Ted Cruz: Why?

I am proud to be a supporter of Senator Ted Cruz for President of the United States, and I ask you to join me.  Here is why:

Barack Obama entered the White House espousing the MoveOn.org philosophy which says that the nations cannot/should not be led by the United States.  So Obama adopted a position which he described as "leading from behind."  Never mind that this philosophy didn't stop him from instituting his own kind of "regime change" in the form of the Arab Spring which made the Middle East and North Africa a more violent and dangerous place.  The result of Obama's foreign policy for the past seven years is that our allies (Great Britain, France, the other NATO countries, and Israel) don't trust us; and our enemies (Iran, North Korea and other state sponsors of terrorism) along with Russia and China think we are fools. 

Despite the fact that the world is a more dangerous place than it was seven years ago, our military capability has been greatly diminished by this administration.  The branches of our armed services are being treated as laboratories for social engineering experiments rather than efficient fighting forces designed to keep our country (and the world) safe.  The Veterans Administrations is a scandal, and our veterans have been treated shamefully. 

The nation is more divided than it was seven years ago.  The candidate who promised to unite America has instead become the Great Divider; and the nation now stands divided along lines of race, class, age in ways not seen in generations--possibly not in its entire history.  Obama could have been a president who encouraged respect for law enforcement in a way that would have been an example for the African American community; but instead he has repeatedly undermined our law enforcement agencies, and respect for the police among African Americans is at an all time low. 

Instead of supporting our system of legal immigration that admits more legal immigrants each year than any country in the world, Obama has encouraged open borders with the result that several million undocumented migrants have swarmed our borders--an influx that threatens to overwhelm our social safety net and is already increasing crime in many parts of the country.

Every program with "Affordable" in its name (The Affordable Housing Act, the Affordable Care Act) has only made those things less affordable.  That's not hard to understand: When you make loans for housing more easily available, despite the creditworthiness (or lack thereof) of the recipient, it inflates the price of housing.  When you saddle the healthcare industry with extra regulations and suddenly add millions of people to the system, it makes healthcare more expensive.  Using the IRS to fine people for not buying health insurance is not the same as providing them with healthcare. 

Another effect of Obamacare, with its requirement of insurance for anyone working 30 hours per week or more, has been that employers have reduced their workforces, both in numbers and in hours, and the result is that we have a higher number of chronically unemployed than any time in modern history.  Government figures on unemployment don't take into account those who have quit looking for work.  Nearly half of the American public is on food stamps.  Employers are exporting jobs overseas where the economic and regulatory climates are more favorable.  Many college graduates cannot find jobs, and this generation has been predicted to be the first American generation to do less well than their parents.

The United States cannot continue in this direction and survive.  The corrupt Hillary Clinton and the Socialist Bernie Sanders cannot fix problems that the very positions they espouse have brought into being.  They are "doubling down" on Obamacare and promising to give "free everything" to voters; and when it doesn't happen, they will simply blame the Republicans.  But as Margaret Thatcher once observed, "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."  With a national debt that has doubled under Obama--in fact, he has added more to the national debt than all previous presidents combined--no one can pay for all the things the Democrats say they want to give people.

And, so, I am proud to be a Republican who supports Ted Cruz for President.  He is the kind of principled conservative who would fix our economy and our national defense the way Reagan did after Carter.  He is a bright, courageous, articulate leader, who has none of the negatives I see in Donald Trump.  Ted Cruz is truly the Ronald Reagan of this current generation, and the Republican Establishment needs to get behind him.  Indeed, the future of the Republican Party may depend on it.  

The danger I see in Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or anyone on the Democrat side is that while their kind of liberalism talks about equality, it does not raise people up, it only levels them down through redistribution of wealth, endless regulations, and mindless political correctness.  I see a nation that follows this path as doomed.  It will soon come to resemble the kind of societies depicted in George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984.

So I see it as imperative that we take steps to fix this country.  But I am worried--the only thing that disturbs me more than the past seven years of the Obama presidency is the kind of electorate that would give us a president like Barack Obama--twice.  So I have extra reasons to pray these days.

God help us!  And God bless America!

Robert Stevenson Munday

(I use my full name only to mention that I am a nephew/cousin of the Adlai Stevensons (I, II, and III) from Illinois, who made a choice in 1975, while on staff for Representative (later Senator) Paul Simon to walk the road less traveled (at least in my family) and become a proud conservative Republican.