Cruz is better than Trump or Rubio, due to the Rand Factor - Let's Caucus for Cruz

[Gh34]

Wow with these threads...

My impression of the Ron Paul Movement was always that the changing of the foreign policy (and hearts and minds) was of utmost importance. The domestic side (other than End the Fed) was a gradual fight.

Supporting Ted Cruz doesn't lead in this direct.

Bingo, as Ron Paul said, you can't have small government while you focus on an aggressive interventionist foreign policy. Ron Paul's support ballooned due to the frustrations with big government and the Iraq War. Could you imagine someone like Cruz, a Bush administration iraq war loving lackey running against Paul in 2008?

 

[Rad]

If libertarians vote their transformation to the dark side will be complete!

 

[Gh34]

I'm not quite as ethically libertarian as most people here on foreign policy, though it is the issue I am most open minded on, and will keep developing on it through the years. Therefore I don't have the "man this pisses me off so much that this is a dealbreaker" reaction to Cruz's foreign policy. I am however, very fiscally conservative on the military, and believe that we can save more lives in the long term by preventing ourselves from going deep into debt today from military spending. I also see a lot of danger in things like toppling Assad, and one thing Cruz is consistent on is warning about the dangers of toppling dictators & leaving power vacuums. I still see no evidence that Trump or Rubio would be better than Cruz as President. Rubio is the most hawkish out of all the Republicans. On paper, Trump is supposed to be one of the least hawkish, but in the debate today he said he wants to "make the military stronger than ever"; Trump panders to pro-war Republicans more than anyone else by talking big on the military, while at the same time trying to be fiscally conservative. I don't trust Trump at all, and he doesn't understand freedom issues.

I think one of the reasons I perceive Cruz differently than a lot of people here is because I'm a paleocon, whereas a lot of you are pure Libertarians. You guys compromise from farther "left" to support Rand Paul, and so going from Rand to Cruz is two leaps for you guys, rather than one leap for me. I am pretty socially conservative, and agree with Rand on almost everything, though he is a bit too marijuana friendly for my traditional values, and I'm a little flexible on foreign policy for humanitarian reasons. Another difference between me and much of yourselves is that I hate Socialism much more than half-establishment foreign policy. This is because I see Socialism as a long-term threat to permanent freedom loss, and our youth may fall for it as they get sucked further and further into the follies of instant gratification. Note: Obviously none of the Republicans are Socialists, so bringing this up may seem irrelevant, but it's to further give you an idea of my mentality as a voter; it shows why I can't stand someone who tries to make being more left on the economy popular for conservatives, like Trump and Kasich do. An aggressive foreign policy however, is nowhere near the same threat to permanent freedom loss as Socialism, as there will always be those in the U.S. that want to pull out of most foreign situations (I guess we can thank the liberals for that). So the idea of non-internationalism is extremely hard to kill in this country, as opposed to conservative economics; left wing economics are a threat to kill not just conservative economics, but the passion for them; a new generation that is born into a Socialist country which only has a healthy national debt due to less military spending will not be able to realize the moral follies of the rules they live under. The biggest long term threat about an Establishment-aggressive foreign policy, like Rubio's, is that we'd get stuck in a war that we can't pull out of, and the national debt would skyrocket (like it did under George W. Bush). Ted Cruz on the other hand, does not want a war that we are helplessly chained to for a long time (e.g. a ground war). He illustrated this well in today's debate when he said "We hit them with force...and then we get the heck out." (forget exact quote).

You're not a paleocon. Palecons like Buchanan are supporting Trump. The original US was heavily built on tariffs and non-interventionism, and featured many government infrastructure projects (like Lincoln, etc.), that's pretty close to Trump, and no one else.

Cruz supports none of those policies, he is neither a paleocon nor a libertarian, and is backed by neocon donors, therefore he is a variety of neocon pandering to libertarians. Actually, Cruz said he is open to ground boots in Iraq.

 

[Brett85]

Cruz supported the Iraq War, the only 3 candidates who were against it, were Rand, Trump and Carson.

That's not really true. Cruz never took a position on the Iraq War except to say that it went on for too long, and that we made a mistake by getting bogged down in nation building. Trump never spoke out against the Iraq War before we went in there either. He didn't come out publicly and say that he opposed the war until about a year into the war.

 

[Brett85]

You're not a paleocon. Palecons like Buchanan are supporting Trump. The original US was heavily built on tariffs and non-interventionism, and featured many government infrastructure projects (like Lincoln, etc.), that's pretty close to Trump, and no one else.

Cruz supports none of those policies, he is neither a paleocon nor a libertarian, and is backed by neocon donors, therefore he is a variety of neocon pandering to libertarians. Actually, Cruz said he is open to ground boots in Iraq.

I like Pat Buchanan. I would support Pat Buchanan in a heartbeat over Cruz if Buchanan were running for President. But, Trump is certainly no Buchanan. Buchanan just likes Trump because Trump is anti free trade and anti immigration, but they have very little in common on anything else. Trump's foreign policy certainly isn't non interventionist when he says that he wants to steal oil from the Middle East, kill the families of terrorists, and double or triple the sanctions on Iran. He's even on record as wanting to invade Mexico.

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/12/we_...hes_iraq_war_suggests_a_different_one_report/

 

[Gh34]

That's not really true. Cruz never took a position on the Iraq War except to say that it went on for too long, and that we made a mistake by getting bogged down in nation building. Trump never spoke out against the Iraq War before we went in there either. He didn't come out publicly and say that he opposed the war until about a year into the war.

He was a Bush crony, and was in favor of it at the time, otherwise he would have come out against it, same with Jeb. Jeb is also saying the Iraq War is a mistake now. With Trump, we don't know, but apparently Trump always hated Bush, and maybe never trusted him on anything. On the other hand Rand and Carson definitely opposed it for the right reasons.

 

[Warlord]

Cruz is a George W. Bush loyalist. His wife Heidi wrote a chapter in a book called "thank you George W. Bush".

 

[Gh34]

I like Pat Buchanan. I would support Pat Buchanan in a heartbeat over Cruz if Buchanan were running for President. But, Trump is certainly no Buchanan. Buchanan just likes Trump because Trump is anti free trade and anti immigration, but they have very little in common on anything else. Trump's foreign policy certainly isn't non interventionist when he says that he wants to steal oil from the Middle East, kill the families of terrorists, and double or triple the sanctions on Iran. He's even on record as wanting to invade Mexico.

http://www.salon.com/2015/07/12/we_...hes_iraq_war_suggests_a_different_one_report/

Trump/Jeb are relatively reasonable candidates who do not want to tear up the Iran deal compared to warhawks Rubio/Cruz. With regards to the oil, he says he wants Iraq 'to pay for it', but that he wouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place. He's saying that even Mexico would have been a better choice than Iraq if an invasion had to be done somewhere. If he had gotten rid of the cartels, it probably would have been cheaper and more effective.

 

[Brett85]

Trump/Jeb are relatively reasonable candidates who do not want to tear up the Iran deal compared to warhawks Rubio/Cruz. With regards to the oil, he says he wants Iraq 'to pay for it', but that he wouldn't have gone into Iraq in the first place. He's saying that even Mexico would have been a better choice than Iraq if an invasion had to be done somewhere. If he had gotten rid of the cartels, it probably would have been cheaper and more effective.

Well, Jeb is for nation building in the Middle East, was for the war in Libya, and is for toppling Assad, all things that Cruz is against. I think that Trump is halfway decent on foreign policy, but his views on civil liberties and economics are so terrible that it kind of cancels out his decent foreign policy stances. When you look at the totality of the issues, I think Cruz is closer to our views than any of the other candidates. I understand not wanting to ever vote for the lesser evil, but if you're a somewhat more pragmatic person like me, I think that Cruz is a better choice than the others.

 

[Gh34]

Well, Jeb is for nation building in the Middle East, was for the war in Libya, and is for toppling Assad, all things that Cruz is against. I think that Trump is halfway decent on foreign policy, but his views on civil liberties and economics are so terrible that it kind of cancels out his foreign policy stances. When you look at the totality of the issues, I think Cruz is closer to our views than any of the other candidates. I understand not wanting to ever vote for the lesser evil, but if you're a somewhat more pragmatic person like me, I think that Cruz is a better choice than the others.

Cruz was for the Iraq War, he was also for 'nation building'. He's a con-artist, who flipflopped to appeal to Rand's voters.

https://web.archive.org/web/20130727090554/http://www.cruz.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=344135

Cruz argued for intervention in Syria to take out Assad's chemical weapons, he's just lucky he only joined the senate in 2013 and not earlier, where he would have been more easily exposed.

Cruz is no 'lesser evil', Rubio is right about him, all of his positions are 'calculated', just like on immigration, he has the same policy as Rand, 'non-citizen legal status', yet he tries to be as evasive as possible when questioned exactly on his policies and act as though he was the 'only one against amnesty', to feed into his fictional constructed narrative, his marketed brand.

 

[Brett85]

Cruz was for the Iraq War, he was also for 'nation building'.

Link?

 

[Gh34]

Link?

At the CNN September debate, when Trump said he was the only one against the Iraq War, only Carson and Rand spoke up, whereas, Cruz's position is akin to Jeb's. Both Jeb/Cruz are saying it is a mistake in retrospect, but that based on the available information at the time, the war was justifiable.

 

[erowe1]

At the CNN September debate, when Trump said he was the only one against the Iraq War, only Carson and Rand spoke up, whereas, Cruz's position is akin to Jeb's. Both Jeb/Cruz are saying it is a mistake in retrospect, but that based on the available information at the time, the war was justifiable.

Link?

 

[Brett85]

At the CNN September debate, when Trump said he was the only one against the Iraq War, only Carson and Rand spoke up, whereas, Cruz's position is akin to Jeb's. Both Jeb/Cruz are saying it is a mistake in retrospect, but that based on the available information at the time, the war was justifiable.

Cruz's position that he's taken in interviews is that he didn't know how he would've voted on the Iraq war because he wasn't in the Senate at the time and didn't get a chance to review the intelligence. It's the same answer that he gave in last night's debate when asked a question against North Korea. He's also been consistent in saying that we stayed in Iraq for too long and shouldn't have engaged in nation building.

 

[Gh34]

Link?

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/09/16/cnn-reagan-library-debate-later-debate-full-transcript/

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/13/ted-cruz-of-course-invading-iraq-was-a-mistake/

He's justifying the Iraq war based on available intelligence at the time: “That’s the reason there was such widespread bipartisan support for going into Iraq."

Then is using the same logic as Jeb, in saying that the Iraq war was a mistake in retrospect:
“Knowing what we know now, of course we wouldn’t go into Iraq,”

It's opposite to Ron Paul's position, who believed that the intelligence was wrong from the start.

 

[Gh34]

Cruz's position that he's taken in interviews is that he didn't know how he would've voted on the Iraq war because he wasn't in the Senate at the time and didn't get a chance to review the intelligence. It's the same answer that he gave in last night's debate when asked a question against North Korea. He's also been consistent in saying that we stayed in Iraq for too long and shouldn't have engaged in nation building.

He is being purposely evasive, but he worked for Bush, and was in favor of it at the time, which is why he didn't speak up, and only Rand and Carson did.
Jeb is also saying that Iraq was a mistake now, he's using the same logic as Jeb and is effectively taking the same position as Jeb on Iraq.

 

[nikcers]

Can you maple syrup chuggers tell me who said this?

“Knowing what we know now, of course we wouldn’t go into Iraq,

“At the time, the intelligence reports indicated that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction that posed a significant national security threat"

anti-neocon position - knowing what we knew then we should not of gone into Iraq because neocons planted the false intelligence

neocon position -
of course knowing what we now know of course we wouldn't go in there

 

[Brett85]

...

 

[Brett85]

He is being purposely evasive, but he worked for Bush, and was in favor of it at the time, which is why he didn't speak up, and only Rand and Carson did.
Jeb is also saying that Iraq was a mistake now, he's using the same logic as Jeb and is effectively taking the same position as Jeb on Iraq.

That's a fair point. Obviously Cruz isn't a liberty candidate, and Rand would've been far preferable to Cruz. I've just argued that Cruz is better than the other candidates when you look at the totality of the issues, not just foreign policy. But again, I understand and respect the argument against voting for the lesser of two evils. I didn't vote for Romney in 2012 and vote 3rd party instead of Republican in some races. But, at the same time I don't feel like I should have to vote a certain way just because people in the liberty movement are telling me to vote a certain way. I really resent that, and it makes me more likely to vote for Cruz because I don't like being told what to do and that I have think a certain way in order to be a member of a certain group. That's a dangerous way of thinking and not at all consistent with the cause of liberty. Everyone is a unique individual and is going to do what he or she thinks is right. We don't need to all just force ourselves to think a certain way in order to belong to a certain group.

 

[nikcers]

Brett85;6126807]That's a fair point. Obviously Cruz isn't a liberty candidate, and Rand would've been far preferable to Cruz. I've just argued that Cruz is better than the other candidates I don't feel like I should have to vote a certain why just because people in the liberty movement are telling me to vote a certain way.

The problem is you were defending Cruz as a liberty candidate even before Rand dropped out. You promised me you would stop posting and come back on here when Rand lost and endorsed Cruz.