Ted Cruz appearing together with his father Rafael Cruz
By Patrick
The rise of Ted Cruz also put a spotlight on his father Rafael Cruz, who is a radical right-wing pastor in North Texas. At closer inspection, it becomes apparent that Rafael Cruz had a significant influence on Ted Cruz's political beliefs, and they both appeared together numerous times.
Just a few days ago, a tape was published with excerpts from a speech by Rafael Cruz at the Adams County GOP Lincoln Dinner in Thornton, Colorado, which took place on September 27, 2013. At this event, Rafael Cruz was not shy to show his true colors: He made it absolutely clear that he agrees with the notion that President Obama is a "Muslim", he used outrageous lies to rant against Obamacare and he wants the "RINO's" to be thrown out of the Republican Party.
(via "Political Carnival" and "Talking Points Memo")
Watch:
Kathleen transcribed these remarks by Rafael Cruz:
Rafael Cruz: Obama's fault (inaudible)….shift on the side of the Muslims.
Woman: He is a Muslim.
Rafael Cruz: Pah! McCain couldn’t say that because it wasn’t politically correct. It is time we stop being politically correct!
Rafael Cruz: Our lives! Well look at what is happening to our lives. From the cradle, 55 million babies have been murdered by abortions since 1973. At the other end, Obamacare with denying care to the elderly with care being rationed, with care being postponed for twelve to eighteen months. With care being controlled by a group of bureaucrats that on the basis of cost benefit will decide whether you get a medical procedure or not they’re destroying our end of life. As a matter of fact one of the things in Obamacare is that for the elderly every five years you must have end of life counselling. Translation: Suicide counselling.
Rafael Cruz: I know that I am in an Republican Party meeting. If you want to throw tomatoes at me, throw tomatoes at me! But unfortunately, you cannot say that the Republican Party is without blame. We have too many RINO’s in the Republican Party! (Applause and whoops). They have their minds made up and basically their ideas is this “You are too stupid! I know what I am doing.” Well, I’ll tell you what, we the people are not stupid. We the people are smart enough to vote them right out of office or primary them and put constitutional conservatives in their place! (More whoops etc.)
But there are more facts about Rafael Cruz which are noteworthy. He himself is very proud that he apparently had a great influence on the political and religious beliefs of his son Ted, which Rafael Cruz explained in great detail in an interview from July 2013. There, he also claimed that his son Ted is "destined for greatness."
Transcript via RightWingWatch.org:
David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network: Talk me about your son and his rise. This must be a thing of God. It's meteoric.
Cruz: Yes, but you know something, it is not something that started a couple of years ago. Let me just go back to when he was maybe four. When he was four I used to read Bible stories to him all the time. And I would declare and proclaim the word of God over him. And I would just say, ‘You know Ted, you have been gifted above any man that I know and God has destined you for greatness’. And I started making declarations about the Word of God to him every day. When he was eight years old I was very active in an organization called the Religious Roundtable.
...
This was a coalition of Christians and Jews who was very instrumental in helping Reagan get elected. I was on the state board of the Religious Roundtable, so when my son Ted was eight years old, all we talked about around the dinner table was politics because I was so involved with the Reagan campaign. So during that time is when I asked him so many times, ‘You know Ted, when I lost my freedom in Cuba I had a place to come to. If we lose our freedoms here where are we going to go? There is no place to go.’
...
Ted enters high school, the Free Enterprise Institute organizes a group of five kids, called them the Constitutional Corroborators, now Ted is reading the The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers, and each of the five kids memorized the entire US Constitution.
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So before my son left high school he was passionate about the constitution. He was passionate about freedom and free markets and limited governments. Before he left high school he knew without a shadow of a doubt what his purpose in life was and it was to defend and protect freedom and the Constitution, to fight for free markets and limited government, and it became a passion in his life. So this is not a trajectory of three years, this is a trajectory of 30 years.
This is interesting. Knowing how Ted Cruz was indoctrinated by his radical father from a very early age onwards, it is much easier to understand the "crusader" Ted Cruz these days - where he comes from, and why it is virtually impossible for him to agree on a compromise. For true "crusaders", there can be no compromise. It is all or nothing.
When it comes to crusading, Ted's father Rafael Cruz certainly aspires to be on the forefront: In another "rousing" speech, this time from July 2013 at a Tea Party event in Dallas reported by RightWingWatch.org, Rafael Cruz demanded more political participation by evangelical Christians and said that "we have what we deserve, we have allowed the wicked to rule us", and claimed: "We could take every position in office, from dogcatcher all the way to the highest position in life."
In this speech, Rafael Cruz also says that the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are "divine revelations from God."
Watch the excerpts:
The full speech by Rafael Cruz from this event can be viewed here.
Rafael Cruz surely is on a "big tour" right now, appearing at many events, trying to rally the evangelicals. In yet another speech from August 2013 at the "Family Leadership Summit" in Iowa, he crusaded against gay marriage and declared that a godless "socialist" government is behind "homosexual marriage", trying to destroy "traditional marriage" as well as "loyalty to the family."
Quote (via "Burnt Orange Report"):
RAFAEL CRUZ: When you hear this attack on religion, it's not really an attack on religion. The fundamental basis is this: socialism requires that government becomes your God. That's why they have to destroy the concept of God. They have to destroy all loyalties except loyalty to government. That's what's behind homosexual marriage. It's really more about the destruction of the traditional family than about exalting homosexuality, because you need to destroy also loyalty to the family.Watch:
Therefore Rafael Cruz is living the American dream like he sees it, preaching bigotry, hate and division as a pastor, tax-free and surely with substantial financial backing.
The "origins" of Rafael Cruz himself are murky, and just how he established himself in the USA as an immigrant from Cuba is clouded in a lot of secrecy. Ted Cruz himself claims that his father never was an illegal immigrant, and at this moment, we have to take his word for it, because evidence to the contrary is hard to come by - although serious doubts about this bold claim certainly remain. The most extensive account of the "official" Cruz-family story can be found in an article by the Dallas Morning News from October 2011:
Cruz, though, has remained silent as others incorrectly placed his father among the many Cubans who left the island nation after Castro took power, rather than as someone who fought on the same side as Castro to topple a rightist dictator, though he departed for Texas before the revolution succeeded.
"He was a guerilla, throwing Molotov cocktails and blowing up buildings," Ted Cruz told the Austin American-Statesman for a profile published in January 2006.
Earlier this month, Liberty Institute president Kelly Shackelford introduced Cruz to 3,000 Christian conservatives at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C., as "the next great conservative hope."
"He's the combination of the intellectual skill and principle of [Utah GOP Sen.] Mike Lee and the story, the personal story of a Marco Rubio -- his dad having escaped Fidel Castro, came into the United States, working as a dishwasher," Shackelford said.
Last month, a Houston Chronicle political blog described Cruz as "a Cuban American whose family escaped from Castro tyranny."
In an interview Monday, Cruz professed not to be aware of confusion about when his father, Rafael Cruz, left Cuba.
"If Kelly [Shackelford] said that, I did not notice that statement," he said. "That's certainly not something I say because it's not the case."
Cruz said he hasn't misled.
"I have many, many times described the full context of his fighting with [Fidel] Castro -- in the broader sense, ... not side by side, but on the same side as Castro," he said.
Shackelford, reached on Monday, said his point was the elder Cruz "came here for freedom" after being a "political prisoner."
"As to whether it was Batista or Castro [in power,] I'm like, it doesn't really matter," Shackelford said. "There was one dictator replaced by a future dictator."
Cruz, a former state solicitor general enjoying tea party and social conservative support, is one of four major Republican candidates in the March primary to succeed retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
He said his father began fighting against Batista's regime when he was 14, in 1953. When the elder Cruz was 17, he was imprisoned and tortured by Batista's government, his son said. The next year, 1957, Rafael Cruz legally went to Texas on a student visa issued by the Batista regime, Ted Cruz said.
Ted Cruz, who opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants, said at no time was his father an illegal immigrant. He said his father, who graduated from the University of Texas in 1961, eventually became a permanent legal resident. The elder Cruz is now a U.S. citizen, living in Carrollton, his son said.
Ted Cruz said his father described himself as among young teenage boys who fought Batista and allied with Castro's forces because "they didn't know Castro was a Communist, what they knew was that Batista was a cruel and oppressive dictator."
Cruz said his father became a staunch critic of Castro, along with several family members who remained in Cuba, when the rebel leader took control and began seizing private property and suppressing dissent. Rafael Cruz' younger sister and their parents eventually made it to the U.S. during the 1960s, Ted Cruz said.
It is much easier to understand the current actions of Ted Cruz if one is aware of the details of the extremist political views of his very outspoken father, and of the role his father played in the political and religious education of Ted Cruz.
The last thing the USA need right now are hard-right political and religious crusaders for who there can only be "victory or death", because anything else would be a betrayal of the just and righteous cause.
Ted Cruz surely is a dangerous extremist, but I am confident that the American people won't be fooled in the end and will reject him and his ilk.
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Read the follow-up at Politicalgates:
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