Post
note: this is a very hard article for Newt fans. There is balance
to all this, but that is not included here. I do believe that the
negative political issues manifest in Gingrich's past can be dealt with as TEA
party conservatives increase their presence in Washington. He was critical to the balanced budgets of the Clinton Administration, as well as organizing the most startling midterm elections in my lifetime, the 1994 congressional elections that took out Clinton's House and Senate. And he overcame a host of negatives in his victory in South Carolina, not the least of which was the victory with the very conservative married women of the state. Keep that in mind as you move forward. Negatives always look overpowering when not stated in the context of a positive report. -- blog editor.
The case
against Newt.
Avant-propos: In short, if one claims to be a Reagan Conservative, he had better be a Reagan Conservative. Newt became such about four weeks ago. While he may have bound himself to TEA party values, he is less a TEA party candidate than is Mitt Romney. Understand that this is a not a requisite statement; only a summary conclusion after having written the following expose' on Newt Gingrich. But, first, a note about Romney and then, we take on Gingrich.
Update: all of the following can be dealt with, by Newt, but the readership needs to be aware of issues Newt brings to the table. I do not get into Romney's issues. This is not de facto endorsement of Mitt. It is only my strongly felt concern. In the weeks and days ahead, I am sure that I become even more disconnected from any serious decision as to who I will endorse (as if that means anything -- I know, I know).
Update: all of the following can be dealt with, by Newt, but the readership needs to be aware of issues Newt brings to the table. I do not get into Romney's issues. This is not de facto endorsement of Mitt. It is only my strongly felt concern. In the weeks and days ahead, I am sure that I become even more disconnected from any serious decision as to who I will endorse (as if that means anything -- I know, I know).
Why we can support
Romney
We all know that Mitt Romney is a moderate
conservative, despite his current effort of casting himself as a near TEA party
type conservative (I would argue that
there is no other kind of true conservative).
What Mitt
Romney is not, and this is critical, is
a One World Collectivist. And for that reason, alone,
he would be a worthy representative of the GOP. Ditto for Newt.
Understand
this, and the rest of the civilized
world does not share this understanding:
it is TEA party ideals that are driving the current wave of conservative
reform. All GOP candidates know
this, are doing their best to attack
that vote. It is the definition politic
of the GOP and it is hardly radical unless,
of course, you think a move to the state’s right to govern itself is a
wingnut idea. I don’t and I have the 10th
amendment to stand on. Try reading
it. It will take you no more than 15
seconds, seriously. The larger Constitution is a doctrine of
limited powers. It amends the notion
that the people are the government. Call
me a nut, if you will. Fine with me.
Why Newt is a dangerous
candidate
Newt is fine with
government requiring us to buy a product.
Newt
Gingrich is more of a conservative, in
this campaign, than is Romney, but that has not been his historicity. In fact, we could make the case for him being
quite liberal, more so than Mitt.
I begin with
a most recent discussion Gingrich had with David Gregory on Meet the
Press:
“I am for
people, individuals -— exactly like automobile insurance -— individuals having
health insurance and being required to have health insurance. And I am prepared
to vote for a voucher system which will give individuals, on a sliding scale, a
government subsidy so we insure that everyone as individuals have health
insurance. . . . . . I agree that all of us have a responsibility to pay- —
help pay for health care. I've said consistently we ought to have some
requirement that you either have health insurance or you post a bond.
Now, while
he is not talking about creating a Federal Insurance Alternative, Gingrich is talking about a federal law requiring people
to buy a product. Last time I
looked, this is the very argument being
used by Florida and its co-sponsors as central to the assault against ObamaCare.
Newt helped create
central control over our young people.
More than
this, under Jimmy Carter, he voted to establish a centralized federal
agency over education, namely, the
Department of Education. In so
doing, he either did not have the good
sense of knowing that this would be used as a pathway to secular controls of local
educational districts, or he did not
care. Reagan Conservative? Give me a break.
Newt Gingrich was among
the first to support a Fairness Doctrine
A Reagan
Conservative? Good Grief; not hardly.
A third serious issue is Gingrich’s support of the Fairness Doctrine -
another one of those federal Progressive bills designed to give power of
the Fed over the air-ways. He is listed
as a co-sponsor of the 1987 version of that bill. Fairness in Broadcasting Act of 1987
Understand
that Progressives had a Fairness Doctrine in place, legislatively speaking, from 1949 until 1987
and the Reagan years. Reagan was wildly
opposed to such federal control and orchestrated its demise. In the same year (1987) the law was
reversed, there was a move to rewrite
and reinstate the federal controls found in the Fairness Doctrine. The bill I hyperlinked, above, was an effort to defeat Reagan in this
matter and over-ride his veto. Newt
support the move against Reagan to the degree that he actually worked against
the nation’s most popular president and,
again, tried to over a Reagan veto.
Big Government Newt on
Cap and Trade
FromPolitfact, we have this damning
summation of the Gingrich position on Cap and Trade:
On Feb. 15, 2007, Gingrich went on the PBS show Frontline and championed cap and trade.
Asked
if he supported George W. Bush’s campaign pledge in 2000 to set mandatory
carbon caps, Gingrich responded:
"I
think if you have mandatory carbon caps combined with a trading system,
much like we did with sulfur, and if you have a tax-incentive program for
investing in the solutions, that there's a package there that's very, very good. And frankly,
it's something I would strongly support." he said.
He
then went on to criticize Bush for backing off the pledge.
"If he had instituted a
regime that combined three things I just said -- mandatory caps, a trading
system inside the caps, as we have with clean air, and a tax incentive to be
able to invest in the new technology and to be able to produce the new technology
-- I think we would be much better off than we are in the current
situation," Gingrich said.
In fairness I suppose,
Gingrich did testify against the cap and trade legislation in 2009 . . . . kind of.
While voicing an opinion against cap and trade, saying that such would be financially harmful
to senior citizens and “rural Americans,”
he added this comment, an assault
against Big Business: “ . . . if you
want to write a bill that covers the 2,000 most polluting places and say, fine
those 2,000 [as part] of cap and trade, I’d be glad to look at it.”
His claim that “I have never favored cap and trade” is
simple not true.
Newt and the Third Wave and a warning from Ann Coulter
In an article dated December 7, 2011, Ann Coutler told us
something that I did not know. When “we”
won that 1994 election, I was busy
hanging cabinets in Fresno, California. A buddy called me from Visala, and told me to get my be-hind down
there. He would meet me at the Lion's
Club House. His comment? “We have just taken the House and the Senate
away from Bill Clinton." No one in the
mainstream population saw this coming.
The media had been successful in keeping this pending electoral disaster
from the public’s eye, until the polls had closed. Coulter takes back to that time with this cautionary note about Gingrich:
Before you newly active Republicans
commit to Newt Gingrich as your presidential nominee on the basis of the recent
debates, here's a bit of Newt history you ought to know. I promise you, it's
going to come up if he's the candidate.
The day
after the Republicans' historic takeover of the House of Representatives in the
1994 election, Newt was off and running, giving a series of Fidel Castro-style
speeches about "the Third Wave information revolution." It had the
unmistakable ring of lingo from his new-age gurus, Alvin and Heidi Toffler. . .
. .
A few weeks
later, when Newt was elected House speaker by the incoming Republican
conference, there was a small elderly couple standing by his side as he gave a
one-hour acceptance speech. It soon became clear who they were, when he issued
a reading list to the Republican legislators. At the top of the list was a book
by the Tofflers.
Hadn't
Republicans just won on a platform of smaller government? Instead of a
Republican victory, the '94 election seemed to be a victory for the Tofflers'
cyber-babble about "social wavefront analysis," "anticipatory
democracy," "de-massification," "materialismo,"
"the Third Wave" and "decision loads.
Then, in his first week as speaker,
Gingrich was again promoting the Tofflers around town, introducing them at a
technology conference and giving a speech titled "From Virtuality to
Reality.. .
end of the Coulter quote.
I encourage you to read this Coulter article and give you this last sentence (from Coulter’s
article) as motivation:
"Newt Gingrich is the 'anti-Establishment' candidate only if 'the Establishment' is defined as "anyone who remembers what happened the day before
yesterday."
Please note: I am updating for "end notes" as you read. Hurry back later this evening. -- blog editor.
And here it is:
After reading this, you will see that Gingrich's use of the term "conservative" is hardly, traditional. It is entirely possible, in my layman's opinion, that Gingrich is as wedded to transformative change as is Obama, but from an American's historical perspective. Barack's purview is clearly European. There is a third choice and it that which is found in the Federalist Papers. Our society was birthed form the thinking of theorists, as well. The America, as we know it, is a grand experiment guided by the rule of law as defined in the Constitution. The justification for this rule of law is the Federalist Papers in toto. Understand that those who seek change, in this nation, from whatever perspective, are not patriots in the truest since of the word and in my opinion. And, the only intellectual report I hold as authoritative is the one written and debated by the those whom we call "Founders."
And here it is:
After reading this, you will see that Gingrich's use of the term "conservative" is hardly, traditional. It is entirely possible, in my layman's opinion, that Gingrich is as wedded to transformative change as is Obama, but from an American's historical perspective. Barack's purview is clearly European. There is a third choice and it that which is found in the Federalist Papers. Our society was birthed form the thinking of theorists, as well. The America, as we know it, is a grand experiment guided by the rule of law as defined in the Constitution. The justification for this rule of law is the Federalist Papers in toto. Understand that those who seek change, in this nation, from whatever perspective, are not patriots in the truest since of the word and in my opinion. And, the only intellectual report I hold as authoritative is the one written and debated by the those whom we call "Founders."
End
notes: The Third Wave as an approach to societal evolution.
Remember the Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age? I do.
That was part of our schooling back in the . . . . ah . . . . . Dark Age
(when I went to school beginning in 1950). Well, apparently,
those delineations are out and the world has the Pointie Heads have
created their own summation of history, one that advances a One World
Order. Third Wave theory
According to Heidi
and Alvin Toffler, the historical/societal record can be divided into
four "waves." The first was the agricultural age;
the second wave was the industrial age; the third wave is the information
age, its transcendent devise being the invention and development of the
computer and its evolution. The fourth
wave is a developing business model that utilizes advancements of the “third
wave” that facilitates a One World political and structural economy. A “cashless” society is a part of this fourth
wave, as an example . . . . .
information technology used to substitute money and bring societies together. The failings of the Dollar and the Euro could
be circumstances that lend themselves to this transitional change.
Using
different words, the end game of the Third Wave**, as a societal theory, is a progressive
obsolescence of the nation-state itself (that would be the United States and
China and Italy and Kenya, etc.) understanding “progressive obsolescence” as a structured and intentional move away from
the historicity and traditions of our past nation-state circumstance and into a
world that is not yet fully revealed,
even in the minds of those who are attempting to take us “there.” (you can quote me on this - J “The original educated OKIE” Smithson).
** Caution: if
you research this in Wikipedia or other excellent sources, be care not to do what that source Wikipedia does
and confuse the “third wave of democratization” (Samuel Huntington and others,
no doubt) with the Toffler’s “third wave” theory.
Samuel
Huntington, a PhD in political science,
taught at Harvard from 1963 until his death in 2008. If Obama studied political science at Harvard,
I believe that he would have sat under the tutelage of Huntington.
Huntington is credited with this remark (I have since lost track of my references for
this quote, sorry -- trust me):
A government which
lacks authority will have little ability short of cataclysmic crisis to impose
on its people the sacrifices which may be necessary... We have come to
recognize that there are potential desirable limits to economic growth. There are also potentially desirable limits to the
indefinite extension of political democracy.
If he taught
Obama at Harvard, and spent time with
the thematic implications of that last statement, we might have a window into Obama’s little
theory laden political brain.
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