{"id":1398,"date":"2022-02-21T08:35:04","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T13:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1398"},"modified":"2022-02-21T08:35:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-21T13:35:04","slug":"a-chance-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/02\/21\/a-chance-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"A Chance to Vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0
Zachary Taylor never voted in a U.S. presidential election until he was 64 years old.
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That\u2019s when the career military officer cast a ballot for himself in the 1848 election that sent him to the White House as America\u2019s 12th<\/sup> chief executive.\u00a0
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But the record for a presidential candidate voting late in life for the first time is probably held by Nelson Mandela of South Africa.\u00a0
\u00a0
Mandela was 75 years old when, on April 27, 1994, he stepped to the ballot box and also cast a vote for himself.\u00a0 Millions of fellow South Africans did likewise, choosing him to become their nation\u2019s head of state.\u00a0 Mandela wasn\u2019t merely South Africa\u2019s first democratically elected president.\u00a0 This was also the first time black citizens, who represented a majority of the nation\u2019s population, had ever been empowered to vote or hold public office.
\u00a0
It was a moment Mandela had been working for his entire life.\u00a0
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Because he had protested his homeland\u2019s racist system of apartheid, he was arrested in 1962 and charged with attempting to overthrow the country.\u00a0 An unmerciful judge handed down a life sentence.\u00a0 He spent the next 27 years behind bars, most of the time confined to a tiny cell at the notorious Robben Island prison.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
In their efforts to humiliate him, Mandela\u2019s jailers dressed him in shorts and a child\u2019s jacket.\u00a0 His vision was permanently compromised because of the bright sunlight shimmering off the blocks of lime he had been forced to cut in a quarry.\u00a0
\u00a0
Throughout his imprisonment, Mandela had symbolically represented those who were powerless.\u00a0 Weak.\u00a0 Rejected. \u00a0Crushed by the Powers That Be.\u00a0
\u00a0
When South Africa\u2019s cultural tectonic plates finally began to shift, he was pardoned and released in 1990.\u00a0 The whole world applauded \u2013 and then held its breath.\u00a0 Most of his adult life had been stolen from him.\u00a0 He had suffered unjustly for almost three decades.\u00a0 \u00a0When he became president four years later, he suddenly had the power to turn the tables on his enemies.
\u00a0
What would he do?\u00a0
\u00a0
Several years ago the editors of Psychology Today<\/em> asked their readers to respond to this question: \u201cIf you could push a button and thereby eliminate any person, without any repercussions to yourself, would you press that button?\u201d
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Six hundred and fifty people responded.\u00a0 It’s instructive to note that the average reader of Psychology Today<\/em> is age 45 or younger and has at least two years of college education.\u00a0
\u00a0
Sixty percent declared, “Yes, I would press that button!”\u00a0
\u00a0
When asked if they had already determined specifically whom they might eliminate, men generally identified public leaders.\u00a0 Women tended to target ex-husbands, bosses and men who had victimized them.\u00a0 Some people opted for the eradication of entire groups, including violent criminals, rapists, and various ethnicities.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
One 29-year-old respondent asked a question of his own:\u00a0 “If such a device were invented, would anyone live to tell about it?”
\u00a0
Mandela, suddenly and dramatically, had access to the equivalent of a Button of Revenge.\u00a0 He could make things right for the oppressed people he had represented for so long \u2013 including himself.\u00a0
\u00a0
As it turns out, he did make things right \u2013 not through coercion and payback, but through the strange and unexpected strategy of forgiveness and reconciliation.\u00a0 He had long ago forgiven the judge and the jailers and all those who had conspired to destroy his life.\u00a0 As president of South Africa, he chose to lead with an outstretched hand instead of a clenched fist.\u00a0
\u00a0
And his homeland began to heal.\u00a0
\u00a0
Presidents Day is our annual opportunity to remember the 46 men who have served as America\u2019s chief executive.\u00a0
\u00a0
It\u2019s also our opportunity, as we ponder the example of Nelson Mandela, to remember that love \u2013 just as Jesus assured us \u2013 is more transforming than hatred.
\u00a0
Even for presidents.\u00a0<\/em>

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Zachary Taylor never voted in a U.S. presidential election until he was 64 years old.\u00a0That\u2019s when the career military officer cast a ballot for himself in the 1848 election that sent him to the White House as America\u2019s 12th chief executive.\u00a0\u00a0But the record for a presidential candidate voting late in life for the first time is probably held by Nelson… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[192,406],"class_list":["post-1398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-reconciliation","tag-revenge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1398\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}