Newt Gingrich: My fellow Republicans, a Democratic wave election is coming unless we act right now

[Smokin Joe]

I reject outright ANY thought process that asserts a single man or party has the power and ability to 'save us'.

That is the mindset that leads to ruin in the first place, and it is not how we were forged to begin with.

We lost the Republic because the public abandoned it's foundational cultural principles, allowed itself to be educated into ignorance, embraced ideas anathema to the liberty intended for us and surrendered their responsibility to 'professionals'.  Now our existence is all about getting 'stuff' and using government to impose 'fairness' and 'equality'.

You do not fix such a pure morally bankrupt mobocracy by asserting one man or one party can restore us to greatness.  You're inviting dictatorship in one form or another.

But hey - if it's what the people want, they shall have it.

And the consequences that history teaches with horrifying results, shall at last be ours.

While I reject that any single man can 'save' the Republic, someone has to lead. Unfortunately, that isn't the situation in Congress, which seems intent on milling about and attacking those who might actually  have helped get something done. I won't say what I think it would take to fix that, except that it would be of Biblical proportions, and require a reboot.

[sneakypete]

Republicans lost Tuesday in an Alabama U.S. Senate race for the first time in 25 years.

Republicans lost the Virginia governorship last month, despite Ed Gillespie getting more votes than any Republican gubernatorial candidate in the state’s history. The GOP also lost 14 Virginia House of Delegates seats, and four races are still being recounted – enough for Republicans to potentially lose control after 17 years in the majority.

   

Thanks to the influx of lefties from the northeast who moved to Virginia for the white collar jobs in DC,Virginia is no longer a Southern State,and will never be one again. The SOB's weren't willing to pay the taxes to support the social programs they demanded their home states enact,so they moved to Virginia so they could keep more of their money for themselves.

Virginia was officially over when Terrible Terry was elected Governor. There just ain't no going back from crap like that.

BTW,where the Hell was Newt been the last few months,and why did he stay quiet back when he might have been able to make a difference?

[sneakypete]

Newt's right, and they're not going to act.

@Cyber Liberty

HEY! Cut them some slack! The professional alleged Republicans were too busy trying to get Trump removed from office to be concerning themselves with piddly stuff like state and local elections!

They had turf they needed to protect!

[Cyber Liberty]

@Cyber Liberty

HEY! Cut them some slack! The professional alleged Republicans were too busy trying to get Trump removed from office to be concerning themselves with piddly stuff like state and local elections!

They had turf they needed to protect!

Sorry.  I lost my head....

[sneakypete]

I was as anti-Trump as anyone on this board at one time but have come to realize that he is, warts and all, our last best hope of restoring this once great republic.  The deep state is now proven to be public enemy #1.

@Bigun

And there it is. The Party Pod People hate and fear him because he is an outsider who isn't playing their game.

Anybody thinks anyone BUT a political outsider can change this game when it has advanced this far is delusional. The DNC and the RNC worked decades to CREATE the game,so WTH would either have any interest in changing it?

Throw some political bombs,Donald!

[sneakypete]

I don't use drugs silly.

@musiclady

Maybe you should reconsider if that's the case?

Which alleged Party Pod did you support,JEB? Lady Lindsey?

Yup,wooda been sum BIG changes made if one of the usual suspects had been elected,huh?

[sneakypete]

 IF Pence doesn't play their game they will gobble him up and spit him out; I don't see him having the tremendous backbone that is needed right now.

@libertybele

You can't seriously think for even an instant that Pence isn't getting wood at the very thought of Trump being impeached. We all know his wife is in favor of it,and she keeps his balls in her handbag.

[sneakypete]

I reject outright ANY thought process that asserts a single man or party has the power and ability to 'save us'.

@INVAR

...and the Bible Thumpers will appear to splain to you how wrong you are in 1.....2....3.....

[sneakypete]

Trump's Presidency is the means of shining the light on the cockroaches.  Perhaps, it's the case that a man like Trump, warts and all, was the only way for it to happen.

@dfwgator

ONLY a political outsider can do it. AFATG,only a political outsider would even TRY to do it. The system in place is what has made the wealthy and powerful insiders of today wealthy and powerful,so why the HELL would any of them do anything to change it?

[INVAR]

While I reject that any single man can 'save' the Republic, someone has to lead.

I do not consider the last year under Trump to be leadership'.

Maneuvering, political chess, public incitement, subterfuge, undercutting, misdirection, bandwagoning ... yes.  Leadership - no.

Unfortunately, that isn't the situation in Congress, which seems intent on milling about and attacking those who might actually have helped get something done. I won't say what I think it would take to fix that, except that it would be of Biblical proportions, and require a reboot.

You and I understand the same thing.

Too bad we do not even account for a micro-minority of opinion on that in this society.

If the churches themselves are not going to be willing to even consider what needs to be done, there is no way in hell the rest of the culture will.

When you lose a culture you lose a nation and something else alien rises in the vacuum it left behind.

Here we are.

[Cyber Liberty]

If the churches themselves are not going to be willing to even consider what needs to be done, there is no way in hell the rest of the culture will.

Most Churches are, first and foremost, bureaucracies, with all the attendant lethargy that goes with them.  They are as momentum-driven as just about any other feature of our society.

[INVAR]

@INVAR

...and the Bible Thumpers will appear to splain to you how wrong you are in 1.....2....3.....

Given our own history and what I believe Providence blessed in order to establish the liberty that made us the greatest nation for individual freedom in all human history, I do not subscribe to the idea that God wanted us to establish a theocracy among the institutions of men.  At the same time I also do not believe that upholding moral principles that come from biblical religion, is establishing a theocracy either.  We were to be a self-governing people in terms of adherence to principles that make a society of ordered liberty possible.

Which is why I reject these calls to rally around a man or party as a savior.  It always results in one form of popery or another - whether secular or religious.  Making government god - which both Communism/Statism does just as effectively as a theocracy or Sharia does, even if the language does not call it such.

Ancient Israel was a theocracy only due the fact a covenant was made between a people and their God, which the people themselves ended up rejecting anyway.

Our covenant was to principles that lent themselves to laws that empowered individuals to be free to pursue their own destinies along a guideline of ordered liberty that limited government from interfering with the people in terms of belief and control.   We were no more to be controlled by a Central Pope than we were to be controlled by a central government.  We were to be free to pursue our faith and beliefs as long as they were in harmony with a society forged on principles that benefitted a self-governing moral code that everyone accepted as being of Supremacy over the whims of human nature.

In short, we were blessed by Providence to choose our own leaders - whom were supposed to be chosen based on character and their trustworthiness to uphold the Constitution.

But, like Ancient Israel - we are rejecting that covenant as assuredly as the ancients rejected the covenant they agreed to.  This people want a savior or king, and want government to become their provider and arbiter of 'fairness'.

When a people are willfully led into ignorance and apathy and choose a different moral path than the fragile one that established a hands-off government, then being subjugated by a central government, a central fuhrer or a central pope is what always happens.

[Mesaclone]

Isn't it odd how the idea of government by the people arose from....the very pagan city-state of Athens. The idea of Republican government itself...from the very pagan city-state of Rome. And the ideals of Locke and others that informed our Founding Fathers...came primarily from enlightenment philosophy, the elevation of reason above that of superstition and religious dogma.

Your understanding of the evolution of governance is...well...wrong.

This is not to say free government is not compatible with many of the tenets of Christianity, nor to assert that ANY people hoping to succeed in a democratic form of government do not need a strong ethical foundation. Clearly they do. Where you go wrong is pasting the shoe of your particular brand of fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity on a foot that has already well worn the concept of government by the people.

You of course will take this post as an attack against Christianity, which any thinking man can see it is not. Rather, it is a condemnation of the kind of dogmatic fundamantalism that sought to crush the Renaissance AND the rise of the age of Enlightenment. The tenets of loving god and one's neighbors, along with the other strictures of the commandments fit well with the ethics of many religious and philosophical belief systems...including Enlightenment philosophy. What IS at odds, is the dark and angry view that your sect of your religion must dominate the many others who have contributed to the ideal of our FF's, to the concept of Republican governance, and to the health of a society centered on rule for, of and by the people.

The fault in our government and society, dear Horatio, lies not in our stars nor the lack of a slavish obedience to Christian fundamentalism...but in ourselves, and in the ETHICAL choices we make.

As for worshipping one man or a party...nobody on this board does either. That sort of mentality exists only between your ears.

[INVAR]

Your understanding of the evolution of governance is...well...wrong.

Enjoy your secular mobocracy.  You have earned all the fruits it will bring you and your posterity.

As for worshipping one man or a party...nobody on this board does either. That sort of mentality exists only between your ears.

Yeah, well - anytime someone ascribes a man or a party as being a 'savior' - you are worshipping a man or a party with being god - whether you admit to that fact or not.

[INVAR]

Most Churches are, first and foremost, bureaucracies, with all the attendant lethargy that goes with them.  They are as momentum-driven as just about any other feature of our society.

Exactly.

When churches no longer influenced the culture in terms of morality and personal behavior, we lost the culture and now the culture influences the church - and out the window our liberties began to fly, and the supremacy of government replaced the dependence and respect of Providence.

[Mesaclone]

Enjoy your secular mobocracy.  You have earned all the fruits it will bring you and your posterity.

Yeah, well - anytime someone ascribes a man or a party as being a 'savior' - you are worshipping a man or a party with being god - whether you admit to that fact or not.

The "fruits" of this "mobocracy" are that we have built the most free, most prosperous, most civil and powerful nation the planet has ever seen. We've achieved that thanks to much blood and sacrifice in the name of freedom, and by adhering to Enlightenment principles AND our disparate beliefs in a loving god. If we screw it up going forward it will be at the hands of extremists.....of Socialistic morons on the left and Theocratic moral narcissists from the far Right.

And your definition of worship is comically self serving...and...like nearly all of your conspiracy theories...just plain wrong. Just as Reagan was the savior of our economy in the 80's...astoundingly without being an actual deity...so is Trump striving to be a savior of our current economic situation. Again, no divinity necessary. There are many devoutly Christian Trump voters...10's of millions at a minimum....and only a true moron would proclaim they worship anyone other than the god they know from the bible. 

[Smokin Joe]

Most Churches are, first and foremost, bureaucracies, with all the attendant lethargy that goes with them.  They are as momentum-driven as just about any other feature of our society.

The churches problem can be summed up by that other 3:16 (Revelations)

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

When they stand for nothing, why bother? So many major Christian denominations have turned from The Word.

[INVAR]

If we screw it up going forward it will be at the hands of extremists.....of Socialistic morons on the left and Theocratic moral narcissists from the far Right.

I love it when the mask drops from 'freedom-spouting' Pretenders and the knee-jerk vitriol is exposed when classifying someone who espouses biblical principles and morals being practiced by the citizens in society as being a Theocratic narcissist.

Makes you sound no different than the Secular Communists running around working to expunge any vestige of Christianity from being seen or heard in public.

[skeeter]

I love it when the mask drops from 'freedom-spouting' Pretenders and the knee-jerk vitriol is exposed when classifying someone who espouses biblical principles and morals being practiced by the citizens in society as being a Theocratic narcissist.

Makes you sound no different than the Secular Communists running around working to expunge any vestige of Christianity from being seen or heard in public.

All it takes to qualify as a 'theocratic narcissist' these days is to acknowledge that there is such a thing as a timeless truth.

[INVAR]

I attended my non-denominational church for the first time in months a short while ago.

The sermon happened to be regarding the dilemma many churches find themselves in today - whether to minister as the scriptures say or to avoid uncomfortable topics in the interests of not alienating those newer members with beliefs trending in a more contemporary direction.

I was sorry the pastor felt the issue was in doubt. I thought it was clear he sympathized with the latter POV.

It was a question the previous pastor a decade ago would've never even thought to ask.

Churches have become exactly as Jesus identified us today:

"I know your deeds; you are neither cold nor hot. How I wish you were one or the other. So because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to vomit you out of My mouth! You say, ‘I am rich; I have grown wealthy and have need of nothing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked." -  Revelation 3:15-17

[Silver Pines]

Wasn't Gingrich on Fox the other night defending Al Franken?

[Mesaclone]

All it takes to qualify as a 'theocratic narcissist' these days is to acknowledge that there is such a thing as a timeless truth.

There are many timeless truths, nor does a belief in them make one a theocratic narcissists. That comes only through the arrogance which believes one's own understanding of the bible...of god...is superior to your fellow American's. Its clearest symptom is a belief that our government should advocate and encourage a particular brand of fundamentalism.

So the definition is rather narrow and specific. 

[DiogenesLamp]

@INVAR

...and the Bible Thumpers will appear to splain to you how wrong you are in 1.....2....3.....

Sometimes you speak nonsense. 

[DiogenesLamp]

@dfwgator

ONLY a political outsider can do it. AFATG,only a political outsider would even TRY to do it. The system in place is what has made the wealthy and powerful insiders of today wealthy and powerful,so why the HELL would any of them do anything to change it?

And sometimes you speak wisdom. 

[Bigun]

@Bigun

And there it is. The Party Pod People hate and fear him because he is an outsider who isn't playing their game.

Anybody thinks anyone BUT a political outsider can change this game when it has advanced this far is delusional. The DNC and the RNC worked decades to CREATE the game,so WTH would either have any interest in changing it?

Throw some political bombs,Donald!

@sneakypete

Exactly!  Well stated!