“Those who would give up essential Liberty,
to purchase a little temporary Safety,
deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
~ Benjamin Franklin
While it may appear at the outset that the focus of this article is criticism of Ted Cruz, the issue is really much larger than Cruz, and involves the indictment of the American people and the government which we have so blithely allowed, and even encouraged.
During the GOP Presidential Debate on Thursday, March 3rd, Ted Cruz was asked about Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor turned whistle-blower. and Cruz reversed his previous position on Snowden, now pronouncing Snowden a traitor.
CRUZ: “The evidence is clear that not only [did] Snowden violate the law, but it appears he committed treason. . Treason is defined under the Constitution as giving aid and comfort to the enemies of America, and what Snowden did made it easier for terrorists to avoid detection,”
Cruz indicated that it was “clear” that Snowden was guilty of Treason, because he had fled first to China, and then to Russia, both viewed as archetypal American enemies. It is evident that Cruz’s adjudication is entirely oblivious to the current status of Justice, the American government, and the American legal system, ignoring the fact of the NDAA, and the Executive Branch’s own deliberate indication that it might kill Americans on American soil at its whim, particularly if they are seen as any sort of hazard to the vaguely defined “national security.”
This is an extremely disturbing perspective on Cruz’s statist mentality. Cruz is equating anything that might incidentally make it easier for terrorists to be undetected, with Treason. Not only has Cruz reduced the purpose of government, and the cornerstone principle of this country, to being “obey the law”, but Cruz has also reduced Treason to being anyone violating “the law”, and by that might somehow make things easier for terrorists. . Who is a terrorist, by this corrupt statist perspective? A terrorist is evidently anyone who acts against the government’s laws and dictates, regardless of the legitimacy of these.
“That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed.”
~ Declaration of Independence,
By Cruz’s own perverted rationale, anything that might make it easier for terrorists to avoid being caught is equivalent to giving those terrorists aid and comfort – treason! Therefore when the government is violating each and every American citizen’s protection against the unreasonable search and seizure of their personal information, and has laws against making these secretive “classified” actions by the government public knowledge, then it is the laws themselves which Cruz believes take precedence, not our liberties.
“Thou Shalt OBEY!” regardless of the conditions.
Cruz has perverted the purpose of government to being about government itself, rather than protecting our rights, as indicated by the Declaration of Independence, and built into every structure and limitation upon the federal government itself within struture provided by the U.S. Constitution. Yet Cruz would have us believe he is a “strict” and devout constitutionalist.
Most definitely Cruz should have simply stated his own opinion about Snowden, without drawing in reference to the Constitution in an attempt to give his own opinion a false authority, showing yet again his willingness to subert the Constitution itself for his own gain. Perhaps it is needing to be said that this is not at all an admirable trait for someone desiring to serve in the office of President — and indeed we’ve already gone this route for the last 8 years.
By direct extrapolation of Cruz’s reasoning, every one of our allegedly unalienable rights can be curtailed and denied, entirely alienated, provided it makes it easier to catch those terrorists, even sacrificing the freedoms of Speech, Assembly, Religion and the Press — not to mention any right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Our freedom of Assembly might be sacrificed next, and doing so could be justified by making it easier to catch terrorists, while those campaigning for the return of this freedom might be condemned as treasonous, given that this ability to freely Assemble makes it easier for terrorists — treason! In fact the logical end of Cruz’s Mad Hatter Tea Party reasoning is that we can forgo any trial as well, as doing so would only enable and encourage those terrorists by delaying Cruz’s pale rendition of “justice”.
This has all been done before, not only to the inhabitants of these lands before our independence, but by the most unsavory regimes in mankind’s subsequent history.
With allegedly “strict constitutionalists” like Ted Cruz typifying the Republican party, exactly how is the GOP any better than the Progressive Marxists now in control of the Democratic party and the presidency? They’re not, with each being an equal threat to our freedoms and the Constitution itself.
In 2013 when Snowden first went public, exposing the NSA snooping and acquisition of American’s personal information, Cruz had an entirely different perspective on Snowden’s actions, describing his actions as “a considerable public service”:
“If it is the case that the federal government is seizing millions of personal records about law-abiding citizens, and if it is the case that there are minimal restrictions on accessing or reviewing those records, then I think Mr. Snowden has done a considerable public service by bringing it to light.” Cruz, 2013
At that time in 2013, Cruz put a further edge on his view of Snowden in his subsequent statement to The New York Times, in which Cruz indicated that Snowden should be prosecuted if he broke the law.
Cruz to the NY Times: “If Mr. Snowden has violated the laws of this country, there are consequences to violating laws that is something he has publicly stated he understands, and I think the law needs to be enforced.”
Laws! We must have LAWS, doncha know!
Apparently the most important consideration is the absolute control by the federal government, which is another “T” word: Tyranny. However Cruz seems oblivious to this word, perhaps believing as some naively do, that as long as we have elections then there cannot reasonably be any sort of tyranny.
In response to Cruz’s condemnation of Snowden as a traitor, Edward Snowden tweeted the following reply, “Aiding the public is treason only if the voter is your enemy.”. Snowden has an excellent point here given that so much of what the government is doing treats American citizens as if they are the enemy, particularly if they want the Constitution upheld. .
After Cruz deliberately misrepresented the terms for qualification for the office of President in order to gratify his own political ambitions, I cannot find the words to express my thorough disgust at Cruz accusing Snowden of being a traitor, given that Snowden has not possibly had any gain from exposing the illegitimate and criminal conduct of the federal government, though Cruz himself does invariably gains by his positions.
In fact Snowden is only one of the first proverbial “canaries in the coal mine”, with many others having fallen since, inclusive of Dwight and Steven Hammond being prosecuted and jailed wrongly under an inapplicable federal Anti-Terrorism act, and 25+ others now sitting in prison and facing charges for the peaceful occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, charged with conspiracy to interfere with federal officers, when the federal government has no legitimate constitutional authority to own lands within the States, nor any constitutional authority to write laws directly applicable to the people of the States for interference with those lands illegitimately held.
Are you heeding these falling canaries, or watching the coverage of an irrelevant presidenti9al election, where not even one of the participants exhibits any regard whatsoever for these alarming gross violations of the Constitution by the federal government, and its ever-threatening stance to the citizenry?
Polling On Snowden
No one can be certain what resulted in Cruz’s hardening of his judgment against Snowden, from Snowden having done a “public service”, to now being guilty of treason, but over that time period public opinion has changed too. It’s very likely Cruz is merely following populist opinion, which isn’t exactly inspiring as far as leadership skills.
In June and July of 2013, shortly after Snowden’s initial revelations about the NSA data gathering, and at the time of Cruz’s original comments, . Two polls conducted by Quinnipiac University found 55% viewed Snowden as a “whistleblower” while just 34% viewed him as “a traitor.”
In contrast, two years later in August 2015, 53% of polled Americans support espionage charges being brought against Snowden, while only 26% were opposed to a federal prosecution.
What’s fascinating about this poll is the partisan split over the issue of a presidential pardon. While 56% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans said they would support government espionage charges against Snowden, the issue skews widely when the consideration of a presidential pardon is introduced.. Republicans reject the idea of a pardon by 57-24, while Democrats and independents were more evenly divided. Given the fact that this question was phrased specifically referencing Obama issuing that pardon, this might account for the Democratic favorable support of that pardon. However the Obama Justice Department, which is quite well-established in its inclination to support federal tyranny at any cost, has only made indications highly unsympathetic to any leniency for Snowden.
My own perspective is that this shift of of American sympathy away from Snowden is the result of the mistaken belief that the issue of government intrusion and collection of our metadata has been addressed and resolved, when this is absolutely not the case at all. The issue is no longer in the forefront of American media, and therefore out of sight, and out of mind of the average American.
The Rest of the Field
All of the rest of the Republican contestants on stage for the March 3rd debate voiced their support for prosecuting Snowden, namely “Little Marco” Rubio, John Kasich and Donald Trump.
While Kasich and Rubio spent the night trying to find their upper lip and spine, respectively, they both also managed to similarly condemn Snowden.
In the meantime Trump assured the audience that he knew that Snowden was “a spy” and knew this “right from the beginning”:
Trump: “Right from the beginning I said he was a spy, and we should get him back. And if Russia respected our country, they would have sent him back immediately, but he was a spy. It didn’t take me a long time to figure that one out. Believe me,”
Oh really? If Snowden were spying, then who does this Tower of intellectual insight imagine that Snowden was spying for, and how did he profit from this alleged spying? This ridiculous proclamation, made even more so by the misplaced pride of of its delivery, is every bit as bad as Cruz’s certainty that Snowden is a traitor.
Trump then went on to repeatedly assure the audience in that if he were President, Putin would turn over Snowden immediately, “I guarantee you that”, in a rambling repetition that was just short of being reminiscent of Captain Queeg’s testimony about the theft of the strawberries in the Caine Mutiny.
The Trump Card
I support Trump tremendously as a candidate, and cannot support any one of the other candidates at all. However supporting Trump as a candidate because he undermines the corrupt status quo does not transfer over to having faith in Trump as President, much less Trump being any sort of salvation in this hour of crisis. I believe it is foolish for people to so blindly jump aboard the Trump bandwagon given our dire condition.
Keep in mind that Trump has brought up a series of popular concerns, but never once had a viable solution to those concerns, much less exhibited anything approaching a thorough understanding of them. This absence of a thorough understanding draws into question Trump’s sincerity on these issues.
Trump brought up anchor baby (misnomered) “birthright” citizenship, but had no idea how this corruption came about, much less the appropriate means to end the corruption. When Carly Fiorina wrongly indicated that ending birthright citizenship would require an amendment to the Constitution, Trump did not counter with a strong indication that this was untrue, and certainly did not indicate that these anchor babies were only the result of a corrupt interpretation by the Court a full thirty years after the 14th Amendment (U.S. vs Wong Kim Ark, 1898).
Trump’s reference to the Article II natural born citizen requirement precedes his entry into the race for President, but his understanding of the terms for natural born have not advanced at all beyond having a birth certificate, and perhaps being born in the country. Cruz even took advantage of Trump’s ignorance on this matter, and lied to America that some believe the terms require the parents be born in the country, which would make Trump himself unqualified, yet Trump did not martial any sort of effective response to this accusation.
Even Trump’s address, as a Wharton graduate, of China’s devaluation of its currency is ineffective and shortsighted by failing to recognize the outcome of China no longer devaluing that currency necessarily results in the cost of goods at Walmart skyrocketing. The real solution is to remove our regulation and taxation deliberately intending to prohibit entry of new competition in the American economy, the result of crony capitalist influence. However Trump has repeatedly been a participant in, and beneficiary of, just that crony capitalism. Let us not forget his donations to even Hillary. Trump’s name proudly appearing on everything he creates serves every bit as much to grease the skids of preferential treatment as do his varied political donations. Trump has no interest whatsoever in ending the status quo corrupt crony Capitalism.
Trump’s biggest card is to make America “Win again”, but he doesn’t really define the terms of that winning, just as Obama never indicated the terms of “Change”. Trump proclaims we need effective negotiators, but in reality what Trump is calling for is a new “Big Stick” philosophy, as if America really needs to further heighten its militarist focus, which actually works counter to the restoration of our individual liberties.
There really is no evidence whatsoever of Trump being any sort of salvation.
Conclusion
Last week during her radio program, KrisAnne Hall pronounced that the the presidential election “is the very least important thing going on in the country right now.” Undoubtedly many in Hall’s audience, and Americans generally, are resistant to this recognition, as we engage our Pavlovian participation in the election process, ignoring that this serves to validate the overwhelming current illegitimacy of our government.
The fact of the matter is that the outcome of this election, no matter the winner, cannot possibly change the systemic institutionalized corruption evident in all 3 branches of government, to reverse the government’s gross overreach and total discard of the Constitution. There are indeed far more important and alarming events going on all around which demand our attention — the proverbial “Canaries in the Coal Mine” (forthcoming article).
When all the possible outcomes to the question “Shall we play a game?” are no-win scenarios, then the only rational response is to no longer play that game. The election should not be our focus for restoring this Republic.
References:
August 2015 Morning Consult Poll = Breitbart
April 2015 ACLU Poll
Washington Times Edward Snowden on Ted Cruz Debate Slam
The Hill: Cruz Flipflops on Snowden
Liberty Born 