Did He Really Just Say That?

So... that just happened.

  Did Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex), with a straight face, and almost-convincingly-simulated emotion, actually just compare the advent of a healthcare exchange program in America, imperfect as it may be, to the threat presented by Hitler's WW2 era Nazi Germany, therefore equating the moral fortitude of those who support the Affordable Care act, to Nazi sympathizers? Wait, what?!

I don't know whether to laugh, or stare at my television in befuddled awe, or just throw up right here on my living room carpet. o_O

  Am I the only one who finds it deeply embarrassing that this obviously overreaching analogy was uttered by one of our elected leaders, in our nation's capitol, on internationally available satellite television...

Yikes.

  Yes, I understand why Senator Cruz was calling on moderate Republicans to "vote their conscience", and I am (like his colleagues) also aware that he is considering running for POTUS in the next election, making a stunt like this look like early campaigning. But what if someone hears his language and adopts the same attitude without really understanding what they are blaspheming? What if someone overseas is left with the impression that this really is how flippant we are regarding the tragedies their people endured just 73 years ago. My own father served in the United States Navy on an aircraft carrier during WW2 for goodness sake, it wasn't actually that long ago in the grand scheme of things. At bare minimum, we should be more careful about "crying wolf" and diminishing the value of such statements. Check out what even a fellow Republican had to say about this nonsense:

  You know you have gone out on a limb when a senior member of your own party chastises you for being an embarrassment. And what must our neighbors to the north think we are implying about them, if we publicly renounce even partially socialized medicine to be as evil an omen as the rise of The Third Reich? (And oh by the way, Cruz was born in Canada.) What about our friends in Great Britain? And we wonder why the rest of the world generally regards us as a nation full of crude, uneducated, self-absorbed imbeciles... /smh

  Shockingly, most people don't seem to even be aware that the PPACA (Patient Protection and Afforable Care Act, aka Affordable Care Act, aka "Obamacare") was already signed into law, all the way back on March 23rd, 2010. Then on June 28, 2012, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the PPACA's individual mandate in the case National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. It is already law ratified by all three branches of the government! Choosing to ignore this fact, the Tea Party reps have called for a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act 41 times, and lost 41 times. These people have a serious problem accepting the democratic system many of them are intent on spreading to the rest of the world.

  I don't care which state Cruz "represents", or which political party he is a member of; from a purely academic standpoint-- did the same person who was the winner of the 1992 National Debating Championship, and the1992 North American Debating Championship, really just base the thesis of his 21 hour anti-Obamacare speech on a hyperbolic comparison so grossly disrespectful to the actual atrocities committed by the Nazis, that you could virtually hear him lose the vote of the entire Jewish community, in one incomprehensible moment??

  So... this just in: according to the Senator from Texas, "Americans are suffering from Obamacare". He went on to claim that the Affordable Care Act, (which is set to launch on October 1st of this year) is solely responsible for the entire U.S. economic decline of the 21st century, and the impending genocide of some lucky ethnic group(s) right here in America! It's not clear yet, exactly how the United States government is going to carry out murdering 7.3 million innocent men, women, and children in the coming months- but I am sure the details of this event will be forthcoming.

I am sorry, but this is just too much stupid for one person to ridicule.
Mr. Stewart, help me out please:
The Daily Show - Wednesday, September 25th

  There is only one possible explanation for this insult to the intelligence of the American public-- Senator Cruz and his colleagues must be working with Guiness World Records in pursuit of Earth's most elaborate prank. That, or he plans on running for President, which is basically the same thing. Considering the string of mind-numbingly ignorant and offensive things GOP reps/candidates have said in recent memory, this must be one part of a much bigger joke.

  Maybe if our legislators continue de-funding our public educational system as well, the rising generation won't even know what happened back in the 1940's. Then people like Ted Cruz can make impressive sounding comparisons like this without anyone actually understanding what he is talking about.

  All sarcasm, disgust, and mental vomiting aside... this is a depressing commentary on how simple-minded our nation's leaders must think we are if they really expect us to swallow this kind of nonsense. Or something else equally disappointing is going on, I don't know what.

  Who knows, maybe we are that dumb. We are the geniuses who keep electing these dysfunctional clowns to "lead" us, and then we scapegoat a single member of the executive branch for the inability of the legislative branch to do anything even remotely productive. Heck, I am even from the state of Texas originally- which potentially gives me an added reason to be appalled by this preposterous example of party-line puppetry.

* Sigh. *

So anyway... I have to go take some ibuprofen now. American political rhetoric is so asinine anymore, it makes my face hurt.