Posted on 07/05/2007 3:10:42 PM PDT by Cincinna
The country is at a crossroads, a different kind of place from where we've been before. The special interests seem more reactionary and entrenched than ever, the bureaucracies much larger. We need to marshal the courage to change, and we need to understand what needs changing.
Two books guide my thoughts these days. One is " Testimony: France in the Twenty-First Century," by the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The second is American: " The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression," by Amity Shlaes. Together they form a map for the crossroads.
Start with the will to change. Most American politicians have lost that. Or, if they have it, they are hostage to advisers who don't have the will to change.
France has a reputation as a country averse to change. But President Sarkozy translated his general exhortation about the need to change and the importance of work into a simple and direct policy proposal: All overtime will be tax-free.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
A very interesting read, highly recommended.
Newt is one of the best thinkers in America, today. He is best at policy thinking. It looks like he may be running for POTUS.
Not a wise decision, IMO, but the points he makes about the need for change, and the example of Sarko in France, make a lot of sense.
Sarko, running as the head of the party in charge for 12 years, still managed to cast himself as the outsider, and the one most able to institute change.
Sounds like we need a bold leader willing to roll up his sleeves and do the dirty work of changing a depressive situation.
Any suggestions? Perhaps someone who has done it before on a smaller scale?
Sure, if you're looking for the kinda guy would run for office, then resign immediately upon being elected, leaving his many supporters in the lurch.
Someone who has done it before...
Right on, Newt!!!
You mean Neal Boortz? :P
Cincinna, have you seen the video interview of Mmme. Boutin, a minister of the French government, about 9-11 conspiracies? I am hopping mad.
Natural thinking and ideas is good, but real change cannot come without THE revival that ushers in His Kingdom. This will eliminate the three things that plague mankind the most, time, death, and Satan’s authority over man.
No, I haven’t seen it.
Please post details, and link, if possible.
Your wish is my command:
Here is her email address: cboutin@assemblee-nationale.fr
I wrote her and asked if the video shown at http://dailymotion.alice.it/video/x1c5tv_sarkozy-contre-bush
is official policy of the French Government.
This is over the top.
From another post
To: Pete from Shawnee Mission
The video was removed by dailymotion.
Find it HERE :
http://leblogdrzz.over-blog.com/article-11198618.html
Thank you for the info.
One would like to ask President Sarkozy if this is the position of the French government, and what he intends to do about it.
This is from Wikipedia, an interesting article about this contradictory woman.
Christine Boutin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Christine Boutin (born in Levroux, Indre, France on February 6, 1944) is a French politician.
As of 2004, she is a deputy to the French National Assembly for the Yvelines département.
She is the leader of the Forum des républicains sociaux (Forum of Social Republicans, FRS), a French conservative christian-democratic party.
She became famous in 1998 for opposing the PACS domestic partnership plan, arguing that the government should not encourage homosexuality and was criticized for homophobia (see below for quotations). On one instance, Christine Boutin spoke for five hours in the French National Assembly; she also waved a Bible in the direction of the speaker of the Assembly — a surprising gesture in a country where laïcité (implying no intervention of religion into political matters) is specified in the Constitution.
She was a candidate in the 2002 French presidential election where she scored 1.19% on the first round of balloting.
In 2006, she supported the “global license” flat-fee authorization for sharing of copyrighted files over the Internet in a heated parliamentary debate on the DADVSI law.
In December 2006 she announced that she would not be a candidate for the 2007 French Presidential election and pledged her support for the Conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy (source: France 2 news, 2nd December 2006).
After Sarkozy’s victory in the presidential election, on May 18, 2007 Boutin was named Minister of Housing and the City in the government of Prime Minister François Fillon.”
DRZZ is a FReeper. Hopefully he will post and clarify what is going there with this anti-American, propaganda coming out of a French Minister.
Excellent way of putting it. If Newt were more into the Fair Tax, I think he'd be a serious contender (with self-employed me, at any rate).
My link at http://dailymotion.alice.it/video/x1c5tv_sarkozy-contre-bush works still.
I have written the Minister at her email and the French Embassy in D.C. (Don’t worry, I was polite but blunt, asking them if this was their policy. I doubt it is official, but with crackpots like her in government, France will not get any better.)
Romney knows how to strip companies down to their core mission, but I don’t see him talking about doing that to the fed government. I’d like to see it divest and sell off nonessential ventures to pay off the debt. In fact, I don’t see any of them tackling problems.
bookmark
Thanks Cincinna! Very interesting discussion (I don’t mean Newt’s).
Instead of running for POTUS, he should join up as an advisor to FDT.
I can tell you how to escape time and death, at least scientifically. I met a guy who did it, briefly, 16 years ago...
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