I must make [an] honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the [nation]. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that [our] great stumbling block in this stride toward freedom is not the [Democrats] or the [Left Wing], but the [Republican], who is more devoted to "order" than to [freedom]; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of [liberty]; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises [us] to wait for 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.
I had also hoped that the [Republicans] would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a brother in Texas. He writes: "[We] know that [you] will receive [liberty] eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a hurry." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of [socialism]. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of [liberty] and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of [freedom]. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of [authoritarianism] to the solid rock of human dignity [and freedom].
[T]hough 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 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 extremist for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of [liberty]? Perhaps the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.