Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
Posted on 02/19/2014 11:14:41 AM PST by jazusamo
Senator Ted Cruz is a hero in some Republican circles — and the opposite among many of his Senate Republican colleagues.
At this crucial juncture in the history of America, internal battles within the only party that can turn things around are the last thing Americans need. Moreover, each side in this political civil war has all too many valid criticisms of the other.
The Republican establishment’s criticisms of Senator Cruz are criticisms of his rule-or-ruin strategy, which can destroy whatever chance Republicans have of taking back the Senate in 2014 and taking back the White House in 2016. And, without political power, there is no real hope of changing things in Washington.
Senator Cruz’s filibuster last year got the Republicans blamed for shutting down the government — and his threatened filibuster this year forced several Republican Senators to jeopardize their own reelection prospects by voting to impose cloture, to prevent Cruz from repeating his self-serving grandstand play of last year. The Republicans need every vote they can get in the Senate — plus additional votes by defeating some Democrats who are running for the Senate this fall. It can be a very close call. Jeopardizing the reelection of current Republican Senators is an act of utter irresponsibility, a high risk with zero benefits to anyone except Ted Cruz — and the Democrats.
However unjustified Senator Cruz’s actions, the very fact that a freshman Senator can so quickly gain so many supporters, with so much enthusiasm, ought to be a loud warning to the Republican establishment that they have long been a huge disappointment to a wide range of Republican voters and supporters.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Maybe Dr Sowell took a lot of heat from yesterday’s column/Part I. He’s come around, somewhat, with Part II.
Maybe he’ll write a Part III and be back on the right track, and back to his self :)
You almost got it right.
There is NO LOGICAL DIFFERENCE between promoting a course that you think is right and, when you are the perceived leader of that cause, trying to advance your own position in that cause.
They are indistinguishable.
That is why it’s a meaningless accusation.
You might criticize grandiosity, hubris, boastfulness, vanity, pomposity, but I haven’t seen Cruz show any of those negative characteristics.
Are you suggesting that when Obama becomes a dictator that we can all blame the divisive Ted Cruz and the Tea Party?
Well he already is a dictator and so far Ted Cruz (and maybe Mike Lee) is the only politician I have seen who has dared to point that fact out to the American Public. Everbody else seems to have their heads buried in the sand hoping that Obama will just go away.
I see that Sowell was accusing the Republican estabishment of having no principle, not the Tea Party. Sorry. I misread that the first time. I went back and reread because you all were saying it was a better piece than the last one, so I realized I must have misread.
He has written these artfully as a pair. He has the main line thinking from part one that the great conservative Sowell has come to their aid. In part two, he damns them with the subtitle to Part II stating, “GOP Leaders ignore his appeal at GOP’s own peril.”
Sowell is nothing if not briliant and a tremendous communicator. He is showing the peril of the division and to get the old guard’s absolute and full attention, he ran part one first which showed the new turk’s shortcomings and discribed the situation and peril of the division.
Now, with the old gaurds avid attention, he damns them for ineffectiveness in the first place showing the need for Cruz and others of that faction’s actions.
In two parts, he gets their absolute and full attention to the weakness of the division and demands, by citing Hitler, that it has to be done without fail.
He is telling all of us on the right/conservative side of the spectrum to JOIN OR DIE.
He may have backtracked a bit, but his use of the words "however unjustified" suggest that he intends to give no quarter to Ted Cruz in his war against the establishment.
It is clear that Sowell would like the GOP to be more like Ted Cruz but he doesn't want anyone to actually be like Ted Cruz. Such incongruity I have never seen from Sowell.
I absolutely fail to see his point in these two columns. Maybe he had a brain fart yesterday, but today he seems to double down while at the same time making a vain attempt at backtracking. I expect this kind of double talk from politicians, but Thomas Sowell is supposed to be a conservative philosopher.
Good Hunting... from Varmint Al
If that's what he's saying he's wasting his breath. The GOP-E is a liberal, cronyist, big government loving aristocracy.
And, if that's what he's saying, then why has he attacked Ted Cruz in both articles?
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The effects of human wickedness are written on the page of history in characters of blood: but the impression soon fades away; so more blood must be shed to renew it.
~Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827
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[I]t was that there are no simple lessons in history, that it is human nature that repeats itself, not history.
~John Toland
But his part II makes no sense at all. He seems to have it in for Cruz for taking a principled stand but then criticizes the GOP for not taking a principled stand.
He thinks he can have it both ways.
He is being excoriated over this second part just as he was the first part. I don't know if he is just going to drop the subject, or if we will see some more backtracking tomorrow in Part III followed by Part IV and Part V.
I am sorely disappointed in Mr. Sowell's careless articles over the last 2 days. Whatever point he was trying to make has been lost in the fog of the contradictory statements he has made in both articles.
I agree. He is definitely not his old self. Come back, Dr Sowell!!
I beg to differ. He wrote the second part after we accused the GOP-e of having no principle (on this forum). He knew we were right and somehow thought he could fix the problem.
I apologize to Dr. Sowell for misreading him. I agree that he is a cogent thinker. That’s why I’m on the Sowell ping list.
Ironically, I think we brought more attention to the weakness of Part I and made our point many times over because of the weakness.
There’s no doubt in my mind Part II was written in reaction to comments on Part I, as you say.
Even though American Spectator shows “COPYRIGHT 2014 CREATORS.COM” at the end of the article it had not been posted on the Creators site for at least an hour after I posted this from AS.
Hopefully this will be his last piece on it for the reason you mentioned.
“However, I really don’t care what motivates a politician so long as they are attempting to support the kind of government I desire. So, it is irrelevant whether Cruz is self-serving.”
A self-serving man will turn on you in a heartbeat. A principled man will not.
Cruz turned on me with his stand on immigration. Want to buy a slightly used daggar? Only been plunged into one back.
I have always been a Sowell fan. In all the years I’ve been reading him, I can’t think of a single article he’s written that I didn’t nod in the direction of the logic of Thomas Sowell. Now, in 2 days straight, he’s really dropped some stinkbombs on both logic, leadership, and policy.
You’ve got to wonder what he’s got against Cruz. Like one guy said on this thread, did Cruz kill his cat or something?
My posts in 33 and 45, I believe make clear that he is attacking both sides and started with Cruz in part one to get the interest and ear of the old guard. He sucked them in.
No unity will be possible in his opinion without each side recognizing the threat he sees.
Are we so tunnel vision enthused about Cruz's tactics that we can't see the risk Sowell is describing?
Are we so happy at being sick of RINOs that we will suffer the death of the Republic to insure the RINO party dies?
Kirk, Hayek and Burke, any of them stalwarts of principle, have all always said with Bismark that politics is the art of the possible. We are warned by Reagan and others that the Perfect can be the enemy of the Good.
Our politicians, new as well as old, must act in unison and that will take accomadation to each other to avoid what Sowell predicts.
I might feel different if Obama hadn't won re-election, but by voter and artiface, such was the case. Only a united front will turn the ship now.
Sowell frequently writes two or three part articles where the later parts drop the other shoe. In the past, he has not called the first article Part One very often -- he did not do it in this case. I don't think that we can assume he didn't see this coming and wrote Part II only in reaction to Part I.
You’re correct on him writing many columns in two to four parts and I believe I’ve posted most all of them in the last 5 or 6 years. Plus I don’t believe he’s ever called the first part Part I, as you said.
This time it seemed to me to be a direct response to criticisms posted on not just this site and AS but others and the way this part was posted at AS without it being posted on Creators, I believe that’s a first.
I have gone back and reread some of his critic of “Tea Party” positions in various articles along with comments that were posted afteward on AS in response to the articles. You could look at his article of the 19th of Novemeber for example.
I don’t see this article, combining Part I and II, as being out of line with his cautions and critique of the hail Mary passes we were using in November.
As I said above, I consider Sowell brilliant and sincere. I think we can come no closer to a good standing apart viewpoint from a scholar than that vantage point of Sowell in general. If he makes a criticism of the hard line conservative position I hold, out of respect for his body of work, I have to ask myself to examine the issue in light of his comments. I know from past experience that my views aren’t infallible.
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