Why You May Not Like Ted Cruz's Face, According To Science (qz.com) 203
An anonymous reader writes: Ted Cruz pitches himself as an overcomer, an underdog, an outsider who beats the odds. While the Republic candidate has won four states in this nomination race so far, a neurologist says he still faces a big obstacle with voters: his own face. In an interview with Quartz, George Washington University's Richard E. Cytowic said the unusual movements of Cruz's face may make him seem less sincere to the human brain than other candidates. "The normal way a face moves is what's called the Duchenne smile, named after the 19th century French neurologist. So the mouth goes up, the eyes narrow and the eyes crinkle at the outside, forming crows feet," said Cytowic, a professor of neurology.
"Cruz doesn't give a Duchenne smile. His mouth goes in a tight line across or else it curves down in an anti-Duchenne smile. So he doesn't come across as sincere at all."
Visceral reactions probably drive a lot more of politics than anyone likes to admit; seeming trustworthy isn't the same as being trustworthy, but it sure helps win people over.
"Appears" Insincere? (Score:5, Informative)
He appears insincere because, guess fuckin' what, he *is.*
Cruz is a Dominionist. None of this means anything to him except insofar as he can grab the reins of power and usher in some dystopic nightmare fusion of 1984 and The Handmaiden's Tale. Dominionists have been a scary powerful group since the Nixon years and they went absolutely metastaticwhen Bush II was elected.
If he is not stopped, we're going to end up ruled by the Christian Taliban.
Re: "Appears" Insincere? (Score:5, Funny)
What is Dominionism (Score:3)
Here are some primers:
Courtesy of Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Courtesy or DailyKos [dailykos.com]:
Re:"Appears" Insincere? (Score:5, Interesting)
How is voting for someone who denies what virtually every scientist has known to be a fact for over a century not voting for a religious zealot?
That is if Cruz is a creationist. I suspect he understands his supporters well and simply apres their ignorance and prejudices.
Re:"Appears" Insincere? (Score:4, Interesting)
I suspect he understands his supporters well and simply apres their ignorance and prejudices.
No, that's the reality show star.
Cruz actually believes what he says.
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I watched O'Reilly post-debate ask Cruz if he believed Trump is an honest man, Cruz hesitated for a sec and then admitted he thought yes, Trump says what he believes. But then he added that Trump believes two opposite things in the span of two minutes, and would pass the lie detector test on both.
I had to give Cruz points for being honest himself. In a way he also confirmed that much of Trump's appeal is the "no filter", saying what's on his mind without calculation, which is what some said people are cravi
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Not everyone who knew him in school thought great things about him. His college roommate, in particular, has taken to twitter to let the world know what he had to live with during that time...
Check it here:
https://twitter.com/clmazin [twitter.com]
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I voted for Cruz in the primaries, because i have more faith in the American people that they would actively not want Cruz win if Hillary was the other option, than if it was a Trump v Hillary contest...
Of course, I failed - i'm in Massachusetts, Trump got 49% of the vote.
Re: "Appears" Insincere? (Score:2)
You are a nutjob who cannot form a reasonable argument against Hillary.
You'd have to be a complete retard to be unable to form a reasonable argument against "Billlary" but nuts? That's a bit much, don't you think? :)
Re: "Appears" Insincere? (Score:4, Insightful)
You can be white of pure European ancestry and be Cuban, Mexican, Columbian, etc. It's actually pretty common from some hispanic countries. That's why "hispanic" is not an ethnicity more than it is a social grouping.
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People are quite capable of compartmentalizing contradictory portions of their beliefs. Cruz's craziness is pretty much limited to abortions and chemical birth control, and it's unlikely he'll be able to overturn existing law (nonetheless, it is a risk).
By way of contrast, consider the other major candidates. Hillary is corrupt and nasty, physically ill and has probably suffered brain damage. Sanders seems genial, but he's a communist who will lead the country to poverty and probably the military loss of parts of the 50 states. Trump is a corrupt and nasty populist flibertigibbet, with a grossly exaggerated opinion of himself. Rubio is a moderate-conservative with principles that probably will not stand up against strong opposition, and who doesn't understand the border control problem.
Look at those candidates and ask who will do the least damage and who will repair the most existing problems. Cruz is far better than the rest.
The overriding issue when selecting a president is foreign policy/war. Most everything else of real consequence requires serious effort on behalf of other branches of government to achieve.
Cruz is against Iran nuclear deal and wants to carpet bomb ISIS controlled territory. I'll pass.
Re: "Appears" Insincere? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's odd and sad to see us tear one another apart here - ALL the choices on the menu are bad. Not a good apple in the bunch - it just becomes a matter of finding the least-rotten one, and that is truly just as sad as we citizens bickering at each other.
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On the Department of Education front, I'd add that they've done a fine job of crafting crypto-Christian schools using the charter route.
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You left out the final conclusion to "That includes anyone they consider God's enemies." and of course if they want your money, they consider you God's enemy. Hardly the first atheist to use religion as a masquerade to gain money and power. They seriously can not believe in the religion they claim to believe in and behave the way they do, quite simply logically impossible.
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BS. You are not the arbiter of what religion is and isn't correct, or who is practicing their religion "wrong". There's nothing remotely logical about religion in the first place, so calling their practice "logically impossible" makes no sense at all.
Every Christian sect is based on selective interpretation of an ancient book that's compiled from many volumes from various sources over several thousand years, most of it just written-down versions of oral lore. The Bible is completely contradictory, so of
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You seem to lack a grasp of logic. They make a claim about the contents of the religion they claim to believe in, they then act contrary to those claims proving they do not actually believe in those claims. I made zero judgement of any religion or any act, just completely arbitrary comparison of actions versus claimed beliefs, what ever those actions might be and what ever the claimed beliefs might be. If you claim a belief as fact and the act contrary to the fact, then your claimed belief of that fact is
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Sincerity (Score:5, Funny)
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
-- Jean Giraudoux
Less sincere than a politician? (Score:4, Insightful)
may make him seem less sincere than other candidates.
I'm not sure that's possible.
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I'm not sure that's possible.
It is when he is quite possibly the Zodiac killer [rollingstone.com]
Oh c'mon (Score:1)
Who couldn't like his face [gifsoup.com]?
He looks like (Score:5, Funny)
Grandpa Munster
i.imgur.com/G8LGrnY.png
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Never mind his face, I don't like him. (Score:5, Insightful)
We had a vote. The majority, the fricken majority chose the winner, and the winner delivered on a campaign promise to deliver affordable health care to everyone.
The fricken majority.
And he and his ilk have spent six years since then trying to over turn what the fricken majority voted for.
Is it any wonder nobody likes him?
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You mean the majority that after that abomination was passed has been trying for the past six years to get rid of it? The majority that's currently supporting candidates who will get rid of it?
People wanted health care reform, sure. They didn't want to be forced to be overly expensive health plans.
All we needed was tort reform and a little loosening of the ridiculous FDA restrictions, but no, Obama dumped even more regulations into the system.
There's a reason Trump is winning and winning big.
Re:Never mind his face, I don't like him. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just reversing the rule prohibiting buying prescription drugs from Canada would dramatically lower the costs for millions of Americans who, despite being forced to buy "affordable health care", are stuck with ridiculously high deductible policies that don't even provide co-pays for drugs until they meet their deductible, which they can't do because their premiums are ridiculously high.
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All we needed was tort reform and a little loosening of the ridiculous FDA restrictions,
And this brilliant plan helps families that have someone with a preexisting condition obtain insurance, HOW?
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So essentially, you advocate the standard Republican health plan: "Don't get sick. And if you do get sick, die quickly."
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Genetic conditions have been legally barred from consideration as a factor for insurance costs since 2008 when Bush signed into law the Genetic Information Nondescrimination Act of 2008.
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Sometimes "playing the lottery" isn't a choice. There are plenty of people who fell between the cracks of being eligible for Medicaid and having parents able to afford medical insurance. There are also many cases where someone had insurance but lost their job, couldn't afford COBRA, got diagnosed, and then later tried to get insurance and was denied.
There are people who gambled by not buying insurance when they thought they wouldn't need it, but that's where the idea for the individual mandate came from.
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And this brilliant plan helps families that have someone with a preexisting condition obtain insurance, HOW?
If you have a preexisting condition, that means you were betting on not getting sick and not paying into the pool. You played the lottery and you lost. Your problem, not mine.
Dead wrong.
I changed jobs. The insurance company of my new employer denied benefits because I "now" had a pre-existing condition.
Had I stayed with my old employer, my old insurance company would have continued to pay. Instead I had to cough up a large chunk of cash out of my own pocket, because it was only after being treated that it became known that they wouldn't pay.
I know someone who spent 30 years at the same employer, whether it was good or bad because of his cancer and their insurance. Back when you
Re:Never mind his face, I don't like him. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or it means you had diabetes (and there are plenty of thin, otherwise people with diabetes) and didn't work for a company that offered health insurance;
Or it means you had a (now illegal) plan that "covered" well child visits, just not more than 2 in the first two years of life (out of the 9 that are the standard of care);
Or it means you fell off a ladder painting your house and broke your back;
Or it means you have congenital heart disease —
SORRY SUCKERS! You shouldn't have had Pacific Islander grandparents/been a kid/painted your house/been born — not my problem! I'm not saying "Your problem, not mine" isn't a valid viewpoint, but I do think that letting people who have treatable medical problems through no fault of their own drop dead in the streets is a bit more individualistic than all but the most libertarian viewpoints in the US. Not to mention every single other developed nation on the planet, that somehow manage to have popular support for their universal health care systems yet still spend about half of what we do.
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Affordable health care has been an issue for most of my adult, working life. Republicans and Democrats alike have proposed solutions, but until six years ago no one delivered.
We had a vote. The majority, the fricken majority chose the winner, and the winner delivered on a campaign promise to deliver affordable health care to everyone.
The fricken majority.
And he and his ilk have spent six years since then trying to over turn what the fricken majority voted for.
Is it any wonder nobody likes him?
If Obamacare does get repealed, it will have been repealed by the fricken majority.
The will have been a vote. And Obamacare will have been overturned by the majority, the fricken majority.
And if the winner this November is Trump, he will have delivered on a campaign promise to overturn Obamacare.
I just hope the Republicans ram the overturning through using every shady legislative trick possible just to teach the Democrats a lesson.
And then the Republicans keep going and use every damn legislative dirty tri
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Re:I see your source and raise you mine (Score:4, Informative)
The actual statistics do not agree with Politico.com (you'd be on firmer ground citing Wikipedia, by far):
http://kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/analysis-of-2016-premium-changes-in-the-affordable-care-acts-health-insurance-marketplaces/
The sticker shock is higher - but not after the tax credit. If you make over 4x the federal, then yeah, you're not eligible for the tax credit and you're probably going to pay more. But that's the whole point. It's a progressive legislation, designed to subsidize health insurance for people with low incomes.
Also worth pointing out that overall health care costs are growing much more slowly than the decade prior to the ACA.
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Re:I see your source and raise you mine (Score:5, Interesting)
A question: Would health insurance premiums have risen over the past 8 years even if Barry O's healthcare policy hadn't been enacted? I suspect an angry middle-class will be disappointed if they expect premiums to stabilise or fall under President Trump.
Here in Australia, the government attempted to 'Americanize' health care by offering tax incentives to take out private health insurance. Yet premiums are expected to rise 5.6% this year and no one bats an eyelid.
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I live in a single payer jurisdiction and the same thing is happening, medicare premiums keep climbing, healthcare takes a bigger and bigger chunk of the governments budget, with no end in sight.
There's a combination of factors, not even counting the greed of the insurance companies that you guys have to deal with. Aging population, which needs more care. Drug prices keep climbing, due to a combination of the pharmaceutical companies BS with patents and such (only going to get worse with the trade deals you
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The government has been forcing you to pay other peoples' medical bills ever since the VA, Medicare, and Medicaid were passed into law.
If you don't like that, I suggest you move to Somalia, where you don't have to pay for any socialized services.
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Not only that but I think there's a program that helps hospitals when their emergency rooms have to treat too many people who are uninsured and can't to pay. That's your tax dollars paying for medical care as well.
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We had a vote. The majority, the fricken majority chose the winner, and the winner delivered on a campaign promise to deliver affordable health care to everyone.
I don't like Ted Cruz either, but there's no such thing as "final" in a democracy.
It's not the face itself that turns me off (Score:5, Insightful)
It's what comes out of it when he opens his mouth.
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The fact that he's won elections, and quite a number of votes in the current election shows that people are willing to overcome their smile prejudices and vote for him anyway.
Incidentally, this post can be seen as a propaganda attempt to get people to feel sorry for Ted Cruz and vote for him.
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http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3vzZLWBJ... [ytimg.com]
no, that face is pretty scary.
like....stephen king's clown scary
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I can't help, it looks like smiling puts him in quite a bit of pain.
Does the smile make you a prick, or vice-versa? (Score:1, Interesting)
Ted Cruz, by all accounts is a prick. So which came first? Is he just a prick who's neurology makes him smile that way, or did he smile that way, and everyone treated him like a prick so he became a prick?
Un... goto politifact. Cruz really lies a lot. (Score:5, Informative)
I wrote this for another forum which was focused on trump. But basically only 21% of Ted Cruz's statements are true or mostly true. He lies twice as often as Clinton and Sanders and almost twice as often as Rubio. He's facile at lying. Lying is a tool in his tool box. It has little to do with his face.
From politifact, the Pulitzer prize winning political fact checking site.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
51% of Clinton's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 21% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
48% of Sander's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 21% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
35% of Rubio's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 22% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
21% of Ted Cruz's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 13% are half true.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
8% of Trump's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 14% are half true.
yes.. 8% is yoooge.
Trump is saying mostly false statements to outright lies 78% of the time. When caught in a lie, he just lies again.
I was suprised to see Cruz had such a high lie rating given that he's christian and christians are against the lord of lies but his particular sect does approve of lying in the service of the lord so that may be playing a factor here.
Trump is almost a full order of magnitude more dishonest however.
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Oh yea...
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
48% of Bush's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 22% are half true.
1% better than Sanders.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
39% of Christie's statements are all true or mostly true. Another 26% are half true.
The site gives perfectly good ratings to honest republican candidates.
I think most of expect politicians to shade the truth a quarter of the time and lie a quarter of the time while being honest the rest of the time. that's the stardard for politici
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I'm not sure how Politifact decides which statements to rate, but I'm pretty sure Trump has told the truth more than that one time [politifact.com].
I rate their "All True statements involving Donald Trump == 1" to be "pants on fire".
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At the very least, politifact doesn't even attempt to get 100% coverage of every statement of the candidates, so using it to determine who lies a higher percentage of the time is questionable
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hes the best liar in politics today.
better even than Slick Willy was ever given credit for being.
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On the grounds of equal time, Trump ain't exactly being honest.
http://www.politifact.com/pers... [politifact.com]
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You may need a refresher on the bible being against lying generally.
https://www.openbible.info/top... [openbible.info]
Proverbs 6:16-19 ESV / 824 helpful votes
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Proverbs 19:9 ESV / 690 helpful votes
A false witness will not go unpunishe
Doesn't matter... (Score:1)
I don't like him because he's religious crazy...
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/03/23/ted-cruz-launches-2016-campaign-proclaiming-god-healthcare.html
>God wants a massive tax cut for the rich
Really damm crazy.
Why I don't like Ted Cruz (Score:1)
Because he's a fuckin' scumbag, that's why. As bad as it is, his smile is the least of his worries.
He's aggressive, aloof, arrogant, belligerent, big-headed, bitchy, boastful, bone-idle, boring, bossy, callous, cantankerous, careless, changeable, clinging, compulsive, conservative, cowardly, cruel, cunning, cynical, deceitful, detached, dishonest, dogmatic, domineering, finicky, flirtatious, foolish, foolhardy, fussy, greedy, grumpy, gullible, harsh , impatient, impolite, impulsive, inconsiderate, inconsist
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TLDR: ted cruz is bad.
No.
Ebola is "bad".
Nuclear war is "bad".
Sliding down a razor-blade banister into a pool of iodine is "bad".
Being shot out of a cannon into a barbed-wire fence factory is "bad".
Ted Cruz is far worse than any of those things.
I'm not watching this video (Score:2)
Cause and Effect (Score:4, Informative)
That creates an interesting question assuming you agree with the empirical evidence that Ted Cruz is very dishonest [politifact.com].
I basically see three main possibilities:
1) It's just a coincidence that a very insincere face is coupled with a very insincere man. The researcher suggests this though he's basically just repeating the null hypothesis.
2) Cruz's face behaves the way it does because he's so dishonest. The brain uses different circuits when lying or manipulating (ie fake smile vs genuine smile). If he's spent years being highly manipulative the circuits that control how his face move might work subtly different.
3) Finally he might be lying so much because he realizes he looks dishonest and has come to identify as such (or he's learned people won't believe him regardless).
I suspect it's one of the latter two, our brains don't do perfect heuristics but they're often based on something real.
This reminds me of the study that found hockey players with rounder faces were more aggressive [telegraph.co.uk]. Of course that doesn't tell you if the aggression and round face were both caused by the same underlying factor (ie testosterone) or if the players were acting more aggressive because they looked more aggressive.
Exodus 33:20 describes his mug (Score:2)
Like Al Gore (Score:2)
Some said that Gore's Botox treatment of his aging forehead and crowsfeet wrinkles made his facial expressions look fake on TV, and lost him many thousands of votes in the presidential election.
Tricky Dicky (Score:2)
First time I saw a photo of Ted Cruz I thought that he looked like Richard Nixon for some reason, go figure...
It's not his face I care about (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care about politicians' faces. Really.
I don't dislike Cruz because of his smile; I dislike Cruz because he's an asshole.
Just wait (Score:5, Funny)
I don't like his face because (Score:5, Insightful)
He's a Theocratist Shit-Sack. Anyone that even HINTS that the Bible should win out over the Constitution can go get fucked sideways with a bandsaw. Keep your church out of my life you christian taliban motherfucker.
The appearance of his face ... (Score:2)
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It's hard for a robot to smile.
The real truth of Ted Cruz's birth certificate (Score:3)
What is undisputed is that he was born in Canada. But as you can tell by the way his face looks more like skin slapped over lumpy clay, his weird un-smile, the way that nobody who has ever worked for him likes him - it all points to one conclusion:
Ted Cruz is half Sasquatch!
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That is a really despicable things to say. How dare you insult Sasquatches like that. Sasquatches are peaceful creatures that go out of their way to even be seen by humans, let alone bother them. Ted Cruz is a religious loon who wants to take over the world and make Christianity the only religion.
Re:Where are such analysis of Hillary!, anyway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well it doesn't take much of a study to show Hillary Clinton is not good at projecting warmth and sincerity on the stump. She's at her best in debates, where she she seems a lot more real. On the stump she seems really phony, and the big smile that doesn't reach to the eyes is a big part of that.
Now does that actually mean anything? Imagine you're a politician giving a campagin speech before a group. This may be the twentieth time you've given this exact speech before a similar group in the last week, but you've got to make it fresh for them, make your response to them seem spontaneous and authentic. It's well nigh impossible, but some people can do it. Bill Clinton can do it.
You know who else can do it? Donald Trump. If you think about what he's saying even a little bit he's clearly en epic bullshitter, but he makes a genuine-seeming emotional connection with crowds. And I think it seems genuine because on a certain level it is genuine. He's morbidly narcissistic and craves the admiration they're giving him.
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Re:Where are such analysis of Hillary!, anyway? (Score:4, Interesting)
But based on their positions and history I'm voting for Cruz.
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Maybe she's faking not being able to fake sincerity?
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But...
I'm guessng your a fooling yourself.
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I agree, it should absolutely cover things that are discovered when you have insurance. That should spur research towards cures, not long term treatments.
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Cruz's religious beliefs beliefs are unlikely to cause significant harm. Remember, Carter was also a religious loon, and the damage he did came from his political beliefs, not his religion.
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Jimmy Carter was a Southern Baptist, not a Dominionist. Carter's religion didn't involve trying to take over the nation and then the world and institute Christianity as the sole religion, and it certainly didn't consider non-believers to be "enemies of God" as Cruz does.
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Carter's religion didn't involve trying to take over the nation and then the world and institute Christianity as the sole religion
Who are you suggesting wants to do that?
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Um, Ted Cruz. He's a Dominionist. Go read about Dominionism; that's exactly what they advocate.
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With the difference that Larry Linville was a darling. Amazing how such a sweet and awesome man could act to come across as the most despicable, small minded asshole.
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I'd rather we not care about faces or looks at all in politicians. And not just because it would shorten Trump's speeches by half an hour. The reason is if we continue to care about looks and style and mannerisms then politicians will put up puppets for us to vote for while they control things from behind the scenes. A popularity contest like that of high school rather than a debate on ideas and plans. Certainly we've already gone down this road a bit. Possibly a reason for JFK winning out over Nixon,
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I don't see either of those results as being bad in the slightest.
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Re: Ted crux (Score:1)
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As long as the Republitards implode and neither of those imbeciles reach the White House, that's fine with me. Wish the alternative was Bernie and not Hillary, but I don't want Hitler 2.0 or Nehemiah Scudder-lite anywhere in power.
Hilary Hitlery (Score:2)
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Cruz may not be able to win the nomination, but he's not out of the race yet. He can still spoil it for what chance Rubio has left.
Of course, the reverse is also true. If either Cruz or Rubio dropped out, the remaining candidate would have a far better chance against Trump.
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