-- LANCE MORROW, 'NEWT GINGRICH'S WORLD', Dec. 25, 1995
http://uprootedphilosopher.blogspot.com/2011/10/time-mag-man-of-year-1995.html
Quotes From Newt Gingrich book ‘To Renew America’:
“Six challenges for a prosperous, free, and safe America
Let me outline the six major changes that I believe are necessary to leave our children with an America that is prosperous, free, and safe:
1. We must reassert and renew American civilization. Until we re-establish a legitimate moral-cultural standard, our civilization is at risk.
2. We must accelerate America’s entry into the Third Wave Information Age. Second only to renewing our civilization is making the intellectual investment necessary to understand these changes and harness them to our lasting advantage.
3. We must rethink our competition in the world market. We want our labor to add the highest value so that we can be the most effective competitor on earth.
4. We must replace the welfare state with an opportunity society.
5. We must replace our centralized, micro-managed, Washington-based bureaucracy with a dramatically decentralized system more appropriate to a continent-wide country.
6. We musty be honest about the cost of government programs and balance the federal budget.”
“Our civilization is a shared opportunity to pursue happiness
We have gone from being a strong, self-reliant, vigorous society to a pessimistic one that celebrates soreheads and losers jealous of others’ successes. I came out of my two years of reviewing American history convinced that our first need is to rediscover the values we have lost. In my reading, I found five basic principles that I believe form the heart of our civilization:
The common understanding we share about who we are and how we came to be
The ethic of individual responsibility
The spirit of entrepreneurial free enterprise
The spirit of invention and discovery
Pragmatism and the concern for craft and excellence.”
“On Principles & Values: Culture of irresponsibility began in 1965
We must reassert and renew American civilization. From the arrival of English-speaking colonists in 1607 until 1965, there was one continuous civilization built around a set of commonly accepted legal and cultural principles. From the Jamestown colony and the Pilgrims, through de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, up to Norman Rockwell’s paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, there was a clear sense of what it meant to be an American.
Our civilization is based on a spiritual and moral dimension. It emphasizes personal responsibility as much as individual rights. Since 1965, however, there has been a calculated effort by cultural elites to discredit this civilization and replace it with a culture of irresponsibility that is incompatible with American freedoms as we have known them.
Our first task is to return to teaching Americans about America and teaching immigrants how to become Americans. Until we re-establish a legitimate moral-cultural standard, our civilization is at risk.”