Sure Cruz is OK to cartoon. Are his children immune whatever he does with them for political purposes

[AthenaAwakened]

My kids were running around with squirt guns one morning. A neighbor's kid came out and said he was in his Church Clothes so they couldn't get him wet.

My kids agreed and left him alone.

He ran back into his house and filled up a squirt gun.

My kids complained to me that neighbor's kid was squirting them but they couldn't shoot back.

I told them to shoot back.

The neighbor showed up at my door, angry, asking if i'd really told my kids they could shoot the kid in his Sunday clothes. I explained.

"Oh, really," Neighbor said. I guess the 'i had a squirt gun' detail was not in the kid's rendition. They left.

I feel that if Cruz used his kids for political capital, then they're fair game for everyone that's playing the game. You can't have it both ways, the kids are useful for politics, but not to be used in politics...?

And he wants to be President.
He wants these kids in the same place Chelsea was for Limbaugh's ire, right? He's not going to be able to control how the entire fucking world treats his kids, his family, the family dog/cat/gerbil.

Well this was a incident among kids. This wasn't adults exploiting kids. This was kids trying to do right and one kid being a brat and needing a good soaking.

And I am glad your kids gave it to him.

 

[Rhea]

Are we not allowed to object when people exploit children? Or is it only cartoonists who can't object?

We shouldn't object in a manner that also exploits those same children. There are better ways. A creative cartoonist would've figured out a way to skewer Cruz without also depicting the children as trained circus monkeys.

Yes. And also, IMHO, let the candidates exploit their children. It shows their character. Unfavorably.

What did he do with his children that made this any worse than any other politician's actions of trotting out family to show charming family? Did he make them sing or something ala' the cartoon?

 

[barbos]

Ted Cruz is a slimiest presidential candidate I have ever seen. I cannot believe he is polling above margin of error.
And yes, cartoon was directed at him, not his children. In fact I am surprised this slime has children, what woman would willingly marry that thing?

 

[laughing dog]

Cruz is using the cartoon - verbatim - to raise funds:

.

So he really is crying crocodile tears.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Cruz is using the cartoon - verbatim - to raise funds:

.

So he really is crying crocodile tears.

The cartoonist should sue for any proceeds gained from it.

 

[zorq]

We shouldn't object in a manner that also exploits those same children. There are better ways. A creative cartoonist would've figured out a way to skewer Cruz without also depicting the children as trained circus monkeys.

Yes. And also, IMHO, let the candidates exploit their children. It shows their character. Unfavorably.

What did he do with his children that made this any worse than any other politician's actions of trotting out family to show charming family? Did he make them sing or something ala' the cartoon?

I watched the commercial and in it Cruz made his eldest daughter read a fake Christmas book mocking Hilary Clinton and her email scandal. He essentially had his kids help him do the same kind of political mockery of his political opponents this cartoon he is objecting to is doing to him.

In other words, he wasn't just using his children as merely a backdrop. He was using them as puppets to help spout talking points and attack other candidates.

 

[Rhea]

Yes. And also, IMHO, let the candidates exploit their children. It shows their character. Unfavorably.

What did he do with his children that made this any worse than any other politician's actions of trotting out family to show charming family? Did he make them sing or something ala' the cartoon?

I watched the commercial and in it Cruz made his eldest daughter read a fake Christmas book mocking Hilary Clinton and her email scandal. He essentially had his kids help him do the same kind of political mockery of his political opponents this cartoon he is objecting to is doing to him.

In other words, he wasn't just using his children as merely a backdrop. He was using them as puppets to help spout talking points and attack other candidates.

Oh, dear. That's pretty vile. I'm beginning to have some solidarity with the cartoon.
Wow, he had his kid read a political smear on camera? That's horrible.

 

[Thomas II]

From "The Daily Show"...

 

[ksen]

I find that distasteful. I'm glad they pulled it.

It's distasteful.

The "Cruz Christmas Classics" is cringe worthy. "if you don't blah blah bal, you probably hate Christmas....and America". Politics in the USA is so utterly shit and getting worse. No wonder some places don't want democracy.

You know who else hates Christmas?

Ted Cruz's biggest financial backers.

 

[zorq]

I watched the commercial and in it Cruz made his eldest daughter read a fake Christmas book mocking Hilary Clinton and her email scandal. He essentially had his kids help him do the same kind of political mockery of his political opponents this cartoon he is objecting to is doing to him.

In other words, he wasn't just using his children as merely a backdrop. He was using them as puppets to help spout talking points and attack other candidates.

Oh, dear. That's pretty vile. I'm beginning to have some solidarity with the cartoon.
Wow, he had his kid read a political smear on camera? That's horrible.

Well, it doesn't come off as vicious as you may be imagining. It's meant to be cute and funny, and it is. But it's also an attack on Clinton, no doubt about it.

 

[blastula]

"We shouldn't be raising a generation of young people that are so pampered that they've never heard anything that offends them. We don't have a right not to be offended."
-Ted Cruz

 

[RavenSky]

The children are 7 and 5.

They are off limits.

They have no real idea what they are doing and they have to do what they are told.

They did not ask for this.

Politicians using their children as props did not begin with Cruz.

It is not a very clever point.

Cruz is a religious fundamentalist. He is a leader of an American Taliban.

There is so much of significance to say about him, this was lazy.

All of the above.

It is sort of an unwritten rule that the children of politicians are off-limits, and that should apply even to an asshole like Cruz.

Cruz, of course, immediately used the cartoon as a fund-raising piece so he couldnt have been all that offended, nor care all that much about how it affects his daughters. The cartoon was immediately pulled from the Post, but his campaign then sent it out to all of their republican donors.

 

[RavenSky]

Yes. And also, IMHO, let the candidates exploit their children. It shows their character. Unfavorably.

What did he do with his children that made this any worse than any other politician's actions of trotting out family to show charming family? Did he make them sing or something ala' the cartoon?

I watched the commercial and in it Cruz made his eldest daughter read a fake Christmas book mocking Hilary Clinton and her email scandal. He essentially had his kids help him do the same kind of political mockery of his political opponents this cartoon he is objecting to is doing to him.

In other words, he wasn't just using his children as merely a backdrop. He was using them as puppets to help spout talking points and attack other candidates.

Well that's bullshit, and does deserve political ridicule. And the context of the cartoon does make more sense now, though I still think depicting the children as monkeys should be off limits.

 

[RavenSky]

"We shouldn't be raising a generation of young people that are so pampered that they've never heard anything that offends them. We don't have a right not to be offended."
-Ted Cruz

good find, and that is the perfect response to his mock outrage now

 

[Tom Sawyer]

"We shouldn't be raising a generation of young people that are so pampered that they've never heard anything that offends them. We don't have a right not to be offended."
-Ted Cruz

good find, and that is the perfect response to his mock outrage now

I don't know. His plan of using his fake outrage to get people to give him money seems like a better response on his part.

 

[fromderinside]

So we are divided about the Cruz cartoon. Now the other part of the OP is our angst Mohammed level. Any conservative biblical Fatwas on the horizon?

I tend to go with if they use their children on purpose to make a scandalous political point making a cartoon making that point is OK. After all the cartoon shows little things on Cruz caricature leashes. Are we to conclude one shouldn't depict the Grinch using children to make its sleigh go?

Finally, IMHO and there should not be any conservative fatwa. In the west pen is mightier than the politic. Any thoughts there?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Any conservative biblical Fatwas on the horizon?

That will happen when Cruz is made President.

 

[ronburgundy]

The point being made by the cartoon is a perfectly valid one, and ought to be made. However, it ought to be made in another format, namely an article that makes the point explicitly rather than a cartoon likely to be seen by his kids and their peers and misinterpreted by them.

Cruz's exploitation of his kids deserves far more disdain than does this cartoon, but their are other ways of making the point with less risk of harming the kids.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I watched the commercial and in it Cruz made his eldest daughter read a fake Christmas book mocking Hilary Clinton and her email scandal. He essentially had his kids help him do the same kind of political mockery of his political opponents this cartoon he is objecting to is doing to him.

I found 3 websites that had links to that video but they were all scrubbed. Do you have a working link to the video?

 

[Deepak]

The point being made by the cartoon is a perfectly valid one, and ought to be made. However, it ought to be made in another format, namely an article that makes the point explicitly rather than a cartoon likely to be seen by his kids and their peers and misinterpreted by them.

Cruz's exploitation of his kids deserves far more disdain than does this cartoon, but their are other ways of making the point with less risk of harming the kids.

I don't really see how that would be less likely to be misinterpreted by the children. Firstly I don't think it's clear to anyone, without context, that those are his kids. Surely no 5 and 7 year old would impute that without some priming from an adult. And that's leaving alone the fact that most children that young don't really read political cartoons.

If we're to assume this happens when they're teenagers, and that presenting the argument in another form of media makes them less likely to interpret it as an attack on them rather than their father - well I'd surmise you haven't spent much time with teenagers.