Newt Gingrich: Current American Government Monstrosity Attacks Freedoms

OPINION:

As a government official and a public policy advisor, I am more convinced that the current system has irreparable damage. It must be fundamentally rethought, and not reformed.

Since at least 1870s and 1880s when the civil service movement was created, the modern government has grown more distant from the people. This has resulted in a continual transfer of power from the people towards the professional classes. These professionals create guilds to protect themselves from the American people and consolidate their power. What started as a small reform movement has turned into a massive bureaucratic empire that has created barriers at all levels of government to stop Americans running their own country.

This rigid, rigid, and self-protecting bureaucratic monstrosity of bureaucrats is a threat to freedom and the ability for people to govern themselves. It has become a complex web of rules and regulations that protect bureaucrats’ power and those in the elite against the will and goodwill of the people.

This elite privilege fortress is a significant departure from the patterns and habits of the first century American self-government. Think about the power of Abraham Lincoln to create a government that reflects the principles and values that won him the election.

Lincoln completely overhauled the federal government in order to make sure that federal officials were supportive of the Union and the Civil War. He spent much of his first year as president appointing supporters, from tariff houses to post offices to treasury posts. The federal government was a reflection of the principles, values and priorities of the president elected by the American people at the end of 1861.

Lincoln understood the importance and necessity of self-government. Lincoln declared that at Gettysburg “we here dedicate ourselves that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln believed policies must be determined by the will of the people. He asserted: “In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”

President Ronald Reagan understood Lincoln’s principles and described the real American Revolution in his October 1964 speech “A Time for Choosing”:

“Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ‘We the People.’ ‘We the People’ tell the government what to do; it doesn’t tell us. ‘We the People’ are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which ‘We the People’ tell the government what it is allowed to do. ‘We the People’ are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I’ve tried to do these past eight years.”

Reagan returned to the same theme a quarter century later in his farewell address. “I’ve had my share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn’t win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Mr. Reagan’s regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action. Well, action is still needed, if we’re to finish the job.”

The principle that the people hold the key to success was a founding principle of America. In his farewell address to the nation, President George Washington recognized that “the constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and virtue.”

Philip K. Howard’s new book focuses on the need for a return to government by the people. “Not Accountable,” He argues that “public employee unions have undermined democracy and should be unconstitutional. Voters elect a president, governors and mayors who have been disempowered from fixing lousy schools, firing rogue cops or managing public services sensibly. … Americans are frustrated with unresponsive and wasteful government, but the parties tend to debate policies and ignore what everyone knows is the inept operating machinery of government.”

Former President Donald Trump has proposed a first step in relocating government and returning power directly the American people. He was a strong advocate for New Hampshire. “the ultimate form of local control. You want to have the parents pick the principal and superintendents.” He also pledged to South Carolina: “We will protect parents’ rights. We’ll bring them back. That includes the direct election of public school principals by the parents. If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should have the right and be able to vote or to fire them and to select someone else that will do the job properly.”

The greatest challenges facing our time, greater than China’s looming threat, are to reengage Americans in their self-governance. To replace the current bureaucratic and rules-dominated system, which is rooted, entrenched and controlled by elites, with a model that allows for government to be run by the people.

• For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com.

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