Sowell is so rarely wrong, but he’s never been more wrong. And it is painful to read. It’s more plausible that the NSA has something on a loved one of his than that he has lost his senses like this:
“The most charitable interpretation of Ted Cruz and his supporters is that they are willing to see the Republican Party weakened in the short run, in hopes that they will be able to take it over in the long run, and set it on a different path as a more purified conservative party.
“Like many political ideas, this one is not new. It represents a political strategy that was tried long ago — and failed long ago.
“In the German elections of 1932, the Nazi party received 37 percent of the vote. They became part of a democratically elected coalition government, in which Hitler became chancellor. Only step by step did the Nazis dismantle democratic freedoms and turn the country into a complete dictatorship.
“The political majority could have united to stop Hitler from becoming a dictator. But they did not unite. They fought each other over their differences. Some figured that they would take over after the Nazis were discredited and defeated.
“Many who plotted this clever strategy died in Nazi concentration camps. Unfortunately, so did millions of others.
“What such clever strategies overlook is that there can be a point of no return. We may be close to that point of no return, not only with ObamaCare, but also with the larger erosion of personal freedom, of which ObamaCare is just the most visible part.”
Agree. It's very painful to read.
This is the type of article that older folks like my in-laws read and get ideas that Sen Cruz "might not always take the right approach". I understand that they don't always *get it* and need healthy dialogue to better understand what Sen Cruz is standing up against. But, Dr Sowell? Very disappointing, to say the least :(
That is a misleading statement, with just enough truth in it, to side-track real analysis!
The brutal fact is that we simply cannot trust certain Republican leaders. It is those leaders who are seeing to "purify" (i.e. purge the Republican Party) from any principled men & women, who will not accept a continued pattern of betrayal of/for our most cherished principles.
Senator Cruz, and many of us, who greatly admire him at Free Republic, recognize that this problem has to be faced, or none of us have a future. If the confused--for they are confused--weak kneed--for they are week kneed--Republicans, who only know how to retreat, would simply agree to a truce where we have truly open primaries, where the voters can decide, without the smears & efforts to stifle dissent, many of us would agree to embrace Reagan's llth Commandment.
Certainly we would agree to that, for the purpose that Thomas Sowell seems, at least to imply. But if the Republicans who only know how to retreat intend to persist in their present tactics against the more principled supporters of the Party, we have no choice but to pursue the course that so many here believe to be essential.
Finally, we would suggest that Dr. Sowell look a little more closely at the philosophic approach of those who actually made Hitler's triumph in Germany possible. It was not stalwart defenders of traditional values, like Ted Cruz--no indeed. It was those who knew how to retreat for temporary purposes.
It is an interesting game, citing historic phenomena to current purpose; but you need to tighten your focus, if you would not mislead.
William Flax
I think that we're past that point in medicine- Doctors are quitting/retiring in droves, and they are irreplaceable. Just who the hell is going to consider becoming a doctor now?
Sowell Joining the Eat Your Own GOPe club. I have less respect for him, he no longer thinks outside the Gope planter box.
Cruz is a breath of fresh air, not only doing what he said he would do, but giving the GOP CPR its lost 2 national elections in a row and surrendered on every big position.
Without Cruz and a handful of others, the GOP is moribund.
I don’t understand the latest catch phrase
Cruz is so unpopular he needs a food taster!
Cruz is up there not to win friends who act French retreating and surrendering. He is there to show them how a Texan stands tall in the saddle and remembers the Alamo.
Never say die, never surrender, don’t give up. American values Gen. Patton lived by.
“In the German elections of 1932, the Nazi party received 37 percent of the vote. They became part of a democratically elected coalition government, in which Hitler became chancellor. Only step by step did the Nazis dismantle democratic freedoms and turn the country into a complete dictatorship.
I believe Dr. Sowell -- or his editor -- made a mistake.
It looks like -- and reads as if -- the second paragraph follows from the first. So that he is comparing Cruz and his supporters to Hitler and the Nazis.
But, by the time you reach his final paragraph, you realize that Sowell's Nazi analogy is actually directed at Obama and his supporters.
Sowell abruptly changed subjects between the two paragraphs and it's not immediately apparent.
Agreed... I usually agree with Sowell. This time not!