This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Corruption Of American Freedom
Authored by Newt Gingrich, originally posted at The Washington Times,
This is my third column in a row on corruption.
In the first, I suggested that 75% may be the most important figure in American politics. It is the percentage of Americans who say in the Gallup World Poll that corruption is widespread in government. Given this extraordinary level of contempt for American political and administrative elites, it is no wonder that non-establishment figures like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Bernie Sanders are gaining such traction in the presidential nominating contests.
In the second, I compared the American view of widespread governmental corruption with the view in other countries. It turns out that 82 countries have a better view of their government, although many of them not by much. For example, at 74%, Brazilians’ dissatisfaction with corruption in their government has led to nationwide protests. But there are many countries where the view of government corruption is far less: Germany (38%), Canada (44%), Australia (41%), and Denmark (19%).
Today I want to offer some historical context for America’s understanding of corruption.
America’s Founding Fathers had a very precise understanding of corruption. As I describe in my book “A Nation Like No Other,” the Founders used that word less to describe outright criminal behavior than to refer to political acts that corrupt a constitutional system of checks and balances and corrode representative government. They frequently accused the British Parliament of corruption, citing practices such as the crown’s use of “placemen”—members of Parliament who were also granted royal appointments or lucrative pensions by the crown, in exchange for supporting the king’s agenda.
In “The Creation of the American Republic,” Gordon Wood, a scholar of the American Revolution, explains the Founders’ idea of corruption:
“When the American Whigs described the English nation and government as eaten away by “corruption,” they were in fact using a technical term of political science, rooted in the writings of classical antiquity, made famous by Machiavelli, developed by the classical republicans of seventeenth-century England, and carried into the eighteenth century by nearly everyone who laid claim to knowing anything about politics. And for England it was a pervasive corruption, not only dissolving the original political principles by which the constitution was balanced, but, more alarming, sapping the very spirit of the people by which the constitution was ultimately sustained.”
The growing sentiment in colonial America was that its mother country was corrupt. Despite the reforms of the Glorious Revolution [of 1688], the crown had still found a way to “corrupt” the supposedly balanced English government. Wood sums it up:
“England, the Americans said over and over again, “once the land of liberty—the school of patriots—the nurse of heroes, has become the land of slavery—the school of parricides and the nurse of tyrants.” By the 1770’s the metaphors describing England’s course were all despairing: the nation was fast streaming toward a cataract, hanging on the edge of a precipice; the brightest lamp of liberty in all the world was dimming. Internal decay was the most common image. A poison had entered the nation and was turning the people and the government into “one mass of corruption.” On the eve of the Revolution the belief that England was “sunk in corruption” and “tottering on the brink of destruction” had become entrenched in the minds of disaffected Englishmen on both sides of the Atlantic.”
If the Gallup World Poll had been around in the early 1770s, one wonders what percentage of colonial Americans would have said they believed there was widespread corruption in government. Whatever the percentage might have been, we know where colonial America’s disgust with British corruption led: a revolution that replaced a monarchy with a Republic.
The American Founders were determined to create a Republican form of government that would pit special interests against each other so that constitutional outcomes would represent the common good. As Weekly Standard writer Jay Cost writes in his new book, “A Republic No More: Big Government and the Rise of American Political Corruption,” “[p]olitical corruption is incompatible with a republican form of government. A republic strives above all else to govern for the public interest; corruption, on the other hand, occurs when government agents sacrifice the interests of everybody for the sake of a few.”
Cost is so good at describing the problem of corruption that I wish to quote him at length below. Read his explanation and ask yourself whether Cost is describing your views about corruption and government.
“And so we return to one of the earliest metaphors we used to define corruption: it is like cancer or wood rot. It does not stay in one place in the government; it spreads throughout the system. When a faction succeeds in getting what it wants at the expense of the public good, it is only encouraged to push its advantage. By the same token, politicians who aid them and reap rewards for it have an incentive to do it some more, and to improve their methods to maximize their payoffs. Moreover, these successes inspire other politicians and factions to try their hands at raiding the treasury to see if they can do it, too. Thus, a vicious cycle is created that erodes public faith in government, which further contributes to the cycle. When people stop believing that anything can be done to keep the government in line, they stop paying attention carefully or maybe cease participating altogether.
“Ultimately, the public is supposed to be the steward of the government, but how well can it perform that task when it no longer believes doing so is worth its while? How does a democratic government prosper over the long term if the citizenry does not trust the government to represent its interests? How will that not result in anything but the triumph of factionalism over the common good?
“The legitimacy of our government is supposed to derive from the people, and the people alone, who consent to the government because, they believe, it represents their interests. In its ultimate form, corruption eviscerates that sacred notion. The people stop believing that the government represents their interests, and the government in turn begins to operate based upon something other than consent. Put simply, corruption strikes at the heart of our most cherished beliefs and assumptions about republican government. That makes it extremely dangerous to the body politic, regardless of what the Bureau of Economic Analysis says about the rate of GDP growth.”
What Jay Cost describes so well about the erosion of the common good is the underlying explanation of why 75% of Americans say that corruption is widespread in government. It also may explain why voters have elected so many governors recently who had no previous experience in government and why voters are seriously looking at presidential candidates with the same outsider status. Perhaps they hope these outsiders can rid us of corruption by being from outside the system.
Our form of government today allows revolution through the ballot box rather than on the battlefield. But nonetheless, the message for our political elites today is much the same as it was in 1776: They ignore the people’s contempt at their own risk.
- 18466 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


Holy shit, Newt Gringrich is the fucking devil telling us how to be saved. No respect.
It is pretty jarring to see Newt Gingrich quoting Scripture, even though we know it's for his own purposes.
No, his wife is.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GT-YgO7PSGY
(see, when you junk us it only spurs us on) My, Spacefrau Callista, such a magnificent hair-helmet.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U5HXIIXi25w&itct=CCQQpDAYACITCMGyuPemzccCF...
SHIT that was creepy!! I've seen the same thing with Sr. Bush and a few other politicians, but man...if I had *that* in bed and saw that, I'd piss the bed! Cut its head off and fill it with holy water!!
I see you have a serial junker, BTW. Look at it as sort of a badge of courage - Mnewn and Knucks have one, too.
He believes in manmade global warming so, good point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM_zX-tHHFw
Newt explaining how anyone who doesn't like Wall Street is a leach, ironically.
Is it possible to hate Wall St., yet agree with some of the Rosenbaum philosophy? I am totally trolling you.../hic!!!
Was that before or after everyone found out about OWS being a leftist front?
"We are doing horrible things but people are seeing the results. Quick! To the OWS cave for a massive distraction."
I want to have the opinion that he is a real patriot who let himself be led astray for the time he held power - power corrupts. Redemption might be a real thing.
Corruption has infected every institution in the United States. There is NO institution in the United States that is trustworthy. NONE!
Voting is a scam. Attempting change at the ballot box will NEVER succeed. All elections are rigged by the Rich and have pre-determined outcomes. Besides, the DEEP STATE controls the United States. "Elected" politicians and bureaucratic appointees merely implement decisions made by their DEEP STATE Masters.
Speaker's Fees.
And that's a pretty small drop in a vast ocean.
How come we can not basically crowd source a viable presidential candidate? How come someone hasnt recorded a one hour Youtube video that coherently addresses the nation's concerns, goes instantly viral and launches the next president out of absolutely nowhere. Out of 350,000,000 people surely there is someone who could do that successfully.
Because...OJ > Kardiasians > Kaitlan. Plus that is not the purpose of The Yew Tewbzez.
Authored by Newt Gingrich, originally posted at The Washington Times,
...and like that, this article lost me.
/raises glass
Yup. Straight to the comments to see if anyone else thought the same.
When even a poltico as corrupt as Gingrich starts talking about corruption,
you need to take notice. He is now prepping, in his own way, for what he sees
coming down the pike.He may be evil and corrupt, but he's no dummy.
The low rate in Australia is not due to lack of government corruption, but rather the intelligence or lack thereof of the masses. They are either indifferent to all government affairs, too dumb to figure them out, or blinkered to the point they mights as well be blind.
"My greatest flaw. I surround myself with idiots."
- Victor von Doom
More like all Three
who needs to worry about corrupt govt when house prices rise every weekend?
I'm planning to go to a UT game with a group of friends so when the other team scores we can each hold up a poster board ans spell out OH SHEHEIT.
Link for those who don't get where the idea came from, with a nice photo of a person of Walmart who started the controversy:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/28/university-of-tenness...
The .gov, as it is now, delegitimizes itself at every turn. It is either through complete ineptitude or by design. The left is so fractured and inconsistant it is caught eating its own tail. The right is so bought out and out of touch it is useless even with the house and senate in their control.
The end result will be the "theat or use of force to gain political advantage" - or as it's known on the street, terrorism. Not by fringe groups, activists, or lone wolves - but by a government that is losing the battle of the narrative. The more desperate they become the more violently they will react to oposition. We got to this point through economic monopoly, but they will try to hold power through a monopoly on violence. They have to subvert the 2nd amendment, but there is no putting the jeanie back in the bottle. We say "come and take them" and they know they can't. They can't stop the drugs or Chicago style crime run by street thugs, good luck against educated and hard working problem solvers who actually keep the wheels on this thing.
It is time for indignation, to let those who complain about micro-agressions worry about in-your-face no b.s. overtly non-PC truth. Life is hard, not everyone likes you, your very existence is contested, and I am not going to pay for lazy asses or TBTF banks/corporations.
>>> hard working problem solvers who actually keep the wheels on this thing.
With respect, each hard-working problem solver needs to take a very long vacation, and let the wheels come off.
This is all lies and bullshit coming from a member of the Council on Foreign Relations...he doesn't believe a word of it and neither do I...fuck off Newt
Think that reaction will get zero mileage. This is the sort of thing that should be looked upon as a gift.
"Newt is a CFR member so nothing he says is legit."
or
"Even Newt, CFR member and everything, has admitted that their policies have destroyed freedom in this country for the people, meaning you, of this country. Yeah, that is how bad the situation is - an insider is decrying the destruction they have brought upon us. Still think I'm crazy and paranoid?"
Is up to you.
Newt should be well qualified to do a series on corruption, however, to speak about liberty and the constitution after running roughshod over it for many years....what a hypocritical, egotistical, maniac.
The solar minimum will change everything. Don't worry.
It will be a cold day in hell. Really.
Reverend Gingrich always places himself in the best possible light by spewing apologetics like he is a tenured professor giving a speech to a graduating class. And, of course, Reverend Gingrich played no part in anything that may have undermined American ethics along the way.
This is a man that believes he is due to be nominated for sainthood as an American statesman that is purportedly above 'corruption' himself if we were to analyse his numerous inputs into contemporary politics.
Reverend Gingrich is the most phony American politician I have witnessed over the years. Here we have a man preaching ethics to the masses as if we collectively believe anything that manifests out of his mouth, or keyboard. Methinks he is talking to a teleprompter and not us. I got the same lecture from Reverend Gingrich, delivered in the same patronizing tone, when he lectured on the 2008 crash in the documentary Generation Zero.
I will give Reverend Gingrich credit for being a reasonably good orator, but that's it.
It's power that corrupts and virtually nobody is immune from it. Take away the power and you take away the corruption.
Proof positive that they are afraid, Newt wants off of the prosecution list. Don't forget that true power is almost always invisible power these people are simply their minions. We know a few things about some of the oligarch families but the true apex of power is hidden from public view. Someone may be able to ask Kissinger, Koch, Rockefellers, Morgans and the Crown.... if it's not them directly they are damn close to the top.
There are few things about Hong Kong worth noting.
1. My personal observation is it is probably one of the safest if not the safest places in the world to live. You cannot carry a firearm here and the likelihood of ever getting shot is nil. The police force is highly professional. Some point to the Occupy Central series of events and say what about that. In fact, with a few exceptions, the police exercised a great deal of restraint until the politicians started pressuring them to do something.
2. There is maximum economic freedom. Unless you are engaging in a food, health or some other inherently dangerous business, there is very little regulation/licensing and and all of the rules can be easily found in English and Chinese online. You can greenfield your own business here instantaneously.
3. Corruption is punished in both the private and public sector. There are many accessible channels for whistle blowing.
4. They are willing to prosecute billionaires here.
5. Certain segments of the economy a virtually impenetrable because they are essentially government sanctioned monopolies or oligopolies. This is conveniently ignored by the survey, but is a big issue.
Yes, democracy is an issue because the proposed candidates for Chief Executive have to be vetted by the PRC.
Nevertheless at the local level, political activism and electoral competition is prolific.
For the time being Hong Kong operates under the so called one country two systems principle. Citizens of Hong Kong carry Hong Kong passports, do not pay Mainland Chinese taxes and are not subject to Mainland Chinese laws.
Recently, however, there have been cases of harassment of certain newspaper publications by street thugs with suspected links to the party.
If your mode of expression is street art and graffiti, you can expect your work to be cleaned off very quickly.
However, if you step off the sidewalk with a placard you won't get pepper sprayed and beaten with a baton.
This is a global financial center, but most definitely not Blumfukistan.
Dude I absolutely love HK. A fabulous spectacular city. City is a key word here, it is not like I can drive a short distance, be out in the country and go hunting to put food on the table. But then of course you don't need to hunt to enjoy firearms sports like target competitions and clay pigeon shooting. Is it no guns at all or are there some sporting clubs around?
I am thinking lots of freedoms there for sure but HK being a construct of progressive Brits is why no guns. You didn't think you could escape from ALL progressive tyranny did you? When they want to they will round you up and shoot you and there is nothing you can do about it. It's sort of a gamble, isn't it? For now though you are right and government is not likely to start murdering citizens any time soon.
Don't ever forget, government has murdered far moar than war has.
Grimaldus
with removal of the laundry pole approach, HK lost all of its charm for me
+1 William but I can't ride my Harley there. William, I think I know your style and I found motorcycle that I think you might like. I usually never like triple black but this thing is pretty fucking cool. It totally fits your persona. Here comes Banazai7 ro;lling up on this machine. The bike automatically says "Fuck You".
I will go test ride it for you if you want.;-) You can store it in the mansion when not riding it.
https://stcloud.craigslist.org/mcy/5181061926.html
"My personal observation is it is probably one of the safest if not the safest places in the world to live. You cannot carry a firearm here and the likelihood of ever getting shot is nil. The police force is highly professional. "
Refreshing to see a different point of view here, though somewhat hard to swallow as an American living in America (good cops, good results from firearm restrictions, etc).
My guess is that Hong Hong is existing in a bubble.
"Refreshing to see a different point of view here, though somewhat hard to swallow as an American living in America (good cops, good results from firearm restrictions, etc)."
The difference being that the Americans live in dread of their State, whom they know or feel is against them, whereas the Hong Kong people know their State is on their side, and that their police is only there to fight crime on their behalf and keep their streets safe.
As their police is professional enough about it, why would they need guns? To kill or threaten who?
This article seems to be inciting terrorism. I have contacted the local DHS office and logged all your IPs and cookies.
Don't even try to hack me back because I got norton bitches.
In 1776 they knew their government was corrupted and did something about it. We know our government is corrupt, but will think about doing something after the fantasy football draft is over.
We are all armchair patriots. It will never happen.
Sorry Newtie, just couldn't bring myself to read it when I saw your name.
I did however give a 2 rating in case there was any redeeming information in the piece.
When those in power openly ignore basic principals then we are in trouble.
"Everyone is equal in the eyes of the Law" enshrined in the US constitution and the Magna Carta (1215).
Bankers now operate openly in a way that is above the law.
Corruption is endemic in the UK and US.
"The American Founders were determined to create a Republican form of government that would pit special interests against each other so that constitutional outcomes would represent the common good."
Waw, how jejune. When you pit special interests against each other, you don't get the common good, you get the mafia rule.
It all boils down to who holds the biggest gun, or the fattest wallet, and is ready to use either or both. Of course. And that's the way you end up getting to today's USA.
Neat.
With a backdrop of educated and informed citizenry, a fair election and honest politicians, The Pendulum from right to left (business/owners v The workers and their families) would sway to left until the population determined the business class/owners were suffering from the workers' privileges (far left), endangering the workers themselves, as businesses would shut down, invest and bet on horse races....the votes would begin to go to the right...a buainess friendly environment would ensure and the process to new construction, more hires, innovation, growth until the right leaned too far to the right and the voters would once again sing toward the workers. Fair and balanced. Religious should not have become part of the political process. But the right needed votes obviously. Gun advocates also represent voting block. This is a system worth perfecting.
"This is a system worth perfecting."
This system is SO corrupt that law and voting are worthless.
There is nothing left of this system to perfect.
"Our form of government today allows revolution through the ballot box rather than on the battlefield. "
Gingrich is as corrupt as they get. That quote suggests to me that he and his cohorts fear a revolution outside the ballot box.
I agree. He's pulling a Patrick Henry.
Better watch it Newt, you are coming off as if you were joining the ranks of Ron Paul... that'll get you sent into oblivion for disrupting our illusion of choice.
Besides, revolution through the ballot box is a pipedream and you know this better than any common man.
Newt Gingrich - the fella who was going to sell US foreign policy to Israel's right wing via Sheldon Adelson's billions?
He's lecturing us about American freedom?
Were I king, I'd drop him in the middle of Gaza.
newt likes to ride the tide, always with a eye to whats popular..corruption is on the public mind so he gets right with the people..fucking self serving pol.
Our form of government today should allow revolution through the ballot box if it were not such a corrupt and unethcial abomination (which it's citizens have allowed it to become) rather than on the battlefield.
Fixed it!
Thanks for all your contributions Newt in corrupting it...
The soap box is toast.
The ballot box is toast.
The jury box is almost toast.
The ammo box is at the ready.
So why doesn't the public demand corruption-free government?
Unfortunately 95% of the population has already been captured and their critical and clear thinking abilities have already been disabled through a physical poisoning and handicapping process.
Toxic injury creates and captures sheeple incapable of awareness and much less likely resistance.
Hitler learned from American eugenicists that fluoride makes people docile and apathetic.
In fact toxic, sick people are easy to manage because they are injured, vulnerable, weak and easily manipulated.
Toxic injury from fluoridated water, vaccines, and GMOs to name a few, produce a helpless, dependent, weak public that displays a blind loyalty to the Establishment in their stampede to find a safe haven to recover their health.
It's a program of handicapping and capturing the public through an emotional dependence and search for a safe haven to heal from toxic injury that drives this blind
capture and loyalty. To all injured people, the Establishment is perceived as the savior and safe harbor when in reality the opposite is true.
Once the public has lost all capability to resist our hidden rulers and perceive them as their saviors, they are ripe for indoctrination through the complete control of education, history, media and movies.
The sheeple will probably have to die off before any reform is possible as their detoxification is unlikely.
They will continue insisting on Big Government to save them and fight any anti-Establishment reform.
That's what many ZH writers don't understand. It's not a mental defect in understanding - that disables the public, but a physical poisoning that produces an emotional handicap of fear that trumps all evidence or argument.
Our hidden rulers intend to keep the public captured and expand it globally. That's why the overide by Monsanto of local anti-GMO Food laws is a chief provision in the TPP Trade Agreement.
Our hidden Black Nobility rulers using their Masonic, Zionist and Jesuit agents make the poisoning of global populations a top priority as poisoned and
handicapped sheeple are far less likely to discover and protest their counterfeiting paper currency banking scams that form the basis of their power.
If you follow the Big Money it leads to the criminal parasitic bankers. The parasite seeks to disable the host's ability to detect the parasite and possibly remove it.
The public's awareness of the parasite is compromised by the fear, anxiety and depression that comes from toxic injury that creates a fatal dependency and blind loyalty to the perceived safe-haven of the Establishment that is unknowingly controlled by the parasite.
See neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock MD's Fluoride & Vaccine Research Expose on The Poisoning Agenda
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB3xcN_eoPo
Newt... you big government tax-and-spend fuck... you must be getting ready to pimp your next book or something.
Why does this article have pictures of slave owners when it mentons the word "freedom"?
I'm giving Newt the benefit of the doubt here as his words are true. However it is disturbing that so many members of his own party are guilty of this corruption. Democrats as well - Hillary, Obama, Feinstein, Boxer, Schumer, etc.