Texas doesn't have an ObamaCare Exchange -- we have the Alamo.

Sen. Ted Cruz is our contemporary William B. Travis, commandant of the Alamo and defender of liberty.  Standing with Cruz to defund ObamaCare are Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).  Think of them as Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and company.

These super-smart senators, like the majority of Americans, get it.  ObamaCare is the greatest internal threat to American liberty, perhaps in our entire history.  Government-run health care is like government-run anything else: incomprehensible, costly, complex, counterproductive, and corruption-inducing.

ObamaCare is toxic to liberty and contrary to our Constitution.  The behemoth federal government will make our health care decisions while massively increasing our costs and taxes.  Our chances of keeping the doctors and health care plans of choice decrease daily as doctors discontinue practicing medicine.  Other health care providers, such as the Cleveland Clinic and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, are laying off employees and cutting budgets.  Major health insurers are increasingly refusing to participate in Obama Care exchanges.  The economy is on the Fed's life-support, as Americans are anesthetized by "quantitative easing."  Full-time jobs are becoming part-time or nonexistent to avoid ObamaCare penalties.  Major employers such as Home Depot and Walgreens are moving employees from private insurance plans to health care exchanges.  The ObamaCare enforcers at the IRS will have us in their auditing and penalty-imposing crosshairs.  Just ask the Tea Party what that's like.

Cruz and company are trying to stop legislation that funds ObamaCare prospectively.  He has pledged to lead a filibuster, if necessary, while supporting bills that fund the rest of government.

The attacks against Cruz by President Obama and his Democrat enablers in Congress are expected.  These are the hypocrites responsible for setting in motion the "huge train wreck" that they, their leftist base, and federal employees want desperately to escape.

The chafe comes from recalcitrant Republicans in Congress and their strategists and pundits inside the Beltway and Manhattan who are carping at Cruz and conceding defeat before the battle begins.

Obama is quoting these Republicans for support.  They should expect to be pummeled for it in 2014 primary campaign ads.

Then there's David Brooks, the alleged Republican voice at The New York Times, who snidely described Cruz as "the senator from Canada through Texas."  Who knew that Brooks is a birther?

Memo to Brooks: Like the vast majority of men who defended the Alamo, Cruz also proves that you don't have to be a native-born Texan to defend liberty.

The patriots at the Alamo included several men from England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, and Germany, forerunners of the "Senator from Canada through Texas."

Travis was born in South Carolina, Bowie in Kentucky, and Crockett in Tennessee.  Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Bob Corker of Tennessee should emulate Travis, Bowie, and Crockett instead of conceding defeat and pillorying today's patriots fighting for our liberty.

The Senate Republicans and Democrats facing election in 2014 would do well to read an earlier political commentator, Thomas Paine, instead of Brooks.  The times would be less trying for the rest of us.

General George Washington had Paine's American Crisis read to his outnumbered, starving, freezing, and ill-equipped troops about to cross the Delaware for the Battle of Trenton -- the battle that turned the tide of the American Revolution.  The battle cry was "Victory or Death."

If the defunding doubters need an additional dose of courage, they should read the inspiring call to Liberty penned by Travis on Feb. 24, 1836:

To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World

Fellow Citizens & compatriots-

I am besieged, by a thousand or more of the Mexicans under Santa Anna - I have sustained a continual Bombardment & cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man - The enemy has demanded a surrender at discretion, otherwise, the garrison are to be put to the sword, if the fort is taken - I have answered the demand with a cannon shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls - I shall never surrender or retreat. Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch - The enemy is receiving reinforcements daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his country - Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis.

Lt. Col.comdt.

P. S. The Lord is on our side. ...

Because of time and distance, only 32 valiant men from Gonzales were able to join those in the Alamo, making the total less than 200.

On April 11, 1836, General Sam Houston, a natural-born Virginian, and his army of volunteers won liberty for Texas at San Jacinto with the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!"

Republicans resisting the defunding fight fear being blamed if Obama shuts down the government, costing them the 2014 election.  Anyone incapable of cogently debunking Obama should exit Congress.  Fighting for liberty now, win or lose, is the only means of raising an army to win in 2014, just as it did in Texas in 1836.

The fight to defund ObamaCare is the "cannon shot" response Americans will support.  They will recoil from those who "surrender at discretion" in order to save their political posterior.

The Lord is still on the side of liberty.

Jan LaRue is senior legal analyst with the American Civil Rights Union.