Posted on 01/14/2012 7:29:31 PM PST by TBBT
Speaking at the Greenville/Spartanburg GOP Bronze Elephant Dinner in Duncan, South Carolina on Friday night, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in response to a question about what the American dream is about, had the most exceptional moment of the 2012 cycle.
As he is emerging as the chief anti-Mitt Romney challenger in South Carolina (Gingrich is a strong second, according to numerous South Carolina polls released this week), Gingrich described the America many feel will be just a memory if President Barack Obama wins another term and articulated why the preservation of that America should never be taken for granted and how Americans should be proactive in ensuring their children and grandchildren inherit an American with gritty, Jacksonian values not unlike the one they inherited.
“Countries can die,” Gingrich powerfully said, referring to a lesson he learned while his father was stationed overseas. “And Leadership can make an enormous difference.”
Gingrich noted that he grew up surrounded “by people who were passionate about America” who loved America because “they did not have that much economically” and was raised by a grandmother who was from a generation that instilled in him a belief that “George Washington was a heroic figure and the founding fathers led remarkable lives.”
“We didn’t think we were poor,” Gingrich said. “ We were Americans, and therefore we were rich, we had freedoms and a sense of safety.”
Gingrich said that the “American dream is to recognize first that we exist under our Creator with unalienable rights” and, therefore, “no president, judge, or bureaucrat can take away our rights.”
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
Bump
And he is a constitutionalist. He has taught the subject most of his life. He has taught it to the military as well as college. Why would he not believe what he has loved most of his life?
An effective politician has to be able to compromise--it's part of the "know when to hold 'em and when to fold em" game, because he never holds all the cards. He just needs to know how to play them to WIN!
And--while Newt may not be our "perfect" candidate--he sure beats the heck out of the others out there who have a chance of winning! So--GO NEWT!
Long Live George Washington!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydFJS-O2FwQ
Beck, is that you? How’s it hangin, fella? Haven’t seen you around here in a while, but I know you’ve been laid up.
Ok, now I know the beginnings of his love of America - grandma! One doesn’t know what he knows without his head in the books. While others were enjoying America, he was learning more about it and how it works.
Good job, Newt. America needs a strong Patriot right now.
Well said. Thank you for this post.
The American electorate will probably always have it’s rock concerts, gambling casinos, ball games, movies, race tracks and much more to to keep it desensitized from the political perils leading to national insignificance. My pablum is basketball but I do believe that being exceptionally good handling a big ball should not be cause for more wealth than in other more urgent social needs. At the same time I find it good that people have a choice in the making of their country. We certainly had a different set of choices going into and out of WWII.
haha! That is a classic! Thanks!
Thanks for this full version. The Townhall article/five min. excerpt already mailed to my list.
Direct link to the Gingrich video described in the article:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_k0fOU4wBoM
Oops, sorry! The link I posted above is a 4-minute excerpt. The following link from Utmost Certainty gives the full 1 hour & 21 minute video.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303686-1
I hear the Newties throwing around the word “true Conservative” or “Reaganesque” like a cheap tokens to buy off the gullible. A man who isn’t faithful to one he has given a sacred vow will not be faithful to one who has given him his trust. Not very “conservative” if you ask me.
Bookmark for later
I leave you with excerpts from his book:
"I want to encourage you to be a little anxious, and then I want to encourage you to turn that anxiety into engergy. We will create a better future and renew America only if enough people decide that there is a problem and that we can do something about it . . . "
". . . I am not suggesting that each of us needs to be heroic in the tradition of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Roosevelt. Quite the opposite. I believe the heroism we need today is the quiet steady work of millions--parents, teachers, volunteers, cab drivers, government officials, individual citizens--each making his or her own contribution with his or her own talents . . ."
". . . Since each American is uniquely endowed by the Creator with inalienable rights, there is not and cannot be a single American dream. There are 260,000,000 American dreamers. Because we have been so empowered by our dreams and our right to pursue our dreams, we have become a great country filled with good people."
Newt - “each making his or her own contribution with his or her own talents.”
Rick! Santorium promoting his book, told NPR in 2006:
“One of the criticisms I make is to what I refer to as more of a libertarianish right. You know, the left has gone so far left and the right in some respects has gone so far right that they touch each other. They come around in the circle. This whole idea of personal autonomy, well I don’t think most conservatives hold that point of view. Some do. They have this idea that people should be left alone, be able to do whatever they want to do, government should keep our taxes down and keep our regulations low, that we shouldn’t get involved in the bedroom, we shouldn’t get involved in cultural issues. You know, people should do whatever they want. Well, that is not how traditional conservatives view the world and I think most conservatives understand that individuals can’t go it alone. That there is no such society that I am aware of, where we’ve had radical individualism and that it succeeds as a culture.” http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/rick-santorum-v-limited-government/
With that said, we're talking about the first Speaker of the House ever to be disciplined by Congress for an ethical wrongdoing. The guy was sanctioned $300,000 on a 395–28 House vote. He had eighty-four ethics charges levied against him. The man's ethical shortcomings cost us the midterm elections in '98, after which he was pretty much ran out of town.
The man announced his intention to divorce his first wife while she was on her hospital bed because he was having an affair with another woman. Although Gingrich denies it, L. H. Carter, Gingrich's former campaign treasurer, claims that Gingrich said, "She's not young enough or pretty enough to be the wife of the President. And besides, she has cancer." He remarried just six months after finalizing his divorce, only to have another affair with another woman (almost half his age) while simultaneously going after Bill Clinton for the exact same thing.
The essence of America, everything that makes us good, prosperous, and free, lies within our moral values. Gingrich is a brilliant man who has a way with words but you cannot convince me that he actually "gets" in his heart what makes America tick -- the very way he lives his life and the character he has repeatedly shown proves that he does not get it.
Again, I'm not saying I would not vote for Gingrich. The man has done impressive things and can probably rightfully be credited with stopping Clinton from taking this country in the direction Obama has. But I caution everyone reading to approach the man with the healthy distrust due to all slick politicians and not to be swooned by the fact that he knows how to play to your heartstrings. I pray that I am wrong but Newt Gingrich has struck me as, at the end of the day, always having been in it for Newt Gingrich -- he says and does the things he says and does less because he believes in them and more because he knows it's a fruitful path to power. He did not, after all, go after Bill Clinton because he thought the guy did something wrong, like the rest of us did -- it was something he was doing himself. He did it because he figured it would bolster his own standing.
One can advocate and promote all the right things for all the wrong reasons. As conservatives we distrust the government in part precisely because it is run by politicians like Gingrich. This is what sets us apart from Democrats -- we know we can't trust our guys and we pressure them accordingly. If we start trusting them because they say what they know we want to hear, however... well, we become useful idiots just like those across the aisle.
Please list all the campaign promises Newt broke in the two decades he served in Congress. Funny, I’ve never seen any of the Newt bashers mention even one.
He who is without sin cast the first stone! If you're looking for a perfect Messiah I suggest you vote for the incumbent! If you don't have a problem with a flawed human being who understands this time in history I suggest you stop looking at personal sins (for which he has repented) and start looking at his vision for restoring America. I watched Newt balance the f'ing budget and reform welfare with a democratic President so don't tell me he's not conservative. Please point me to ANYONE who has actually accomplished anything close to this??
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