Which is a pretty absurd statement. The guy is a classical conservative who tries to follow through on his campaign promises. I'm sure he is a bit more right wing than you would be comfortable with however he isn't a crazy loose cannon who has proposed ridiculous tariffs and exiting NATO.Originally Posted by RandBlade
Cruz to me seems to be even worse than Trump though
He IS a crazy loose cannon because he doesn't believe in engaging in real politics (i.e. negotiation and compromise) even within his own caucus, and he screws his political allies for attempted personal gain.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Or in normal person speak - he did his best to honor his campaign promises. You adore the system as it is - where politicians say one thing to the voters and then do business as usual. Its a joke that the Republicans control the House and Senate and still increase spending, fund Obamacare and have done nothing to prevent the ever increasing scope of government control. I'm for the guy who wants to gum up the system before we turn into Europe. And if you like Europe - go.
And what is it about honoring campaign promises that prevents someone from being a "crazy loose cannon"? I wasn't aware that was the definitive metric. Do you have something which backs up your claim that someone CAN'T be a loose cannon if they honor a campaign promise to screw the party whose ticket they're running on?
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
The GOP, at most, doesn't give a shit about the people who a Cruz presidency would hurt.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
If the alternative wasn't Trump there is no chance the GOP establishment would rally in favour of Cruz during the primaries.
Cruz is the most deceitful candidate in recent memory. Every sentence is misleading or downright false. He's basically the Tea Party on steroids. Truth has no meaning. Ideological platitudes take precedence over reality. Actually governing is less important than sticking it to the other side. Personal relationships are sacrificed for the sake of grandstanding. If Cruz is ever elected to any executive office, calamity would be right around the door.
Cruz proposed carpet bombing cities and wiping his behind with the first amendment when it comes to the rights of Muslims. His religious advisors include people leading hate groups. Just because he's not deluded like Trump doesn't make him any less dangerous.
Hope is the denial of reality
When you say Tea Party on steroids you basically mean Tea Party. Unlike the Republican establishment he doesn't just pay lip service to the desire to SHRINK (not limit the increase but actually SHRINK) government.
I haven't heard of any anti-1st amendment statements. Has he proposed banning Muslims? And you'll need to provide more detail on what you define 'hate group.' Simply stating you don't think two dudes should marry does not make a hate group. And while I'm not in favor of groups obsessing over gay marriage it is really a toothless problem considering recent court rulings. I'm far more interested in confronting our jihadist enemies and reducing government control of our pocketbooks.
If your goal is to talk about shrinking government, sure. If it's to actually pass legislation doing so, you have to know how to pass legislation...you know, with compromise and by building relationships with other lawmakers.
He wants to patrol Muslim neighborhoods. He wants a religious test for entering the country. He wants religious freedom...for non-Muslims.
Hope is the denial of reality
I'm not familiar with his religious test for entering the country. Patrolling Muslim neighborhoods is not a bad thing. In fact I would welcome police patrols in my own neighborhood because they make communities safer. In the war on terror we need to get rid of political correctness. Almost all suicide bombers self identify as Muslim. We shouldn't *punish* people on the basis of religion but we should make intelligent law enforcement/anti-terror decisions based on the known characteristics of the terrorists.
A classic conservative, like Lewk said.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
The Onion had this figured out 4 years ago.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
You're better at this American history thing than I am: have we had someone quite this extremist running on either party's ticket since the modern primary system was created (let's limit the sample to people who had a chance of winning the primaries)?
I don't really consider Trump to be an extremist. Extremism implies coherence. Trump isn't coherent.
Hope is the denial of reality
That's a metric that would take a whole lot of digging and weighing to answer. I would say the answer is probably yes then. Cruz isn't a "classic conservative" like Lewk says but many/most of his views are probably not so extreme as to be unmatched by other viable candidates in the past and many candidates have a few outlier topics which make them sound a little insane. I can't think of a viable who was as inflexible and prone to screwing his own side as Cruz though.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
He's a classical conservative in terms of his stated political preferences:
Smaller government
Less spending
Pro Guns
Religious
Pro School choice
Not a fan of unions
Classical conservatives also try to get conservative policies passed as laws, something Cruz is both unable and unwilling to do. Is it really hard to understand that governing requires compromise and ability to form personal relationships?
Hope is the denial of reality
So essentially the congress that has a sub 20% approval rating are the people who you should be trying to make friends with? Sorry but if you go into a den of sell outs and big government socialists I'm totally OK with the guy who gives them all the finger. The nice thing about politics is that political tides change. Cruz may actually be ahead of his time... Though sadly I actually don't believe that is true. The next generation has been raised on the ideal of being pampered by the nanny state. We'll continue to slide further down into the rabbit hole of bit by bit.
Treating people differently on the basis of their religion violates the first amendment. I don't recall am exception for religions you don't like. Muslim isn't the sole defining characteristic of terrorists last I checked.
Hope is the denial of reality
Under your logic Affirmative Action would be outlawed... its not. Only crazy liberals and criminals think more police patrols are a bad thing. Law abiding citizens welcome them.
Also under your logic if you are looking for a black suspect for a crime (based on eye witness testimony) you'd scream that the 14th amendment is being violated when the police are on the lookout for black males.
But the patrols wouldn't be there to protect muslim communities but to, quote "secure" them before they become "radicalized". Of course anyone with a shred of brains would know that increasing police presence in ethnic neighborhoods just to hassle them is going to cause more radicalization, not less.
The ironic thing about this is that America has actually done a far better job of integrating it's muslim populations than Europe, to the extent that it has barely any problem with radicalization of American born muslims compared to Europe, a state of affairs which it appears Cruz would do everything in his power to reverse.
I've seen a lot of very, very stupid material posted on this forum under the guise of "Using your logic"/"So, what you're saying is..." but this takes the biscuit. Are you really too dense that you're unable to tell the difference between targeting an individual and then giving a physical description, part of which includes skin colour, and targeting an entire religion? Or is your opinion of everyone else here so low that you thought no one else would notice?Also under your logic if you are looking for a black suspect for a crime (based on eye witness testimony) you'd scream that the 14th amendment is being violated when the police are on the lookout for black males.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Actually treating people differently based on religion is hard coded into our laws. (Look up reasonable accommodation).
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/religion.cfm
"The law requires an employer or other covered entity to reasonably accommodate an employee's religious beliefs or practices, unless doing so would cause more than a minimal burden on the operations of the employer's business. This means an employer may be required to make reasonable adjustments to the work environment that will allow an employee to practice his or her religion."
Wow looks like it is already explicitly REQUIRES to accommodate people for no other reason than their religious beliefs...
As you say, it's not so much the ideology that makes him stand out; it's the inflexibility. This is segregationist level of refusing to work through the federal system.
Hope is the denial of reality
I'll be interested to see how the GOP reacts in 2020, assuming that (gods forbid) neither Cruz nor Trump ends up in the White House, and whether the 2016 experience was traumatic enough for the party for them to make an effort to halt the rightward/populist stampede and shape up into a sensible right of center party, or if the experience of a Clinton presidency so enrages them that the front runner in 2020 is just a severed pigs head on a stick or something.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
The GOP is going to be a mess regardless. The only viable long-term move would be to banish the crazies, but that would be politically-disastrous I'm the short term and therefore won't be done.
I do know that as long as most GOP voters support the likes of Trump and Cruz, there's no chance in hell I'd vote for a Republican for any national office. And I doubt I'm the only one making that choice. The GOP is at a risk of becoming a party made up entirely of evangelicals and racists.
Hope is the denial of reality
I wonder how much those two have in common: Trump's not exactly a paragon of evangelical family values.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
AA is based on race, not religion. The first amendment says nothing about race.
Are you trying to become a Cruz clone? Police patrols might or might not be a bad thing, but sending them to areas entirely on the basis of religion is a clear violation of the first amendment.
Using your logic, the police should patrol black neighborhoods more heavily, whether they're poor or not, or crime-ridden or not. Is that your actual position?
Hope is the denial of reality
Which is why I referenced the 14th amendment...
And no it isn't, simply stating it doesn't make it so. The establishment clause and how it has been interpreted by the courts does not in anyway indicate that law enforcement cannot take into consideration the characteristics of potential threats. At a minimum you would have to show that it causes harm or entangles church and state. That would not be the case.
My actual position is that police should patrol neighborhoods based on if they are crime-ridden. If there is a particularly factor that helps ascertain where threats are (say investigation of predominately Italian places of business if the police are attempting to investigate the mafia in the old days of New York City. The goal isn't to hassle Italians but to do police work and they have a lead to do it with) then the police should be free to do it.
The bottom line is that when confronting the ugly specter of suicide bombings is that the only unifying characteristic is that the perpetrators are Muslim Jihadists. Being politically correct and leaving us open to more attacks is absolutely insane. No other religious group in the modern day acts like this. Does that mean we should ban Muslims or attack Muslims or anything like that? No but additional investigation and keeping your eyes open isn't illegal or unconstitutional.
You're not impinging on establishment, Lewk, you're screwing around with free exercise and the Court has, in fact, long held that if there are non-religion metrics which the government can use to accomplish the same purpose, it should be using those rather than referring to religion. And that would be the case here.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Once again if there is harm being done then there is no violation of free exercise. To be fair - I don't think religion should be the ONLY criteria but that it isn't inherently illegal or wrong to use it when *investigating* potential terrorists ties. If you know mosques are recruiting grounds do you have to also investigate churches and synagogues just to also investigate mosques? No - that's stupid.
If you know specific mosques are recruiting grounds you can investigate them because you're investigating that other evidence. You cannot investigate all mosques, lacking evidence of anything besides the fac that Allah is worshiped on their premises. That interferes with free exercise and any blind man can see how. It doesn't even MATTER if you're also investigating synagogues or churches because, again, it's not an establishment issue. You are interfering with the free exercise of the Islamic religion, harassing and surveilling with no basis but their choice of worship, regardless of what you're doing with other worship premises.
And no, Lewk, the fact that some other people in some other place who are Muslim are engaging in or have engaged in terrorist activities is not evidence.
You're not just violating the 1st amendment here, by the way, but also the 4th. Search and seizure without due process, i.e. surveillance without any kind of probable cause or even suspicion.
Last edited by LittleFuzzy; 03-28-2016 at 06:06 AM.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
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