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GregStevens,Publisher Chip Thompson, Editor EDITORIALBOARD How to have your say: Letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and no more than two double-spaced pages or 500words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section will be published. Email: editor@ redbluffdailynews.com Fax: 530-527-9251 Mail to: P.O. Box 220, 545 Diamond Ave., Red Bluff, CA 96080 Facebook: Leave comments at FACEBOOK.COM/ RBDAILYNEWS Twitter: Follow and send tweets to @REDBLUFFNEWS Thekeytounderstanding Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz is not that he is a fighter or that he is an unwavering ideologue. To highlight his in- telligence points the spot- light in the right direction but misses the mark. The man can give a speech, but that's not quite the thing, either. The thing that explains Cruz, at least to me, is this: He is a debate nerd. You don't win a debate in high school or college by argu- ing your personal convictions but by marshalling the facts to prove or disprove a position regardless of what you actu- ally believe. Taken to the ex- treme—which is where I think Cruz has gone with this— such an intellect prizes virtu- osity and disregards moral- ity. Whether or not Cruz re- ally believes anything he says seems irrelevant because he's so trained to get the gold star for seeming smart. Let's be clear: I'm not say- ing the man isn't smart. There aren't a lot of dummies who get through Princeton and Harvard Law, and Cruz cer- tainly isn't one of them. I am saying that the point of his in- tellect is to impress you with its virtuosity. He knows ex- actly what argument to make to win the crowd over. Whether or not he believes anything he says is irrelevant. This started in high school when he joined a group of Mil- ton Friedman acolytes who traveled the state reciting pas- sages of the Constitution at Rotary meetings and the like. This is the original sin of the perversion of his formidable intellect. For seeming smart— reciting words with a prac- ticed flourish—he won gold stars, and there were more out there. There were a lot of gold stars to be found at Princeton where he won the top speaker award at the 1992 National De- bating Championship and the 1992 North American Debat- ing Championship. That year, he won the National Speaker of the Year. Princeton now has a debate award named af- ter Cruz. At Harvard Law, pro- fessor Alan Dershowitz called him "off-the-charts brilliant." Of course, none of this proves that Cruz lacks a work- ing guidance system. If the "debate nerd" theory of Cruz were correct, we'd need to see him in different situations to see whether his intellectual virtuosity or conservative ide- ology won the day. As a presidential candidate, he wants to guard the Mexi- can border with IRS agents. As an adviser to the 2000 George W. Bush campaign, he helped write a relatively liberal immi- gration plan that included ex- panding work visas and speed- ing up the path to citizenship. As a politician, he supports tort reform. As a private attor- ney, he argued before the New Mexico Supreme Court in fa- vor of upholding a multimil- lion-dollar jury award against a nursing home for personal injury. When questions about wrongful conviction on Death Row have come up, candi- date Cruz has said, "I trust the criminal-justice system." But when a client was wrong- fully convicted, attorney Cruz signed his name to a brief de- claring, "Public confidence in the integrity of the justice sys- tem is shaken." My favorite example of this is his 2009 brief written for the Texas Retired Teachers Association in favor of using stimulus money to give every retired teacher in Texas $500. The same Ted Cruz who would later criticize "big-government stimulus programs" argued that these checks "will di- rectly impact the [Texas] econ- omy...and will directly further the greater purpose of eco- nomic recovery for America." He might as well have added, "Thanks, Obama!" The puzzle of Ted Cruz is that such a smart man—and he's certainly that—would not say half the things he says, but maybe this is next-gener- ation leadership for a country that reads at a 7th-grade level. Maybe what America deserves is a politician whose brilliance is wholly encapsulated in its ability to find its market niche, to win the crowd over, to get the gold star. An intellect prized for vir- tuosity seeks only its own glory. Cruz is saying what some Republican primary vot- ers want to hear, and he's say- ing it with skill. Whether he's saying it with any conviction seems, in the final analysis, to be entirely beside the point. Give the man a gold star, and let's move on. JasonStanfordisaregular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman, a Democratic consultant and a Truman National Security Project partner. You can email him at stanford@oppresearch. com and follow him on Twitter @JasStanford. Commentary Give Ted Cruz a gold star Cartoonist's take There are Old and New Tes- tament iterations of the "peace, peace but there is no peace" (searchable on the Internet by quote). I found myself pondering those verses upon read- ing last Tuesday's column by Jason Stanford, "I had forgotten peace was still possible." In what seemed to be idealistic profundity, he expressed opti- mism over President Obama's— and Secretary of State John Ker- ry's—announced "framework" for a treaty, or "nuclear deal" in diplomatic jargon, with Iran and other Western nations. While his family visited the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, his son read of the ef- forts to resolve violent disputes, wars if you will, between the Irish Republican Army and the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland, as well as the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict roiling the Middle East. His point seemed to be that the pursuit and imple- mentation of peace treaties be- tween enemies overrode other concerns and issues. While peace is usually prefer- able to war, it is simple-minded to place faith in any document, treaty or memorandum of un- derstanding that promises to implement a cessation of vio- lent conflict. Mr. Stanford cor- rectly pointed out that friendly nations with mutually beneficial relations rarely engage in inter- national violence. An effective state of war, as in Northern Ire- land, can be converted to peace- ful status if both sides, perhaps aided and advised by outside influence, see peace as benefi- cial and preferable to continued bloodshed and destruction. All-out wars produce peace when the aggressor nation(s) are forced through military defeat, to accept terms of peace. Contrarily, peace in Vietnam came about af- ter the retreat of the good guys, America, and the subjugation of South Vietnam by the evil com- munist forces of North Vietnam. A non-peaceful but mostly calm tension exists between North and South Korea. Low-grade disputes can re- main peaceful, such as be- tween China and the United States, while serious efforts are made and played out regionally to wield influence based on re- spective priorities—all the while backed by the implied use of military force. The Cold War be- tween the Soviet Union and the U.S. contained similar nonvio- lent efforts as well as hot con- flicts between surrogate nations and militaries, all the while un- der the devastating cloud of nu- clear weapons aimed at each na- tion's cities and military installa- tions. President Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" mil- itary buildup and "we win— they lose" policy ended the Cold War; peace between America and Russia prevails to this day, so far. I've quoted Winston Churchill's chilling assessment of the options for peace or war with an implacable, violent en- emy determined to prevail mil- itarily. You can fight when your victory will be assured with rel- atively minimal losses; you can wait and hope for the best but ultimately fight when it will be bloody with horrendous losses sacrificed to secure peace; or you can wait further, telling yourself that the proverbial wolf at the door will lose interest in killing you, eating and destroy- ing your possessions—and then have to fight because it is pref- erable to die on your feet than to beg in subservience on your knees. I suspect that increasing numbers of Americans, particu- larly on the progressive left rep- resented by the Democrat Party and its leadership, may in fact be inclined to accommodate the kind of evil represented by Iran, al Qaeda terrorists, and Islamic State fighters as long as they think the cost will be tolerable. Democrats have said that they disapprove of America being the world's sole superpower; Demo- crats have said that the fear and concern for Islamic terrorism is overblown and, against all evi- dence, not religiously inspired. Many millions of Americans drawing benefit checks might even find it acceptable that our government be under the sway of foreign forces as long as the money keeps coming from someone else's taxes. Never for- get that the 911 Commission re- port stated that, before the Sep- tember 2001 terror attacks, rad- ical Islamists were at war with us but we weren't at war with them. Witness Emperor (or is it Supreme Leader) Obama and his hack mouthpieces dismiss Iran's "Supreme Leader" calling for "Death to America" as intended for domestic consumption. It is a disturbingly relevant compari- son to Neville Chamberlain wav- ing Hitler's signed promise of nonaggression while pronounc- ing "Peace in our time". "Complacency is an under- standable response to peace and security. Some problems do go away if you leave them alone. But the world is not the Rose Garden, and the consequences of nuclear attack or nuclear war would be far worse than bug bites (citing Obama telling chil- dren that menacing bees would go away if ignored). Sometimes it's right to worry, to be afraid, to have the flyswatter nearby. The hornets will strike, and when they do it will be more painful if we have let our guard down." (Matthew Continetti) Inform yourself by going to www.donpolson.blogspot.com and clicking on the "Iran" label. The offenses, misery, death and destruction directed by Iran to- ward America call for the tough- est possible sanctions until its leaders beg for relief and prom- ise to verifiably relinquish nu- clear ambitions and support of terrorism. Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@ yahoo.com. The way I see it Peace, peace but no peace comes I'm not saying the man isn't smart. There aren't a lot of dummies who get through Princeton and Harvard Law, and Cruz certainly isn't one of them. I am saying that the point of his intellect is to impress you with its virtuosity. He knows exactly what argument to make to win the crowd over. Whether or not he believes anything he says is irrelevant. Sounding off A look at what readers are saying in comments on our website and on social media. The difference is the author le out the word "usable" water. If you count the water le in the rivers so the salmon don't become extinct you get more water. Of course big Ag is a er that water, to hell with the fish, the environment, sport fishermen and commercial fishermen. Warren DeWolfe: Regarding a story about the use of water by agriculture in California I won't quibble with the almond crop water use, but the number quoted is substantially different than you usually see in the press. However, the 40vs. 80percent of total use quoted for Ag is alarming. Where do the statistics quoted by public officials come from and how are the ones quoted here different? Tim Cassedy: Regarding a story about the use of water by agriculture in California StateandNational Assemblyman James Galla- gher, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico 95973, 530 895- 4217, http://ad03.asmrc.org/ Senator Jim Nielsen, 2634 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico 95928, 530 879-7424, senator. nielsen@senate.ca.gov Governor Jerry Brown, State Capital Building, Sacramento 95814, 916 445-2841, fax 916 558-3160, governor@governor. ca.gov U.S. Representative Doug La- Malfa, 507 Cannon House Of- fice Building, Washington D.C. 20515, 202 225-3076 U.S. Senator Dianne Fein- stein, One Post St., Ste. 2450, San Francisco 94104, 415 393- 0707, fax 415 393-0710 U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 1700 Montgomery St., San Fran- cisco 94111, 510 286-8537, fax 202 224-0454 Local Tehama County Supervisors, 527-4655 District 1, Steve Chamblin, Ext. 3015 District 2, Candy Carlson, Ext. 3014 District 3, Dennis Garton, Ext. 3017 District 4, Bob Williams, Ext. 3018 District 5, Burt Bundy, Ext. 3016 Red Bluff City Manager, Rich- ard Crabtree, 527-2605, Ext. 3061 Corning City Manager, John Brewer, 824-7033 YOUR OFFICIALS Don Polson Low-grade disputes can remain peaceful, such as between China and the United States, while serious efforts are made and played out regionally to wield influence based on respective priorities—all the while backed by the implied use of military force. OPINION » redbluffdailynews.com Tuesday, April 14, 2015 » MORE AT FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS A6