Situational Morality

Judd Garrett recently penned an incisive discrimination piece that really resonated with me, and I wanted to share my takeaway.  Most of us are products of our time and assume the prevailing morality.  But times change and morality becomes more fluid in certain precincts.

And that’s what’s happening in South Africa today.  Back in the 1980s, when the ruling system in South Africa was apartheid, Western countries were divesting themselves from South Africa and Nelson Mandela became a hero for fighting and overthrowing that evil practice.  And in the U.S., the Democrat Party was rightly proud to lead the charge against the existing apartheid.

However, it’s now 30 years later, and racist ideologies and discriminatory policies continue in South Africa, although it’s not called apartheid anymore, but racism by any other name is still racism.  And the difference between then and now is the roles have been reversed.  Under apartheid, the white ruling class discriminated against black citizens, and the world stood against it.  But today, it is the black ruling class in South Africa discriminating against white citizens, and many in congress and the liberal media are falling all over themselves to justify this new racial discrimination.

Recently President Trump showed visiting South African President Cyril Ramaphosa video of prominent South African politician Julius Sollo Malema leading rally chants of “Kill the farmer, kill the Boer and shoot to kill.”   In its reporting of the matter the ever-liberal CNN claimed the chants about killing white people in South Africa ‘needed historical context.’   Historical context!  Give me a break, no context justifies the call for murder of the innocent.  And that’s the interesting thing about the morality of the Left; they can always create a context to justify whatever position they currently embrace, which unfortunately leads to context defining morality instead of behavior.  And today it appears that morality in South Africa means it’s wrong to racially discriminate unless it is black people who are the ones doing the discriminating.

While in the Oval Office, South African President Ramaphosa tried to distance himself from the matter, even though he has made similar claims against the white citizens in South Africa, and once said, “The land of our forefathers and foremothers must return to our people, without and fail, and without any payment of compensation.”  His message was clear.  The government should take land from white farmers without compensation by the mere fact that they are white – that’s it!  No other reason is necessary.  Meanwhile, CNN and many democrats in congress are trying to justify this policy by insisting we place land ownership in South Africa in a historical context, raising the question of who should really own and occupy the land.

Is it the black South Africans land because they inhabited it hundreds or thousands of years ago?  But if that’s the case, why is there any question about of the State of Israel?  After all, Jews inhabited that land 1,500 years ago, long before it was stolen from them by the Muslims.  But the Jews weren’t the ones who’ve had land taken from them.  Christians inhabited most of the Middle East before it was stolen from them by the Muslims.  So, do Christians have a historical claim on the Middle East too?  In our own country we are told to give land acknowledgements in the American Southwest to Mexico because they were there first.   But the seldom acknowledged deeper truth is that Spain and Mexico had already taken that land from indigenous nations such as the Apache, Navajo, Ute and Yaqui.

The history of humanity has been one of war and conquest, and it’s nigh on impossible to find a piece of land, or a country anywhere on earth, that did not once belong to someone else.  And there is not a race of people who hasn’t taken land from others and or had others take land from them.  At the same time, it’s impossible to go back in time and try to right every past wrong.

Racism has existed from the beginning of time and will never be completely eliminated; but it can be ameliorated and more equitable conditions created.  And while there is no magic formula, one thing is certain, situational morality will not lead to the end of racism, it just reverses the colors of the draughts on the checkerboard while the game remains the same.

Quote of the day: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” – George Santayana