Gingrich says Americans 'will give up all their liberties’ for safety

They're counting on fear to get society to give up their liberties, this is one more step in that direction. The only reason the republicans can say we've kept you safe is because with 9/11 they could have stopped it from escalating but didn't. We need to "fear" losing more of our constitutional rights because the results from not defending them will be far worse.

Unbelievable. Gingrich has been spewing rhetoric for nearly 20 years now. He acts like an authority, here speaking for Americans, yet he is not an authority. He has a think tank that is filled with sycophants and will not contradict him.

He makes me furious.

Somebody just needs to take the microphone away from this guy. Good lord.

Get Doc and the Delorean, and put Newt in it so he can go back to the Dark Ages where he belongs. You know in that village that's missing its idiot.

What a scary point of view Newt! I agree with Ben Franklin. I would rather not have safety. Give me liberty or give me death!

is gingrich still messing around on his wife? oh right, he already got busted for that...

Hmmmm, liar, cheat, politician...

he's preaching to the federalist society, they always clap like walruses for anti-american rhetoric

Newt has lost what's left of his little mind but what can you expect from a guy named Newt.

I cannot beleive this pompous ass has the gall to say that Americans will give up thier freedom out of fear. What i fear is people like him making statements like that. More and more our politicians are making statements and speaches that sound more and more like the words of dictators

What scares me is that Gingrich is right. Bush's government pushed through the PATRIOT act and broke numerous other laws during their first term. Then the American people signed up for four more years of the "protection" that comes with trampling on human rights.

You can't be free and safe at the same time. Americans are going to have to pick a side.

Something is lost here, Newt is still part of the party line, he is just not in the picture. We are becoming a police state. It is a fact that we are one of the most heavily policed countrys in the world. Our freedoms are rapidly dissapearing and the avreage person does not even know it. Where i live if you have a confrontation with the police and you are really harmless and maybe armed with a small knife you will be shot and killed. No shot to the arm foot or some other body part that wil allow you servive you are shot in a spot that will kill you. Our law enforcement officials are trained to shoot to kill period. Why do not they not use rubber bullets as other countries do. Crap no fun in that. I have been a witness at a bank robbery chase whre the biggest thing was hey man did you get a shot off. Almost like hunting turkeys, Wake up America

Contrary to the belief of some we can be free and safe, IF - if we don't impose our values on others. Consider what the reaction would be if Iraq or the UAE put military bases in Kansas and Nevada? What would happen if China or the old USSR sent missionaries to the USA touting communism over capitalism? I'm thinking a few NRA members would have their respective panties in a bunch over something like that. So why then can we expect to do the very same thing to other countries with impunity?

The only threat I see in the USA is the present government itself.

"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- 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." Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Adress

Just thought I would remind us all, what price has already been paid for our liberties. For our rights and freedoms. For the very right of manumission and freedom, to the bill of rights. The sacrifice that is still ongoing. The reasons our soldiers still swear on oath to protect and uphold the constitution of the United States. We would rather give up our liberties than our lives? We who told the worlds empires "Give us liberty or give us death?" And gave them blood and treasure to prove the merit of our words. We who fought brother against brother not once but twice for the The sake of preserving liberty. The strugle may be bitter and the price high but we have proven in the past that we are willing to pay it to preserve our liberties.

Unfortunately I think Gingrich is correct. We will probably wind up giving all our freedoms for perceived safety. The idiot politicians will take advantage of fear to further restrict us. Airline travel and gun free zones are two prime examples. I don't want to trade my freedom to the government for some "safety". Just look at the social security system as an example of this very thing.

Oh, eldamon, the communists are already here. The Democrats are running two now.

Paratus, are you trying to imply that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are communists? LOL! What colour is the sky on your planet? By global standards, both are well right of center.

The government cannot take away what is inherent and unalienable. For them to think they can is hightly arrogant of them. Liberty is not something a King or President can give or take away with a piece of paper.

This is more than government failing this is the american people failing to elect credible Senators and Represenatives. It lies on people like me who have never voted and still arent registered to vote. I plan to change, others should vote locally and return the balance of the force.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
Benjamin Franklin

the gov't can take away enough from you that you will have no choice but to play ball - you are at liberty to disagree with the gov't until it taxes you into submission .

Gingrich is just wrong. He is blindly unaware that these last horrific 7 years under the oppressive Bush regime has awakened the sleeping giant that is the left wing.

malathion: then that is the time for revolution.

Agreed, Jan.

What I want to know is why these issues - the 'Patriot Act', new 'Homeland Security' measures and the rest of the tactics leading us into an Orwellian society - aren't up for vote. In a democracy, the people decide. Not an all-powerful administration of greedy, scare tactic-horny douchenozzles.

I demand more opportunity for the people to cast their ballots in these times of abrupt and dangerous change.

Gingrich was agreeing with Franklin as far as I can tell. Franklin saw that society tends to easily be duped by fear-mongering authoritarians, and was warning against that. Gingrich is more of a true conservative than a neocon, and in many ways Ben Franklin and other small-government traditional conservatives (like most of our founding fathers) are his heroes.

It is true that our society has finally started to wake up, and is ready to oust the Bush regime, but it's a case of "too little, too late". Why didn't we learn from the myriad of time this exact same thing has happened before? Why didn't we do everything in our power to avoid the Iraq war? Why did we re-elect Bush in 2004 for God's sake? Because, unfortunately, we never learn. That's the take-away lesson from studying history.

Like Franklin, Gingrich -- an absolutely brilliant conservative thinker -- is warning us. And the people vilifying him here are just buying into partisan red-vs-blue memes. Let's be a little smarter than that.

not to get too old school american politics , but at one point in this country's history the phrase " no taxation without representation" was a battle cry - and it fits the present circumstances . we have a president who does not represent the interests of a great many of us , is directly responsible for the deaths of 4,000 plus of our citizens and whose policies will be causing this country grief for zeus only knows how many ages . it is half past time for a revolution Jan .