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→Health: Gingrich on Mandela
On July 4th, 2013, it was revealed that court documents indicate that Nelson Mandela was on life support and was being kept alive by a breathing machine and faced "impending death". He was 94 years old and has been in hospital from June 8th, 2013<ref>http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/04/nelson-mandela-africa-apartheid/2489137/</ref> to December 5th, 2013 when he died.
On July 4th, 2013, it was revealed that court documents indicate that Nelson Mandela was on life support and was being kept alive by a breathing machine and faced "impending death". He was 94 years old and has been in hospital from June 8th, 2013<ref>http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/04/nelson-mandela-africa-apartheid/2489137/</ref> to December 5th, 2013 when he died.
==Mandela and American Conservatives==
Responding to critiques of Mandela's embrace of violence as a way to bring down the racist apartheid regime and his alliance with communists, conservative thinker [[Newt Gingrich]] said:
{{cquote|Mandela was faced with a vicious apartheid regime that eliminated all rights for blacks and gave them no hope for the future. This was a regime which used secret police, prisons and military force to crush all efforts at seeking freedom by blacks.
What would you have done faced with that crushing government?
What would you do here in America if you had that kind of oppression?
Some of the people who are most opposed to oppression from Washington attack Mandela when he was opposed to oppression in his own country.
After years of preaching non-violence, using the political system, making his case as a defendant in court, Mandela resorted to violence against a government that was ruthless and violent in its suppression of free speech.
As Americans we celebrate the farmers at Lexington and Concord who used force to oppose British tyranny. We praise George Washington for spending eight years in the field fighting the British Army’s dictatorial assault on our freedom.
Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote and the Continental Congress adopted that “all men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Doesn’t this apply to Nelson Mandela and his people?
Some conservatives say, ah, but he was a communist.
Actually Mandela was raised in a Methodist school, was a devout Christian, turned to communism in desperation only after South Africa was taken over by an extraordinarily racist government determined to eliminate all rights for blacks.
I would ask of his critics: where were some of these conservatives as allies against tyranny? Where were the masses of conservatives opposing Apartheid? In a desperate struggle against an overpowering government, you accept the allies you have just as Washington was grateful for a French monarchy helping him defeat the British.}}<ref>[https://www.gingrichproductions.com/2013/12/what-would-you-have-done-nelson-mandela-and-american-conservatives/ Newt Gingrich, "What Would You Have Done? Nelson Mandela and American Conservatives." December 6, 2013]</ref>
== Notes ==
== Notes ==