope of gain; some are tormented by a passion for war and are always either bent upon inflicting danger upon others or concerned about their own; some there are who are worn out by voluntary servitude in a thankless attendance upon the great; many are kept busy either in the pursuit of other men’s fortune or in complaining of their own; many, following no fixed aim, shifting and inconstant and dissatisfied, are plunged by their fickleness into plans that are ever new; some have no fixed principle by which to direct their course, but Fate takes them unawares while they loll and yawn—so surely does it happen that I cannot doubt the truth of that utterance which the greatest of poets delivered with all the seeming of an oracle: “The part of life we really live is small.” For all the rest of existence is not life, but merely time. 

“Think you that I am speaking of the wretches whose evils are admitted? Look at those whose prosperity men flock to behold; they are smothered by their blessings. To how many are riches a burden! From how many do eloquence and the daily straining to display their powers draw forth blood! How many are pale from constant pleasures! To how many does the throng of clients that crowd about them leave no freedom! In short, run through the list of all these men from the lowest to the highest—this man desires an advocate, this one answers the call, that one is on trial, that one defends him, that one gives sentence; no one asserts his claim to himself, everyone is wasted for the sake of another. Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master. And then certain men show the most senseless indignation—they complain of the insolence of their superiors, because they were too busy to see them when they wished an audience! But can anyone have the hardihood to complain of the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself? After all, no matter who you are, the great man does sometimes look toward you even if his face is insolent, he does sometimes condescend to listen to your words, he permits you to appear at his side; but you never deign to look upon yourself, to give ear to yourself. There is no reason, therefore, to count anyone in debt for such services, seeing that, when you performed them, you had no wish for another’s company, but could not endure your own. 

“Though all the brilliant intellects of the ages were to concentrate upon this one theme, never could they adequately express their wonder at this dense darkness of the human mind. Men do not suffer anyone to seize their estates, and they rush to stones and arms if there is even the slightest dispute about the limit of their lands, yet they allow others to trespass upon their life—nay, they themselves even lead in those who will eventually possess it. No one is to be found who is willing to distribute his money, yet among how many does each one of us distribute his life! In guarding their fortune men are often closefisted, yet, when it comes to the matter of wasting time, in the case of the one thing in which it is right to be miserly, they show themselves most prodigal. And so I should like to lay hold upon someone from the company of older men and say: “I see that you have reached the farthest limit of human life, you are pressing hard upon your hundredth year, or are even beyond it; come now, recall your life and make a reckoning. Consider how much of your time was taken up with a moneylender, how much with a mistress, how much with a patron, how much with a client, how much in wrangling with your wife, how much in punishing your slaves, how much in rushing about the city on social duties. Add the diseases which we have caused by our own acts, add, too, the time that has lain idle and unused; you will see that you have fewer years to your credit than you count. Look back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed, what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are dying before your season!” What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all the desires of immortals. You will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure, my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee, pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to be just as you plan it? Are you not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained! 

“Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Of the other arts there are many teachers everywhere; some of them we have seen that mere boys have mastered so thoroughly that they could even play the master. It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die. Many very great men, having laid aside all their encumbrances, having renounced riches, business, and pleasures, have made it their one aim up to the very end of life to know how to live; yet the greater number of them have departed from life confessing that they did not yet know—still less do those others know. Believe me, it takes a great man and one who has risen far above human weaknesses not to allow any of his time to be filched from him, and it follows that the life of such a man is very long because he has devoted wholly to himself whatever time he has had. None of it lay neglected and idle; none of it was under the control of another, for, guarding it most grudgingly, he found nothing that was worthy to be taken in exchange for his time. And so that man had time enough, but those who have been robbed of much of their life by the public, have necessarily had too little of it. 

“Can anything be sillier than the point of view of certain people—I mean those who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves very busily engaged in order that they may be able to live better; they spend life in making ready to live! They form their purposes with a view to the distant future; yet postponement is the greatest waste of life; it deprives them of each day as it comes, it snatches from them the present by promising something hereafter. The greatest hindrance to living is expectancy, which depends upon the morrow and wastes to-day. You dispose of that which lies in the hands of Fortune, you let go that which lies in your own. Whither do you look? At what goal do you aim? All things that are still to come lie in uncertainty; live straightway! 

“Life is divided into three periods—that which has been, that which is, that which will be. Of these the present time is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. For the last is the one over which Fortune has lost control, is the one which cannot be brought back under any man’s power. But men who are engrossed lose this; for they have no time to look back upon the past, and even if they should have, it is not pleasant to recall something they must view with regret. They are, therefore, unwilling to direct their thoughts backward to ill-spent hours, and those whose vices become obvious if they review the past, even the vices which were disguised under some allurement of momentary pleasure, do not have the courage to revert to those hours. No one willingly turns his thought back to the past, unless all his acts have been submitted to the censorship of his conscience, which is never deceived; he who has ambitiously coveted, proudly scorned, recklessly conquered, treacherously betrayed, greedily seized, or lavishly squandered, must needs fear his own memory. And yet this is the part of our time that is sacred and set apart, put beyond the reach of all human mishaps, and removed from the dominion of Fortune, the part which is disquieted by no want, by no fear, by no attacks of disease; this can neither be troubled nor be snatched away—it is an everlasting and unanxious possession. The present offers only one day at a time, and each by minutes; but all the days of past time will appear when you bid them, they will suffer you to behold them and keep them at your will—a thing which those who are engrossed have no time to do. The mind that is untroubled and tranquil has the power to roam into all the parts of its life; but the minds of the engrossed, just as if weighted by a yoke, cannot turn and look behind. And so their life vanishes into an abyss; and as it does no good, no matter how much water you pour into a vessel, if there is no bottom to receive and hold it, so with time—it makes no difference how much is given; if there is nothing for it to settle upon, it passes out through the chinks and holes of the mind. Present time is very brief, so brief, indeed, that to some there seems to be none; for it is always in motion, it ever flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it has come, and can no more brook delay than the firmament or the stars, whose ever unresting movement never lets them abide in the same track. The engrossed, therefore, are concerned with present time alone, and it is so brief that it cannot be grasped, and even this is filched away from them, distracted as they are among many things. 

“Decrepit old men beg in their prayers for the addition of a few more years; they pretend that they are younger than they are; they comfort themselves with a falsehood, and are as pleased to deceive themselves as if they deceived Fate at the same time. But when at last some infirmity has reminded them of their mortality, in what terror do they die, feeling that they are being dragged out of life, and not merely leaving it. They cry out that they have been fools, because they have not really lived, and that they will live henceforth in leisure if only they escape from this illness; then at last they reflect how uselessly they have striven for things which they did not enjoy, and how all their toil has gone for nothing. But for those whose life is passed remote from all business, why should it not be ample? None of it is assigned to another, none of it is scattered in this direction and that, none of it is committed to Fortune, none of it perishes from neglect, none is subtracted by wasteful giving, none of it is unused; the whole of it, so to speak, yields income. And so, however small the amount of it, it is abundantly sufficient, and therefore, whenever his last day shall come, the wise man will not hesitate to go to meet death with steady step. 

“The condition of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but most wretched is the condition of those who labour at preoccupations that are not even their own, who regulate their sleep by that of another, their walk by the pace of another, who are under orders in case of the freest things in the world—loving and hating. If these wish to know how short their life is, let them reflect how small a part of it is their own. 

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.”

This post was originally published in April 2022, and is being reprinted here in observation of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2023.

In early April 1963, the civil rights movement, led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and it’s co-founder, Martin Luther King, Jr, seemed to be stalled. Despite non-violent protests across the nation, the Kennedy Administration, which had come to power promising civil rights legislation, had seemingly turned a blind eye. They were still supportive, or so it seemed, but they weren’t doing much to fulfill their promise.

The SCLC, along with the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, had planned to stage demonstrations in Birmingham, known as one of the nation’s most racist cities. But on April 10, Circuit Judge W.A. Jenkins issued an order prohibiting “parading, demonstrating, boycotting, trespassing and picketing.” Leaders of the movement quickly decided they would disobey the judge’s order, and King decided that he would put himself in position to be arrested, a move he hoped would garner the attention of President John F. Kennedy, and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy.

King was arrested and spent eight days in a dark and dank Birmingham jail cell. Early in his stay, King was given a local newspaper that contained a letter written by eight white local clergymen taking King to task for his methods. In the letter, the men agreed that things needed to change. They indicated that the nation needed to treat blacks more fairly and with more respect, but they felt King and his followers needed to be more patient. They said that blacks should wait and allow the nation to come around in its own time. They blamed King and his protests for creating tension and backlash among whites, and they complained that the protests and sit-ins that King was leading were illegal.

As King read the letter in the newspaper, he began writing a response in the margins of the story. When he ran out of space in the margins, he wrote on small note pads his attorney had left behind. Finally, he was able to get his hands on a legal pad. What he wrote became known as “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Although King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington D.C. is more well known, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” may be King’s most important, most powerful work.

“Letter from Birmingham Jail” was first published on May 19, 1963 in the New York Post (after the New York Times Magazine decided against publishing it), and was subsequently published in the June issue of Liberation Magazine, the June 12, 1963 edition of The Christian Century, and the June 24, 1963 edition of The New Leader. It later was reprinted in The Progressive and The Atlantic Monthly, and was part of King’s 1964 book, Why We Can’t Wait.

Although it is long, I encourage you to read “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” It is one of the most important documents in our country’s history, and it is a classic publication on civil disobedience by a man who was being held, in essence, as a political prisoner.

Letter from Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King Jr.

Birmingham City Jail

April 16, 1963

Bishop C.C. J. Carpenter
Bishop Joseph A. Durick
Rabbi Milton L. Grafman
Bishop Paul Harmon
The Rev. George M. Murray
The Rev. Edward V. Ramage
The Rev. Earl Stalings

My Dear Fellow Clergymen,

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all of the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would be engaged in little else in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliate organizations all across the South, one being the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Whenever necessary and possible, we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promises. So I am here, along with several members of my staff, because we were invited here. I am here because I have basic organizational ties here.

Beyond this, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the eighth-century prophets left their little villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their hometowns; and just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider.

You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place in Birmingham. But I am sorry that your statement did not express a similar concern for the conditions that brought the demonstrations into being. I am sure that each of you would want to go beyond the superficial social analyst who looks merely at effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. I would not hesitate to say that it is unfortunate that so-called demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham at this time, but I would say in more emphatic terms that it is even more unfortunate that the white power structure of this city left the Negro community with no other alternative.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying of the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of this country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of them, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good-faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants, such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises, Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstration. As the weeks and months unfolded, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many experiences of the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through a process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?” and “Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?” We decided to set our direct-action program around the Easter season, realizing that, with exception of Christmas, this was the largest shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this was the best time to bring pressure on the merchants for the needed changes. Then it occurred to us that the March election was ahead, and so we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that Mr. Conner was in the runoff, we decided again to postpone action so that the demonstration could not be used to cloud the issues. At this time we agreed to begin our nonviolent witness the day after the runoff.

This reveals that we did not move irresponsibly into direct action. We, too, wanted to see Mr. Conner defeated, so we went through postponement after postponement to aid in this community need. After this we felt that direct action could be delayed no longer.

You may well ask, “Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. So, the purpose of direct action is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. We therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in the tragic attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

One of the basic points in your statement is that our acts are untimely. Some have asked, “Why didn’t you give the new administration time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this inquiry is that the new administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one before it acts. We will be sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Mr. Boutwell will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Conner, they are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo. The hope I see in Mr. Boutwell is that he will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from the devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was “well timed” according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “wait.” It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This “wait” has almost always meant “never.” It has been a tranquilizing thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.” We have waited for more than three hundred and forty years for our God-given and constitutional rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say “wait.” But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she cannot go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger” and your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodyness” — then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, it is rather strange and paradoxical to find us consciously breaking laws. One may well ask, “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “An unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law, or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. To use the words of Martin Buber, the great Jewish philosopher, segregation substitutes an “I – it” relationship for the “I – thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. So segregation is not only politically, economically, and sociologically unsound, but it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Isn’t segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, an expression of his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? So I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court because it is morally right, and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances because they are morally wrong.

Let us turn to a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself. This is difference made legal. On the other hand, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow, and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal.

Let me give another explanation. An unjust law is a code inflicted upon a minority which that minority had no part in enacting or creating because it did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout the state of Alabama all types of conniving methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties without a single Negro registered to vote, despite the fact that the Negroes constitute a majority of the population. Can any law set up in such a state be considered democratically structured?

These are just a few examples of unjust and just laws. There are some instances when a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I was arrested Friday on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong with an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade, but when the ordinance is used to preserve segregation and to deny citizens the First Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and peaceful protest, then it becomes unjust.

Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was seen sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar because a higher moral law was involved. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks before submitting to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience.

We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. But I am sure that if I had lived in Germany during that time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers even though it was illegal. If I lived in a Communist country today where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I believe I would openly advocate  is obeying these anti-religious laws.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because His unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber.

I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said, “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers with God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation.

You spoke 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 started 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 of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of “somebodyness” that they have adjusted to segregation, and, on the other hand, of a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because at points they profit by segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad’s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It 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 incurable devil. I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need not follow the do-nothingism of the complacent or the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. There is a more excellent way, of love and nonviolent protest. I’m grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, I am convinced that by now many streets of the South would be flowing with floods of blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as “rabble-rousers” and “outside agitators” those of us who are working through the channels of nonviolent direct action and refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes, out of frustration and despair, will seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies, a development that will lead inevitably to a frightening racial nightmare.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The urge for freedom will eventually come. This is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom; something without has reminded him that he can gain it. Consciously and unconsciously, he has been swept in by what the Germans call the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America, and the Caribbean, he is moving with a sense of cosmic urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. Recognizing this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand public demonstrations. The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sitins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people, “Get rid of your discontent.” But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. Now this approach is being dismissed as extremist. I must admit that I was initially disappointed in being so categorized.

But as I continued to think about the matter, I gradually gained a bit of satisfaction from being considered an extremist. Was not Jesus an extremist in love? — “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you.” Was not Amos an extremist for justice? — “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ? — “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” Was not Martin Luther an extremist? — “Here I stand; I can do no other so help me God.” Was not John Bunyan an extremist? — “I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a mockery of my conscience.” Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist? — “This nation cannot survive half slave and half free.” Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist? — “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” So the  question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?

I had hoped that the white moderate would see this. Maybe I was too optimistic. Maybe I expected too much. I guess I should have realized that few members of a race that has oppressed another race can understand or appreciate the deep groans and passionate yearnings of those that have been oppressed, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent, and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too small in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some, like Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, and James Dabbs, have written about our struggle in eloquent, prophetic, and understanding terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They sat in with us at lunch counters and rode in with us on the freedom rides. They have languished in filthy roach-infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of angry policemen who see them as “dirty nigger lovers.” They, unlike many of their moderate brothers, have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful “action” antidotes to combat the disease of segregation.

Let me rush on to mention my other disappointment. I have been disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand this past Sunday in welcoming Negroes to your Baptist Church worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Springhill College several years ago.

But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say that as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say it as a minister of the gospel who loves the church, who was nurtured in its bosom, who has been sustained by its Spiritual blessings, and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

I had the strange feeling when I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery several years ago that we would have the support of the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests, and rabbis of the South would be some of our strongest allies. Instead, some few have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained-glass windows.

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and with deep moral concern serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.

I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sidelines and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, “Those are social issues which the gospel has nothing to do with,” and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which made a strange distinction between bodies and souls, the sacred and the secular.

There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period that the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was the thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Wherever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.” But they went on with the conviction that they were “a colony of heaven” and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be “astronomically intimidated.” They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest.

Things are different now. The contemporary church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s often vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If the church of today does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authentic ring, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. I meet young people every day whose disappointment with the church has risen to outright disgust. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are presently misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with the destiny of America. Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson scratched across the pages of history the majestic word of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries our foreparents labored here without wages; they made cotton king; and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shameful humiliation — and yet out of a bottomless vitality our people continue to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.

I must close now. But before closing I am impelled to mention one other point in your statement that troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping “order” and “preventing violence.” I don’t believe you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its angry violent dogs literally biting six unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I don’t believe you would so quickly commend the policemen if you would observe their ugly and inhuman treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you would watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you would see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys, if you would observe them, as they did on two occasions, refusing to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I’m sorry that I can’t join you in your praise for the police department. It is true that they have been rather disciplined in their public handling of the demonstrators. In this sense they have been publicly “nonviolent.” But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the last few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. So I have tried to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.

I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, courageously and with a majestic sense of purpose facing jeering and hostile mobs and the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy-two-year-old woman of Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride the segregated buses, and responded to one who inquired about her tiredness with ungrammatical profundity, “My feets is tired, but my soul is rested.” They will be young high school and college students, young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience’s sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for the best in the American dream and the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Never before have I written a letter this long — or should I say a book? I’m afraid that it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else is there to do when you are alone for days in the dull monotony of a narrow jail cell other than write long letters, think strange thoughts, and pray long prayers?

If I have said anything in this letter that is an understatement of the truth and is indicative of an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything in this letter that is an overstatement of the truth and is indicative of my having a patience that makes me patient with anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that for maximum health benefits and weight loss, you should walk 10,000 steps per day. But is that really true? Probably not. In the very least, it’s not based on science.

According to Harvard paleoanthropologist Daniel Lieberman, in his book, Exercised, the 10,000 step myth began as a marketing campaign decades ago in Japan. The originator of the myth, Yamasa Tokei, made pedometers known as “Manpo-kei” (translated as “10,000 step meter”) in the 1960s. The marketing campaign eventually ended, but the underlying message has carried on through the years and across the ocean.

When I bought my first Fitbit several years ago, I did so because I thought tracking my steps would help motivate me to hit 10,000 steps per day. I have no idea why I thought walking 10,000 steps should be my goal. It just seemed like common knowledge. In fact, science tells us that 10,000 steps should not be the goal.

According to Dr. I-Min Lee, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the goal should be significantly lower. In a study she conducted on 16,741 women and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), women who averaged 4,400 steps per day had significantly lower mortality rates compared to those who walked 2,700 steps per day. Increasing the number of steps increased longevity, but only up to 7500 steps per day. There was no noticeable benefit to study participants who walked more than 7500 steps per day.

A study conducted at University of Massachusetts-Amherst by epidemiologist Amanda Paluch, had similar, but slightly different findings. The mega-study, which used a compilation of other studies involving more than 50,000 people on four continents, found that adults 60 years and older maximized their mortality benefits at between 6,000 and 8,000 steps. For those less than 60-years of age, the maximum benefit occurred at between 8,000 and 10,000 steps. One important finding in Paluch’s research was that getting more steps over the maximum for each age group (8,000 for those 60 or older, and 10,000 for those younger than 60) did not provide added mortality benefit.

What about weight loss? Do more steps per day lead to increased weight loss? Not necessarily.

If you’re sedentary or don’t exercise much, adding steps to your daily routine will help you lose weight. A study conducted by researchers from the University of Denver, Wake Forest University, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Pittsburgh, found that increasing steps from 3500 per day to 10,000 led to weight loss in study participants. That seems to make sense, since burning more calories naturally leads to weight loss.

However, Duke University evolutionary biologist Herman Pontzer has some bad news. His research, which is chronicled in the book Burn: New Research Blows the Lid Off How We Really Burn Calories, Stay Healthy, and Lose Weight,  indicates that while more exercise initially leads to weight loss, the body has a way of adapting, so that when more exercise becomes the norm, weight loss decreases or stops altogether.

This isn’t necessarily bad news. Exercise is good for overall health. It’s just not great for weight loss. “Diet and exercise are two different tools for two different jobs. Diet is the tool for weight loss. Exercise is your tool for everything else,” according to Pontzer.

Part of Pontzer’s research involved monitoring the number of calories burned by traditional hunter-gathers in Tanzania. The findings surprised even the researcher. The data indicates that the hunter-gathers, who routinely walk several miles each day, didn’t burn significantly more calories than sedentary Americans. The reason? Our bodies tend to budget energy based on expected activity. So, the bodies of the hunter-gathers expected them to walk several miles every day, and budgeted energy accordingly, just as the body of a sedentary adult expects very little movement, so budgets calorie burn based on that expectation.

Pontzer makes the point that exercise is good for us. Progressively increasing exercise levels benefits most people. It’s just not great for weight loss. By contrast, a sedentary lifestyle is not good for our health, even if those who spend way too much time on the couch don’t necessarily gain weight.

The bottom line is that a reasonable number of steps each day—somewhere between 4,400 and 10,000—is good for our health, leading to increased longevity. Even if it doesn’t necessarily lead to weight loss, it’s still a good idea.

If your goal is to lose weight, focus on your diet, not exercise. Research indicates that exercise has limited impact on weight loss, but can significantly increase mortality. Diet, on the other hand, while having some impact on longevity, is the number one tool for weight loss. You might want to keep this in mind as you’re putting together your New Year’s resolutions.