I read three chapters in Newt Gingrich's Real Change:
"Chapter Six: Replacing the Old Order: America Has Done It Before and We
Can Do It Again"; "Chapter Seven: Becoming a Citizen Leader"; and
"Chapter Eight: Replacing the Old Order: Lessons from Britain and
France".
1. What stood out to me in my reading of Chapter 6 was
Newt's references to the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration
states: "whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these
ends [of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right
of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its power in
such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and
happiness." Newt then spends this chapter discussing systemic
transformations throughout American history: the American Revolution,
the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with a strong central
government, Jeffersonianism, Jacksonianism, Lincoln Republicanism, the
progressive movement, the New Deal, and Reaganism. Regarding Lincoln
Republicanism, Newt says on page 71 that it "shifted the focus of
American political philosophy from the Constitution back to the
Declaration of Independence". He probably means that Lincoln
Republicanism did so by highlighting the Declaration's principle that
all men are created equal, in its opposition to slavery. The
Constitution, however, did not treat slaves as full human beings, as
well as mandated that runaway slaves be returned to their masters.
Newt
is probably a strict constructionist, one who wants for judges to be
faithful to the text and original intent of the Constitution, and so
I'll be taking the thoughts in the above paragraph in a direction that
Newt most likely did not intend, and probably would find abhorrent.
During
the health care debate, conservatives were telling me that the federal
government has no authority to do anything about health care, for the
Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that the federal
government can only do what the Constitution explicitly states, while
all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. I found
such reasoning to be troubling. There were people in the United
States who were suffering and dying at the hands of America's health
care system, and my conservative friends were appealing to some archaic
notion of federalism to argue that the federal government should do
absolutely nothing about that problem! That made me think: the
government is meant to serve us and to promote the general welfare. If
it is set-up in such a way that it is doing the opposite or hindering
this, then there is a problem. I think of government the same way that
Jesus in Mark 2:27 thought about the Sabbath: The government was made
for humanity, not humanity for the government. In my opinion, if the
Constitution is designed to prevent the government from helping people,
then there is a problem with the Constitution. I'm NOT calling for the
overthrow of the U.S. Government, mind you, but I'm just saying that I'm
wary of conservatives who put an archaic notion of federalism above the
lives and well-being of American citizens.
2. I enjoyed some of
the advice and the stories in Chapter 7. Newt talked about a 174-page
book that he has read and reread since 1969, Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive. Newt
states that, according to this book, being an effective leader is not a
matter of "intelligence or looks or charisma". Rather, it's a matter
of sharing your vision with others, and of listening to what they have
to say with openness.
Newt also talked about
Albert Einstein, who had a hard time getting an academic job and had to
be a clerk in order to support himself. But that ended up being a good
thing, for Einstein was not held-back by the group-think that pervades
academia, and he could approach issues in fresh ways.
In
a sense, what Newt says about Drucker and what he says about Einstein
are contradictory: we should be a team-player working with others, and
yet we should strike out on our own and see problems in fresh ways that
the herd's radar does not pick up. Perhaps there's a place for both.
After all, Einstein's work had to interact with other scientists at some
point, otherwise it would not have been accepted and put to use.
3.
Chapter 8 essentially lauds Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain and
Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who took steps to liberate their respective
countries' economies from things that were holding those economies back
(i.e., statism). Newt talks about France and how its workers have had a
short work week along with considerable vacation times, and he doubts
that they'll be as productive as countries where people work long hours
(i.e., China and India). The result, according to Newt, could be a
decline in revenue in France, which is so necessary to pay for the
French social programs. But Newt states that Sarkozy has sought to
encourage work. For instance, Sarkozy proposed that overtime pay be
tax-free.
I'm all for people working. At the same time,
it would be nice if they had time to spend with their families. I know a
lady who moved to Italy from the United States, and she says that she
likes Italy because at least she can have lunch with her family. In the
U.S., she was always on the go, and so she couldn't do that. I hope that Europe's way of doing things is not as perilous as Newt says. But I'm far from being an expert on this topic.