Why? To mock them hoping they will see themselves for what they are. I alternate between mockery and discussion of serious issues. With the subject of this thread and several others posted on OPP by the extremist right, there's not much serious that can be said, so I focus on attack the attackers. Sometimes it turns the threads to debatable subjects, sometimes not. If you are truly serious about correcting those on the right when they do what you have scolded me for and not misrepresenting yourself, you are going to be very busy on OPP. ha. I have yet to see anyone of the right attempt to set straight the rudeness and filth typical with posts of the extreme right wing club on OPP. More difficult to correct are half-t***hs and misrepresentations that abound with the extremists' posts, and those arguing conspiracy fantasies are, to be blunt, outright delusional and have a considerable fan base.

My two main interests on OPP have been (1) analysis of rightwing extremism, something I was unfamiliar with and somewhat astonished by when I somewhat accidentally ran across postings on Newsmax and then ran across OPP. I have 2 threads I intend to photocopy and distribute to political science professors to use as examples of typical "rightwingnut" extremist thinking and argumentation--one titled "Dear Stupid Black People" and the other about "the crooked mainstream media." (2) Second interest has been recalling my own early political ideas and experiences that I have not had much occasion to think about for many years. Age 7 I was for Dewey over FDR (convinced by the hired girl over my mother's FDR v**e--her only Dem v**e the rest of her lifetime), fanatic anti-Truman '44, Taft fan '52, one of 2 fanatic McCarthyites in high school (1000 students), chose Hamilton Federalist over Jefferson Republican-Democrat in junior year American history class, outspoken for integration decision (family moved from rural Michigan to East Tennessee when I was 9 & as a "Yankee" was pro-integration...would like to think I would have been on principle but yankee partisanship was a factor--ha), v**ed 3 times for Nixon, not for Goldwater (thought he would pull a MacArthur in Nam), switched to Dem Reagan's 2nd term when I realized Reaganism was the present-day equivalent of Jacksonianism anti-federal action and the Dems the present-day equivalent of the Federalist-Whig-original GOP line of pragmatic federal action. Tea Party as equivalent of Jacksonian "populism" has reinforced my present Dem leaning. As grad student at UW-Madison I had interesting experience as the token Republican at Channing Murray boarding house, the unofficial headquarters of the campus Young Dems (convinced one to go GOP as the party pragmatically able to negotiate armament limitations), was also acquainted with l*****ts (was instrumental in informing on and having disbanded the UW SANE chapter that had been taken over by extreme l*****ts with unilateral nuclear disarmament story line, led to national committee disbanding all campus chapters following my argument that small number of extremist left fanatics could take over campus chapters as the Bolsheviks had taken over the Russian socialist movement and end up discrediting SANE's advocacy of mutual nuclear disarmament negotiation...later accomplished by Reagan). While always interested in politics, I've had little occasion to argue politics after I dropped out of the doctorate program I was in to take a position teaching high school English in rural northwestern Illinois. I see politics in terms of larger historical perspective...the development of self-government from development in Britain on edge of Europe & t***sfer in larger federal form in the new world to prevailance in Anglo-Saxon and Western Civilization in t***sitions from feudalism (with opposing dictatorial phases--Phillip of Spain, Louis XIV-Napoleon, Wilhelm-Hitler N**ism, Stalin-international c*******m, and current jihadism in Muslim world's t***sition from feudalism) to world civilization of freedom, individualism, and self-government...Britain as main defender & protagonist for civilization up to mid-twentieth century, torch passed to America after WWII. I see also in perspective of the brief previous civilization high points of Greek city democracies and Roman republic from reading the umpteen volumes of Gibbons The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, which by some remote chance were in Central High School's library. My chief interest besides general history has been antiques and collecting (hoarding--ha) decorative things, flower gardening, and the past thirteen years collecting Victorian and post-Victorian children art paper 1880-1930--a phenomenon of Western civilization (first civilization to have children as the subject of its popular art) and a reflection of the revolution in the status of women and children accomplished by the Victorians and a defining aspect of Western Civilization compared to all preceeding civilizations (and in contrast specifically to present muslim feudalism situation--their equivalent to the s***ery-segregation-discrimination that we have at last overcome, largely, and the feudal situation Muslim society must overcome--"with all deliberate speed," which means as best they can and hopefully with as much extraordinary achievement as we have had working through our seeming intractable race-class situation from the plantation t***splantation of the old world feudal manorial system to new world America). Again, the Brits were ahead of us in children art and the revolution in status of women and children but again new world America gave new dimensions and development to it.

As you can see, my focus in politics is general historical perspective and developments rather than immediate specific details of politics or even specific historical details...a somewhat eccentric viewpoint accidental life circumstances gave me, plus mild degree of inherited Asperger's syndrome. ha. Rather off the subject of this even more "eccentric" Cruz thread we're on that I can't take seriously and see only as an old school joke but which apparently you do take seriously as a problem for the right side of politics. I hope that explains to you as newcomer to OPP my situation. I take it from your statement about some 2000 posts that you have been on other political sites, perhaps over some period of time. There are several commentators here with over 4000 posts on OPP, and equal on other sites...all rightwingnuts and proven misrepresenters and fabricators of story lines, by the way--conspiracy fantasies, foul language, filth, insults, and all the usual twistings. You probably have run into them in other comment sites. They pretty well dominate OPP--and I would imagine they or their fellow travelers predominate on most comment sites--a rather interesting internet phenomenon. ha.