To my knowledge, Gingrich has not said that there needs to be government intervention as a response to the sort of thing Romney did at Bain Capital. As such, the claims by various Freepers on here that Gingrich is a “socialist,” etc. etc. are nothing but socially-autistic white noise.
Gingrich is absolutely right to question Romney’s ethics and his competency on this. Romney seems to be good at one thing only w.r.t. private enterprise - destroying businesses, rather than salvaging them and making them profitable.
In that blurred line between “ethics” and “principles”, where does the moral compass point? These are two rather different philosophical points. One may be very concerned with ethical behavior, while applying no general principle at all, and one may have a set of very fine principles, while behaving in a highly unethical manner.
Newt Gingrich is in possession of a fine set of principles, yet there is the perception (whether proven or not) that he lacks in ethical standards. Mitt has without question always been highly ethical, yet some would question whether he possess sufficient discernment of the principles to which it seems he pays only lip service.
Of course, it may be argued that Barack Hussein possesses neither ethics or principles, at least none of which are generally accepted in the United States, but he is, of course, “charming” and “well spoken”, one of which may be attributed to sociopathic tendencies, and the other augmented greatly by the capability to read a TelePrompTer.
So where are we today, at some ungovernable, indecipherable and wholly irreconciliable morass of which NOBODY could make any sort of order?
Obama’s response seems to have been to simply rule in the manner of despotic kings of centuries past. Romney still believes that applying the empirical methods of managing a business will be the way to slice apart this Gorgian knot.
Gingrich appears to be of the opinion that like the Augean Stables, opening up a way for the water to pass through and flush out the stables, by diverting the flow of two nearby rivers, the current state of our bloated and overgrown government may be cleaned out by applying the thrust from both limiting the restrictions imposed by government, and relying on the surging energy of personal initiative. Sufficient force may be generated to diminish the accumulated debts, and re-establish a firm footing no longer mired in ever-deepening legacies that have ceased to be of value.
While I rather like the resolution offered by Newt Gingrich, still it is a little frightening to those of little faith in broad new concepts. Relying on the established platitudes of another age, or to fall back on the belief that people simply do not know what is best for themselves, is to retreat from the great American experiment in a representative republic, which has no king, nor does it relinquish power to an oligarchy which has already decided the course, and only additional tinkering around the fringes is permitted.
Newt Gingrich probably generates more new ideas per minute than any American figure since Thomas Jefferson, but that in itself probably is about as off-putting as anything. Newt does not always succeed in fully articulating one splendid new approach, before he is off on another, and not everybody can shift gears that fast.