Posted on 02/20/2014 10:50:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Senator Ted Cruz is a hero in some Republican circles — and the opposite among many of his Senate Republican colleagues.
At this crucial juncture in the history of America, internal battles within the only party that can turn things around are the last thing Americans need. Moreover, each side in this political civil war has all too many valid criticisms of the other.
The Republican establishment’s criticisms of Senator Cruz are criticisms of his rule-or-ruin strategy, which can destroy whatever chance Republicans have of taking back the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016. And, without political power, there is no real hope of changing things in Washington.
Senator Cruz’s filibuster last year got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government — and his threatened filibuster this year forced several Republican Senators to jeopardize their own reelection prospects by voting to impose cloture to prevent Cruz from repeating his self-serving grandstand play of last year. The Republicans need every vote they can get in the Senate — plus additional votes by defeating some Democrats who are running for the Senate this fall. It can be a very close call. Jeopardizing the reelection of current Republican senators is an act of utter irresponsibility, a high risk with zero benefits to anyone except Ted Cruz — and the Democrats.
However unjustified Senator Cruz’s actions, the very fact that a freshman Senator can so quickly gain so many supporters with so much enthusiasm ought to be a loud warning to the Republican establishment that they have long been a huge disappointment to a wide range of Republican voters and supporters....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Hey Mr Sowell , electing the same spineless weasels will also not change anything!
I was a huge Sowell fan and I looked forward to his articles but he has blown at least 10 years of support. I had him as one of my favorite writers along with Steyn and Greenfield but that is over
What’s up, Sowell? This is the fourth article you’ve written smearing Cruz.
I guess you read the TEA leaves and have seen the backlash from your readers. You deserve every word.
if establishment really think cruz is for rule or ruin strategy then they’re not one of us at all. Cruz is trying to save the country and estbalishment is trying to ruin it by keeping it status quo
God Bless Thomas Sowell.....
Unfortunately, the Republican Party at it now exists with the national committee structure and special interest groups like the NRA, National Right To Life and others from the business world, its front groups and so on is ultimately not interested in moving the nation in a more conservative direction.
They play defense and compromise with the most important issue, the nation’s debt and overspending, being their most egregious example of pursuing the wrong policy.
Instead of halting the spiraling national debt and balancing the budget, the GOPe leadership cuts deals with Democrats to create new tax burdens and cut spending on things like our national defense and military pensions.
The Democrat-GOPe Uniparty government just keeps on raising the debt ceiling (credit card limit) of the nation sending us to bankruptcy and destruction.
The difference between the two parties is the rate at which they want to spend more and more money and create more and more debt.
WE NEED TO HALT THE INCREASING DEBT NOW AND BALANCE THE BUDGET NOW.....
Perhaps that is a cause we can go into the streets for and stay there for until it is accomplished. I don’t know the final answer but I ponder it.
We’re going to need a Christ centered vision.
To those not yet comfortable with full Christian theology but still recognize God, it will have to translate as a more generally God centered vision, which in fact it will be. Christ (and the Cross... I don’t think it may be an accident of naming that we have a Theodore Cruz rising here — “God’s gift of the Cross”) gives it better focus, for the Christian.
Let methodology be a distinct second behind the values and goals of faith. This is to restore a love in mankind that is rooted in the gift that God gave. Like the cross, it sacrifices, and like the resurrection, it results in renewal. I posit that they are literally spiritually tied, but the illustration should suffice for all. But as for what muddles Congress is in... let the question of how to deal with them follow behind the spiritual goals. Maybe through allowing greater freedoms, maybe through divinely inspired means, the country will develop unexpected new wealth, making the debt smaller if not nonexistent. Certainly such a boon of God as is modern health care shouldn’t be entrusted to as rough a treatment as it has gotten through Obamacare — that disrespects the Lord himself. The gospel cuts through quite a few Gordian knots, if allowed to.
Anyhow, I think the audacity with which US Christian faith finds its gospel voice (which is different from a culture war fought vainly with blunt instruments of politics) is going to have a lot to do with whether America enjoys a second chance. The whole FR site was dedicated to the proposition that America might, even though it was not certain how. I hope I am bringing to the table some more specifics of “how” and I would be tickled pink if every other believer could do the same! Spiritually I’ve had a hard, tough life. I’m about the most reluctant believer that there has been since, maybe, C. S. Lewis, but that’s because there was so much to turn around in my life.
And the grip of unholiness can only be broken by... holiness.
Support whoever is running against him.
Sowell ticked off a lot of Conservatives with Part I of his diatribe earlier in the week, and is trying to walk it back a bit. But for some weird reason, he’s now advocating a “party-first” agenda while attacking Cruz for doing what we’ve all been demanding for years out of our elected leader. Seems very hypocritical to me.
I think he has a point.
Once you get outside the Amen Chorus of FR, people I talk to DO think Ted "shut down the government" and believe the press that says he is "extreme".
We may not like it....but there it is and denial won't help.
Ted can be our Patrick Henry, but somebody else needs to be our George Washington.
This insistence that Ted Cruz is on a “rule-or-ruin” mission is a complete misinterpretation of his motives. A couple of generations ago, a leading candidate for the Presidency, Barry Goldwater, wrote a piece “Conscience of a Conservative”. By today’s standards, Goldwater was not nearly so much conservative, as he was Libertarian. The Republican establishment dis not like to be reminded that even back then they were remiss in their duty to provide a credible alternative voice for the American public to speak up, and represent it ably.
“I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
Those phrases in his acceptance speech when he was nominated as the Republican candidate for President in 1964 had the Republican establishment crapping fishworms. But it did reframe the debate for years to come. Not in a way, however, that benefited the United States of America, as the power brokers chose not to heed the very real alarm that was sounded.
For today we have little liberty, and justice is a forgotten concept.
Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark!
Thank you for your thoughts.
The spiritual dimension of the problem and the solution should not be ignored.
The overspending of money is a problem of people as well as the governments they elect.
The spiritual dimension in my experience involves taking right actions, not just saying the “right things” or feeling the “right feelings”....
I won’t get angry or disturbed by the hypocrisy of others, but I must always remember my many years of being in essence
“A BORN AGAIN BIBLE BELIEVING, BLOOD WASHED DRUNK”.
I seek a daily sober relationship with God based on accepting the absolute truth about myself, working the 12 steps outlined in “Alcoholics Anonymous” and trying to live according to the 12 traditions outlined in the same book including the seventh which involves being “self-supporting through my own contributions”.
The ‘culture war’ unfortunately involved the GOP political machine capturing the hearts and minds of religious voters and manipulating them to elect candidates who in the end not only had a liberal tax and spend economic vision but an unwillingness to advance any conservative social agenda as well. They paid lip service to being “Pro-Life” and were backed up by GOP front groups claiming to be “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Family” and so on.
THIS is the point they keep missing - the capital 'R' Republicans vote with the Democrats
What Cruz is doing is trying to cut a demarcation line between 'R'epublican and CONSERVATIVE.
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I honestly thought Sowell was smarter than this.
Has he become bi-polar?
He's had several hit pieces in the past few days, then comes up with a title like this?
I don’t know what to think. I’ve never followed Sowell, although I have read an occasional article. For some reason, he’s chosen one of the few rising conservative stars to denigrate. It’s dismaying.
Very disturbing.....
Very.
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