Ted Cruz Isn’t Real Either

51 Comments

1. Ah, just in time. I’m still having a hell of a time demonstrating to http://www.anonymousconservative.com/blog/ what a phony Cruz is. Too bad because AC writes some good psychological pieces. Apparently has no clue about politics.

   • It’s telling that the woman he married is just like him.

   • ¡Jeb! married a Mexican.

2. Its not easy being sleazy, but Cuban Pete’s fat boy cousin has even Little Jebbie beat. His Goldman-Sachs skirt is big in globalist circles like the CFR and the North American Union boys. They want the USA crushed by unelected scum like the EU has, in a North American coalition of drug cartels, human chattel traders and skin porn operators. These sleazeballs sold out America and now they need another stepit fetchit water carrier like Cuban Cruz to sink the remaining American boats for Globalist scum.

3. He’s a casebook psychopath. Time will prove that to be the case.

4. You don’t get to that level unless you’ve sold your soul to the devil a hundred times.

5. If gullible evangelicals didn’t spend so much time with Jeebus Cuck’s cock up their asses they wouldn’t fall for Cruz’s rather obvious bullshit.

   • Hmm. I wasn’t expecting anyone to start discussing theology …

6. Sir, with all due respect, you can take apart anybody like this.

   I mean, imagine if your opponents caricatured you?

   That would point out certain things to discredit you, and everything you say and believe.

   Would they be right?

   No.

   The central question with Cruz is, like him or not, is this :
   does he practice, in his work, what he preaches?

   If not, then, to hell with him.

   If so, then to hell with whether he is guy you like.

   After all, you are not going to live with this man – you have wonderful Miss Renee for that:)

   • Junius,

     Everywhere Ted has gone – high school, college, the George W. Bush administration, state politics in Texas, Congress – the people who know him best have all ended up saying the same thing about him.

     • Okay, Sir. He is creepy. I accept it.

       As to ambitious and coldly calculating, how is possible to be on a presidential debate stage, and not have that applicable to you?

   • This is someone who had his life mapped out as a senior in high school and has remarkably stuck to his plan.

     • Yes, like you and I, the man is relentlessly focuset.

       For me that’s a good thing, but, of course, sometimes my wife gets vexed at me for that. I’m overly ‘focuset’, she says.

       Have you heard that about yourself?

       Ted seems akin to us.

   • Although I am as disinclined as you are to take seriously a personal demolition of the sort Cruz’s college roommate is attempting with this tweet-barrage, Nikolai, I think you’re mistaken as to the “central question.” What matters is not whether Cruz or any one of the other contenders practices what he or she preaches; what matters is whether he or she can get anything done. That’s why I personally have been with Trump since Mr. W., our host, first posted about Trump’s astonishing emergence in the presidential contest. Among the historical figures who come to my mind when I think of Trump is Justinian I, the first paragraph of whose Wikipedia entry concludes as follows:

     “[H]is reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized renovatio imperii, or ‘restoration of the Empire’.”

     If you are not familiar with it, take a quick look at the history of Justinian’s impact. All you’ll really have to do is take a look at “before and after” maps of Roman territory—before and after his reign, that is. The Wikipedia clause I just cited makes clear, correctly, that the ailing Empire whose rule he inherited was not completely restored by him, but an astonishingly-large portion of it was. Not for nothing did he come to be known as Justinian the Great.

     Trump is like Justinian, a man of the type that is, by definition, rare, the type capable of making something big happen. Cruz is not. If you were to compare all the things Cruz says he intends to do with all the things Trump says he intends to do, you might find yourself wanting to vote for Cruz; but if you will reflect on what has any chance of getting done, a decision for Trump is, in my view, an easy one.

     PS The Wikipedia article about Justinian is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I

     • Hmm … well, Mr. Bonnacorsi, you are quite right to bring up that issue.

       Certainly Ronald Reagan was a man of firm idealogical principle, and he had quite a lot of difficulty with the congress.

       Though he and Tip O’Neill were able to strike some deals, there was tremendous wrangling and a lot of gridlock, which, by the way, is, to my lights, infinitely better than just continuing off into the deep end of the socialist pool, unabated or unopposed.

       But, let us take your worse case scenario – congress hates a President Cruz, and, from day one, will not even consider a single bill from his administration.

       There still remains the fact that Cruz could reverse 15 years of bad executive orders by his own, and that he would appoint judges who, ultimately, would shape this country, for decades to come, in a manner which both you and I would likely appreciate.

     • As to your conclusion that Trump is capable of ‘making the big happen’, Mr. Bonaccorsi, may I point out that, while this is unquestionably true in business, he has not ever done so in politicks, as a politician; that, in fact, we have no way of knowing if he will be effective with congress.

       Further, I think with regards to to Cruz, I think he has gotten some very significant things done in a time when most senators have not yet begun to make a peep.

       Just his willingness to buck the system of patronage and legislative bribery, (shut up about this and we’ll give you x amount of funds for your district, or grant you support for a petty measure you wish, up the road) says a lot to meabout his ppotential as a chief executive.

       In my lifetime, we have had only a few presidents who were willing to do this, on a consistent truthful basis – Lyndon Baines Johnson, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan. (Let us not get into evaluating these presidencies – I am only mentioning their willingness to forthrightly articulate and stand for something)

       A quarter of a century is a long time to suffer in the presence of equivocators, double dealers, the mealy-mouthed, and the outright dissemblers.

       Further, please note my ikon. Mr. Bonaccorsi, I believe in flags and statements, for their capacity to awaken consciousness. We desperately need someone to speak plainly conservative traditional constitutional values, at the leadership levels of the presidency.

       We are drowning in a preponderance of ethical lies, moral misnomers, and hidden agendas. We need someone who can set a moral tone for this country.

       I believe Trump could be that man, but, I also believe that Cruz could be, as well.

       Apparently a lot feel this way, because, as Father John said yesterday, ‘Whites are fatally divided’.

       • I’m not sure, Nikolai, that Trump hasn’t already made something big happen in poliltics …

         “I know a lot of people who say we should just close the borders, right now.”

         The above-quoted statement—or something very close to it—was made by a female caller to Rush Limbaugh in the days right after the 9/11 attacks. Notice she doesn’t say—as she would like to say—that she herself wants to close the borders. No, she doesn’t have the strength to say that.

         Consider the pushback Trump received, internationally, when he came out for stopping entry of Muslims to the U.S. Fourteen years had passed since the 9/11 attacks, fourteen years during which the U.S. had engaged in costly, fruitless wars precisely because nobody else had had, or has had, the strength to say what Trump said just months after he entered the presidential contest. Yes–that’s what I’m saying: Trump’s merely having said what he said, his having had the strength to say it, is a startling indication of his magnitude. Think of all the wealth, blood, limbs, and organs America has lost because its leaders—too weak simply to say they would keep Moslems out of the country—have sought, instead, to “fight them over there, lest we have to fight them over here.” The world has been turned upside down simply because no politician has had the strength to say what Trump said, simply by stepping up to a microphone.

         Trump is sui generis. All of Cruz’s notions, musings, beliefs, and intentions re the Constitution are mere bric-a-brac in comparison with him.

         • Greetings, Mr. Bonaccorsi,
           Allow me to apologize for having tarried. The tempo of the last day has been at a continual crescendo.
           Yes, I have been remiss to have overlookt the fact that Mr. Trump has altered the tenour of this campaign; which, ostensibly, so far as the party establishments and Jeb Bush’s super-pacs were concerned, was to remain, as it had remained since the peculiar triple-headed election of 1992 – predictable, perfunctory, and full of evasive platitudes.
           Yes, Mr. Trump sui generis, though, sometimes as with a lady, who is possesst of a uniquely dimensioned personality, she draws different reactions from her various lovers.
           I think, after analyzing so much commentary on this subject, from both you and Mr. Griffin, I realize that i have been thirsting to hear someone talk about the constitution and affirm it in a very strong manner.
           The fact of the matter is that I feel threatened, downright fearful at times, that the government more and more flouts The Bill of Rights and the citizenry either pays it no mind, feels impotent, or even encourages the government to do the same.
           You know, I served in the 3rd & 4th Infantry divisions, and though, like all who do serve, I had a variety of reasons for so doing, I was highly motivated by the notion of preventing Soviet communism from coming here, or, for that matter, Mao’s cultural revolution. Well, Mr. Bonaccorsi, we achieved that, only to find, just a while down the road, that it is coming the backdoor with the help of my fellow citizens who insist on holding that door ajar.
           I have to confess that I have always been deeply mortified at the prospect of living in a society that spies on itself, and or encourages it’s citizenry to denounce and betray it’s own, for thought crimes.
           When The ‘Patriot Act’ was passt, and I found out what was in it, it set off a bomb in me. I could not get over it that this country, for which I served, and for which my daddy, serving with the 29th Blue & Gray Division, walked over piles of his dead friends at Omaha Red Beach on 6 June 1944, in order to do something like this.
           At that moment I ceast to be an ‘American’, and withdrew to that of being exclusively a North Carolinian & a Southerner. You see, Mr. Bonnacorsi : this government has been hijackt, and, from my point of view, the root of it all is the neglect of The Constitution, the greatest document in the history of man, other than The Holy Scripture.
           Though I knew it not, I was craving to hear someone elocute like Ted Cruz, and, when I did begin to listen to him, oh, maybe 8 months ago, it was the first non-secessionist voice I had heard in years, which compelled me.
           That said, there is no perfect candidate for me, because, I much prefer Mr. Trump’s views on foreign policy. Mr. Cruz’s anti-Russian views, when Putin has been doing more to protect Western Civilization, in recent years, than all of The West combined, is a problem for me, and something which i hearken to greatly in Mr. Trump.
           So, I am going to have to make a choice between the two, by March 8 – as is my wife & daughter.
           Personally, I think Cruz and Trump are uniquely strong, and intense alpha types, though, of very different styles.
           As a countrified Tarheel gentleman and a bible thumper, I am much more attracted to Ted Cruz deportement than Trump’s – whose mannerisms are a big reason why New York City is, like Father John, no place for me.
           Still, substance is the issue.

           Thank you for your thoughts. I appreciate the civility and erudition of your articulations.

         • You’re welcome, Nikolai. I’m glad you enjoy our exchanges.

           In my view, you’ve expressed well your concern—one I share—about the dangers that have come to America through the “backdoor,” which, as you say, some of our fellow citizens insist on holding ajar. In response to your remarks, the thing I would best say is that I think you have a good understanding of the questions you, your wife, and your daughter will be weighing in advance of your March vote. Probably, you, I, and Occidental Dissent’s other commenters—not to mention Mr. W., our host—will continue to exchange thoughts on those questions until your voting day comes.

           For the moment, I’ll add congratulations on your military service. In case you will be interested to know, I’ll mention that a somewhat-distant cousin of mine served in the 29th Infantry Division, in which your father served. He went into Normandy on D Plus 1 and was killed, south of Saint-Lô, at the end of the following July.

         • Wow, what an improbable world, Mr. Bonaccorsi!

           To think that I, deep in the rural boonies of northeastern North Carolina and you (somewhere betwixt Philadelphia and Providence – I always surmise) would be related by the 29th Blue & Gray Division is really quite incredible!

           My daddy was the administrative adjutant (sergeant) to Colonel Canham – commander of the 116th Infantry Regiment; which,by the way, was the only reason my daddy was not killt in those early weeks, as the fighting on the beach, and thereafter, first at Grandcamp and then at St. Lo – an action for which Major Howie would be awarded the Medal of Honour, posthumously, and which depleted most of regiment of over 6,000 men.

           My daddy remarkt that he was the onlyYankee in that regiment : the rest of the unit composed of mountain boys from the Charlottesville, Virginia area. to his dying day he always considered it his high honour to have been associated with Sergeant Frank Peregory.

           Although my daddy has been dead for some time, Mr. Bonaccorsi, I have maintained those few campaign momentos he left to me – papers, dog-tags, and the many now fading photos, from their time in England, 42-43, training to spearhead the Normandy invasion.

           Let me convey my deepest sympathies for the loss of your family member – probably in the 113th & 114th regiments, as it was, if memory serves, composed entirely of Yankees.

           Thank you for your kind words about ‘my understanding’. Certainly it’s greatly reinforced by being here, and listening to all this. But, for now, to allow you and your fellow Trump supporters have a night full of unmitigated joy, I shall refrain from any political talk.

           All the best to you and yours.

         • Yes, Nikolai, when I read your report that your father had been in the “Blue and Gray,” I thought you’d be as startled as I had been to realize you and I shared that connection. My cousin’s unit was the 175th Regiment, a Maryland unit whose history extends from the Revolutionary War to the present day, in which it’s part of the Maryland National Guard. My cousin was from Germantown, a neighborhood in Philadelphia’s northwest wing, whereas my own neighborhood is in the city’s northeast wing. (As I recently mentioned here, at Occidental Dissent, my neighborhood was long ago called Oxford Township and was the home of Robert Harper, who created Harpers Ferry. Since that Ferry enabled settlers en route from Philadelphia to cross the Potomac and thus head down into the southern reaches of the Great Appalachian Valley, I think of myself as residing in Dixie’s birthplace—or at least, one of its birthplaces.)

           That’s great that you have your father’s mementos and, of course, the stories of his wartime experience; those, I’m sure, are among the greatest of the treasures you’ll be able to pass to your posterity. I have copies of photographs of my cousin and a scan of his Purple Heart citation, awarded posthumously. Decades ago, I spoke about him to an uncle of mine who was one year his younger and who had served in the war, too. My uncle, who, if I may say, was a man of deep feeling, simply got quiet and said, “If ever there were proof the good die young, that was it.” Sentimental person that I am, I can’t think of a greater accomplishment than to have made oneself so fondly remembered.

           Thanks for your expression of sympathy and for the details of your father’s experience, including his service to Colonel Canham. Now, your father, my cousin, and nearly all of their brothers-in-arms rest together. Thanks, too, for your good spirit toward those of us who were delighted by Mr. Trump’s win in New Hampshire. Should you, I, and all the others at Occidental Dissent stay healthy, we will see many interesting political events, I suspect, in the months ahead.

         • Dear Mr. Bonaccorsi,
           Your message is a joy to read. Though, of course, I would understand, if you do not wish to answer, but, I am curious about your family and your mileu…
           From what part of Italy did the Bonaccorsi’s hail? Is you mama’s folk Italian, too?; and, if so, whence, in Italy were they from and when did they come over? What sort of people were your families? : merchants, artesans, professional class? Are you active in the Roman Catholick church? You know, I had a hunch you were from Philadelphia, though, I do not know why. Unfortunately, my mind got to talking and tried to convince me my intuition was not right, and so, I equivocated and mentioned Providence, as well. My intuition tells me you were raised in the church, in a moderate manner, but, nowadays, you are somewhat separate from it – though, for reasons my intuition does not supply.
           My connection to your town is rather slim : I traveled through a number of times, and, as a boy, I appreciated collecting the cards of such local luminaries as Jim Bunning, Roman Gabriel, Tim McCarver, Bill Cunningham, Norms Snead, and Van Brocklin (were you are fan when the Eagles last won the championship in 1960?)
           I delighted to hear the connection to Harper’s Ferry. Little stories like those are always intriguing, if for no other fact that how they lie so sneakily right under our noses.
           Is you cousin buried out in the St. Lo cemetery, or was he brought back to a family plot?
           Poignant ’twas your relating of your uncle’s reply to your cousin’s demise. It’s a good thing that those of us who were not entirely good, when we were young, get a chance to live on and make corrections. I’m grateful to The Lord for the opportunity to be middle-aged me, every damn day!
           Well, you live in the big city. But, do you live in a brownstone, or in a suburb? My wife and I live in a wee old Southern town, Murfreesboro, North Carolina – that is kind of like an outdoor antebellum museum. We are blesst to be the owners of the historick & pretentious Rea-Lassiter house, which is situated on a small and quiet street that, with the exception of telephone wires, is not much different from the 1840s. Certainly a number of the trees, that line our yard, are pushing a century, perhaps more- though our house was built in the late 18th century, by a Yankee, coincidentally, who was an early globalist; he a Bostonian who owned two cutters that delivered goods, to this town, via the river that is two blocks away. The town has a rich rich history, (including raids by the Federal army in the 1860s) though, much of it is the quiet type, with the sole possible exception that Solon Borland, who led our militia to quell the Nat Turner insurrection, was from here – his house but 2 blocks away from ours. In fact, the exact store, on it’s original location, of the original owner of our house, is right across the street – an unusual example of preservation to have both house and store unperturbed.
           Certainly, Mr. Bonaccorsi, things here have changed here, as we no longer officially own our negroes, streets are paved, most wells are no longer used (in town – country right outside is different) women are in the work place, cars drive around, and people do have cell-phones. That said, not much else is different – the town’s folks very polite and friendly (never hear a horn blow) nobody tailgates, and the negroes do all the manual work about town, with white supervision. The town is 60% white and 40% negro and I may be the only one with any blood, not entirely of those two, for miles and miles around. Though there are a few exceptions, blacks and whites get on very well, but, maintain our historic limits with each other.
           Our town is rimmed by forest and cotton and tobacco farm fields, and is dominated by houses, cedar, pine, oak, gun, sycamore, and hickory trees – and, most of all, the hundreds of decorous Crape Myrtle trees – it so lovely with it’s mottled bark and stunning flowers from July through September. Church life, fishing, hunting, gossip, and eating is what we do, along with passing the time talking to each other – here everybody talks to everybody, even if you have no earthly idea who in the hell they are:) In fact, if you don’t want to talk, bes’ stay at home.

           Thank you for your mellifluous cordiality, Mr. Bonaccorsi. It is much appreciated.

         • You’re welcome, Nikolai. I very much enjoyed your reply, including its vivid and respectful description of Murfreesboro and the way of life there. In accordance with my usual practice when I want to fill out my knowledge of a place I’ve begun to learn about, I went to Google Maps and Wikipedia to learn about the town after I read your report. Because I was familiar with its name, I was expecting my visit to Wikipedia to be straightforward; but the instant I began my search there, I discovered there are three Murfreesboros, being yours and one each in Tennessee and Arkansas. My sense, at the moment, is that yours is the original and that the other two are probably named after Hardy Murfree, the Revolutionary War hero whose father was the original Murfree in your area. Once I’d clarified that, I was able to use Google Maps to get a sense of your area, including the nearby river you mentioned (the Meherrin, as I’ve learned). By an odd bit of luck, I was even able to view, via the Google Maps street view, your attractive house. I was able to identify it because a real-estate webpage had shown me photographs of both the interior and the exterior of the “Rea-Lassiter” house, the name you’d reported. Long live the internet.

           In answer to your questions, I am Italian only on the side of my father, whose ancestry is in the area of Catania, a city on the east coast of Sicily. On my mother’s side, which is the side of my cousin who was in the 29th Infantry, I’m Irish.

           You have intuited my own Catholicism remarkably accurately. My father’s death, which took place a little more than three decades ago, occurred on Good Friday, when my parents were at our parish church’s service for that day. Today—well, yesterday now—I took my mother to Ash Wednesday service in that same church where she saw my father drop dead. Even though there came a point, about two decades ago, when I ceased believing, I retain a sort of emotional connection to Catholicism. I think you would appreciate my mother, with her simplicity and with her religiousness that is devout but never pious. There have been one or two occasions when little children—complete strangers—have come up to her and pressed themselves against her with affection, in public places, as if they’d sensed her loving nature merely through her look and way, without her having said a word to them.

           On my maternal side, my history in the U.S. begins circa 1890, when my great-grandparents were married here, in Philadelphia, in a church that still stands. The family lore is that my great-grandfather was a rebel, of Ireland’s County Clare, and had slipped out of Ireland just before he could be hanged by the British. At some point, he snuck back into Clare and retrieved my great-grandmother—a second cousin of his, apparently–and brought her here, where, as I’ve said, they were married. There was probably a period in which she worked as a domestic; he was a teamster—a literal teamster, driving a team of horses on the streets of then-industrial Philadelphia.

           My grandfather, one of that couple’s two sons who lived to adulthood, married an Irish girl who had come to America in 1907, to live with an aunt and uncle, after her siblings and she were orphaned, in County Mayo. He went on to work as a metal finisher for Philadelphia’s Budd Company, which pioneered the steel-bodied automobile, so my family history incorporates the great transition marked by the end of the age of the horse. My grandfather—to continue this almost-cinematic account of Irish-American experience—went on to be active in the labor movement, in the 1930s and ’40s.

           My father’s father came here in the early 1900s–around the time of World War I, I think, though I’d have to do a bit of checking to identify the year. Eventually, in a sort of Old Country way, a marriage match was made between him and a young woman of his home town—maybe while he was back in Sicily for a visit to his mother. I’d have to check the date on my treasured copy of his naturalization certificate, to make sure whether he was already a U.S. citizen when he and that young woman—my grandmother—were married; but whatever was the sequence of events, they raised their family here, in Philadelphia. As far as I know, my grandfather’s own working life was one of unskilled labor, but I think he was very careful with his pennies and emphasized education for his children.

           My father was an only son, with three sisters, and began his career in electrical engineering shortly after World War II, during which he’d been stationed at Fort Knox (which was a tank training school in that time). Most of his career was in defense work, at now-defunct RCA. That was at the RCA facility across the Delaware, in Camden, New Jersey. Of the few former RCA buildings still standing in that town, one has a tower with stained-glass windows of “Nipper” the dog, listening to a gramophone. The RCA facility had originally been the Victor Talking Machine Company, which did so much to build the recording industry and used Nipper as its trademark.

           Philadelphia’s northeast wing, where I grew up and still live, didn’t really begin to fill in until after World War II. Although it does have some areas that look suburban, with single homes, much of it is like my neighborhood, in which my parents settled upon their marriage, in 1952. (My parents had met at their workplace, where my mother was a secretary.) Some of the homes are “row homes,” like those in the older parts of the city, and some are twin homes, like the one my parents bought. The main thing, I guess, is that the houses tend to have front lawns—even if only small ones—and thus the neighborhood as a whole is semi-suburban, unlike the somewhat Dickensian areas of the city’s older sections.

           Even though the athletes you mention are mostly just names to me—because I’ve never followed sports closely—I am touched to think that so many figures of Philadelphia’s sports history are important to you, a few hundred miles away from me. I’m afraid no, I wasn’t following the Eagles when they won the championship, in 1960, but my brother and I did happen to see, on television, Jim Bunning pitch his perfect game on Father’s Day 1964. I remember how we moved back and forth from the dining room to the living room—from the dinner table, that is, to the television—as the amazing event unfolded. I remember the astonishing moment when infielder Tony Taylor leapt to snare a line drive and thus saved Bunning’s performance.

           My cousin who was killed in Normandy is buried with his parents and one or two other family members in a Catholic cemetery, just over the city border, but his body was not placed there until 1948, when his widowed mother exercised her option to have it brought back to the U.S. Where in Europe he’d been buried until that time, I don’t know; but his one remaining sibling—his sister—has told me that two soldiers, assigned by the Army, stood as sentries at his coffin throughout the night before he was reburied here in the States. One stood at the coffin’s head and one at its foot, in the front room of the Germantown row home whence he’d departed for his fateful wartime duty.

           I hope my reply has been neither too long nor too brief. If you would like a visual sense of my neighborhood, the Google Maps street view of the 1100 block of Philadelphia’s St. Vincent Street will show you the brick twin homes and the modest front lawns of which I’ve spoken. If you would like a sense of the change the neighborhood has undergone in this age of multiculturalism, you will find, at http://www.phillymag.com/articles/the-late-great-northeast/, “The Late Great Northeast,” a 2008 Philadelphia Magazine article that happens to have been written by a younger brother of one of my elementary-school classmates. For my own part, I will be looking into the history of Solon Borland, who, as you have informed me, lived just blocks from what is now your home.
           Respect, from Philadelphia.

         • Dear Mr. Bonaccorsi – what a great gift. Please accept my apologies. I had NO idea that you, in reply to my request, had written this magnificent thing.

           Please allow me to take it to bed and ponder it.

           I’m quite fascinated to look into your past, with only the best sort of curiosity.

           God bless you and yours – from the home of Solon Borland:)

         • No apology is necessary, Junius. As I just said in my reply to your other note, at another post, here at Occidental Dissent, I’m glad each of us now knows that I did, indeed, reply to your request for information on my background. Naturally, I’m glad, too, that you prize what I wrote.

           Having done a bit of research into Solon Borland, I must say that he was a man of a type I admire–a “complete man,” I’ll say, to use a phrase I recently encountered. I was impressed by the number of his large experiences, more than one of which involved considerable danger. One source I encountered gave me the impression he was a man who would not suffer insult, and, well, I can only admire that, too.

           God bless you and yours in return.

         • Thank you, Mr. Bonaccorsi, for your warm words. Wow, I am so impressed at you ability to take an interest in others! Such a rare gift, to be seriously interested in someone other the the self. The Good Lord blesses me every day and this is another – to make a friend such as yourself.

           I wholeheartedly concur with you that Solon was ‘ a complete man’ – a renaissance man, if you will, with a titanick temper.

           I say that because, when he was just a young man of 16 years, (about 200 years ago) he got into a brawl with the much older and bigger, Mr. Myrick – the latter owning a store, which is still there, just a block from our house. Mr. Myrick’s lovely Baltimore style 3 story brick house is right nearby, too, and in great shape, as is Mr. Borland’s 1840 wooden house – the original gate postillions still intact.

           Are you at Facebook? We ought be friends, there, as that place is a more fun place to exchange things, than is a purely political blog.

           Anyway, I’ll be back to you on your writings. Have a great day!

         • Probably, the simplest thing, Junius, is for you to use my e-mail. The address is simply johnbonaccorsi1, which, as you see, is my name, followed by the digit 1. The “at” is verizon dot net.

           Please know I am as happy as you are that we’ve been able to establish this friendship, via Mr. Wallace’s fine website. If, as you say, I’ve developed some interest in others, well, maybe that’s because I’ve paid heavy prices on a few occasions when I was a little too much interested in myself. Sometimes, the Good Lord teaches us the hard way.

           Interesting anecdote, about Solon Borland’s brawl with Mr. Myrick. You can already see Borland coming into his formidable adult character.

         • Well, Mr. Bonaccorsi – what you have written is, all at once, arresting, and well written. In fact, there is so much substance that, in order not to slight anything, I am going to take it on in sections.

           First, your remarks on Catholicism in your life, and in general…

           ‘You have intuited my own Catholicism remarkably accurately. My father’s death, which took place a little more than three decades ago, occurred on Good Friday,when my parents were at our parish church’s service for that day.’

           All I can say, Mr. Bonaccorsi, is that The Lord must have held your daddy in very high esteem, to allow him to die so easily, in his house. Your daddy must have been a righteous man – VERY.

           ‘Today—well, yesterday now—I took my mother to Ash Wednesday service in that same church where she saw my father drop dead.’

           How quietly, yet incredibly, poignant. Thank you for doing this with her; for being a faithful son. How was the service, and had it been long since she had attended there? I assume that she no longer lives in Germantown, either – perhaps in your backyard?

           ‘Even though there came a point, about two decades ago, when I ceased believing, I retain a sort of emotional connection to Catholicism.’

           I am so very sorry to hear this. It seems to me that the whole North has, wittingly or un-, given up on the very foundation of our civilization. also, I have noticet that, particularly with brilliant people such as yourself, the Christian faith is very very hard. I know that The Devil camps out on my mind, so, when I pray, when I read the Good Book, I shut down my brain and laugh at Satan – he looking desperately at my heart, but unable to break into the fortress of blind unreasoning faith in Oure Father.

           Yet, I do understand the many difficulties you might have encountered in your faith. To be plain, I’ll tell you that I am an admirer of old Christianity – Roman and Byzantine, but, the Roman Church has gotten so infested with cultural Marxism, thrt, when my wife and I first resettled back in rural North Carolina, and we attended service at St. Borromeo’s in nearby Ahoskie NC, we found ourselves in the midst of a ‘multicultural paradise’, a surrounding that was echoed by the sermon. My wife, a convert to Roman Catholicism, was quite dismayed, as I was for her, and we never returned.

           May I suggest that you look into the Orthodox church?; sometime in the coming years. It HAS NOT CHANGED. In many ways it is like the Roman Catholick church was, before Vatican 2. The liturgy of the Orthodox church is spellbindingly beautiful, and impossibly mysterious; linkt to Roman Catholicism, in many ways, Mr. Bonaccorsi, though, still quite distinct – and NO cultural Marxism. In fact, in North Carolina, only the rural Baptist congregations and the Orthodox church is where a white man can go to be with God, and do it with his own kind.

           Still, I pray that you will cast your lot back in with he who, whenever he casts light into something, leaves no shadow.

           ‘I think you would appreciate my mother, with her simplicity and
           with her religiousness that is devout but never pious.’

           Yes, I can readily love your mama just from listening to this – and how perfectly, yet pithily, you have described her Catholicism. In fact, that is how I would describe my own faith – devout, but, not pious.

           ‘There have been one or two occasions when little children—complete strangers—have come up to her and pressed themselves against her with affection, in public places, as if they’d sensed her loving nature merely through her look and way, without her having said a word to them.’

           How beautiful and how rare. Very strong and Chryst-like. I can see why you turned out so well – true Christian parenting. Where Christ is, cannot long go off the rails, if at all – in spite of human imperfections.
           God bless you. I’ll return sometime in the next day.

         • Rather than reply here to your complimentary and interesting comments, Junius, I’ll communicate with you via e-mail. Maybe you’ve already seen my other comment, in which I’ve provided you my e-mail address. Once I’ve heard from you via e-mail, I’ll have your e-address, and we’ll be “good to go.”

         • Okay, Mr. Bonaccorsi, That’s fine. Sleep tight.

     • ‘A still more resonant aspect of his legacy was the uniform rewriting of Roman law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, which is still the basis of civil law in many modern states.’

       It is precisely this. Mr. Bonaccorsi – in the article to which you linkt me, at Wikipedia, that points me to Cruz.

       My view is that Trump would get things done, but, NOT install a system of the law that would outlive his administration. I don’t think he thinks in this kind of foundational manner – but, more in terms of policies (important, certainly), whereas Cruz, being a constitutional lawyer, will think about restructuring the foundation, and putting it back on the right course.

       So, while I agree that Jusitnian’s reign is a fabulously appropriate and erudite analogy to that decision we are soon constrained to make, and while I believe it applies to both candidates, I come away with a slightly different conclusion than you, Mr. Bonaccorsi, or, at least, presently.

       Thank you for the interesting commentary. I enjoy and learn from it.

       • You’re welcome, Nikolai. In a comment I’ve just posted in reply to your other comment, about what Trump has or has not accomplished so far, I address your statement about Cruz’s Constitutional intentions.

         • Mr. Bonaccorsi – I am in need of crawling into bed and shocking my slumbering wife with the frigidity of my toes.

           Like McArthur, I shall return.

           Thank you for the very interesting and highly civil repartee. It is a delight when two men can talk without hitting each other over the head.

           Good Night…

     • Good comparison and one of the great points that seems to have been lost in the ether somewhere.

       • Glad you thought my comment worth something, Hazel.

7. http://www.thisblogisdangerous.com/conservative-save-yourself/

8. Actually, Sir – what this reminds me of is when Spelunker would try to take you apart – by posting unflattering pictures, or pictures from childhood, along with old quotes, when carefully combined with a sardonick narrative, created a caricature of you – you know, like a the Hogarthian portraits, in a series called, ‘A Rake’s Progress’.

   It’s easy to marginalize anybody this way. Hell, I could even do it to myself!

   Anyway, I respect your right to think that Cruz is just a satanick charlatan with no real values. It’s not the end of the world!

   • Junius,

     Actually, I am the opposite of Ted Cruz in two crucial ways:

     1.) I say exactly what I think without calculation or crafting my message to impress anyone.

     2.) I never had any ambition at all to slither to the top of the pyramid of mainstream conservatism.

     In real life, I am exactly what I present myself to be on this website. As for Spelunker, he is free to troll through 15 years of me posting on the internet and he will find all kinds of politically incorrect statements, but he will never find me trying to be something I am not.

     • Yes, Sir – I am NOT saying your are identical to Mr. Cruz.

       All I am saying is that it is easy to murder someone.

       Anybody, or any group of people can be demonized – just neglect to mention what is good in them, while hyping the bad.

       Voila – a devil is born.

       Thank you for your thoughts. A very good night to you.

       • when Glen Beck was on the Tex-Mex border handing out Teddy Bears to the invasive gang-bangers, who was that standing beside him? That’s right: Ted Cruz

     • One more thing, Sir : if someone, who knew me from me 18th year, gave you a testimony of me, now deep into my middle age – you would recognize my personal attributes, but, be wildly off about my values, how I live my life, and how I treat others.

       In those days I was a talented bastard and something of a scoundrel.

       The I have not risen to the pearly gates yet, the bastard and the scoundrel are long gone – LONG GONE.

   • BTW, have you read Ted’s essay in “Thank You, President Bush” where the “outsider” Ted is brownnosing George W. Bush? Probably not.

     http://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/that-time-ted-cruz-wrote-a-16-page-love-letter-to#.tjGGP7Z15

     “Today President George W. Bush carries the mantle of Lincoln as an opportunity conservative, defending the promise of the Declaration and the vision of our great nation. And the future of the Grand Old Party depends upon ensuring that that vision comes to pass, that the policies we espouse facilitate the ability of every man, woman, and child to hope for and be able to realize the American dream.”

     • Thank you, Sir, for having shared this with me.

       Certainly I understand that Senator Cruz is NOT a Confederate secessionist as we are; but, as we have expresst to each other, we are both stuck in this situation by the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of our fellow countrymen (Southerners) do not wish to make a play for independence, at this juncture in history.

       That so, the menu of candidates, from which we are constrained to choose, are not going to be like Dr. Hill – whose opinions most closely mirror mine.

       Instead, we have to vote for Unionists, because they are the only ones who will be on the ballot. Naturally, they are going to speak the language of the union that is forcet upon us – ‘immigrant oriented democracy’, the glories of Mr. Lincoln, and all that repugnant tripe, et al…

       I wish this were not so, Sir, but, it is. We are, as you well know, an occupied country, particularly in the brain, and that, my friend, is where is hurts most.

       Thank you, Sir, for all the tremendous work you do, and sharing the nurturing victuals of that with us.

9. has anyone noticed that PeeWee Herman disappeared…actually when Ted Cruz appeared?

10. Bread Face or Pool Boy, the Oligarchy’s last great hopes.

11. Trying to convince the Cruzbots that he isn’t the arch conservative they think he is is like going back to 2012 and trying to demonstrate that Rick Santorum isn’t the arch conservative they think he is. IOW they’ll buy it over and over until the cows come home.

12. Cruz reminds me of Bill Clinton in his single minded pursuit of money and power. I never felt that Clinton ever cared about anything except political power and wealth. Issues don’t matter to people like this, issues are actually an impediment to their goals.
    They seem emblematic to the system, a bunch of superficially glib but basically narcissistic assholes, limited mentally because their only goal is giving people with money and power what they want, and telling them how important that they are. Clinton gave the rich whatever they wanted and in return they let him be President, and get rich himself once his time as front man for the oligarchy was over.
    Now the harpy wife wants her turn at it.
    I’ve wondered how people can possibly be this out of touch, apparently it helps to be so arrogant that’s it’s difficult to even describe.

13. I just can’t see voting for someone based upon what his college roommate tweets about him.

14. Never trust people who are pudgy. Their claims of will and focus are all behind gobs and rolls of fat and hours and days of sloth. Krispy Kreme Christie may look like Ralph Kramden but he lost some weight recently to make his run. The Spillsbury Doughboy has obviously been lounging around in Adelson’s Hot Tubs getting all that moola the way only a easy sleazy guy from the low end of the gene pool knows how. His lips must be tired from kissing Sheldon’s ring and whatever else he needs to to get that Israeli Aipac dude to open his moldy wallet.

15. Ted won many debating contests and speaks well in front of judges. He decided to shed his Cuban ID by marrying a full breed white lady. His two white kids are beautiful, they don`t have teds strange nose.

16. “Ted Cruz doesn’t like “New York values.” His wife works for Goldman Sachs. This is how dumb he thinks you all are.” – he may be a sociopath, usually they are better in social circumstances however.