Newt Gingrich: The REAL Extreme Candidate

Many people have talked about how Ron Paul can't win the GOP nomination for President because his ideas are too "extreme." Many of those same people think Newt Gingrich has a real shot at winning the nomination, and wouldn't be sad to see him do so. But of the two candidates, which one has the more extreme positions?

Ron Paul wants to reduce the size and scope of government, get the budget balanced in 3 years (starting with a $1 trillion cut in year 1), reduce federal regulations, eliminate some government agencies, and implement a non-interventionist foreign policy where we don't have troops stationed in 150 or more countries across the globe. He's also very unlikely to start a new war during his term. Dr. Paul not only opposes the individual mandate, he thinks there isn't Constitutional justification for ANY federal control of health care/insurance markets.

Newt Gingrich supports an individual mandate for health insurance. We can only consider that a "past position" if we consider a month or so ago "the past." Sounds more like a current position to me. In today's environment where anti-ObamaCare sentiment is likely to play a big part in the upcoming election, isn't that extreme?  Remember that supporting the individual mandate is to support the huge power grab.  If Congress can force us to buy a product we don't want to buy, where are the limits to their power?

But I want to focus mainly on one issue where Newt's positions are unquestionably extreme and, in my opinion, simply crazy and highly unconstitutional. I mentioned this briefly in my post earlier today, but I am talking about Newt's plan to "reign in" the judicial activism by arresting and impeaching judges who render opinions Newt disagrees with. He'd even dissolve entire appellate courts who did such a dastardly thing.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view/2011_1221newt_out_of_order/

Somewhere Massachusetts’ own John Adams is rolling over in his grave.

Yes, the Founder who is largely responsible for our current three co-equal branches of government would be appalled — as should all genuinely strict constructionists — at Newt Gingrich’s latest rant about bringing “activist” judges to heel by having them subpoenaed by Congress and made to testify about their more controversial decisions.

During last week’s Iowa debate, Gingrich doubled down on his idea that judges he believes have gone beyond the Constitution in their decisions “shouldn’t be on the court.”

Let's take a good, logical look at this proposal, shall we?


His central idea is that two branches of government trumps one. So if a judge issues a ruling that both Congress and the President disagree with, then the ruling has no effect. The judge can be summoned to testify before Congress and, if they wish, Congress can impeach him. If the ruling comes from an appeals court, that court can be dissolved entirely.

But think about this for a moment. In order for a law to pass, it has to be supported by Congress and the President, which means that no court decision can overturn a law. If the Supreme Court overturns ObamaCare's individual mandate in 2012, using Newt's logic Obama could ignore the ruling and order the mandate to be implemented. He could even discipline the judges for the ruling, if he wished.

In Newt's world, there is no such thing as an unconstitutional law, because no judge can overturn new laws. Old laws, maybe, but new laws survive as long as the party that passed them maintain control of Congress and the Presidency. It's an idea that is clearly unconstitutional, as it allows the Legislative and Executive branches to interfere directly with the Judicial branch of government. It also reduces the judicial branch to a waste of time of gigantic proportions.

And Newt's idea, which he is proclaiming loudly and proudly to all who will listen, is also clearly crazy. It's far more extreme than any idea proposed by Dr. Paul... but Newt gets defended while Paul gets dismissed.

Who is more extreme, the candidate who supports the Constitution or the candidate who wants to gut it?

Who is more extreme, the candidate who supports an individual mandate (and the virtually unlimited federal power that comes with it) or the candidate who wants to get the government out of health care?

Who is more extreme, the candidate who wants more troops in more places to fight more wars, or the candidate who wants to bring American troops home to America?

Who is the crazy, extreme candidate here? In my own opinion, it's Newt Gingrich.

What do you think?