The Crazy Cruz Control Thread.

[retromike22]

It's been what, 3 days? Post all future Crazy Cruz stories in this thread, we don't want to clutter the 2016 board.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/ted-cruz-global-warming_n_6940188.html

Ted Cruz, the junior U.S. senator from Texas and first official contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, compared people who think that the climate is warming to "flat-Earthers" and described himself as a modern-day Galileo in an interview with the Texas Tribune.

"On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don't engage in reasoned debate," Cruz said in an interview with reporter Jay Root on Tuesday. "What do they do? They scream, 'You're a denier.' They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier."

[BaconBacon96]

He compared scientists to flat-Earthers!? Christ help us.

[Ebsy]

He compared scientists to flat-Earthers!? Christ help us.

No, Christ help Ted Cruz. I don't know if God wants him to win the Republican nomination, but I sure as hell do.

[Pyro]

This just keeps getting better and better.

[King]

Perhaps Cruz is looking to get Democratic PAC money to support him in a Todd Akin strategy.

[Ebsy]

Perhaps Cruz is looking to get Democratic PAC money to support him in a Todd Akin strategy.

I'll call up Claire and see what we can set up. He is the "true conservative," after all.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

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Most polemical discussions of Galileo are historically misinformed, but that sentence takes the cake.

[Ebsy]

Galileo mostly was in trouble because he made a not so subtle dig at the Pope by naming the person who argues for a flat earth(a stand in for the pope) "Simplicio" (basically simpleton) in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems".

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Most polemical discussions of Galileo are historically misinformed, but that sentence takes the cake.

As Carl Sagan said, "The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Galileo mostly was in trouble because he made a not so subtle dig at the Pope by naming the person who argues for a flat earth(a stand in for the pope) "Simplicio" (basically simpleton) in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems".

The argument was over a geocentric universe, not a flat earth. No person of any learning believed the earth was flat in the 17th century (and hardly any in the 12th century for that matter).

[Ebsy]

Galileo mostly was in trouble because he made a not so subtle dig at the Pope by naming the person who argues for a flat earth(a stand in for the pope) "Simplicio" (basically simpleton) in his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems".

The argument was over a geocentric universe, not a flat earth. No person of any learning believed the earth was flat in the 17th century (and hardly any in the 12th century for that matter).

My mistake. I knew that, but Ted Cruz' stupidity is rubbing off on me. I had to argue the case that Galileo was a heretic in history class a few years ago. It was an interesting exercise, to say the least.

[andrew_c]

Jerry Brown was right. Cruz is so crazy he's indeed unfit for office.

[Mr. Illini]

I'm starting to think that maybe even the tea party groups won't buy this level of right-wing pandering, but I've been proven wrong in the past.

[retromike22]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ted-cruz-second-amendment-government-tyranny

"The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution isn't for just protecting hunting rights, and it's not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny -- for the protection of liberty," Cruz wrote to supporters in a fundraising email on Thursday, under the subject line "2nd Amendment against tyranny."

[Ebsy]

He's not exactly wrong.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

He's not exactly wrong.

Being exactly wrong would be too much to expect from the wanna-be Christian Jihadi President. He's fractally wrong.

[Mr. Reactionary]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/ted-cruz-second-amendment-government-tyranny

"The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution isn't for just protecting hunting rights, and it's not only to safeguard your right to target practice. It is a Constitutional right to protect your children, your family, your home, our lives, and to serve as the ultimate check against governmental tyranny -- for the protection of liberty," Cruz wrote to supporters in a fundraising email on Thursday, under the subject line "2nd Amendment against tyranny."

Sounds like he's read the Heller decision. Not surprising since he used to clerk for SCOTUS.

[AelroseB]

He's almost the George Wallace of our time:  An educated southerner with a populist niche who appeals to the radical, conservative base--and the emotional sentiments--of the country. 

[CapoteMonster]

He's almost the George Wallace of our time:  An educated southerner with a populist niche who appeals to the radical, conservative base--and the emotional sentiments--of the country. 

No, he's more like Joe McCarthy.

[retromike22]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/03/ted-cruz-joe-biden_n_7507284.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3pTbkn13z0

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) made a crass and poorly timed joke about Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday, days after Biden's son Beau died from brain cancer.

According to Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood, Cruz was speaking at a meeting of the Livingston County Republican Party outside Detroit when he mocked Biden.

"Vice President Joe Biden. You know the nice thing? You don't need a punch line," Cruz said.

Biden's son Beau died on Saturday from brain cancer. The family is holding a public viewing on Thursday in Dover, Delaware. On Saturday, President Barack Obama is to deliver a eulogy at the funeral in Wilmington, Delaware.

Livengood said on Twitter that when he asked Cruz after the event why he joked about Biden, given the timing, Cruz simply "turned and walked away."

Cruz later apologized in a post on his Facebook page.

"It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize," Cruz wrote. "The loss of his son is heartbreaking and tragic, and our prayers are very much with the Vice President and his family."

[Ebsy]

Screw Ted Cruz.

[Slander and/or Libel]

He's not exactly wrong.

Is there contextual support for the position that the Founders put the Second Amendment into the Constitution so that citizens would be able to use guns against the government?

[RINO Tom]

I really hope he doesn't drop out.  Need several crazies to divide up the Tea Party vote and pave the way for Kasich.

[/]

http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2015/06/ted_cruz_duggars_right_wing.html

[Mr. Reactionary]

He's not exactly wrong.

Is there contextual support for the position that the Founders put the Second Amendment into the Constitution so that citizens would be able to use guns against the government?

Yes. The entire debate about standing armies suggests as much. Why fear standing armies unless there is also fear that the lawful government could use said standing armies for tyrannical purposes.

See Federalist 46 for example: "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it."

See also, the Virginia Declaration of rights: "A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

Eldebridge Gerry, 1 Annals of Cong. 749-50 (1789): “What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Now, it must be evident, that, under this provision, together with their other powers, Congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as to make a standing army necessary. Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”

Joeph Story's Commentaries Sec. 1890: " The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."


I wrote an academic paper on the constitutional right of revolution this past Spring. I can email it to you if you'd like to read a more in depth analysis.