Posted on 12/10/2013 6:47:13 AM PST by Lazamataz
Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, died recently at the age of 95. Senator Ted Cruz is attending his funeral today, and is likely to speak of Mandela in positive terms.
This is causing many of my conservative brethren (and cistern) much consternation. Some have even gone so far as to abandon him, politically.
I ask that those who are concerned, and especially those who have 'crossed him off their list', rethink their position. I suggest that Mandela is a complicated figure, and one that defies simple analysis. There is an evil side to Nelson Mandela, no question. There is also a good side to him. He faced a really heinous and oppressive system, and sometimes good men must do evil to achieve good results.
Let us say our system continues the slide to tyranny, and a few people you personally know, love, and respect need to stoop to the tyrant's level to re-acquire freedom. This is a probability, at this point, not just a possibility, so it's less of a thought-experiment, and more of a situation you will need to face.
Apartheid was not acceptable. Neither, too, is the creeping tyranny we find America drifting into. Horrible acts may be committed by good men who have good motivations. It is unpleasant, but it is reality. You cannot fight some tyrannies with a vote and a protest sign. Sometimes it gets deeper than that.
Those men, these actors, who acted against evil, are they themselves evil because of their actions? To an extent, yes. But they are also good, because of their motivations.
So it goes with Mandela.
I give Cruz a pass here --and suggest many of us do the same -- because he is recognizing the good. If Ted Cruz was pressed on the particulars of Mandela's uncivilized and horrible actions during the course of his life, I am certain he would disavow the evil acts of Mandela in the same breath, as he praises him for the good that Mandela wrought.
Your original content is fantastic.
I agree.
Where is Lorena Bobbit when we need her.....
:-)
Personally, I have absolutely no use for Mandela, and I’ve said as much on several threads. However, we would be insane to discard Ted Cruz over this one instance.
I do believe he’s between a rock and a hard place. If he does what we think he should do, he is forever blacklisted and branded a racist. If he should then run for president, those are the accusations that would follow him nonstop, drowning out any discussion of the real issues that affect this country. The left would have him where they want him.
I don’t have to like the fact that he’s going to Mandela’s funeral, but it is what it is. Cruz is still Cruz, still RIGHT on the issues. Like I said yesterday, we don’t agree with our spouses 100% of the time; why would we have blanket agreement with any politician?
Eventually something would crop up to cause us to disagree with Ted. This is it, I guess. Moving on.
Thank you!
Mandela was a complicated, flawed man. I will leave the judgment up to God. Regarding Cruz and his actions, I think he is handling the situation as best as he is able. It is not wise to fight every battle, IMO.
Whatever......
I suppose that applied to Tojo too, eh?
I am just FUMING over this. But hey, that’s just me.
All I can say is I didn’t follow world news much until the last 15 years, and even while following the conservative media since then, I’ve never heard anything bad about Mandela. I’ve only heard him described in glowing terms like an African Gandhi or Mother Therese. So this negativity about his background is news to me. If it’s news to me, I can pretty much guarantee you nobody in the mainstream who isn’t a devourer of conservative media has ever heard a whiff of it.
Is that Jack Palance?
Yep, from the 1960s Che movie.
I spent the middle 1/2 of my life in Africa, both north and south, as well as South and Central America. Nothing is as the media presents. I learned at an early age to look under the rug.
These fools got played like a violin by the Democrats. There's a reason Senator Cruz was singled out among Republicans to make a statement on Mandela and attend his funeral. This is because the administration knew many of his supporters would go absolutely ballistic if Cruz had anything positive to say about Mandela. This gave Democrats a perfect opportunity to paint Cruz's most ardent supporters as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth racists in an effort to discourage any mainstream support Cruz might earn on other issues.
The plan worked perfectly. One only needs to google "Ted Cruz supporters" to see how much traction this has received.
Alright then, I apologize. If you were not attempting to imply in post #66 that all pragmatism is evil, by its association with Naziism, then you’re right, I didn’t understand your post (66).
George Washington farewell speech; Thomas Paine; Thomas Jefferson. Look at every war we stuck our noses into that the adversary never attacked us. First we justify it as national security to get involve; then we send in troops; then it turns into guerrilla warfare; then an incident involves our troops and innocent civilians get killed; then DoD implements rules of engagement to avoid bad PR; then our troops wonder WTF we are doing there; the gov or alternative gov we are supporting is totally incompetent, corrupt or worst hate us; support for war goes down in public as war drags on with body bags coming home and our treasury drained; our leaders realize the adventure did not turn out the way they thought it would; they try negotiating with the enemy for a political solution; negotiations drag on as US popular support for the war drops; US leaders are forced to accept a bad deal; war ends with US support gov collapse; US embassy personnel, advisers and any pro US natives scramble onto roof of US embassy or last US plane out of country. Seems to describe Vietnam, Iraq, and attempts to do the same in Syria and Iran. Afghanistan was result of 9/11 but we decided to stay so we can empire build (neocon vision) in Euro Asia for resources and power. It will end just like Vietnam, because of nation building process. All these wars (except Afghanistan) began not with the opposing nation attacking us, but with us attacking them. Again we have two big oceans, and enemies must sail across in force to invade us, and many of our potential enemies must climb thru many of their opposing neighbors before they even come to our shoreline. Since our DoD budget is equal to the largest five nations combined, I think we will be fine if anyone attempt to attack the US. At least when attacked, the Americans understand, unit and support the war vs attacking a nation first for national security reasons followed by all the BS of nation building while telling Americans we have no money for domestic needs.
You are of course correct, but only because the dumbed down public is easily manipulated as they surf the mindless emotion highway spewed by the enemy (media). But I wonder what politicians would do if we had an actually honest media, rather than an insidious propaganda arm of the new world order?
BS. By some economic measures, that may be true. But, they were stripped of most of their legal and political rights. FreeRepublic is a site that celebrates freedom and opposes tyranny - to say that anyone is "better off" living under such a system goes against everything this site ought to be about.
Reminds me of the saying, “If you want praise, die. If you want blame, marry.” Or become a politician, perhaps.
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