Tolerance and temperance

The day after the death of Nelson Mandela, I made the mistake of pointing out to my Left Coast former classmate that his Facebook rant on how dare people on the right and who supported people like Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Dick Cheney, and maybe even opposed him back when he was the imprisoned leader of the African National Congress, mourn the passing of such a liberal icon that his position seemed rather juvenile to me. Nelson Mandela was a liberal and the conservatives couldn’t have him, he demanded.

He proceeded to threaten to block me and then chastised me for saying that at one time in his life, Mandela was indeed what one would consider a terrorist. He said that such posts were irritating to him while he was at work.

Well, I apologized … I am sorry that I am three hours ahead of him on the East Coast and despite his protestations that he is very well up on international affairs, etc., that I view his world view a bit differently.

You see, I don’t come foamingly unhinged at people like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell or Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly. Nor do people like Rachel Maddow, or James Carville, or John Stewart or Bill Maher particularly upset me. I don’t see people like Dick Cheney or Karl Rove as being some evil people. I don’t think President Obama is a jerk and evil person (he might be a naïve incompetent one who can’t really lead or govern worth a hoot, but he is not evil).

I don’t agree with these people on most things, but I tend to keep my view that in the marketplace of ideas, maybe the proponents of the best solutions will rise to the top.

I also don’t claim that people not of my world view can’t admire or mourn the loss of someone who has affected the world profoundly in many ways. But that appears to be the difference between the Left Coast (progressive liberal) world view and mine.

Now, as I said in an earlier post, Mandela was a remarkable man, but to claim him as a liberal icon is making a stretch I think even he would disavow … at least not in the American liberal progressive sense.

You see, Mandela was a devout Christian. Just ask Bishop Desmond Tutu.

He adopted a free-market approach to change in his country’s economy, much to the dismay of his more left-leaning allies, including a former wife.

He sought reconciliation and through forgiveness to bind up the wounds that the ugly years of apartheid had left on South Africa.

He stepped away from power, when he very easily could have ruled for life.

Those are not necessarily “progressive” or “liberal” attributes, but more of a rather unique and honorable man.

He did not turn into a dictator like Stalin, or Kim Il Sung, or Fidel Castro, or Moamar Khaddfey or any number of other post-colonial African leaders who have led so much of the continent into so much misery.

His path has not been followed by stellar leaders of his mold but so far South Africa has remained a far more peaceful, prosperous and unified nation than it would have been if he chose a different course.

So, it matters not what political banner you travel under, you can bewail and bemoan the passing of a leader that we do not see many of on this planet.

Unfortunately, most leaders are of a lessor sort, who – rather than through compromise, dialogue and reconciliation – seek to force those who disagree with them to conform to their agenda, their world view. We need to look no further than our borders here in the United States.

It is easy to cast blame on the Republicans or the Democrats. Heck, from my point of view there is ample blame to go around, but my observation would be that for the last five or six years, it has been the left that has been trying to ram their vision of the world through and into acceptance. Our president made no bones about his goal was to “transform” the nation; unfortunately that leaves little room for dialogue, compromise and reconciliation.

My Left Coast friend makes no bones of his approval of such an agenda, as he should because it obviously is saving him thousands of dollars per year. But as I have said, it all depends on whose ox is getting gored. Obviously, my friend’s isn’t, so he can celebrate the fact that he is benefitting. I am glad he is being helped in a way that he wants.

Now, I probably would have approached the problem differently … in fact I have … but that is the wonder of this nation … or has been … that we are able to seek our own paths through life and not force others to conform to our vision, however much better we may think it may be.

So, I took his rant as a teaching moment … mostly to teach myself to understand that there are others out there who don’t view the world through a prism that even remotely resembles the one I see. That doesn’t mean they are evil or bad … they just don’t see things my way.

I may think that they are very wrong … but I am not going to force them to conform to my vision. I might encourage them to reexamine their prism and inspect some of the facets of how they view the world … because I would hope they would see that there may be some validity in my world view.