Posted on 06/17/2013 12:57:42 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via the Examiner, a short but noteworthy clip insofar as it exposes a potential fault line between Cruz and Rand Paul. McCain lumps them together as “wacko birds” but I’m not so sure that’s true of Cruz on national-security issues. His alliance with Paul interests me because it strikes me as a personification of the uneasy libertarian/tea-party alliance. The groups overlap heavily on spending issues, and both are deeply suspicious of Obama’s expansion of government. The master stroke of Paul’s drone filibuster was that he found a sweet spot for both, making the philosophical case for due process while humiliating O for having turned into such a hypocrite about it. Even so, no matter how much Paul sometimes likes to pretend that the tea party is synonymous with libertarianism (for his own strategic reasons), various polls show that it just isn’t so. Tea partiers are more socially conservative than doctrinaire libertarians, they’re more likely to support entitlements, and they’re more traditionally Republican on defense/security issues. That’s not to say that they’re not becoming more libertarian — polls lately show Republicans are more skeptical about NSA surveillance than Democrats are, although that’s probably for partisan reasons — but they’re not all Ron Paul fans either. That’s why Rand is usually quick to claim the tea-party label. The more he gets TPers thinking of themselves as allied with him, then theoretically the more receptive they’ll be to his libertarian ideals.
McCain doesn’t seem to understand the difference between them but comparing Paul’s reaction to the NSA revelations to Cruz’s is instructive. Paul’s first instinct was to organize a class-action lawsuit and accuse the NSA of an “extraordinary invasion of [Americans'] privacy.” Cruz, by contrast, says the revelations are “cause for concern” but urges Fox viewers to reserve judgment until we know more about the programs. And from the looks of it here, his chief objection seems to be that this particular administration can’t be trusted with NSA’s surveillance tools in light of the IRS scandal, not necessarily that any administration can’t be trusted with it. He may very well end up joining Paul’s lawsuit, but I suspect that’ll be aimed at impressing libertarians whose votes he’ll need if he ends up running for president someday just as Rand often tempers his own libertarianism in order to impress more mainstream tea-party conservatives. Cruz’s ally, Sarah Palin (who returned to Fox this morning, although she doesn’t speak in this clip) seems to be taking a position similar to his lately. From her speech at the Faith and Freedom Conference on Saturday:
“The scandals infecting this city, they are a symptom of a bigger disease, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a Republican or a Democrat sitting atop a bloated boot on your neck, out of control government, everybody gets infected, no party is immune,” Palin said. “That’s why, I tell you, I’m listening to those independents, those libertarians, who are saying, it is both sides of the aisle, the leadership, the good ol’ boys in the party on both sides of the aisle, they perpetuate the problem.”…
Palin also took on the “pandering, rewarding the rule breakers, still-no-border security, special interest written amnesty bill,” especially ribbing Jeb Bush for his fertility comment yesterday. “I think it’s kind of touchy territory to want to debate this over one race’s fertility over another, and I say that as someone who’s kinda fertile herself.”
Obama didn’t evade Palin’s lashing, either. “Where is our commander in chief?” Palin asked. “We’re talking now more new interventions? I say, until we know what we’re doing, until we have a commander in chief who knows what he’s doing—well, chief, in these radical Islamic countries, aren’t even respecting basic human rights, when both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line ‘Allah ak-bar’—I say, let Allah sort it out.”
I suspect Cruz would agree with every word, and that her former running mate would disagree with most or all of it. (Palin advocated “Cruz control” for Washington in the speech, in fact.) She doesn’t want any more interventions under a strategist as poor as Obama — but she’s not against intervention in principle. She wants America to listen more to the libertarians, but when it comes to the lousy Gang of Eight bill, she rightly opposes it for its weak border security — even though libertarians are famously comfortable with weak borders. None of this is contradictory; most tea partiers would, I take it, agree that America needs more libertarianism while maybe not quite so much as Ron Paul supporters would prefer. The point is, though, there are real differences between Cruz and Rand Paul and I think we’re getting a hint of one in the clip. And the longer the national debate stays stuck on liberty-versus-security issues, the more obvious I think those differences will be.
What a load of bull crap...
After years of the corrupt government/GOP lying, betraying, with people like Bush leading the party, celebrating cinco de mayo up in the white house, as a conga-line of millions enters during war time...As the frauds and liars in the GOP routinely compromise over conservatism, profits and power over patriotism, what do think slick?
Ya think those capable of critical thought haven't noticed this decades long wholesale sellout?
“What happened?” The scent of power. These elites are arguing over, who holds the tail, while the cat gets screwed. It’s a Gov’t union vs Union gov’t. The cat is still getting well screwed. Guess who the cat is?
The cat is us.
The host withers and dies, first. You are still working the lame. How wonderful.
And prayer rugs...
Cruz is saying "if this happened" and also saying "let's see what really happened" ... like an adult.
So far, laplata. God may have other plans.
No confuZed all around, bro :o)
Nada bit.
God may have other plans.
Yes He does.
I see your point.
Suck it, Ted. Does the FedGov have probable cause or a search warrant for my cell records? No? Then retention of my cell phone records by the FedGov is a CRIME.
Sure, Ted, there’s no way that the Obama administration would be using these cell phone records for nefarious purposes against their political enemies, right? Let me guess, your answer is: That’s the IRS’s job.
Any one in the republican party that McCain calls a
“Wacko Bird”. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Mike Lee.
And yes you did have a point. But you missed mine.
“Reagan also signed the Brady Bill.”
I know he supported it but I don’t think he signed it. He
signed the Mulford Act when he was governor. It was just as
bad though. Not good for sure but he still was conservative.
On the tax’s he got screwed when the spending cuts never happened and
on immigration he got screwed when they didn’t get control
of the border. A lesson today’s pseudo Republicans didn’t learn or failed to grasp.
You know exactly what point I was making. Why do you want
to make a big deal about it? Do you support moderates? It’s
ok if you do. They will change when they think it will
benefit them.
I didn’t say I support moderates. I just find it humorous that the denizens of this room will scream RINO!!! at the top of their lungs when any Republican strays 1 degree from conservative orthodoxy. But when you look at his record, Ronald Reagan strayed from conservative orthodoxy several times. And he is (rightfully, IMHO) lionized here. The hypocrisy is amusing.
The best of the worst, is sometimes head and shoulders above all the prions; and judged by less rigorous standards, than the rest of the bastards that follow in his wake.
another sorry excuse
is there anyone left who represent their constituents?
peter king, rand paul, christie, rubio-what a total waste of time and money
I miss Allen West
:(
I hear you.
Rubio lost me with his immigration discourse while he was still an FL legislator (as usual, a Freeper with local knowledge pointed out his policy issue). Rubio carried that perspective forward - but he bifurcated his PR rhetoric - "amnesty" while speaking in Spanish and "secure the border" in English.
On the other hand, I've observed Cruz over many hours of CSPAN broadcasted hearings. I gain a deeper respect for Cruiz with every public interaction (he's highly intelligent, articulate, and consistently principled in literally fighting for our constitution.)
Let's face it - if Juan McLame calls someone a "wacko bird", I'm probably going to be singing from the same hymnal with the accused.
LOL! OK, that's pretty good!
“Former Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice to the debate by arguing that the surveillance programs are necessary if terrorist attacks are to be stopped... As vice president after the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed 3,000 people in 2001, Cheney helped design the controversial system, leaked by Snowden, for keeping track of the public’s emails and phone calls.”
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks the majority of the American people were willing to allow their constitutional rights to be abridged, in order to gain greater security from terrorists’ threats. Cheney felt he was responding quite reasonably and responsibly to what he considered to be a dire threat to our safety. Perhaps history will judge him to be correct. The NSA claims that some 50 attacks have been thwarted by its program. I wonder how much of the current opposition would evaporate if there were another major attack. For myself, I’m willing to forgo some security for greater civil liberties, because I believe the greater threat to our well being as a nation is a too powerful government.
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