Newt Gingrich - I'm not a Citizen of the World

[royce]

Last week NBC news reported that during a speech, Newt Gingrich, responding to President Obama's claim that he IS a citizen of the world, professed that he is NOT a citizen of the world. I say to you, "Is this not the most narrow-minded view that anyone on this planet can have? Newt Gingrich is someone who should be taken seriously? I think not. If this statement doesn't expose Gingrich for what he really is, I don't know what else can. Gingrich is pathetic.

[bailey]

Ronald Reagan, addressing U.N. on June 19, 1982:
I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world. … My people have sent me here today to speak for them as citizens of the world, which they truly are, for we Americans are drawn from every nationality represented in this chamber today.


Newt Gingrich addressing GOP on June 8, 2009:

Let me be clear. I am not a citizen of the world! I think the entire concept is intellectual nonsense and stunningly dangerous.


As the leadership vacuum of the republicans continues, Newt, one of the most recognizable faces duking it out for leader of the faith, is the one most in need of a speechwriter who understands Google, youtube and the internet. This is one of a several fairly significant gaffes. You know Obama's writers used Regan's language on purpose... and it worked beautifully to illustrate the intellectual bankruptcy of the current republican leadership. It's actually kind of funny to watch Newt repeatedly hoist himself on his own petard.

[rb336]

no, Newt is just a PhD in 20th century european history, who wrote a "contract with america" that had language regarding orphaned children and other passages that was almost word-for-word with Goebels.

[Pam]

If this statement doesn't expose Gingrich for what he really is,


An alien from outer space? Might explain why he looks so funny.

[ejames01]

I hate that guy.

[oladub]

I am not a fan of Newt Gingrich. He is a neocon. No need to say more about him.

CITIZEN (Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition)
1: an inhabitant of a city or town ; especially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman
2 a: a member of a state b: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it
3: a civilian as distinguished from a specialized servant of the state

Much of this argument has to do with semantics. Sure, everyone is a citizen of the world in the very vague rhetorical and colloquiel definition Obama chose. I suppose its useful to distinguish us from space aliens. Given concerns about Obama's birth held by some, perhaps the citizen of the world definition works especially well for him. However, Gingrich used a more correct dictionary definition. I voted for a US presidential candidate not the president of the UN so I hope that President Obama doesn't enroll us in some international tax scheme proposal for taxation without representation.

[ghettopalmetto]

I am not a fan of Newt Gingrich. He is a neocon. No need to say more about him.

CITIZEN (Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition)
1: an inhabitant of a city or town ; especially : one entitled to the rights and privileges of a freeman
2 a: a member of a state b: a native or naturalized person who owes allegiance to a government and is entitled to protection from it
3: a civilian as distinguished from a specialized servant of the state

Much of this argument has to do with semantics. Sure, everyone is a citizen of the world in the very vague rhetorical and colloquiel definition Obama chose. I suppose its useful to distinguish us from space aliens. Given concerns about Obama's birth held by some, perhaps the citizen of the world definition works especially well for him. However, Gingrich used a more correct dictionary definition. I voted for a US presidential candidate not the president of the UN so I hope that President Obama doesn't enroll us in some international tax scheme proposal for taxation without representation.

WTF??? I think you just *made* this a discussion on semantics.

If you're so concerned about Taxation Without Representation, start here:

http://www.dcvote.org/

[oladub]

WTF??? I think you just *made* this a discussion on semantics.

If you're so concerned about Taxation Without Representation, start here:

http://www.dcvote.org/

ghetopatmetto, I am with you 100% about taxation without representation. DC residents should be allowed to vote as residents of Virginia which donated DC to the Federal government. I don't know how they could have given away the voting rights of DC citizens though.

I realize that for some people assigning meaning to words takes the fun and versatility out of them. Politicians hate such limitations too. Sorry. Yo! As one citizen of this galaxy to another, here is an apropo and inspirational quote.-


"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all.""

~ Lewis Carroll (http://zaadz.com/quotes/authors/lewis_carroll/) (1832-1898)
English mathematician & author of "Adventures of Alice in Wonderland"
from Through the Looking Glass.

[ghettopalmetto]

ghetopatmetto, I am with you 100% about taxation without representation. DC residents should be allowed to vote as residents of Virginia which donated DC to the Federal government. I don't know how they could have given away the voting rights of DC citizens though.

Congress returned that part of the District of Columbia ceded by Fairfax County back to Virginia in 1846. It is now known as Arlington County. The remainder of the District is on land that was ceded by the State of Maryland.

DC residents never had representation in the Congress. Denizens of the District are NOT residents of Virginia, just as they are NOT residents of Maryland, New Mexico, Alaska, New Hampshire, or any other state. They deserve their own voice in Congress, especially given the unique legal and fiscal limitations that Congress imposes upon them.

I digress.

[oladub]

Aargh. You beat me back to the computer about Maryland. I stand corrected. Revise that to " DC residents should be allowed to vote as residents of MARYLAND which donated DC to the Federal government. "

With appropriate amendments to the US constitution, if necessary, and agreements with Maryland, the world citizens of Washington DC could and should be voting for Reps, Senators, and Presidents like the rest of us. Residents of Indian Reservations vote in elections in their states although reservations have special federal ties. DC residents, not already residents of states, should be able to do the same. If, like armed service personel, DC residents have a residence in another state, they should be allowed to vote in those states like armed service personel. I would be suprised if they can't already do that.

[ghettopalmetto]

Aargh. You beat me back to the computer about Maryland. I stand corrected. Revise that to " DC residents should be allowed to vote as residents of MARYLAND which donated DC to the Federal government. "

With appropriate amendments to the US constitution, if necessary, and agreements with Maryland, the world citizens of Washington DC could and should be voting for Reps, Senators, and Presidents like the rest of us. Residents of Indian Reservations vote in elections in their states although reservations have special federal ties. DC residents, not already residents of states, should be able to do the same. If, like armed service personel, DC residents have a residence in another state, they should be allowed to vote in those states like armed service personel. I would be suprised if they can't already do that.

Why Maryland? Why not Michigan? Why not Florida? Why not Kansas?

Think about what you're writing. How can you be a resident of Washington, DC and have residency in another state at the same time?

[Bobl]

Why does anyone care what he says? He is yesterday's news.

Here is a guy who served his wife divorce papers while she lay near death from cancer in a hospital bed, then claimed the moral high ground criticizing Bill Clinton for his stupid affair with Monica Lewinski.

[ghettopalmetto]

Why does anyone care what he says? He is yesterday's news.

Here is a guy who served his wife divorce papers while she lay near death from cancer in a hospital bed, then claimed the moral high ground criticizing Bill Clinton for his stupid affair with Monica Lewinski.

Oh boy oh boy! I can't wait to get my hands on "Five Principles for a Successful Life". I wonder what the chapter on dating and marriage has to say.

[ccbatson]

Eh..semantics...what he is driving at, or against, is thinking in terms of global priorities over American priorities (or, at the expense of them).

[ghettopalmetto]

Eh..semantics...what he is driving at, or against, is thinking in terms of global priorities over American priorities (or, at the expense of them).

And you speak as if somehow, those priorities aren't aligned or influenced by each other.

[ccbatson]

Markets are markets and know no national boundaries (witness oil). These global priorities are political, and given that most countries are socialistic, so to are these priorities.

[gibran]

can't have it both ways...controlling the resources of poor countries or sending monies to allies without regulations..and not be part of the world...with cc's love of China and free market economies how could you not be citizen of a bigger picture.. my personal belief..not that it matters much ..is if a child dies in Africa we all should mourn the loss. We talk so much about individualism, but we are connected to a larger misssion and as Milton so appropriately put it "no man is an island"...or should I say no person is an island...some of us learned in rehabilitation that it is not independence that should be the goal of life...but intradependence..unless you like that island concept

[jams]

Markets are markets and know no national boundaries (witness oil). These global priorities are political, and given that most countries are socialistic, so to are these priorities.
Do you have a point or do you just string words together, hoping they make sense?

[Johnnny5]

Does anyone have a link to the full video or text of this speech?
All I can find online are 3 second videos that leave the entire clip without context.
This has to be one of my biggest pet peeves with internet based news media (and media in general). It almost always means that something is being intentionally left out in order to distort the message.

[oladub]

Why Maryland? Why not Michigan? Why not Florida? Why not Kansas?

Think about what you're writing. How can you be a resident of Washington, DC and have residency in another state at the same time?

DC was carved out of Maryland rather than Michigan, Florida, or Kansas.

Senator Stabenow, by way of example, has a residence in Michigan. Judge Sotomayer has a Greenwich Village pad into which she has sunk the bulk of her wealth. Both will also reside in Washington DC while carrying out their duties. Without having any count, I suspect that many Washington DC residents reside there temporarily attending to government or lobbying activities.

I know you don't like semantic definitions but "legal residence", "domicile", and "home of record" are related legal terms. This is a good article on these terms although it needs to be updated for the citizens of this world who have business with intergalactic beings.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/residence/

[East Detroit]

Markets are markets and know no national boundaries (witness oil). These global priorities are political, and given that most countries are socialistic, so to are these priorities.

So far, the earlier discussion of deviance is not quite equivalent to the system of base rules exclusive of the lexicon. For any transformation which is sufficiently diversified in application to be of any interest, any associated supporting element is rather different from nondistinctness in the sense of distinctive feature theory. Summarizing, then, we assume that the appearance of parasitic gaps in domains relatively inaccessible to ordinary extraction delimits an important distinction in language use. This suggests that the speaker-hearer's linguistic intuition appears to correlate rather closely with an abstract underlying order. For one thing, a case of semigrammaticalness of a different sort is, apparently, determined by the strong generative capacity of the theory.

[ccbatson]

No love of China at all....love of our liberties that allow for free trade which paves the way for market forces to foster competition and prosperity...until Obama came along that is.

[Lorax]

Snoot GinGrinch is the Claus Barbie of the fascist right.

It doesn't get any more twisted and hypocritical that this bellowing blowhard.

His "citizen" remark is just another sad attempt to draw some sort of distinction by pulling the "polar opposite" approach to Obama's "citizen of the world" speech.

It reads more like a bi-polar approach to it.

People, especially the neocronies, have short memories in addition to other short features.

GinGrinch was drummed out of the speaker's chair due to his lying about his philandering, then married the shackup after a messy and well publicized divorce.

He also has an activist lesbian half-sister who is a smarter politician than he is, and has call him out on his socially retarded rethugnican views, much in the same vein as Jesusfreak Alan Keyes was called out by his lesbian daughter.

If this tired re-tread is all the gin-soaked right has to offer as speaking for their discredited party, then we have nothing to worry about going forward.

[ccbatson]

I don't love Gingrich either, but for different reasons. Mostly his surrender on the man made global warming hoax and myth, also on the costly forcing through of a horrible electronic medical record system that is not what it is cracked up to be.

[Lorax]

I don't love Gingrich either, but for different reasons. Mostly his surrender on the man made global warming hoax and myth, also on the costly forcing through of a horrible electronic medical record system that is not what it is cracked up to be.

So you subscribe to an even more radical agenda than even the Snootster? I should have known.

Next thing you know, the self-appointed thread sargeant will require a blood test to continue posting. Typical vampire bat.

[ghettopalmetto]

DC was carved out of Maryland rather than Michigan, Florida, or Kansas.

Senator Stabenow, by way of example, has a residence in Michigan. Judge Sotomayer has a Greenwich Village pad into which she has sunk the bulk of her wealth. Both will also reside in Washington DC while carrying out their duties. Without having any count, I suspect that many Washington DC residents reside there temporarily attending to government or lobbying activities.

I know you don't like semantic definitions but "legal residence", "domicile", and "home of record" are related legal terms. This is a good article on these terms although it needs to be updated for the citizens of this world who have business with intergalactic beings.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/residence/


Let's put it this way. Just as you wouldn't want to be represented by someone from Ohio, DC residents don't want to be represented by someone that lives in Maryland. Likewise, Maryland doesn't want to have to concern itself with another large city. What you propose is not politically tenable.

Political appointees are not considered "residents" of the District of Columbia. This includes even low-level Hill staffers. Debbie Stabenow is a resident of Michigan (and must be to hold her office, per Article I of the Constitution). So, suspect all you want. There are 600,000 legal residents of the capital of our nation who don't have any representation in the national legislature--an anomaly in democratic republics of the world.

[oladub]

Let's put it this way. Just as you wouldn't want to be represented by someone from Ohio, DC residents don't want to be represented by someone that lives in Maryland. Likewise, Maryland doesn't want to have to concern itself with another large city. What you propose is not politically tenable.

Political appointees are not considered "residents" of the District of Columbia. This includes even low-level Hill staffers. Debbie Stabenow is a resident of Michigan (and must be to hold her office, per Article I of the Constitution). So, suspect all you want. There are 600,000 legal residents of the capital of our nation who don't have any representation in the national legislature--an anomaly in democratic republics of the world.

Why wouldn't it be politically tenable? Maryland votes Democrat anyways. It would be that many more votes for their Democratic Senators and presidential nominees. Maryland shouldn't be opposed to a couple of more representatives in its congressional delegation either.

I didn't want to bother you with technical definitions so I just passed along the link. I think you are confusing the meaning of 'resident' with more technical legal terms like 'legal resident' or 'home of record' that sometimes have different meanings in different jusisdictions and for different purposes according to that link. Residences are places where one resides for more than a brief time period. I assume that Stabenow, and others you mention, spend lengthy period in both their home state residences and ones they have in DC.

[alsodave]

In keeping with our word association mega-thread, whenever I see the title of this thread, I think of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGmXb1xenrQ

Carry on. :)

[Detroitej72]

No love of China at all....love of our liberties that allow for free trade which paves the way for market forces to foster competition and prosperity...until Obama came along that is.

Until Obama came along should be replaced with: until monopolies come along, since they kill competition by their very nature.

And its funny you lambaste Newt for correctly opening his ears about climate change. The coasts could be submerged under water and you would still claim there is no such thing as climate change.

The only thing I think could use more study, is how much of the change we are contributing to by our way of life.

[ghettopalmetto]

Why wouldn't it be politically tenable? Maryland votes Democrat anyways. It would be that many more votes for their Democratic Senators and presidential nominees. Maryland shouldn't be opposed to a couple of more representatives in its congressional delegation either.

I didn't want to bother you with technical definitions so I just passed along the link. I think you are confusing the meaning of 'resident' with more technical legal terms like 'legal resident' or 'home of record' that sometimes have different meanings in different jusisdictions and for different purposes according to that link. Residences are places where one resides for more than a brief time period. I assume that Stabenow, and others you mention, spend lengthy period in both their home state residences and ones they have in DC.

It's not politically tenable because it would 1) require a Constitutional amendment to make the District a part of Maryland, 2) the District doesn't want to be a part of Maryland, as it would lose control over its finances and policy priorities 3) Maryland doesn't want to absorb the responsibilities and 4) how does one propose to merge the state and county functions of the District into Maryland state government?

Sorry. The lame definition of "resident" that I was using is the one used by the DC Department of Taxation as well as the DC Board of Elections and Ethics. My bad. I should really just listen to other people.

When you agree to be represented by someone who lives in Ohio, let me know. After all, both Michigan and Ohio were part of the Northwest Territory until 1803, so it should be no big deal, right?

[ccbatson]

Coercive government owned or endorsed (corporate socialistic) monopolies kill competition...Free market monpolies do not.

[edgewood]

I don't love Gingrich either, but for different reasons. Mostly.......... on the costly forcing through of a horrible electronic medical record system that is not what it is cracked up to be.

I do agree with that. Large organizations can not keep online data safe as it is. Now we will have huge databases of medical records being stolen, hacked or "lost" on missing laptops.

[rb336]

Coercive government owned or endorsed (corporate socialistic) monopolies kill competition...Free market monpolies do not.


that is a truly daft thing to say. monopolies kill competition, regardless.

say i develop a monopoly on lightbulbs. by definition, I am the biggest player in the world, the biggest consumer of all the materials, etc., that go into making them. I also have a team of engineers constantly patenting every possible variation. You think you can open up a competitor to me? I'd squash you like a bug the instant you spoke your intentions to another party, then i'd steal your family from you and send you pictures from our lovely vacation on my private island. actually, i'd let you invest your entire net worth and those of your friends and family first, then i'd squash you like a bug

[Detroitej72]

Coercive government owned or endorsed (corporate socialistic) monopolies kill competition...Free market monpolies do not.

Then how do you explain Standard Oil and J.D. Rockefeller driving all the competition out of business before the government(rightly) broke up his empire?

[ccbatson]

If a large company does such a good job at delivering the highest quality at the lowest price, then they have earned their success. They must continue to perform at this high level to stave off upstart competition from out doing them....everyone wins.

[rb336]

show me one instance where a monopolistic company has done what you said, bats.

[ccbatson]

Can't be done Rb because of the unconstitutional antitrust laws...I suppose we would have to go back to a time before said laws to find that example, however, it would have no contextual meaning if we did.