Has Ted Cruz gone from being an anti-Trump presidential candidate to a defender of free speech?
When I was first introduced to Ted Cruz during the Republican Primary debates, I saw him as basically another establishment candidate with special interests and ulterior motives, just like the bulk of them on either side.
Ted’s Dark Side
I may have been partially right, but people have a tendency to highlight only the bad when talking about politicians which are opposed somehow to the one’s that they like. In my case it was Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, and Donald Trump that I was a fan of, but you can really see this in partisan “Democrats vs. Republicans” politics that plagues so much of mainstream culture. Luckily, however, this is slowly changing.
In the case of Ted Cruz, there were plenty of things not to like about the guy during the debates. There was the sex scandal which the National Enquirer first reported on March 23, 2016, where although Cruz immediately denied the validity of the story, private investigators allegedly uncovered at least five extra-marital affairs Ted was involved in. Usually I’m monumentally uninterested in the gossip that the National Enquirer has to offer, but in the case of a self-proclaimed evangelical Christian running for president, I think that this is one case of newsworthy gossip.
During the primaries, Ted and his father Rafael were accused of subscribing to something called “Christian Dominionism,” which is essentially the idea that Christian values should rule as law over the people. Similar to Sharia Law for Islam but anchored in a country which was founded almost exclusively by Christians and Deist’s, excluding Thomas Paine, however Dominionism fails to reflect the fact that America was founded on the core principal of separation of church and state which Thomas Jefferson wrote about at length. Most Americans would like to keep it that way.
You can watch a speech that Cruz’s father gave on Dominionism here:
Another scandal involving Rafael Cruz, Ted’s father, and Lee Harvey Oswald also plagued his campaign. If you’re interested, you can read about the whole primary process in Roger Stone’s book The Making of the President 2016.
Anyway, the point is that I am in no way covering for Ted Cruz or suddenly lacking criticism. I have the same skepticism about Ted that I do with most politicians, though even more so because of his clear aspirations to power and these shady dealings involving his and his father’s past.
Ted’s Light Side
On the other hand, as much as I disliked Ted during the primaries, in retrospect I can see that he may not have been quite as bad as I originally thought. Mostly because of recent events, I can see why Ben Shapiro took a liking to him.
Cruz Questions Sanders on Taxes
During a debate with Bernie Sanders, Ted asked one simple question, which really made me think about the democratic party in a different way.
He asked, “what is the difference between a socialist and a democrat on taxes?” Bernie couldn’t think of an answer, instead going into a long pathos argument which attempted to justify the anger of the populous and direct it toward conservatives, claiming that America is “the wealthiest country in the world” so it should be able to fund countless expensive programs. And we are incredibly wealthy, unless of course you count the 20 Trillion dollars in debt we have to somehow pay off, and the military we have to fund in order to protect the countries which have all these social programs that Bernie loves so much.
However, the question still remains. It seems to me that democrat tax policies are going consistently to the left, suggesting no clear end goal other than pure socialism. Considering that according to a 2010 Gallup poll 61% of self-identified liberals and 53% of self-identified democrats have a “positive view” of socialism, and that number has likely increased greatly since the rise and fall of Bernie Sanders, it isn’t likely that there is much of a difference.
Ted Cruz Endorses Donald Trump for President
Whether you like Trump or not, the republican primaries were undebatable gruesome. Insults were thrown all over the place and scandals broke surrounding both Trump and Cruz which each used to attack the other, particularly against Ted. It takes a big person to come out and endorse the person who’s been insulting you week after week, presumably for the betterment of the country.
Ted Cruz Stands Up for Free Speech on the Internet
In terms of major political issues, free speech should be number one in Americans’ minds. This is why I was excited to see Ted Cruz recently question spokespeople for Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube over whether or not they considered themselves a free and open forum. Two out of the three would not give a straight answer.
This was spurred in part by the recent leaked tape of a former Twitter software engineer making claims that the platform “shadow banned” conservative users, which essentially means that their viewership goes way down, but they don’t realize that they’ve actually been placed in limbo – where there content is distributed to virtually nobody. This type of hidden censorship is very concerning, and as Cruz said, cannot exist in an open public forum.
“The idea of a shadow ban is that you ban someone but they don’t know they’ve been banned, because they keep posting and no one sees their content. So, they just think that no one is engaging with their content, when in reality, no one is seeing it…If it was a pro-Trump thing and I’m anti-Trump. … I banned his whole account … it’s at your discretion.” – Abhinov Vadrevu, Former Twitter Software Employee
I’m excited and hopeful to see Ted Cruz continue to fight for much needed free speech and sound fiscal policy.
About the Author
Phillip Schneider is a staff writer and assistant editor for Waking Times. If you would like to see more of his work, you can visit his Website, like his Facebook Page, or follow him on the free speech social network Minds.
This article (Is Ted Cruz Coming to the Light Side?) was originally published by Phillip Schneider and may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author credit, and this copyright statement.