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Want to understand where the tea party champion's hardcore views come from? Meet his father, Rafael.
In April, Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), spoke to the tea party of Hood County, which is southwest of Fort Worth, and made a bold declaration: The United States is a "Christian nation." The septuagenarian businessman turned evangelical pastor did not choose to use the more inclusive formulation "Judeo-Christian nation." Insisting that the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution "were signed on the knees of the framers" and were a "divine revelation from God," he went on to say, "yet our president has the gall to tell us that this is not a Christian nation…The United States of America was formed to honor the word of God." Seven months earlier, Rafael Cruz, speaking to the North Texas Tea Party on behalf of his son, who was then running for Senate, called President Barack Obama an "outright Marxist" who "seeks to destroy all concept of God," and he urged the crowd to send Obama "back to Kenya."
As Rafael Cruz recounted at the Hood County tea party event, he had a powerful role in shaping his son, introducing Ted, when he was in middle school, to the Free Enterprise Education Center, where the young Cruz was flooded with Austrian School libertarian economics and archly conservative interpretations of US history. Cruz excelled in this setting and went on to become part of a traveling road show of teens called the Constitutional Corroborators. They appeared at Rotary Club luncheons across the state to extol the wonders of the free market and the US Constitution. While the Rotarians ate lunch, the whiz kids transcribed from memory the articles of the Constitution on easels placed at the front of the room.
At the Hood County gathering, Rafael Cruz, in full sync with his son's political stance, attacked RINOs—Republicans In Name Only. He noted that the "wicked" were now ruling the United States. He insisted that "those death panels are in Obamacare," and that the US government wants "to take all of your money" and confiscate "our fortunes." He asserted that the Democratic Party promotes "everything that is contrary to the word of God." He also exclaimed, "Social justice is a cancer. Social justice means you are ruled by whatever the mob does. What social justice does is destroy individual responsibility."
At the Hood County gathering, Rafael Cruz, in full sync with his son's political stance, attacked RINOs—Republicans In Name Only. He noted that the "wicked" were now ruling the United States. He insisted that "those death panels are in Obamacare," and that the US government wants "to take all of your money" and confiscate "our fortunes." He asserted that the Democratic Party promotes "everything that is contrary to the word of God." He also exclaimed, "Social justice is a cancer. Social justice means you are ruled by whatever the mob does. What social justice does is destroy individual responsibility."
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