Yes, my senator — Ted Cruz (R-TX) — really stepped into the realm of the absurd and uttered those words, verbatim, on his blog.?In a blog post that was supposed to commemorate the Civil Rights Act, the delusional senator from Texas?posted the following verbiage. I’m highlighting the most questionable passages.
July 2, 2014 | (202) 228-7561
WASHINGTON, DC — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the following statement recognizing the landmark passage of the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964.
?Today, on the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, we remember the decisive moment when Republicans and Democrats came together to finally put an end to legal racial segregation and to give all of America’s people full and equal protection under the law,? said Sen. Cruz.
?Under the Fourteenth Amendment, our Constitution is colorblind ? all of us are guaranteed the equal protection of the law. Yet the road to freedom for African Americans in this country has been too long. For years, civil rights leaders fought for their rights, and for justice, but they faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge in the Senate: a bloc of Southern Democrats who refused to support the bill.
Come on! Our founding documents were written by SLAVE OWNERS. Oh yes, our Constitution is colorblind. It’s an ancient piece of paper, an inanimate object. But the?gentlemen who wrote it were not colorblind and the?Republicans in Washington are not?colorblind. We’ve come a long way — no thanks to the likes of Ted Cruz — but to say that our Constitution is “colorblind” is?a ridiculous statement.
What Cruz is doing here is attempting to incite the age-old GOP?talking point that it was actually Republicans who fought for passage of the Civil Rights Act as the Democrats filibustered. The fact is, it’s not quite that simple. While more Republicans DID vote in favor of the Civil Rights Act, the division was not along party lines so much as it was geographical. This screenshot from The Guardian?breaks down the votes three ways.
Those stats may look a little confusing, so I encourage you to hop over to the original article to read the methodology. In short:
It becomes clear that Democrats in the north and the south were more likely to vote for the bill than Republicans in the north and south respectively. This difference in both houses is statistically significant with over 95% confidence. It just so happened southerners made up a larger percentage of the Democratic than Republican caucus, which created the initial impression than Republicans were more in favor of the act.
Nearly 100% of Union state Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act compared to 85% of Republicans. None of the southern Republicans voted for the bill, while a small percentage of southern Democrats did.
Democrats who supported segregation were known as the “Dixiecrats,” or the States’ Rights Democratic Party. It originated as a breakaway faction of the Democratic Party in 1948 and I think it could be said?that in some ways, they were to Democrats what the Tea Party is to Republicans.
So in other words, the South has been dragging us down for a long time.
Nice try, Sen. Cruz, but try again. You may fool your minions but you can’t fool Liberal Americans! Your schemes won’t fool discerning individuals who are intelligent enough to understand what really went down. Furthermore, times have changed and the political parties have changed. I do think we all know how the vote would go if it went down today.
The fact of the matter is, whether we like to admit it or not, Ted Cruz has a fine mind and his intelligence is above question. What’s shameful is that he uses it to put out half-true info that will brainwash people who are too lazy or clueless to go figure things out for themselves.
Read more about this subject in this article by Harry J. Enten of The Guardian.?I’ll write this whole thing up Liberal America style another day.?Visit Sen. Cruz’s blog to read the rest of his post. Let us know your thoughts at the Liberal America Facebook page.
Tiffany Willis is the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with ?the least of these? and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. She’s passionate about their struggles. To stay on top of topics she discusses,?like her?Facebook page,?follow her on Twitter, or?connect with her via LinkedIn. She also has?a?grossly neglected personal blog?and a?literary quotes blog that is a labor of love. Find her somewhere and join the discussion.
