#1501: Rafael Cruz

No, we won’t give an entry to Ted Cruz. Yes, he’s trying so very, very hard to qualify for one, but (almost) no matter how hard he is trying (including his attempts to sound like a wingnut chain email), he’s not going to convince us that he doesn’t know precisely what he is doing and that his image as an unhinged lunatic is a deliberate ploy to pander to his base (maybe we are making a mistake?). We will, however, give an entry to his father, Rafael Cruz, who has become something of a B-celebrity in wingnut circles after the ascendance of Ted. Now, Rafael Cruz is a seriously delusional moron, and unlike what we suspect is the case for Ted it’s (probably) not just for show.

Like his son, Rafael Cruz has expressed strong political opinions. According to Cruz pere, the United States is a “Christian nation,” the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution were a “divine revelation from God,” and the separation of church and state is really a joke. In fact, the Declaration of Independence is nothing more than a collection of sermons and, according to Cruz, over half of the Founding Fathers held “seminary degrees,” which should tell you something (namely that Cruz is a moron with no time for facts whatsoever; yes, the claims – no relation to reality – are taken straight out of David Barton’s Orwellian pseudohistory; it’s not the only garbage Cruz has gotten from Barton). He later tried to support his argument with some Bible verses, and the results would have been hilarious if they weren’t so sad.

Thus, it is shocking to Cruz that “our president has the gall to tell us that this is not a Christian nation …” when it is so obvious to him that “The United States of America was formed to honor the word of God.” Indeed, according to Cruz, Obama is an “outright Marxist” (no, he has no idea what that means; he just doesn’t like it) who “seeks to destroy all concept of God,” and he has urged his audience to send Obama “back to Kenya.” Oh, it might not look like Obama hates God to the sheeple, but that’s because the media is the “ministry of disinformation” with an “evil agenda” who covers up Obama’s real agenda and his active campaigsn against Christians since “socialism, Marxism requires that government become your god” (no, once again he has no idea what socialism or Marxism might be). It is worth mentioning that Ted Cruz himself frequently quotes his father and describes him as an important influence on his own political views and decisions.

Indeed, secular Marxists are destroying America and persecuting Christians as we speak. Not only has the end of mandatory school prayer led to crime and teen pregnancy (a claim that doesn’t hold up to even a cursory glance at statistics); Obama also wants to “take our God and our guns” and “impose a dictatorship” (yes, you may have heard that claim so many times that you only shrug your shoulders, but please give a thought now and then to how abysmally insane and delusional it is) – there is apparently also a UN conspiracy to ban guns involved.

In the end, though, and contrary to what he says, Rafael Cruz really doesn’t like the Constitution and has instead, in fact, preached Seven Mountains Domionism (in the same speech, he also – interestingly – called upon his audience to “stop electing the village idiot”).

But Rafael Cruz has lent his intellectual brilliance not only to matters of politics. Also science has been subject to his scrutiny. According to Cruz, evolution is “unscientific” and “communist propaganda” designed to lure people to communism. How that’s supposed to work would be interesting to hear, you might think. Well, Cruz does explain: “I’ve met so many Christians that tell me ‘evolution is a scientific fact.’ Baloney! I am a scientist, there is nothing scientific about evolution. But you know something, Karl Marx said it, ‘I can use the teachings of Darwin to promote communism.’ Why? Because communism, or call it socialism if you think communism is too hard a word, necessitates for government to be your god and for government to be your god they need to destroy the concept of God. That’s why communism and evolution go hand and hand.” In short, he has no idea about evolution is, what a scientist is, or what communism is. That makes it easier to connect the dots, I suppose. Here is his attempt to explain evolution. You don’t need high school biology to recognize that his definition is … idiosyncratic. Cruz has also tried to explain Marxism: “You got to realize how Marxist, how socialism works. We need to understand the issues. When you hear all these things about homosexual marriage, this has nothing to do with homosexual rights. Did you know that? The whole objective is the destruction of the traditional family, it has nothing to do with homosexuals, they could care less about homosexuals, they want to destroy the family.” It’s easier to support his position if he doesn’t give a damn about what words mean. Add a bit of conspiracy theory, and you get a word salad like that.

Oh yeah, he doesn’t like gays either. Gay marriage undermines freedom and therefore turns us all into slaves, and he has warned us that God will hold you accountable if transgender people are allowed to use public toilets, as well as publicly endorsed Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore’s claim that states do not have to obey federal court orders. It’s all a plot by which “liberal fascism” seeks “to persecute, to punish, to fine” any Christian who opposes gay marriage, presumably on the grounds that this is (explicitly) the kind of thing Cruz would like to do to those who disagree with him. And no, he doesn’t really understand what marriage equality is either (there’s a pattern to his political positions), and has accordingly concluded that the Supreme Court decision on the issue was based on Satan.

Nor does Cruz like Common Core (which again, predictably, he doesn’t understand). It’s Nazi stuff, attempting to mold “the minds to adopt a secular worldview which destroys American exceptionalism, which destroys the historical foundations of America, which destroys what has made America a unique place in the world.” Yes, government “brainwashing” is bringing about the “destruction of our Judeo-Christian foundation” and “our religious liberty;” and after having made that claim Cruz promptly went on to criticize “the concept of ‘diversity,’” which he called “totally opposite of what made America great.”

A simple and good illustration of how far removed from reality Rafael Cruz is (not that any further illustration is needed), is his reaction when David Barton took over one of Ted Cruz’s Super PACs: It would be a tremendous advantage, said Cruz sr., because it’ll help Cruz appeal to “a block of the population that has been basically absent from the political process in very high numbers.”

Diagnosis: Embarrassing village idiot – a caricature of your crazy conspiracy theory uncle. Fortunately people like this tend not to reach positions of any serious influence, but Cruz may be an exception – unless it’s all an elaborate poe to make people vote for someone other than his son without telling Ted outright that he’s being silly.