Contract On America
Peter Robinson ·
Jul 24, 2010 at 10:10am
If you wanted to argue that Newt Gingrich is often given to the unduly sweeping statement, or that from time to time he seems to confuse pop culture with historical analysis--remember how much he used to make of Alvin Toffler's Third Wave?-- I'd make no effort to gainsay you. On the other hand, just get a load of this:
The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over....America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization.
Newt is right--he's right. And who but he would have the particular fearlessness required to make such a statement?
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Contract On America
Agreed on all points, Peter. It's because of statements like these that I cringe about the "Newt 2012" talk - not because this is offensive, but because Newt's general lack of political correctness would open him to too many lines of attack in a general election.
I'm happy to have Gingrich on our side, but my feelings about Newt for President are the same as my feelings about Palin for RNC: keep up the good work, but let's not forget there's a big country out here with more than a few intelligent conservative leaders!
Jun '10
Re: Contract On America
I forget who did it to who, but here in Minneapolis a political candidate had a big billboard advertisement right across the street from their opponent's campaign headquarters. Officially, just a coincidence. The only difference with the Cordoba House is, once it's there it's not going away.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
Peter - I assume you mean fearlessness among people who still plan to run for elected office. Personally, while I feel Newt may run, I suspect that not even he expects to win. It's more of him wanting to continue shaping the debate. He engenders a lot of hatred for successfully nationalizing the '94 midterms.
On the other hand, it still remains to be seen whether or not the shared conventional wisdom about politics is still operable after this November. If Harry Reid and Jack Conway are successful in using the "extremist" line against their opponents then we are pretty much stuck with the status quo. If they lose to the Tea Party darlings then the game may be changing. Too often our instant analysis of what's going on is so concentrated on the individual brush strokes we can't comprehend the larger picture.
Re: Contract On America
You know -- we could do a lot worse than Newt.
I'd vote for him.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
The value of Newt is similar to what Mark expressed in a podcast a while back: In order to move the center in your direction, you need the more "extreme" positions of your side expressed in a forceful, articulate manner. If the center is a compromise between two valid-yet-opposing points of view, inching that median our way requires convincing the public that radical right-wing whack-jobs are often spot on. Newt is indispensable in this regard.
Re: Contract On America
Why exactly do you think he's a radical right-wing whack-job? I mean, not that anyone here thinks "right-wing" is an epithet, but do you think he's a whack-job, and if so, why? The man seems eminently sane to me.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
Newt is sane, his opponents are not. They will never forgive him for 1994. Too many on our side shy away from him, not because he is a whack-job, but because they are convinced that standing next to a lightning rod in the electrical storm of politics is not a good idea.
And speaking of ideas, Newt is a "Big Idea" kind of guy and fearless in proposing them. And in politics that's always dangerous as we don't usually reward courage.
In Margaret Thatcher's favorite television series, Yes, Minister and its followup, Yes, Prime Minister, Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) explains how to deal with Big Idea people. "(Politicians) will generally accept proposals that contain the words simple, quick, popular and cheap. (They) will generally throw out proposals that contain the words complicated, lengthy, expensive and controversial. Above all, if you wish to describe a proposal in a way that guarantees that he will reject it, describe it as courageous."
May '10
Re: Contract On America
Sorry, I wasn't clear: I was speaking ironically. My point is that when Americans hear Newt eloquently defend that which the press often tries to dismiss as "nutty" (e.g., his view on this mosque), Americans question their assumptions, and the great-American-middle inches our way.
Love Newt. Love Mark. Love "radical right-wing whack-jobs"....because everybody else is nuts.
Jul '10
Re: Contract On America
Claire Berlinski: You know -- we could do a lot worse than Newt.
I'd vote for him. · Jul 24 at 11:59am
Hear, hear. Wouldn't it be refreshing to pull the lever for somebody who thinks of conservatives as "us" instead of "them"?
May '10
Re: Contract On America
I agree that Islamists are engaged in a campaign of cultural aggression. On matters like the Danish cartoons or South Park wanting to draw Mohamed, I stand with the cartoonists. The attempt to advance sharia law is something I forcefully oppose. And if we must rankle cultural sensitivities in order to protect women's rights, then cultural confrontation is necessary.
However, humanity doesn't have a very good record treating minority groups fairly when a percentage of them are culturally hostile. So I say that we ought to let our values and principles guide us, rather than excusing every impulse by telling ourselves that "Muslims are different."
Peter, I have no objection to the Newt quote you excerpted. But I have a big problem with his statement that "there should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."
Our Islamist enemies have deeply perverted values. It should be anathema to call for Americans to change our values to mimic them.
Re: Contract On America
Conor Friedersdorf: [...] no objection to the Newt quote you excerpted. But I have a big problem with his statement that "there should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over."
Our Islamist enemies have deeply perverted values. It should be anathema to call for Americans to change our values to mimic them.
I agree this is a misconceived formulation, Conor. It's not one I would use. To me, it doesn't make sense to approve the GZM in order to reward the construction of a Saudi church or synagogue -- or to oppose the GZM because a particular regime is intolerant of religions not its own. True mimicry here would really mean no new mosques in America until a new church or synagogue appeared in -- any Muslim nation where there isn't one? I'd say this more calls into question Newt's readiness for a '12 campaign than the thrust of the line you do appreciate. Notable he zeroes in on the Saudis, though...
May '10
Re: Contract On America
That's a cop out. There are forces afoot that seek to destroy and absorb unto themselves as much power as they can accumulate. Consequently, one can do one of two things: One can go willingly to the cross or one can fight.
For now, this is a bloodless sort of warfare, but war nonetheless.
Sometimes our underlying civility is our undoing. When we turn the other cheek, it gets slapped, too. Where we forgive, someone else gets even.
We stand at a crossroads at this very moment. Decisions need to be made.
*CONTINUED*
May '10
Re: Contract On America
*FROM ABOVE*
When my four children look at me and wonder what happened to their American Dream, I do not wish to make the “Good German” defense. I’m old. I’m going to die trying.
Any time you begin a sentence that starts, “We need to be bigger than them…” it says, I am about to surrender. I am going to be above you and show you the high road. But your enemies never follow you, do they? It only encourages the wicked to fight harder and dirtier because they sense the blood, the weariness and the fear.
As I said, there is a time for choosing. As that speech, made so famous in 1964 ended, so shall I:
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny.
“We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
…You and I have the ability and the dignity and the right to make our own decisions and determine our own destiny.”
And if someone gets offended by my cultural insensitivity - tough.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
Clarification: And I meant bloodless in as speaking out in the arena of ideas on the domestic front, visa vie the Ground Zero Mosque. I know there's a real shooting war going on but we ain't fighting that like we mean it either.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
It is a deliberate provocation to show how we are weak and they are strong. Somehow we are supposed to not be offended, while they have the right to be offended at every turn?
Sorry, no dice with me. Don't build it. Rebuild the damn buildings at Ground Zero. Muslims knocked them down. They should not get to then colonize the site. IF the peaceful Muslims in this nation want to make a point, then by God, stand up and stand against the 30% of you around the world that think is is OK to kill innocent women and children. Where are they? Where are the moderates? I cannot seem to find them.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
EJHill
That's a cop out. There are forces afoot that seek to destroy and absorb unto themselves as much power as they can accumulate. Consequently, one can do one of two things: One can go willingly to the cross or one can fight.
There are always forces that seek to destroy and absorb power -- if we are to have values at all, we must have them even when confronted with enemies, which is always. And it is perfectly possible to fight while adhering to our values.
You write, "Any time you begin a sentence that starts, 'We need to be bigger than them…' it says, I am about to surrender."
Really? Were we not bigger than the Communists and the Nazis? Are we not bigger than radical Islamists even now? Was Ghandi not bigger than the imperialists he fought?
Staying true to our values is not equivalent to surrender. If it were, our values would be poor indeed, and wouldn't have helped us become the most powerful country in the history of the world.
Re: Contract On America
Conor, I actually agree with you that the comment in question is stupid. I mean, the Constitution doesn't have a "null and void until Saudi Arabia has a synagogue" clause.
The general sentiment he's expressing, though, is one that needs to be expressed. I'm a little late to the Cordoba Initiative discussion, but I share the sense that the plans for this mosque are to be viewed dimly. I don't have a problem with mosques, per se--obviously I don't, I'm surrounded by about a billion of them and many of them are lovely indeed--but this project does have a stench about it. Take some of the opinions expressed by Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, for example. See, e.g., his endorsement of the opinion that “freedom of expression doesn’t mean the right to offend.” It means precisely that, and all the protestations in the world that this is an anti-extremist project mean nothing unless those making them get this and get it good. Rauf doesn't stand with the cartoonists, it would seem. Until he does, I'm not going to be real happy with the idea of that mosque.
Jul '10
Re: Contract On America
At this point, this is a legal war, waged by politicians and lawyers. But behind it looms the reality of symbols and religion and actual killing wars. People will kill over ideas. They will murder and slaughter and they did so on 9/11. Don't forget that. Just because Western Europe embraced secularism after the 17th century Wars of Religion doesn't mean that we can escape this horror.
In Edinburgh, in Grayfriars Kirkyard, along one wall, there is a Covenanter Martyrs' Memorial, erected in 1706. Its inscription begins: "Halt passenger, take heed what thou dost see/ This tomb doth shew for what some men did die... Some 18,000 people are thus memorialized, including, I might add, the very important Earl of Argyll.
We are fools not to understand how Islam sees us: as weakling decadents whose wealth is ripe for their picking.
I feel like Jeremiah on the battlements.
May '10
Re: Contract On America
If you think we fought these people on a clear moral high ground then you are only deluding yourself. Atomic weapons, the Dresden fires, blockades, renditions... not pretty stuff. But we did these things that were ugly and dirty because they had to be done.
Re: Contract On America
All this said, the mosque seems like small potatoes to me. Everyone's staring at the place; they'll have no choice but to hew to a cheerful, politically correct, multicultural, tolerant line. I worry a lot more about the things no one's looking at too closely. Any of you wondering just what Fethullah Gülen is up to in his Pennsylvania redoubt? You might want to ask. I don't know myself, but I suspect the question is probably more important than this one.