Of course he is, because this is America, and anyone can become president here, as long as they curry enough favor with enough billionaires…and America also has plenty of crazy billionaires. Cruz is just the first to officially announce his candidacy, and pretty soon Huckabee and Rand Paul and Rick Santorum will come along and we’ll have enough clowns to start a circus.
But as for Cruz…I’ll just let Charles Pierce tell you about him.
Ted Cruz is an extremist fanatic. He represents politics and a vision of government that was out of date in 1860. He is connected, rhetorically for the most part, to the darkest manifestations of the American political Id. And he combines that with a kind of unendurable self-righteousness that has alienated even the other extremist fanatics in the conservative leadership elite. From an early age, Cruz has been taught that he is the hidden golden child of a fundamentalist America redemption. (The source of this messianic self-regard is his father, preacher Rafael Cruz, who is not an extremist. He’s simply a lunatic.) His role in the government shutdown in 2013 is still resented by many of his fellow Republicans, especially the comical presumption by which Cruz went behind John Boehner’s back—or over his prone and motionless body (opinions vary)—to gin up the fringier denizens of the monkeyhouse.
But that’s the Republican party’s problem. Our problem is that Cruz’s prescriptions for the country set an outward boundary for the right side of the political spectrum that virtually is invisible to anyone to the left of Richard Nixon. That’s the starting point for the rest of the Republican field. He’s no less bughouse on the Affordable Care Act than he was when he tried to wreck the government over it two years ago. He wants to close the IRS. He is absolutely sure about all the bad ideas he supports. He looks in the mirror and sees more than a statesman. he sees a redeemer.You will be told that the rest of the field constitutes some sort of ill-defined "middle." That’s nonsense. This is still the party in which Ted Cruz is considered a serious person because there are enough people in The Base who support him and his retrograde agenda. The 2016 election has begun. The bar is set where you need a metal detector to find it.
Ha ha ha ha…ha…ha………., Oh glob you’re serious.
And already Democrats are laughing and saying it’s a dream come true, that he could never possibly win, he’s unelectable, etc.
Just the way they did about George W. Bush.
Twice.
Sometimes I’m not sure which party has the bigger fools. This man is DANGEROUS.
He could get the nomination, depending on how things go.
Clinton, the long-designated Democratic Party “primary winner,” could win in a landslide. She could also lose.
Cruz could end up President Cruz.
Maybe the odds are long, but I keep telling people not to laugh off the possibility, and they keep insulting me…
…to which I keep responding “Two-Term President George W. Bush.”
They still say I’m crazy and “an alarmist.” I say that if you’ve been paying any attention at all for the past couple of decades, there’s plenty of reason to be alarmed.
Nobody in this country seems to have a clue how bad things can actually get.
Aside from his buggy brain, how could this man run for preznit? Wasn’t he born in another country? If he does run, will we get a huge apology from all the birthers?* (First person who says “but his parents were American!” has to explain why Obama being unarguably the child of an American didn’t matter.)
*Rhetorical. I know we won’t.
I think the same question came up with McCain back in 2008 because he was born outside the US (a naval base or somesuch, or maybe an offbase hospital, where his father was stationed, but still had a US citizenship from birth). From what I read, Obama and Hilary co-sponsored a senate resolution to affirm, that, yes, this counts for McCain being a “natural born citizen”.
But there’s still some uncertainty in that the Supreme Court’s never ruled on what “natural born citizen” means. I guess it could be challenged on that basis, but the Democrats took the high road back in 2008 and probably wouldn’t look good for them to change position after both Obama and Hilary took that stance at the time, even if some birther payback might be nice.
McCain was born in the Panama Canal zone while it was under US control. But, as I understand it, any argument for Cruz being able to run for President means that Obama was eligible regardless of where he was born.
(Which means that unless birthers want to protest Cruz, they owe an apology. I won’t hold my breath.)
It doesn’t matter where Cruz was born because he Looks American. And also doesn’t have a ‘D’ after his name.
And, I’m not sure the Rs even need to hold the presidency anytime in the foreseeable future, their current strategy of crying persecution and martyrdom and then attacking and/or obstructing every single uncontroversial thing is working well for them, possibly working better than if they were given the keys and then had to do actual things.
A president Cruz would mean a couple more expats for Europe. It’s bad enough now living in Texas.
Talk about your nihilistic madmen with nukes, the US would be worse than a nuclear Iran, if Crus were president and the US developed the bomb!!
“Cruz is just the first to officially announce his candidacy, and pretty soon Huckabee and Rand Paul and Rick Santorum will come along and we’ll have enough clowns to start a circus.”
Is it time for the debates yet?
And here I thought the circus was doing away with elephants… de dum dum.
Heh, someone had to make that joke. ;)
geral, #9
I’m so looking forward to that.
magistramarla, #7
FTFY
Oh GOD! That guy is such an embarrassment. The only reason he ended up a senator was because of some shady primary shenanigans by the tea party lunatics in the state. And now he wants to be president.
GAH!
jafafa @2
In 2000, I was in high school and too young to vote, but I seem to recall that George W. Bush was portrayed as a moderate Republican (though not as far left as McCain). And during the presidential debates, Bush and Gore were portrayed as being virtually indistinguishable in terms of their proposed policies. At least that’s what we talked about in my AP history class and we devoted a fair bit of time to discussing the election. It was only after he was elected, and especially September 11 that Bush took a huge step to the right.
Would Cruz be a viable candidate? If the 2012 Republican primary taught us something, it’s that ANY candidate can lead the primary at least once. Republican voters in 2012 were savvy enough to nominate a relatively moderate Republican. Though if Cruz is nominated, there are plenty of people who don’t really care about names and just vote straight down the party line.
Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada but his mother was/is a U.S. citizen. I am not aware of any doubt, lack of a Supreme court ruling notwithstanding, that babies born of U.S. citizens traveling or living abroad invalidates or somehow “downgrades” their citizenship.
YIKES!
Will Rogers, speaking of another republican ages ago, remarked : “it’s not what he doesn’t know that bothers me, it’s what he knows for sure that just ain’t so.”
Qualifications for President and the “Natural Born” Citizenship Eligibility Requirement [pdf]
Lookit what someone did:
http://www.tedcruz.com
http://www.tedcruzforamerica.com
Cross-post.
Cruz control would mean the accelerator pushed to the floor and every republican a back seat driver. Nobody would be at the wheel or on the brakes as the US heads towards and economic cliff or brick wall.
I’ll agree with others’ sentiment. Yes, he’s a nutter. But don’t underestimate him or the nutters who follow him. They are *highly* motivated. The worst thing anybody could do is to laugh him off and not bother voting against him (whether that’s in the Republican primary or, should he actually win the nomination, in the general election).
I see them all showing up at the convention in the same limo and pouring out in an endless steam of whackaloons.
I consider it a bad sign that his announcement was not met with universal pointing and laughing. I’m old enough to remember the 2000 election when a policy middleweight (Gore) was going up against an utter clown resembling Alfred E. Newman who had failed at everything he’d ever undertaken.. Two wars, a great recession and a lost decade later, we are still picking up the pieces of Dubya’s idiocy.
http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/california-governor-ted-cruz-unfit-be-running-n328046
this is my governor speaking my opinion on Ted Cruz
uncle frogy
Everything anyone needs to know about a Ted Cruz presidency is that he chose Liberty University to launch his campaign.
@3, @4
The difference that birthers claim between Obama and Cruz is that they claim the definition applicable in 1961 required the citizen parent (mother Ann Dunham) to have been resident in the US for 5 years after the age of 14 for US citizenship to be conferred on a child born on foreign soil, and, that since Dunham was only 18 when the President was born, she could not have met that requirement.
Expect to hear this distinction loud and often over the next 16 months.
But, of course, the President was born in Honolulu, so none of that matters.
In his speech formally announcing his presidential run, Ted Cruz envisioned himself seated in the Oval Office in 2017 signing a repeal of Obamacare.
By 2017, there will be about 24 million people with health insurance through Obamacare. If Cruz repeals “every provision,” he will immediately deny health insurance to 24 million people. That won’t fly.
Cruz, like other Republicans, claims to have some sort of alternative for “individual, affordable health care.” Cruz and cohorts have never come up with anything workable. Talking points, no details.
I’m actually looking forward to the “debates” that are sure to be on the way. The Republican running crowd is so chocked full of ridiculousness I’ll likely pop some corn and watch them duke it out. Especially, after they stop pandering to the middle and start reaching for their base.
That said, what bothers me is the notion that any of these clowns, Cruz foremost among them, has the potential to obtain the office. Bush the Second’s two terms still fills me with bowl shaking waves of remorse, because we didn’t just inflict him on ourselves, we set that pandemic loose on the world and for many subsequent generations. His special formula of crazy-stupid set humanity back, way back. Some seven years later we still haven’t paid down that debt, and now we’re looking at opening up a new line of credit.
Maybe I should count my blessings, at least he’s not John McCain. That said, the Democrats need a hero. A person beyond rebuke with a rational answer to all the important questions and a stern, meaningful and effect response to the various types of ‘Merican stupidity.
Never underestimate the superstition, bigotry, and greed of the American voter.
Barack Obama announced his campaign on the spot where Abraham Lincoln denounced slavery 150 years ago. “In the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a divided house to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for president of the United States.”
Ted Cruz chose Liberty University. This evangelical school was founded by Jerry Falwell. Falwell is the preacher that blamed the 9/11 attacks on Pagans, abortionists, feminists and gays. The students and faculty at Liberty have very little liberty. R-rated movies are prohibited, as are drinking alcohol, kissing, skirts above the knee for women, and listening to music not “in harmony with God’s word.” Leaders at the so-called university even banned a student Democratic Party group.
Students and faculty at Liberty University are allowed to carry loaded firearms.
Liberty University is close to D.C., so Cruz got a lot of media coverage from Beltway locals.
@23:
You mean “Liberty” (which they don’t believe in) “University”. Cruz spoke there to a sea of 10,000 freshly scrubbed faces. All of whom were required to be there.
My wife has CNN on in the mornings (which she mostly sleeps through) so I had the “pleasure” of watching Cruz’s speech. He still plans on repealing a non-existent law, Common Core. The C-Word (Canada) was not mentioned. He is, of course, perfectly eligible citizenship-wise to be President. He’s not eligible because he’s an idiot. I don’t think there’s much chance he’ll be nominated.
Link
That’s funny. The first of many missteps I hope. Cruz needs to continue to shoot himself in the foot.
no he’s eligible unfortunately but he is unquestionably unqualified by temperament, policy.
If anyone thinks that he is not fundamentally undemocratic as are most of he republican candidates (announced, declared or not) and would not take the US further toward a more authoritarian government I have a bridge that needs a lease back deal to offer any forward thinking individuals.
uncle frogy
Jafafa Hots, @2: The more important problems is that he makes the other GOP prospects look relatively reasonable by comparison. That’s how the right wing has managed to mainstream political ideas that would have been completely beyond the pale 20 years ago – there’s always somebody way out on the fringes, dragging the Overton Window.
Cruz: Five years ago today, the president signed Obamacare into law.
Audience: BOO
Cruz: Within hours, Liberty University went to court filing a lawsuit to stop that failed law.
Audience: APPLAUSE
Cruz: … imagine in 2017, a new president signing legislation repealing every word of Obamacare.
Audience: APPLAUSE
Excerpt from Liberty University Student Health Insurance Plan guide, a booklet that highlights the provision in Obamacare that allows kids to stay on their parent’s insurance plan until they are 26 (without mentioning Obamacare, of course):
Lynna, OM @ # 28: R-rated movies are prohibited, as are … skirts above the knee for women…
Be fair now: at “Liberty” “U”, skirts above the knee are prohibited for men, too!
Once again I’ll state my personal(not that I really take it seriously) conspiracy theory: Ted Cruz is a Cuba agent. If he gets to be President he will screw up the US then, when the time is right, appear on national TV to reveal he’s Castro’s ultimate revenge on the US. After all if America’s enemies were going to use a pawn President to do their bidding he’d be a right wing one, allowing for maximum subterfuge.
I second/third Jafafa Hots‘s point: in this clime this guy could very well be nominated by the GOP base if the tea party types can get enough votes and put in enough pressure in the primaries, and if he gets nominated, he might very well be the next president.
An equally undesirable result can be that by comparison he makes another GOP candidate seem moderate, even when that candidate is far to the right of Bush jr (and almost any potential GOP candidate is like that). In addition, if Cruz gets second or third place, he might be picked by the so called moderate winner as vice-presidential candidate to pander to the tea-party/religious far-right types.
left0ver1under
Not only the US, but the entire world. Remember Bush? It nearly wrecked the European economy too. This is why sentiments like from magistramarla are too simplistic: you cannot ‘escape’ to Europe, our economies are too intertwined. And our current batch of rightwingers in Europe aren’t any better and want to go down the same road as the good old US of A (and are getting elected unfortunately).
Lynna, OM
They have an alternative. The alternative is, if you can’t afford it, you can die on the streets. It’s as simple as that. It’s the ideology of the libertarians, teapartiers, and of most of the GOP nowadays. They don’t go so far as expressing it that way, hence the no details. I wouldn’t be surprised during the run up one of the batch of candidates lets his or her mask slip and express this opinion in some way in a more direct form.
Bottom line: there is a real chance a GOP member is the next president, and so far all alternatives of potential candidates seem to be worse than Bush jr. Scary shit.
I watched his speech and felt sick, but then I thought about his future contributions to comedy.
Cruz is charismatic. He’s Sarah Palin that can put sentences together coherently. A Herman Cain that probably knows that China has nukes. He’s got a folksy drawl, that preacher style, and he’s more than nuts enough to be a big hit with the base. BUT, I just don’t see the REALLY BIG money donors getting behind him or any way in hell that he could make himself at all
attractivepalatable to any voter within a day’s drive of the center. He can’t win with just the evangelical and tea party vote.But, he’ll make it interesting. It’ll be fun to see how low Walker and Rubio will be willing to sink to try to steal the base from him.
Also, Canadian elections are coming up. Hopefully one of us will turn out ok.
Y’all just have to believe ; like when it was morning in ‘Murika.
Apparently, not all the Liberty kids were thrilled about Cruz, or about being forced to be his props:
Worst. TedTalk. Ever.
The parallels between Barack Obama and Ted Cruz are quite amusing. It’s as though Cruz’s life story has been cultivated specifically to test for an Obama-haters’ sense of irony.
1) Born “overseas” (Hawaii just about qualifies, even if it’s not Kenya)
2) To an immigrant, non-citizen father who supported left-wing causes (socialism/communism)
3) And a natural born American mother.
4) Dual citizenship available if they had wanted it.
5) Member of a minority
6) Ivy League educated
7) Editor of the Harvard Law Review
8) Graduated magna cum laude with a Law degree
9) Taught law at university
10) Won first campaign for US Senator
11) Ran for President just two years into first term while still inexperienced on nation stage
12) Young, driven, articulate, charismatic.
Did I miss anything?
Whoops. Missed a big one, apparently.
13) Father walked out on him and his mother when he was three years old. (Yep, happened around the same age in both cases!).
How long will it be before Alex Jones and his cronies notice all these parallels and conclude they’ve discovered the New World Order’s recipe for grooming an American puppet president? You know, like the plot of “The Boys from Brazil.”
Does this mean that the dems will be able to push a candidate whose positions are right of Nixon, and still get votes?
@45:F.O.
Cruz isn’t going to win the nomination, so that won’t play into their calculations. If they do it, they’ll do it anyway.
So Teddy Canuck wants to be Pres. He renounced his Canadian citizenship OH when was it . Oh yes 2014. Where is The Donnie (I can declare bankrupcy more often than you) Trump to scream “birther birther”
Alas Teddy’s not black ergo Repubs= no problem
@#2, Jafafa Hots
Hmmm? Oh, if Hillary Clinton wins the primary, she will lose the election. I thought everyone knew that already.
Leaving aside the fact that a lot of us on the left don’t want to vote for her, and will not vote for her even if it’s a contest between her and someone like Cruz (which ought to be making Democrats say “holy sh*t we need to keep this woman out of the election entirely” but instead is making Democrats double down on her for some bizarre reason):
If Hillary is the Democratic candidate, every single Republican will turn out to vote against her, no matter what. You think the Republicans hate Obama? You forget just how virulent their hatred of Hillary Clinton was, and how it has been constantly reinforced for the better part of 3 decades now. They won’t even have to look for new propaganda, they have vast archives of the stuff — and she hasn’t been helping her cause by doing things like claiming to have dodged bullets while getting on a plane (funny, I just saw someone criticizing Bill O’Reilley for make that kind of false claim).
Hillary Clinton represents the ultimate losing strategy.
So he finally announced the most obvious fact of all his bloviating. I suppose that accounts for his smug expression: announcing the obvious. Next he’ll announce that water is wet, and then discount climate change with recent winter being cold.
You grossly overestimate the power of Fox News and the right-wing noise machine. Yes, Hillary Clinton is vilified by Republicans, but so was her husband, yet he still somehow manages to maintain his popularity. Recent polls show she has a commanding lead over any of the Republican choices, (and that’s after the email scandal broke) and while that is unlikely to hold up by the time the election finally comes around, after an exhausting 18 month campaign, it’s certainly enough to refute your claims.
I can’t vote anyway (not a citizen) and I would far rather vote for more progressive candidate, but I certainly would vote for Clinton over any of the Republicans in that was the choice, not least because the next President will very likely nominate the next two or three Supreme Court Justices, and will hold the balance of power in their hands. What they do might not be undone for decades.
Hillary Clinton, if nominated will likely receive a significant bump in support from moderate conservatives women who want to be part of the historic election of the first women president. Turn out will be high amongst Democrats too, even if you stay home.
As for Republicans, they will have to decide whether they want to vote for another Bush, a crazy Cruz, or career politician Scott Walker whose scandal-tainted machinations rival that of the Clintons themselves. Something tells me they’re not exactly going to be crawling over glass to vote for any of these people just because Hillary Clinton is on the ballot.
@tacitus: fair enough and let’s hope for the best.
The Vicar,
When my enemies tell me what they fear above all else, I am inclined to listen to them. They fear the prospect of Hillary in the Whitehouse, just as they continue to fear Obama in the Whitehouse. So, while I do not agree with Ms. Clinton on policy, I do think here election could serve to damage patriarchy. I also dread the idea of another Bush or a Rubio or a Cruz with their hand on the button. Sometimes, you have to do what is least bad for the country. We’ll at least survive a Hillary Presidency.
Another web mis-step for the Cruz campaign: His campaign donation website shares a security certificate with nigerian-prince.com.
brianpansky@39, yeah, we’re having an election this year, but I suspect the result will be a Conservative minority government. Yes, this will probably result in Stephen Harper getting the boot, but I suspect his most likely replacement is Peter MacKay, who I suspect is kind of an idiot when it comes to running a country.
#48 The Vicar (via Freethoughtblogs)
Fuck each and every one of those fuckers.
Ted Cruz’s CV:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/mar/23/ted-cruz-campaign-resume-revealed
Salad @12:
No. An imigrant is an individual who permanently relocates to another state, an expat is a person who retains their citizenship while living (frequently temporarily) in another state. The term “migrant worker” is not equivalent, as it requires that the sole or primary reason for relocation is a search for employment.
Corrections to my post at 57: The commenter the post is directed to is Saad. Autocorrect is evil. Immigrant was misspelled imigrant.
A. R @ 58: Why are white people expats, when the rest of us are immigrants?
One day one of these Republicans will be President. Then what?
I know, I’ve read it and I think it a nonsensical attempt to reform language for a decidedly poltical purpose. Words mean things.
A. R, #57
I’m cool with either word as long as they’re applied correctly (which they’re not since they’re applied in a racist, American exceptionalism way). I’ll call white Murkans who live abroad expats when people in America can stop calling multitudes of non-white people immigrants because:
What are you called if you live in another country than your citizenship, but you never were a patriot to begin with?
@63, Jafafa Hots
It probably works something like this.
A. R @57/58
Immigrants also don’t automatically give up their original citizenships. And expats can have more than one citizenship, including country-of-origin and country-of-residence, no matter whether it is a temporary or permanent residence. (This is obviously country-dependent.)
Also, some people immigrate solely to search for employment – are they automatically ‘migrant workers’, too? Or are you thinking of those who end up doing menial tasks like weeding vegetables and cleaning floors?
So… anyway. According to Mellow Monkey’s link @59, think about how the terms ‘expat’ and ‘immigrant’ are used, and to whom they are applied, and why I, as a white person from Canada, have a hard time calling myself an immigrant (it gets a little more complicated, but essentially, that’s what I am). And why you would take issue with someone calling USAmericans living abroad ‘immigrants’.
Personally I make the distinction that ‘expats’ define their identity by where they are from, and immigrants by the place they have moved to.
Sometimes I have told people that I am the daughter an immigrant. When I explain that my dad came to Canada from the US, they just chuckle and think I am making a joke.
But immigrants also define their identity by where they are from, which is why so many of them stick to the cultural practices of their country-of-origin, and seek out those communities in their new country. How is this different from expats?
rq,
Because they’re not white. They’ll just keep coming up with excuses to set them apart from darker skinned people moving to white people’s lands (we retained our citizenship, we identify with our home country, etc). Not like people from Mexico or India do that.
Saad
Well, I’m just going to go on and call myself an immigrant from now on. A repatriated one, but still an immigrant.
@JAL: Snark, Sarcasm & Bitterness
And once again a big old fuck you to for causing the Democrats to drift toward the right over the ~30 years.
sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war.
freaken’ Democratic partisans
michael kellymiecielica
Who caused this and how.
And sometimes you just keep losing and then win again by such a minor margin that you are set up to lose again, just to get another Pyrrhic victory and sit ready to fail once again , in a perpetual cycle where you are trapped, destined to make no progress and ensure that the war goes on forever and lives never stop being lost.
And sometimes you lose both the battle and the war. Which not voting democrat causes.
You need a viable scenario to back up your claim. No one to the left of me has shown anything other than wishful thinking.
Also, if we are going to have the 9001st debate over the Democratic Party vs. Fantastic Superb Excellent Third Party X, it probably be best to have it in the Thunderdome, since it has fuck all to do with Ted Cruz.
Actually, my view of the terminology is a bit more nuanced. I would go into more depth, but I am on a tablet right now, and I don’t type well on these things. To put it simply, expats can indeed be readily distinguished from immigrants. For example, the Chinese postdoc in the lab down the hall from me is an expat, she has Chinese citizenship, and not US citizenship, is a skilled worker, and intends to return to China. My Russian PI is an immigrant, he is a US citizen and does not intend to return to Russia. He has also renounced his Russian citizenship. My old PI is also an immigrant, he retains dual citizenship, but has no intention to return to Nigeria. Now, the issue of migrant worker vs expat worker is actually fairly simple in my eyes: an expat worker is an employee of either a multinational company or a company based in their home country who is working abroad. A migrant worker is an individual who has migrated (note that I have not said immigrated, as many migrant workers intend to return to their home countries) solely to find work, and who typically works for a local interest. These definitions therefore make a white American who moves to the UK permanently while renouncing citizenship an immigrant, and an Ethiopian who is working at a university in France temporarily an expat. You might also consider how the American IRS definition of expat works (American expats are required to pay federal tax on money earned abroad).
@anteprepro
and
@Nerd of Redhead
It is my contention that people who vote for the Democrats no matter what the Democrats do because the Republicans are worse are at least half the reason we are in the dire political straights that we are. (the other half being that reactionaries are willing to blot when they don’t get their way.) My two lines of evidence for this are:
1) it has been observed that over the last 30-40 years, both the Democrats and the Republicans have gotten more conservative, 2015 Democrats are more conservative than 1985 Democrats, despite the liberal left more or less falling lock step behind their candidates . So obviously always pulling a the lever for the person with a D after their name doesn’t prevent a drift to the right.
2) politicians, being both politicians and humans, ought to only be trusted to act in ways that the person believes will be in their rational self-interest. The job of a politician in democracy is to act in such a way that will garner the most votes. It is not to do the right thing, nor what the voters elected them to do. As such, as voters we must be willing to withhold support (especially votes) when politicians are not doing what we think they should be doing. If we don’t there is no reason for the the politician to listen to us.
Shorter: if the liberal left tell the Democrats that there is nothing (short of being strictly identical to the Republicans) they can do to lose those votes the Democrats are only ever going to move to the right to try to capture the middles and the right. This is especially true if the conservatives are willing to hold people accountable.
My way of solving this is to simply not vote for any Democrat that doesn’t meet core liberal issues, like civil liberties, while supporting candidates regardless of party that do. This is why I haven’t voted for Democrats since 2008.
At the very least my hands are clean, unlike yours.
@anteprepro
It has everything to do with Ted Cruz, because the voting behavior I’m railing against is the reason why we are looking at a Cruz presidency and in Cruz is going to be used as a bludgeon to keep people in line.
Anyone else have a verdict on whether or not this bullshit is a derail or not?
anteprepro
It seems to be a derail but making fun of Cruz has about run down.
Personally, I’d rather have this latest reincarnation of “Why I don’t vote Democrat” stay here and not clutter another thread.
Whatever works. I will possibly reply to your shit later michael kellymiecielica. If I am so inclined to rehash this for the thousandth fucking time. If I am not, suffice it to say: Your hands are far from fucking clean, and no amount of dreaming that you are voting for the Purest Politicians who have no chance of getting elected will stop you from having the same culpability for the actual politicians we get as anyone else.
michael kellymiecielica:
No. Your hands are dirtier than anyone except for those who vote Republican. You may as well not vote, because frankly, you’re helping the Rethugs win. Hands don’t feel so clean now, do they cupcake?
Birds of a feather. How can it possibly be a plus that Glenn Beck is your best buddy? Beck is Cruz’s best bud.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cruz-and-beck-stand-together-happily
Maybe Beck, Cruz, and Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty can tour together.
A.R. your definition of expat looks backwards. The ones I’m seeing online say that an expat renounces their country of origin (either voluntarily, of they have it done to them as exile/banishment).
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/expatriate
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/expatriate
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/expatriate
@michael kellymiecielica
(Assuming for a moment that this is possible to accomplish) Making the Democrat candidates more liberal just might get them fewer votes. Because the population is more right wing. This doesn’t look like a winning strategy. It looks like it would be even easier for Republicans to win with less compromise. Care to elaborate on how that is a good thing?
Of course, I fell into the trap of talking in vague useless terms like “right wing” and “more liberal”.
Perhaps in doing so I have created a straw enemy for myself to attack.
What might be better is for the Democrats to appear to shift along some other axis of measurement (that simultaneously brings them closer to a scientific political platform). Such as trustworthiness, lack of bias, the value of a great nation, and who knows what else.
[Irony meter warning: expect malfunction due to overload]
Ted Cruz is signing up for Obamacare.
The Hill link
You fight on the ground, and with the forces you have, not the ones you **wish** you had. Walking away from the battlefield, because you don’t like the mud on your boots, or you are running out of ammo doesn’t get you anything, other than shot in the back, possibly by your own side, for desertion. You know, since we are calling this a war… Even I fraking know this. Why is it that some other people find it incomprehensible?
I don’t believe that for a moment, and neither do honest polls. The public only “seems” to be more right wing because they have been sold, for an entire generation or more, a bill of goods, which claims that prosperity is achievable by selling their own hopes and dreams down the river, in trade for supposed, “protections of your values”, and, “lower taxes”. Its been very cleverly devised such that it is not “their” values being protects, “their” taxes that get cut, or “their” prosperity which those selling this pyramid scheme have ever intended to achieve. Meanwhile… what else other than “more liberal” do you call things like same sex marriage, and so many other things that, when asked directly, and without the prevarications and lies being sold along side them, nearly everyone, at worst, would say, “We don’t care one way or the other about, since it doesn’t effect me in any way if that is allowed.”, as apposed to 50 years or more earlier, when they would have been apposed on general principle, by people who “knew” such things where, in some undefinable way, wrong, and unacceptable?
No. We have grown more liberal, but the mirror that is being held up, and used to represent what we truly believe has become more and more distorted. We have asked for, and received, the gift, from the politicians, of the removal of a clear, clean, flat mirror, that shows all our scars, for a room full of fun house mirrors, where we can simply pick which warped and twisted, dim and blurred, vision of “what we are” we would prefer to pick from. One guess who the experts at making these mirrors are…
Kagehi: Hrm, a Rummy quotation that actually makes sense…
The people who decide the boundaries of the voting regions? That seems to be the only thing that would make sense of your post…
Oh yeah?
Well, take this: Ted Cruz: I stopped listening to rock music after 9/11
More pandering than a Chinese circus.
And speaking of that Duck Dynasty cretin: https://www.facebook.com/tedcruzpage/posts/10152129834967464
Nope. It is because you don’t vote, or if you do, you waste your vote on non–viable candidates. Who gives a shit about your rationale. It is bullshit.
A viable progessive democratic party needs 1) progressives who show up at party meetings, and try to be part of the process. Who will provide electable candidates who are progressive for ALL positions, even against my #@#$R$#@ alderman, who it appears is running unopposed except by a write-in candidate. Why wasn’t some progressive out knocking on doors, asking for signatures (I always sign to put people on the ballot who aren’t RWA/liberturds), manning the phone lines to get the vote out. The latter is a problem, as in the 2012 election, we elected a democrat to the US house with the outpouring of votes for Obama. In 2014, the district went back to the rethugs, not because the rethug candidate got more votes than the prior election, but because the democratic candidate did not receive the votes that showed out in 2012 to give him the slight margin of victory. They stayed home, and couldn’t be bothered to vote.
In other words, take over the party from within with hard work, like the religious right did with the rethug party, rather than trying to be philosophically pure, but electorally stupid. All you do is force the democrats right.
You might sleep well, but you shouldn’t.
Cross posted from the Lounge:
Governor Chris Christie is trying to sound like Ted Cruz:
Second Amendment stuff, combined with Bible stuff.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/christie-adopts-new-posture-guns
Which raises the question: Why did god wait almost 1800 years after the death of his only son to inform humanity that they had the right to practice or not practice whatever religion they want, speak their mind without interference from the government, and so forth? (And even longer to let them know that no one had the right to own them, regardless of skin color or gender.)
Was he in mourning the whole time?
Hmm. Sorry I confused you, but no, those are just the.. what do you call them the rigging crew. They just set up the mirrors, its the freaks running the show, i.e., the political parties, who hand craft all the distortions.
several people have responded in several similar ways, so let me group the responses together.
@anteprepro
@Nerd
straw man. At no point have I demanded that the politicians be “pure” meaning that they agree with me on all issues. I’m more than willing to vote for people with D after their name iff they hit certain key issues. Indeed, when I voted for Obama in 2008 it was in spite of 1/3 or so substantial disagreements I have with the guy. When I voted for Gary Johnson in 2012 it was in spite of ~50% disagreements. Now I do require, as Obama hit in 2008 and Johnson hit (and still does) in 2012, that the politician takes the correct position on a limited set of issues vis-a-vis due process and civil liberties. Anything outside those issues is up for grabs. Now, unfortunately, the Democratic party AND Republican party are both so awful on those issues there is no real moral difference between voting for them from my perspective. That the Republicans are (slightly) more evil because they, say, screw up education is so beside the point to me I honestly don’t get how anyone can be swayed by that consideration. I’m not willing to trade basic liberty for a slightly smaller cut in the social safety net, and people who are are monsters.
Let me help you out here, a cogent response to my position entails one of the following:
1) an argument that I am prioritizing the wrong issues.
2) I’m wrong to prioritize issues, at all.
3) There is a moral difference between Democrats/Republican on, and only on, the issues of Due Process and civil liberties.
@anteprepro
@
I have 3 responses to the notion that because I generally will not vote for Democrats I am thus responsible for what the Republicans do while in office or them being elected.
1) In general, I believe people are only ever responsible and morally culpable for things they do, not for things that they could have prevented. So even if my vote for a Democrat could have prevented a Republican winning I still don’t think I’m responsible. I’m dying to hear why you think I would be. I’m sure it’s some short naive consequentialism.
2) even if I grant one for the sake of argument the instrumental value of a single vote is virtually worthless. I have a better chance of winning the lottery than determining the outcome of, say, the presidential election. Insofar as that is true my vote for a Democrat could not, in 99+% of the practical cases, actually change the outcome of the election. So it doesn’t actually matter who I vote for as far as the outcome is concerned.
3) I live in the south side of Chicago. I’m in such a blue district that point 2 is even more acute. The democrats don’t need my vote to win, so fuck it. I’m not voting for the moral monsters.
back to you.
Cross posted from the Lounge:
Ted Cruz took a swipe at “non-believers.”
Right Wing Watch link
Claim: Democrats are more conservative than 30 years ago.
Interesting, because apparently they are more liberal than 20 years ago:
http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/
And according to here, the main difference between parties today vs. the 1970s is that there is less overlap:
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/12/polarized-politics-in-congress-began-in-the-1970s-and-has-been-getting-worse-ever-since/
Just eyeballing it, the Democrats have stayed in roughly the same spot while Republicans shifted right.
(I imagine that defining “conservativeness” and “liberalness” might be a key source of discrepancies)
Claim: Conservatives are more willing to hold politicians accountable.
Not supported by evidence: http://www.people-press.org/2014/10/17/political-polarization-in-action-insights-into-the-2014-election-from-the-american-trends-panel/
1. 94% of strong liberal likely voters lean towards a Democratic candidate and 3% towards Republican, vs. 97% of strong conservatives leaning Republican, with 0% leaning towards the Democratic candidate. For the “mostly” liberal crowd it is 84% leaning Democrat and 11% leaning Republican, while the “mostly conservative” group leans Republican 91% of the time and leans towards the Democratic candidate 4% of the time.
2. People voting a straight ticket (all votes for one political party) were more often voting Republican than Democratic (43% of all voters vs. 36% of all voters).
3. While registered Republicans are slightly less likely to vote straight Republican than registered Democrats are to vote straight Democrat (74% vs. 78%), the strongly conservative are slightly more likely to vote straight Republican than strong liberals voting straight Democrat (87% vs. 84%).
4. People were polled regarding their candidate preference. Whether their preferred candidate in June was a Democrat or Republican, both were just as likely to have no opinion (5%) or have switched preferred candidate (4%) by October. However, looking at those who did not state a preference for either Democrat or Republican, 30% went to Republican candidates while 24% went to Democratic candidates.
At best, we could say that there is no proven differences regarding Unprincipled and Unwavering Support for Political Party between Democrats and Republicans. But it looks more likely that the exact opposite of what you claim to be true is the actual truth.
Claim: Voting for third parties will help push the Overton Window, hold Democrats accountable, and prevent Democrats from shifting right to attract “moderates”
Two words: Tea Party.
You don’t need to vote party to shift the Overton Window. You don’t even need a third party to have an alternative choice. You can create a party within a party. I really don’t understand how conservatives apparently can stumble upon this fact instinctively and make it work for them, and yet intelligent liberals apparently cannot grasp the concept.
Intriguing Juxtaposition: “At the very least my hands are clean, unlike yours” vs. ” At no point have I demanded that the politicians be “pure” meaning that they agree with me on all issues.” vs. ” The democrats don’t need my vote to win, so fuck it. I’m not voting for the moral monsters.” and “I’m not willing to trade basic liberty for a slightly smaller cut in the social safety net, and people who are are monsters.”
Claim: Civil Liberties is the number one important issue (to avoid being a moral monster)
Unfortunately, civil liberties does not necessarily cover the following:
Wars
Gay rights and gay marriage
Anti-discrimination policies
Police brutality and corruption
Broken prison systems
Abortion access
Helping the healthcare system
Helping the poor
Regulating businesses
And on and on and on.
Claim: Gary Johnson is a good candidate.
Seriously, a fucking libertarian?
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Gary_Johnson
I mean, I will admit, he is okay on a lot of issues, and is better than the vast majority of Republicans. But a vote for him would essentially kill the government and most of our infrastructure. It is fucking moronic.
Claim: Republicans are only slightly more evil.
Absolute bullshit. The only way that Republicans are slightly less evil is if you ignore the way that women and every type of minority is affected by Republican policies. It is only the case of you ignore the role of infrastructure and safety nets for poor people, ignore the importance of regulations in keeping corporations in check, ignore the war mongering, ignore the environment, ignore gun control, ignore immigration, abortion, birth control, healthcare, anti-discrimination policies and aid for the disabled. And yes, public education as well, as much as you scoff at it’s significance.
Claim: You are not morally responsible for the things you don’t do.
I don’t need to justify why this is wrong. You need to justify why it is correct. Good fucking luck, because It is obviously bullshit. You talk about “naive consequentialism”, but the idea that you can’t be held accountable for things you don’t do is far more fucking naive than anything I can think of. Under your view, it isn’t immoral to not save someone you easily could, it’s only immoral if you actively kill them. It isn’t immoral to not feed your child and let them starve, it is only immoral if you actively abuse them. Neglect is moral, in your totally not naive worldview. Someone who lets accidents happen by not doing their fucking job correctly, and people die as a consequence, are not to be considered morally at fault, because it wasn’t something they actively did, but something they decided to not do that caused the deaths. It is surely naive consequentialism to think otherwise!
Claim: Individual votes are worthless.
Wrong, they are not worthless, they have miniscule effect. So the moral importance of a given vote is very minimal (which is interesting, since you are the one who brought this up to defend yourself….while calling people who vote for Democrats “monsters”). But it adds up. It is like the moral import of driving an SUV. You aren’t causing global warming by yourself. You are not even contributing to it by very much at all, an incredibly minor amount. But you are contributing and everyone else doing the same and thinking the same way about how minimal their own individual contribution is results in a massive collective effect.
And I’m done here.
@anteprepro
Do you have reading comprehension problems? Or do you just like to straw man your interlocutors? I’m not going to bother responding to all of that because most of it is either straw manning the hell out of me or argument by mere assertion. I think three example should suffice to demonstrate this.
You:
What I actually said:
I already stated that the effect of a single vote occurs, it is only that it is so small and minuscule that in virtually all cases my single vote doesn’t matter. The use of the term ‘virtually’ acknowledges the ever so slight effect as it allows for extremely unlikely outcomes to be possible. Jesus christ.
You:
What I actually said:
This straws me in two different ways.
1) I said in general. Which means GENERALLY people are not ever responsible for the things that they could have prevented. It is not, however, a universal claim. I am not denying that there are specially cases in which people are culpable for outcomes they could have prevented.
2) my claim is not about things that people do not do, but about outcomes not prevented via a person failing to take an action. This is similar but not identical to what I was saying.
In light of this, many of your examples provided above do not overturn my objection. The parent letting their child starve or a guy killing people by failing to do his job correctly are special cases in that a person fails to discharge an obligation that they decided to take on which is different than holding say a neighbor morally responsible for failing to feed a dead child of a neglectful parent.
The only one that you mention that remotely touches the general principle I’m rejecting is the failing to save someone who you easily could case. But even there my intuition is to say if the person who fails to save a person has culpability it is obviously of lesser kind than a murderer.
You:
forgoing that many of the topics you listed are included under the umbrella of civil liberties and due process (i.e. gay marriage is nothing but a special case equality under the law.), you utterly failed to demonstrate why they are more important than say having the liberty to not be assassinated by presidential drone.
read better.
Rand Paul announced. We’re officially one clown closer to a full circus.