Cruz was showing off one the mnemonics he'd learned as a teenager studying the Constitution:
When Cruz was in his early teens, in Houston, his parents enrolled him in an after-school program run by Rolland Storey, a retired energy executive who wanted to instill the values of the free market in young people... “They created a spinoff group called the Constitutional Corroborators,” Cruz told me. “And they took five of the students, all of whom had been involved on the free-market side, and we focussed on studying the Constitution. So we’d meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for a couple of hours each night, and study the Constitution, read the Federalist Papers, read the Anti-Federalist Papers, read the debates on ratification. And we memorized a shortened mnemonic version of the Constitution.”...
“Ted was just an amazing speaker at fourteen, by far the most impressive student we ever had,” Winston Elliott III, who became affiliated with Storey’s organization when Cruz was a student.... “Our program is very much committed to private property, free markets, and constitutionally limited government.... We brought in a memorization expert. We wanted them to focus on the words. Ted was just an ideal student, because he just absorbed everything, and he came from a conservative family in the first place.”
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The Guy Who Only Uses the Left Side of the Keyboard says:
There s a va d reas why se the eft s de f the eyb ard t s a state e t ab t the art f c a b dar es s c ety aces s a t s t e t a e a sta d a d create y r w tat s.
The Absolutist. That could be the title of a Hugo Black biography.
I think that title is designed to create horror in liberals. They imagine some bad man, some strong bad man, who never compromises and never gives up.
On the other hand, would you be happy if your biography was called, The Compromiser? That word has its own negative connotations.
And I believe these words describe human personalities across the political spectrum. Obama, for instance, is an absolutist. Bill Clinton is a compromiser. People can get mad at both styles.
I believe (strongly!) that we want absolutists in the judiciary. We don't want people who compromise with our liberties, or with the law. That sounds like corruption, right?
On the other hand, "absolutist" sounds like a 9/11 terrorist. You can't reason with an absolutist, or find a middle ground. Hugo Black once got so mad at Felix Frankfurter he tried to strangle him. I have no idea what Frankfurter said to enrage him--no doubt it was some outrageous moral compromise--but we can see how Black's personality would scare people.
If you're an absolutist, or a "fundamentalist," what really, really, really matters is the nature of your god. Black's passion was for the Constitution, for civil liberties, for our freedom of speech. That's the kind of monster I want on my side.
So much crap. I hate Cornyn, although he was honest enough to admit he doesn't give a shit about America, only his power. McCain should have died in Vietnam so as to allow America to live. He must have made a deal with the Devil to kill America with debt, and aliens who hate our culture.
I still don't understand what constitution people read that makes them feel the states have narrow, limited rights and the Fed has unlimited and undefined rights to do whatever the hell it wants.
The 10th Amendment is even written out in the article yet the words are seemingly interpreted in the opposite manner intended.
Power causes myopia.
I like Ted Cruz even more after reading the article. The citizens of Texas are lucky to have him as their Senator. John Cornyn is, as stated above, in so many words, an asshole.
"So we’d meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for a couple of hours each night, and study the Constitution, read the Federalist Papers, read the Anti-Federalist Papers, read the debates on ratification."
What a waste of time. Dude, those documents are, like, at least one hundred years old.
Cornyn: "We need to think about the eighty-twenty rule. We need to get back to the idea that it doesn’t always have to be a hundred per cent our way.”
What a bullshit construct.
Cornyn wants you to believe the formula is 80% victory and 20% compromise, when really it's 80% compromise and 20% surrender.
Moreover, if the 80-20 Rule truly was a two-way proposition, why is it that establishment GOP senators can't seek comity in their own caucus with Cruz on the 20% they are so willing to "compromise" with the Democrats?
A surprisingly fair article. I already liked Cruz and this also makes me like him even more. However, I still like Scott Walker as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016 because he has experience as a governor, which Cruz lacks, and I think that is important.
We should want guys like Cruz in the legislature, but the question is whether he'd be good as chief executive, and there I have my doubts.
He is sort of like Obama's right-side doppelganger, except, you know, actually intelligent and accomplished pre-politics. But Reagan, Clinton and even W had the ability to work with members of the other party - actually, given how much very personal hatred the Dems spewed at W, his ability to work with the likes of Ted Kennedy to get things done is quite amazing. Hard-care Conservatives may not like NCLB, but it was something that W wanted and he got it on a bipartisan basis. Obama has zero ability to work with the GOP House on anything, and yet if he were capable of even appearing halfways reasonable he could probably shame them into quite a bit of cooperation.
Now Cruz is way smarter than Obama, but he also doesn't seem to be able to build relationships with folks on the other side of the aisle - I don't mean BS, sellout McLaim style "Gangs", but finding issues where he can actually connect with some Dems based on truly shared interests.
Wow, as I sit here, I think back to all those remembrances of young obama from the people who knew him.
Everyone else remember all the stories of how serious young obama was?
"Ted was just an ideal student, because he just absorbed everything, and he came from a conservative family in the first place.”
So the idea he's a moron wasn't seen as a truism until he left home.
Interesting,...
Crack is the mouse humping the elephant's leg.
I like Cruz. He fights. We need him.
@T Rellis:
He was clearly pretty serious about scoring his next dime bag.
@Crack:
Unlike a certain half-white President, Cruz's grades and achievements (including a clerkship for the CJ of the USSC) are matters of public record. I don't recall staunch Democrat Professor Alan Dershowitz describing Obama as "off-the-charts brilliant." But maybe I missed it.
You can think Cruz is unwise, even toxic, but to question his intelligence while supporting President Asterisk just calls your own IQ into question.
Ted Cruz WILL be the GOP nominee in 2016.
I don't see anyone else right now who can challenge him.
pawn momma run
Somehow, somehow, that's just stone racist. I just know it.
furious_a,
"Crack is the mouse humping the elephant's leg.
I like Cruz. He fights. We need him."
He also loses - a lot - do "we" need that, to?
Blogger holdfast,
"You can think Cruz is unwise, even toxic, but to question his intelligence while supporting President Asterisk just calls your own IQ into question."
Not really. I mean, "President Asterisk" IS the president,…
Blogger sonicfrog,
"Ted Cruz WILL be the GOP nominee in 2016."
Hey, Ann - Meade - how long have I been predicting that very outcome now?
(I'd ask one of these other white people but they can't be trusted,….)
Ted Cruz WILL be the GOP nominee in 2016.
No. Rand Paul is likely to be the nominee. He is a far, far better politician than Ted Cruz. (Or his father). Rand Paul is an amazing politician. He doesn't appear to be combative at all. Women, and the media, like Rand Paul 1000 times more than Ted Cruz.
I don't see anyone else right now who can challenge him.
The media has been ignoring Rand Paul and focusing all its ire on Ted Cruz. I suspect this is intentional. (I've been watching House of Cards and now I think everything is intentional!). I think these guys are playing the media. Cruz took the leadership in the Obamacare fight. Rand Paul was in the background. The media follows Rules for Radicals and knows they have to personalize the Republicans. Ted Cruz is evil! (And Rand Paul is ignored).
It's a brilliant strategy. Would not surprise me if Paul and Cruz hatch a plan where they both run, Cruz to take all the media hostility and Paul to take the delegates. Ted Cruz makes himself the target, like a blocker, while Rand Paul sprints to daylight, untouched by the media linebackers.
(House of Cards is fun, by the way, and what's especially cool is the bad guy is a Democrat. Liberals do this sort of thing all the time, to the Republican party. It's so "normal" that it's noteworthy when we see something different).
Crack: "I'd ask one of these other white people but they can't be trusted,….)
And yet,by your own admission, you believe and repeat what white people tell you.
I think the mnemonic is actually:
TCCNCCPCC PAWN R[un]M[o]MM[a] WAN
Taxes
Credit
Commerce
Naturalization
Coinage
Counterfeiting
Post offices
Copyright
Courts
Piracy
Army
War
Navy
Rules
Militia
Money for Militia
WAshington, D.C, and
Necessary and proper.
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