Ignoring Red Flags on Cruz and the Collapse of Honesty on the Right

"Without truth, there is no freedom." - Paul C. Roberts

When mixed up leftist pagans ignore discordant feedback from reality and re-interpret every piece of evidence to conform to their feelings it does not surprise me. I expect people who are not grounded in any truth larger than their own feelings to fall into such error. There is a class of people who treats truth not as an end, but as a tool. A tool to be picked up and used when it aids the cause of whatever it is that they really love more and then set aside when it no longer serves that purpose. Such people have always been with us. I expect the wicked to do just that because they don't love the truth. What scares me, yes the fear is real, is that I now see people who I consider level-headed orthodox conservative Christians doing the same thing.

When people like that choose to toss aside lasting principle for temporary political expediency, I worry. When people like that refuse to honestly face the facts set before them in favor of making an emotional decision first and then using their reason not to find truth, but rather to justify support for some politician, I become alarmed. If these people won't accept discordant feedback from reality, who will? Who will be the conscience of a society when even the most honest among us has subordinated honesty to faith. Not faith in Christ, but blind faith in a political system and political figures which have not earned it? I know many of us are fearful because of the speed at which our culture has become coarsened. We may not be in charge anymore. That is a hard thing to face, but we can still be the conscience of a culture even if we are not running it. We can, if that is, we hold fast to our integrity even while we lose everything else.

The red flags on Cruz are abundant, even if we ignore the eligibility issue. We shouldn't, because it is a disgrace for all of these self-professed "Constitutional Conservatives" to dismiss the issue out of hand. Here is an article from a Harvard law professor which refutes point by point all of the arguments Mark Levin and others use to try to make the case that Cruz is a Natural Born Citizen. And if he can get around that there is another argument to be made against his eligibility on 14th amendment grounds. I have actually had people, people I respect, make the argument to me that since "Obama got away with it then it is a moot issue". Even if it were true that "Obama got away with it" there is no surer way to destroy all rule of law in America than to divide us into two groups and say "whenever a member of the other team gets away with breaking a rule then my team should not be bound by it thereafter."  It's the collapse of principle, the end of accountability, and the sunset of honesty.

During the race for the U.S. Senate Cruz failed to report on his Campaign Finance Report a million dollars worth of loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank. He put it in a report that comes out later and is less scrutinized, but he illegally left it off of the report that mattered to the election. It did not fit the narrative of his being an outsider running against the establishment and it was quite convenient for his campaign that he "forgot" to include it in his Campaign Finance Report. Maybe it was an honest mistake, after all, who among us hasn't gotten a million dollar loan from Goldman Sachs that we forgot about?

When it is discovered that his wife was a member of the CFR and contributed to a globalist report called "building a North American Community" the Canadian born candidate said it was just so she could work from the inside to make it better. Better globalism is still globalism. Much like I don't want Republicans who will do socialism "more efficiently" than the Democrats, I don't want Republicans who will do an EU type merger in North America more efficiently. Our constitution will not survive the transition. Cruz called the CFR a "pernicious snake" to a conservative audience, yet his counselors on foreign affairs include James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, former CIA director and Goldman Sachs banker Chad Sweet, and a host of other CFR type Neocons. 

Cruz has made a science of telling various groups of people what they want to hear. I mean that literally. One of the ways he did so well in Iowa was that he spent large amounts of money on obtaining the personal information of eligible voters. Then he sent people door to door and instructed his partisans to adjust what they said not only to what the hot button issues of the potential voter was but also to change the manner of delivery to fit the emotional style of that voter. They had a list of people who cared about legalizing fireworks, so to them the message, delivered in whatever emotional tone the database file said most appealed to the individual voter, was that Cruz was sympathetic to legalizing fireworks.
Not only do I think taking it that far is kind of creepy. it also means we have little idea who Ted Cruz really is. Does he wrap himself in the flag and wave the Cross around because that is who Ted Cruz really is, or because that is something that has "worked for him" for most of his life? How will he respond in a situation where it doesn't work for him?

Then there was the "Voter Violation" forms the Cruz campaign sent out on official looking stationary to people who fit the profile of likely Cruz voters. It showed the voter's name and what purported to be their "score" for voting. It also showed what it purported to be the scores of some of their neighbors. None of these "scores" were high, most failing, and it said they could "raise their score" by attending the caucus. Many suspect the "scores" were made up and the Iowa Secretary of State condemned the use of the tactic. If so it would be like sending a letter to your neighbors which listed you as getting an "F" in civic responsibility, even if you voted in every election.

Then there is the matter of the Cruz team twisting a CNN report that said rival Ben Carson was going home to Florida for a break after Iowa into a false rumor that Carson was leaving the race.When team Carson heard the rumor was out there they immediately put out a statement denying it. Even after that, high-level people in the Cruz campaign continued to tell people that it looked like Carson was getting out and to tell Carson people to switch to Cruz. The night passed and they never issued a correction.
The idea behind spreading the falsehood was to get Carson supporters at Iowa to switch to Cruz based on false information promulgated by the Cruz team that Carson was on his way out. Cruz performed better than entrance polls suggested and Carson worse. Carson was furious.

  "“A culture exists within the Cruz camp that would allow people to take advantage of a situation like this in a very dishonest way,” the usually reserved Carson fumed."

When you get the low-key nice guy Carson fired up, you have done something. Do I think Cruz personally ordered anyone to spread false information about Carson? No. But I think team Cruz has a destructive religious approach to politics instead of a constructive approach, and that goes right down to his grassroots. A destructive approach starts with the assumption that God is on our team so whatever we can use to help us win must be OK and our transgressions are just honest mistakes not an indication we need to be introspective. A constructive religious approach says that we should be on God's team and as such we need to constantly examine our actions and motivations to make sure our conduct reflects well on Him whom we serve.

What I find when I report facts like this is that my friends who support Cruz reach for any excuse to dismiss evidence which is contrary to their desires. A common reason is to say the information comes from a "liberal" source. But does it matter WHO reports a tweet or email from the Cruz campaign so long as the contents of the communication are relayed accurately? Of course not, its just an excuse to reject factual information which disproves some delusion that a person might love more than the truth. Amazingly, I have had some of them blame CNN for the bad information put out by team Cruz. This is even though they themselves will not accept any info from CNN.  I shudder when I hear them argue that no intelligent person should trust any information that comes from CNN and at the same time say that Team Cruz should not be held responsible for putting out bad information because they got it from CNN. This even though what they "got" from CNN is not what CNN actually reported, they did not bother to correct it after Carson put out the denials, and Cruz apologized for the wrongdoing. It is cognitive dissonance and it is frightening.

I can remember back in the 1990s after Bill Clinton finally admitted to inappropriate behavior with Monica Lewinsky. A reporter from up north went to southwest Arkansas, a Clinton stronghold, and asked for their reaction to Clinton's behavior. He was shocked to find that Clinton's supporters still refused to acknowledge that he was guilty. They refused to accept that he had behaved poorly even after he himself admitted it. I dared in my youthful arrogance to have scorn for them of their dysfunctional hero-worship. I should not have looked down on them. How can I continue to look up at my friends who not only seem unwilling to accept that Cruz can do wrong, but even that his campaign can do wrong? I mean, the man himself has already apologized for the actions of his campaign, but his acolytes want to blame CNN and Ben Carson.

PS- I will not be casting a vote for President in the primary election, I accept that the system is broken and we the People need to make new arrangements for political representation, so no you can't dismiss this as the rantings of a Trump supporter. I just want people to be honest. I just want people to admit what is, rather than pretend things are as we might wish them to be.