Muhammad Ali Was Right

Ali never dodged the draft; he opposed it, accepting the legal consequences without any attempt to evade them. He didn’t flee to Canada or enroll in college to obtain a deferment. From the moment he learned of his induction, Ali stood firmly in the proud tradition of civil disobedience, saying “just take me to jail.”

So Muhammad Ali is properly described as being willing to _die for_ peace and freedom. He faced down the government, held on to principle, spoke his mind, and never sold out a damn thing in spite of his incarceration. He didn’t run – he stayed and fought the establishment, even as the government tried to destroy him.

Then, folks are bringing up Ali’s racial connotations about white people being his enemy, with him saying (to paraphrase), “I’m not going to go over there and help somebody get what the negroes don’t have,” and telling those young, white kids on college campuses, “You are my opposer when I want freedom, you are my opposer when I want justice, you won’t even stand up for me or my religion, but you want me to go somewhere and fight somebody who has done nothing to me.”

Ali, in his times, was exactly right about all of that, so what’s the problem? This is something that today’s fake-i-fied Social Justice Warriors cannot even comprehend. Ali was indeed a great American.