Ted Cruz, a Disappointment

Ted Cruz, a Disappointment

And some wailing over my disappointment with both Left and Right

by

Eric Paul Nolte

If one definition of insanity is the expectation that one might get different results from performing the same action again and again, then I am in danger of thus driving into the ditch beside the road of sanity.

How can I continue to be astonished by the cognitive dissonance one can see in the sets of beliefs embraced by social conservatives and liberals?

How can liberals and conservatives so relentlessly maintain views that are internally contradictory, and yet are completely inverse to each other? Liberals have better views on the freedom of individuals to put lives together by their own lights, yet absurd views on economics. The right has better views on human action in the economics arena, and yet absurd views on morality as it relates to personal freedom.

How can left and right be so divided between good sense and ridiculous views?

Consider the matter of science. 

Many conservatives continue to support the insanity of the biblically inspired dogma of "scientific creationism." If this is science, then pigs can fly by flapping their little toes.

Leftists also continue to beat a drum for an insane view of science: they are agitating for governments to hijack industrial civilization in the name of preventing anthropogenic climate change. I believe that liberals thereby show themselves to be in the grips of a mass delusion, a so-called science that is perhaps even more ridiculous than that of the creationists. There are dishonest purveyors of this idea of man-made climate change, like the lying professors at the Univeristy of East Anglia, who blithely alter data to fit their lies. There are the lying writers of the summaries of the articles (if not the scientists who write the articles themselves) in the assessments of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There are powerful American figures from agencies like NASA and NOAA, such as James Hansen and Michael Mann, and there is Bill McKibbon, creator of 350.org, all of whom may be guilty of the most massive intellectual swindle ever put over on a credulous population. Even the most casual research will show the intellectually honest the truth that the atmospheric saturation of carbon dioxide was once 12 times higher than it is today, while at the same time the temperature of the earth was in the middle of an ice age. The computer simulations, the models on which the future climate disasters are predicted are 100 percent wrong, compared with the satellite data. Don't get me started...

Liberals tend to support cultural freedom, but, as P.J. O'Rourke famously put it, they would never trust consenting adults to perform capitalist acts together without the meddling of government overlords to control them.

By contrast, social conservatives tend, or once tended, to support economic freedom, but will never trust consenting adults to put together lives and families by their own lights without the meddling of government overlords to control them according to the revealed wisdom of holy books said to have been written by ghosts in heaven, whom no reliable witness in millennia have seen on earth. 

Which brings us back to the dismaying news I read now about Ted Cruz.

The news is that the Supreme Court of the United States has just made a decision that should make same sex marriage possible in five states.

Senator Ted Cruz and Mike Lee expressed their disappointment at this decision and upheld their belief that marriage must be between a man and a woman.

This is the social conservative position, always justified as being rooted in God's divinely revealed wisdom in the Bible.

What a disappointment!

Ted Cruz is arguably among the brightest bulbs ever to occupy the Senate. Look at his resume. Princeton grad, attorney who made his way up the legal intellectual circles and ultimately came to argue cases before the SCOTUS more times than anybody else in the whole US Congress. 

More than almost anybody else now in the Congress, Ted Cruz displays a deep understanding of the case for freedom, economically, politically, and historically. 

(Footnote: I would say that Ron Paul's understanding may be more sophisticated than Cruz's, but Paul is the only one I know to show more insight, and sadly he is now retired from the Congress.)

According to Newsmax, 10/7/14, "Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a likely 2016 Republican presidential contender, called the court's move "tragic and indefensible." He vowed to introduce a constitutional amendment allowing states to ban gay marriage.

"This is judicial activism at its worst," Cruz said in a statement. "The Constitution entrusts state legislatures, elected by the People, to define marriage consistent with the values and mores of their citizens. Unelected judges should not be imposing their policy preferences to subvert the considered judgments of democratically elected legislatures...

"... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also weighed in to call the decision "disappointing." He suggested that justices should affirm that states have the right to restrict marriage to a union between a man and a woman, the Post reported."

How can I still feel so appalled, knowing that social conservatives are by definition committed to such views which are rooted in the faith of ancient and dark ages mystics? 

The right has always tended to display some good sense on economics. I want such good sense to prevail! But the right continues to show up as champions of dark ages morality!

The left has long tended to display good sense on the rights of people to put together lives by their own lights, on the rights of gays, and on women's reproductive freedom. But the left continues to show up as imbeciles on the matter of human action in the economic arena. 

Hmm. I would not go so far as to say that the right displays very much more sophistication than the left on economics, but they do tend to be a little better today. Those, like Ron Paul and Ted Cruz, who show any real wisdom on the matter are rare, but I know of none on the left whose views on human action in the economic arena exhibit so much as whiff of wisdom. 

I wait without bated breath for the day when the insight of Ludwig von Mises can be heard clearly by the whole world. And for the day when the moral insight of Ayn Rand will illuminate both the left and the right.

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