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Post by philunderwood on Aug 23, 2013 10:43:02 GMT -5
neoneocon.com/category/people-of-interest/August 23rd, 2013 The left is afraid of Ted Cruz… …and therefore has set out to destroy him. Cruz is their worst nightmare: a brainy and fearless conservative with impeccable intellectual Ivy League credentials and minority ethnicity to boot. But they feel fully up to the task of turning him into a villain and a loser in the eyes of the public, and perhaps they will succeed. Sarah Palin frightened the left as well. But her accent, mannerisms, populist hobbies, idiosyncratic and somewhat convoluted syntax, evangelical Christianity, and lack of academic stardom provided much ready-made grist for their mills. Cruz is a contrast: a champion debater as a student, a Princeton graduate and Harvard-educated lawyer (Obama’s alma mater, of course) whose law student career Alan Dershowitz has said was “off-the-charts brilliant.” And Cruz is not only a Republican but a conservative’s conservative who understands the philosophical underpinnings of the movement, and did so quite early in his life: Cruz’s senior thesis on the separation of powers, titled “Clipping the Wings of Angels,” draws its inspiration from a passage attributed to President James Madison: “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” As if more were needed, Cruz was a primary editor of the Harvard Law Review and a founding editor of the Harvard Latino Law Review. Unlike a great many Republicans (but much like Sarah Palin), Cruz is unafraid to take unpopular positions and be aggressive in opposing Democrats’ liberal platform. This has caused someone like former auto-bailout head Steven Rattner to tweet, “Ted Cruz is just Sarah Palin with a brain.” The “just” is obligatory (as is the Palin-bashing), but it’s hard not to conclude that the prospect is somewhat daunting to the left. They are seeking Cruz’s soft underbelly (their birther spurt being the most recent example) and will not rest until they find it and neuter him politically. Here’s what especially riles them: Democrats and liberal pundits would surely dislike Cruz no matter where he went to school, but his pedigree adds an extra element of shocked disbelief to the disdain. “Princeton and Harvard should be disgraced,” former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell exclaimed on MSNBC, as if graduating a constitutionalist conservative who rises to national prominence is a violation of the schools’ mission statements. It almost is… One of the left’s deepest prejudices is that its opponents are stupid, and Cruz tramples on it. Chris Hayes of MSNBC actually says he fears Cruz’s brilliance. So should congressional witnesses. At hearings, Cruz has the prosecutorial instincts of a … Harvard-trained lawyer. Watching Attorney General Eric Holder try to fend off Cruz’s questioning on the administration’s drone policy a few months ago was like seeing a mouse cornered by a very large cat. Cruz hasn’t played by the Senate rules that freshmen should initially be seen and not heard. In fact, he joined the upper chamber with all the subtlety of a SWAT team knocking down a drug suspect’s front door. For people who care about such things — almost all of them are senators — this is an unforgivable offense… Cruz lacks all defensiveness about his positions, another source of annoyance to his opponents, who are used to donning the mantle of both intellectual and moral superiority. Although Cruz’s style and presentation are very different from that of William F. Buckley, he confounds liberals in much the same way; even those liberals who say conservatives are stupid could not deny Buckley’s braininess. But Buckley was not a politician (although he once ran for NYC mayor, he didn’t expect to win), and Cruz is most definitely a politician with aspirations to higher office. I wish him luck; he’ll need it.
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 4, 2013 12:30:38 GMT -5
I know little about Ted Cruz other than what I’ve read in articles like the one above. I found the prospect of him being successful in fending off the left’s Palinization of him interesting to say the least.
I also find it interesting that some on the right are vocal in their opposition to him. I can understand the Republican establishment’s fears, but I’m surprised by other’s negative opinions and would like to know more about that.
Gavin’s comments that he wouldn’t vote for Cruz caught me by surprise and I’m hoping he and others will shed some light on Cruz’s negatives. This would be a good place for some of our many visitors to comment too.
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 12, 2013 9:49:08 GMT -5
Before any discussion of this nature gets started, I think we should define the terms we will no doubt be using:
Fiscal conservative = Capitalist
Social conservative = One who believes government should enforce laws that control the behavior of individuals based upon set principals such as religious beliefs.
Social liberal = One who believes it’s the purpose of government to guarantee individual rights, not to control behavior.
It’s common practice for some to lump these together under the heading of conservative in an effort to marginalize conservatives.
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Gavin
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Post by Gavin on Oct 12, 2013 14:30:04 GMT -5
Phil, I view Cruz just as I viewed Palin (and for that matter Obama). Charismatic individuals who know the power of that charisma and use the media to manipulate their camps.
For me personally, I am looking for someone who is a leader and will bring us together as a country, although in today's political environment that will be difficult. Right now I support Rubio, Christie, Carly Fiorina and a few others whom I feel have the ability to lead, and I will be honest, I could just as easily support a Blue Dog Democrat like Evan Bayh.
As far as Reagan, I just don't see the Tea Party supporting some of his policies, especially immigration, which would have hurt him with this group just as it has with Rubio.
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 12, 2013 16:40:39 GMT -5
I don’t pay too much attention to the contenders until the primaries or someone bubbles up to the top. I posted the above article primarily as an example of how the Democrat/liberal machine will Palinize anyone they see offering voters a real choice. Some voters will always vote Democrat or Republican, but the majority of them aren’t ideological or informed enough and are subject to charisma, narrative and biased news reporting. Not only will a Republican have to be able to convince voters, he’ll have to withstand a full out attack.
My priority, and I believe that of most on the right, is to vote for whoever is most likely to change the country’s direction. The first thing he or she has to do though is get elected, so it’s foolish to vote for someone with no chance. The best we can hope for with establishment Republicans is to slow things down a bit. Reagan was ideologically right and was able to appeal to a wide enough base to get elected and lead well and I believe he would have the support of pretty much all on the right today.
During the early days of the Tea Party Movement I wrote an LTE about what the movement was made up of; I don’t think any of that has changed, it’s just that the other side has consistently concentrated their narrative on trying to make the movement and anyone identifying with it appear extreme and some are buying it.
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Gavin
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Post by Gavin on Oct 12, 2013 18:06:07 GMT -5
I think that is where our differences fall Phil, I see the Tea Party as having been co-opted by the Social Conservatives and I have problems with that. Some of the younger voices in the Republican party that I follow are Liz Mair and Josh Barro. They are younger Libertarian voices who believe the future of the Republican party is in being fiscally Conservative and Socially Liberal, and of course I agree with that view. An article by Josh Barro that I fully agree with; The Only Hope For The GOP Is To Be More Like Chris Christie...and the recent "Values Voter" straw poll just further reinforces my opinion.
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 12, 2013 19:17:49 GMT -5
We agree on the fiscal conservative and social liberal. Social liberal is the expression of individual rights. I don’t see social conservatives as having that much effect upon Republican policy at the national level. I believe that at this point the left will only be defeated by a big tent that includes everybody to the right of center; including social conservatives. Once things have turned around Republicans can sort that one out.
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Gavin
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Post by Gavin on Oct 13, 2013 9:17:55 GMT -5
I think the Social Conservatives have a bit more pull than you give them credit for Phil (abortion, gay marriage are just 2 issues that come to mind).
Again, that supporter at the Values Voter Summit "If God is for you, who can be against you?"
...and this lady further makes my point;
“As far as I can tell from a group like this, Ted Cruz has no minuses,” said a 69—year—old woman from Virginia who asked that her name not be printed out of fear that the Obama administration would retaliate against her “Marco Rubio still has to make up for the immigration bill, and I don’t think is was so much immigration as being suckered by the liberals and maybe he is too young and too innocent."
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Post by mikekerstetter on Oct 14, 2013 5:11:04 GMT -5
Just curious, I'm against Gay Marriage (but wouldn't oppose a civil union or laws giving gay couples marriage like benefits) and abortion, but I'm a single payer national health care advocate. I'm fiscally conservative but I'm pro-union. Where is it that I fall into the definitions that Phil outlined above?
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 14, 2013 9:16:34 GMT -5
If you graph out peoples attitudes it usually results in what is known as a normal distribution or bell shaped curve with about 15% being ideologically liberal on one end and 15% being ideologically conservative on the other end. The rest make up all sorts of positions in between. Personally I’m libertarian and don’t fit either liberal or conservative. I break it down to if you believe in a free market with an individual’s natural rights protected by government, or you believe the government should regulate or control the market to result in some sort of fairness and equality for all and that the right of the collective overrides the rights of individuals.
All of us should determine where we fit into the scheme of things. If you think you believe in individual rights but you believe government should pass laws that cause people to act within a pattern you consider moral then you don’t really believe people have the right to pursue happiness in their own way and are inconsistent in your beliefs.
If you think you believe in a free market with government limited to functions specifically defined in the Constitution, but you support laws favoring labor over management or that the health and insurance industry should be regulated or provided by government, your beliefs are inconsistent.
Being inconsistent in your beliefs is your right, but I believe everyone should be objective and honest with himself and I consider personal honesty and consistency to be a very positive attribute in both mental health and the ability to achieve goals.
This could go on and on, but I wrote it to address Mike’s questions. I’m not trying to push Mike’s union button; I actually support worker's right to organize. I just think government shouldn’t legislate in favor of unions over employers.
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Post by mikekerstetter on Oct 14, 2013 13:30:56 GMT -5
I think think there are too many variables to place one's beliefs into a rigid set of 'rules' and call it inconsistent if they move outside of those lines.
Individual rights are a prime example. If one truly believes in individual rights, the individual has the right to do as they wish and no one has a right to infringe on them. But we (including you, Phil) have decided that one's individual rights end when it impacts others individual rights. Hence we have a myriad of laws to protect the rights of others.
Using the Individual Rights argument in the Union/Employer example, one needs to determine whether the rights of the individuals who make up the union or the rights of the individual who owns the company are to take precedence. And if it's a truly 'free market', it has to be free for both sides, not just 'free' for the employer.
I personally don't think it's being inconsistent to hold views outside of the box depending on the situation.
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Post by philunderwood on Oct 14, 2013 18:44:09 GMT -5
Mike, if you’re going to believe in individual rights, it should be evident that everyone else has the same rights and so no one has the right to infringe upon anyone else’s rights. All of our laws should have the purpose of protecting our rights and our courts are there to decide questionable cases.
It sounds like we agree that neither employees nor employers should have legal advantage over the other.
Thinking outside the box doesn’t mean being ideologically inconsistent. That’s where I have a problem with many moderates who practice flexible beliefs depending on the issue.
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