When you think of Nelson Mandela and reflect on his life, and now on his death, there are many worldview issues that are immediately implicated. One of them has to do with the fact that Nelson Mandela was, by any honest analysis, a terrorist...
Like Nelson Mandela, Menachem Begin shared the Nobel Peace Prize, but he was also a terrorist as a young man—a Zionist terrorist. He was directly implicated in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 that led to the deaths of at least 91 people. He was known as a terrorist; he was wanted as a terrorist. And yet, he later became the Prime Minister of Israel and also shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Likewise, Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin, also began his political career as a terrorist against the British.
While we’re thinking about terrorism, we probably also ought to think about someone from our own nation’s history, like George Washington. Had the American Revolution turned out differently, George Washington would in all likelihood have been hung as a traitor. He would also have been accused of being what we now call a terrorist.
All this is not to give moral absolution to terrorists, so long as they win and eventually have political victory. It is, however, to remind ourselves that in the process of politics in a fallen world, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.
End quote.
Compare that with what Rush Limbaugh says:
Rhodesia was a jewel, it was a crown jewel of southern Africa. Today it's led by a communist, Robert Mugabe, and the place is practically dead. So then the question -- I get this a lot, by the way, when I start telling people about my definition of American exceptionalism. Particularly young people will ask, "Well, why hasn't what happened in America happened anywhere else in the world?" And you know it's really a great question. It's a great question when you understand that young people today are not taught that what happened in America was anything special. They're taught just the opposite.
They're taught today that America's founding was nothing spectacular. It might even be immoral. It might even be unjust, slavery and discrimination against women and all these things that kids today are taught about the founding of the country. So they don't think it's anything special. At least they're not taught that. But then when you do take the time to explain what American exceptionalism is and try to explain the uniqueness and the greatness of this country, then the question invariably is asked, "Well, why hasn't it happened anywhere else?"
Why, for example, during Pol Pot's reign in Cambodia didn't somebody rise up and say, "Enough of this," and establish freedom and a growing economy for the people that live there? Why didn't it happen in Vietnam? Why hasn't it happened in China? Why doesn't it happen in any number of places? Why hasn't it happened anywhere but here? And it's such a great question, because it hasn't happened anywhere else but here. There never has been a country like this.
That's the point.
There never has been a country founded in goodness -- blessed by God, I happen to believe -- that became a force for good the world over. It became a superpower within its own borders, and furthermore, stood for and defended liberty and freedom everywhere else in the world. Wherever disasters, the United States is the first country there, to help clean up, pick up, restore. World War II, Marshall Plan, United States. The United States has built the world, fed the world, clothed the world. How? But more important, why hasn't it happened anywhere else? And there really is an answer to it, and it's not that complicated. It may be hard to believe.
But for young people, the answer is, well, there just hasn't been a George Washington in Cambodia yet, and there hasn't been a Thomas Jefferson in Zimbabwe, and there hasn't been a Benjamin Franklin in Burma, and there hasn't been a James Madison in Colombia. They were special people. They were special people alive for the most part at the same time. You talk about a confluence of events and people alive in the same place at the same moment in history, that is the simplest way to explain, particularly to young people, what is really special about this country.
The Founding Fathers are not just some people that happened to get mad a long time ago and want their freedom. They were special people in addition to what their natural yearnings were. There hasn't been anybody else write a Constitution like Madison. There just hasn't been, because that person hasn't existed anywhere but here. Now, the person may exist, but for whatever reason hasn't surfaced or been able to achieve. But regardless, for all practical purposes, there isn't another James Madison anywhere or George Washington or John Adams, take your pick of any of the founders. They were here. It's what's so special about our founding and what is so special about our Constitution, and it is why so many Americans are beside themselves over what is happening now.
End quote.
So while Mohler downgrades George Washington to a terrorist of his day with some good attributes (thus Mandela, a terrorist of his day with some good attributes) -which is unbelievable to me that he would do that--Limbaugh shows the distinction between Washington and Mandela. What Washington and our Founding Fathers did was based on a Judeo-Christian worldview; what Mandela believed in and did was based on something far more corrupt.
1 comment:
GW NEVER attacked civilian targets, but military ones. Unlike that, NM did attack and kill civilians (white & black alike). Is this a difference, YES INDEED! I must confess my view of Albert Mohler has been greatly reduced.
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