[John Lofton's interview of Rep.

Newt
Gingrich, (R .-Ga., and the Minority Whip in
the U.S. House of Representatives,) is one of
the most important interviews with a conser-
vative politician to date. It shows why modem
conservatism is a failure, because much of
modern American, (1990), political conser-
vatism is anti-christian. Gingrich makes clear
that there are no absolutes goveming politics
and morality outside of history. That is im-
plicit atheism. As a result of this kind of
thinking, Gingrich is weak on homOsexuality,
and many other things, as you will see. One
time he told me, in his Washington office, that
one of the problems he hodwithCongressman
Larry McDonald, was that many times he
(McDonald)wouldvoteagainstanissue, "and
his only reason for doing so was his religious
convictions. He never learned to be prag-
matic." There is no hope in modem conserva-
tism, unless it submits to the biblical authority
oj Jesus Christ. (Isaac Asimov, whom Gin-
grich admires, is president of the American
Humanist Association.) --JCMim
Q. CongreSsman Gingrich, in this
interview, rather than do the usual
thing and ask where you stand on a
laundry list of issues, I'd like to do sort
of an intellectual biography of you,
your ideas and their origin.
For example, you speak often of the
hierarchy of change and you ta lk about
the importance of vision. What is tbe
origin of your vision?
A. I think it's a combination of my
grandmother, who was a devoutLutheran
and got me to read a lot of typical chil-
dren's material from the 19th Century,
with a very clear sense of good and evil.
As a younger person reading a lot of
things about natural history, both current
and paleontology, and a sense of compe-
tition in what happens - what are the
rules of nature, oflife. And thenToynbee' s
gerous, if you follow the rules of survival
then your country survives. If you break
those rules, you end up ceasing to exist.
Q. What would be an: example of a
society you read about that survived
and why do you think it survived?
A. The longest living culture, at least
that the woridhas come into contact with,
going back to the Egyptians, is Confucian
China which was able to absorb ideas and
concepts and organize society for over
2,000 years, and which literally had a
capacity to keep absorbing new things but
finally broke down about the 16th Cen-
tury.
If you look at the Romans and their
capacity for a very long stretch- the
period of the decay of the Roman Empire
is longer than the history of the United
States. These are just very long stretches.
One of the really formative books of
my childhood was Isaac Asimov' s Foun-
dation series, a science fiction series which
is based essentially on Toynbee' s decline
and fall of the Roman Empire.
Anditgivesyouasenseofthesweepof
history, of the sense that France can be
dominant in one century and then der-
rnany can be dominant in another cen-
tury.
And that there's a changing cycle of
what happens, what leads, why America
has been safe fo:i: 45 years and what it
might be like if we are not safe. And that
it' s very important to realize that all" it
takes is for leadership, and people who
lead society in the broad sense, the 10 or
15 per cent who are most active, to get
complacent and soft, quit paying the price
of survival. And a society can be in tre-
mendous trouble very fast.
cqncept of challenge and response. Q. So, you get your vision, strategy
Civilizations thatrespond to challenges
survive. And civilizations that fail to and tactics from history? You're a
historicist?
respond die. And finally, having grown
up in an Army horne with a career soldier A. Yes. I think that history is useful not
who took serious! y that the world is dan- because you repeat it but because the
The Counsel of Chalcedon March, 1990 page 18
general patterns tend to be the same. And,
of course, part of the art is to figure out
which patterns apply when.
Q. What, if anything, do you think
ought to limit the civil government, the
state?
A. I think that's partially dependent on
the crisis. Lincoln, correctly, suspended
habeas corpus during the Civil War be-
cause he faced a crisis of survival.
Q. And this was correct by what stan-
dard?
A. That if the society, the state, doesn't
survive under that crisis -if it's a state
that grows out of the collective contract
with the average person - that if the
contract doesn't survive, the whole sys-
tem breaks down. So it becomes almost
tautological, that unless you believe in
anarchy, there has to be some capacity to
survive a great crisis.
Q. Well, the more I look at our Con
gress, the better anarchy looks, assum-
ing, of course, ,that when I look at
Congress I'm not looking at anarchy.
But are you really comfortable with the
idea that tbe state should decide wben
and where to declare a crisis and sus-
pend i ~ liberties? My question was
what, if anything, you believe ought to
set the limits of what the civil govern-
ment, the state can do?
A. First of all, the Constitution sets the
limit. . And it provides for the right to
suspend habeas corpus in a real crisis.
Q. But who declares the crisis?
A. Well, the Civil War seemed to be a
real crisis.
Q. It didn' t have to be. But it sure
turned 6utto be one. But if we were sit-
ting here with no Constitution and were
trying to figure out w.hat to draft; where
would you turn to learn what limits
ought to be set on the state?
A. I think I would tum to John Stuart
Mill's definition that, basically, the gov-
ernment should be limited, in large part,
to restricting your rights to the degree that
you hurt others.
Q. And where do we look to find out
what hurts others?
A. That emerges out of the common
dialogue.
Q. Maybe, maybe not. Is there an
ultimate, absolute standard that we
canrepairtotolearnwhathurtspeople?
Are you a legal positivist,
one who says thatthe state
should limit itself, that
there's nothingoutsidethe
state or civil government
that ought to limit it?
A. No. I start with the pre-
sumption that all rights re-
side in the people except
those they give to the state.
Q. So there's nothing
higher than the people or the people in
the states?
A. In the terms of the process of civil
contract, of what we're talking about.
Q. There's nothing higher than the
people? There's nothing that binds the
people?
A. I think, first of all, the reason why the
Declaration of Independence says that
we're endowed by our Creator with cer-
tain unalienable rights, is that the funda-
mental rights are given by-this is not a
normal interview in the sense that. ..
Q. But these are questions that are
centuries old, that philosophers and
politicians have talked about for thou-
sands of years -where do right and
wrong come from? Where does legiti
mate powerreside? What oughtto limit
power? I haven't heard you, yet, speak
of anything higher than "the people."
For example, could the people of a
state get together and decide to put
some other people into ovens? And it
your answer is, obviously,no, then why
not?
A. You're asking much more philo-
sophical questions than I am answering. I
was answering, essentially, a tactical
question within normal discourse.
Rights ultimately derive from man's
relationship to God. And from a sense of
right and wrong which is, essentially,
non-rational, essentially- that is, right
and wrong tend to be abstractions which
I think you acquire by seeking God's will
and trying to understand what, in a sense,
that transcends being everyday life, what's
right and wrong. The reason the Holo-
caust was wrong transcended any kind of
normal discourse. You start with con-
cepts of good and evil.
John Lofton (right) talks with R.J. Rusbdoony
at the 1985 ACTS seminar.
Q. And where do we get these con-
cepts? Where do you turn for these
judgments?
A. I think a lot of it is taught to you.
Q. This begs the question. How do you
know if what you are taught is good or
evil? Yon mentioned God's will a min-
ute ago. How do you know what God's
will is?
A. There are two traditions that interact.
One is that you approach God through
prayer and seek to understand what God's
will is. And the other is that you have a
long tradition that starts with the Bible
and people who have tried to understand
the Bible to understand God's will.
Q. What do you do?
A. I do both. It's the interaction of the
two. Each informs the other.
Q. Do you think the Bible says any
thing about what ought to limit the
state, the civil government?
A. I think the Bible says a great deal
about what's right and wrong- much
more than what it says about what limits
government.
Q. So you don't think the Bible says
much about civil government?
A. I think it's more limited. If you read
the Bible- for example, there are peri-
ods in the Bible which involve theocra-
cies in which the government had ex-
traordinary powers.
Q. Actually, God had extraordinary
power and these govern-
ments hadalmostno power.
Their powers were very
limited. Theirrolewasmin-
isterial and administrative.
They simply carried out
God's law. They didn't leg-
islate. It's only when God's
law is abandoned and man
makes his own law, thatthe
state and its bureaucracy
become huge. And, inciden-
tally, don't work.
I know you're concerned about the
drug problem. Why do you think mil-
lions of our people use illegal drugs and
what can the state do about this?
A. I think a lot of people use illegal drugs
because for them it works. It provides a
temporary pleasure, a refuge - in part,
the same reason people become alcohol-
ics. It fills up a vacuum in their lives.
Q. Which ought to be filled by what?
A. I think that the collapse of traditional
values and beliefs and the whole vacuum
in modern secular society alter dtese
people to pursue false gods. And drugs
are one of the false gods that are available.
Q. For sure. Are you a member of a
church?
A. I'm a Baptist, a Southern Baptist.
Q. You're also interested in education.
What, exactly, is it that you think stu-
dents should be taught?
A. I think, in part, you have to go back to
almost theM cGuffey' s Readers approach.
The Counsel of Chalcedon March, 1990 page 19
First, people shouldlearnskills. Reading,
writing and arithmetic are liberating skills

Q. But these skills aren't more impor-
tant than the substance of what tbey
are reading and writing, is it?
A. No. But it's an important first step to
just read.
Q. We originally read, in this country
in Colonial times, so that our children
could read the Bible and be protected
agaii:J.St the Devil.
A. Yes, but I think it goes far beyond that.
It's true, particularly in the Protestant
tradition - one of the reasons you had a
historically high literacy rate was partly
religious.
Q. But, in your judgment, is there a
r'JXed body of knowledge which every-
body should believe is true to be a truly
educated person? And if so, what is it.
A. I think you have put your finger on it,
as you have on a couple of questions, on
a very profound area, one which we
n't fought over for over a quarter of a
century. It's clear to me that there is a
large body of values and attitudes that are
teal. And that which without you proba-
bly can' trun a civilized democracy, And
that we, in fact, face the great crisis that
for the last 25 years we have taught those
things less and less. We have people Who
are lacking both skills and knowledge.
Q. But does anything specific come to
your mind regarding something we
were once taught but are no longer
taught, and this lack has a lot to do with
our educational crisis?
A. Yes. There was a whole body of
knowledge up until the 1950's that started
with the notion that there is a God and that
religious values matter and morality
matters in the broad sense, ethics matter
in the broad sense. And that patriotism
matters. And in the absence of those val-
ues you, in fact, can't have a civilized
society.
Q. What is morality in the broad sense,
as you put it?
A. Let me give you an example that is
broken everyday now. If you are dishon-
est; the person you cheat most is yourself.
When you learn that over half of an col-
lege have cheated, it tells you
something about the whole underlymg
quality of the civilization.
Q. I But what is morality in the
broad sense?
A. I think in the broadest sense the
McGuffey's Readers were designed, and
parallel readers, to teach people a broad
sense of being moral.
Q. Should there be any state-run
schools at all and, if so, why? What is
the COIUpelling case for so-called public
education? Why shouldn't there be a
separation of school and state?
A. I think the compelling case for public
education-which is different than public
bureaucracy- is that it is in the interest
of society that everyone have a minimum
standard of education.
Q. And what makes you think the
state is best capable of providing this?
A. I didn't say it was.
Q. Are you for the government run-
ning any schools?
A. Sure. I'm not opposed-
Q. Why not, since they've done such a
terrible job?
A. In a lot of places, they didn't do a
terrible job.
Q. But what principle do you invoke
for the right of the state to run any
school? I agree that ought to
be educated.
A. So what mechanism would you use to
provide for it?
Q. WeD, how about the one we had
before we had state-run schools?
Which didn't work, which is why we
went to state-run schools.
The Counsel of Chalcedon March, 1990 page 20
Q. Didn't work? You just said we had
a high rate of literacy-
A. No; I said in the 19th Century.
Q. But the literacy rate was high in
Colonial America, too.
A. That is explicitly not true.
Q But it is. Of the people who went to
school then, a higher percentage were
literate than of those who go to public
schools today.
A. But of the total percentage of the
population-
Q. I'm not talking about this. I'm
talking about those who went to school.
A. You can say the same thing now. Of
those who go to elite prep schools, a very
much higher percentage get educated.
Q. I doubt that this is tue. But are you
going to sit here and tell me you think
the state does a better job of educating
our children than private Christian
and home schools? Isn't there a mes-
sage here when these private schools do
much better, on the average, than the
average state-run school?
A. Yes. There's a very important mes-
sage here.
Q. What is it?
A. I said I believe in public education. I
didn't say I necessarily believe in public
bureaucracy.
Q. You really believe you can have
state-run schools without bureaucracy?
I don't think so. But Istilldon'tunder
stand what principle you're invoking
that gives the state the right to run any
school. State-run schools aren't pro-
ducing.
A. I think they were producing a great
deal up until the 1960s. And l think you
can argue that for the first half of the 20th
Century American public schools were a
model for the planet. They absorbed
inunigrants, Americanized them. They
. created areal baseofliteracy. They estab-
lished a pool of people infonned enough
to compete in the world market and were
educated enough to be citizens. I think
that's unequivocally true.
Q. But I still don't understand where
you think the state gets the right to run
a school.
A. What I've said is that I am for public
education. I am not necessarily for the
current bureaucracies. I believe in paren-
tal choice- vouchers and tax credits to
increase the range of choice. But larn for
the society having the right to insure a
minimum standard of education.
Q. Where do you stand on abortion,
tbe premier moral question facing this
country?
A. I think life begins at conception.
Q. What ought the law say about
abortion?
A. It should provide that the child is
protected except in the case of the life of
the mother.
Q. Is this a state matter? Do we need a
federal law? Or a constitutional amend
ment?
A. I think we're going tofightitoutatthe
state level for the moment. The society
badly needs to have this argument. When
theSupremeCourtmadeRoevs. Wade, it
did something fundamentally wrong
because this is precisely why you have a
free society. People need to argue out
where their values are going to end up.
There needs to be a public debate.
Q. Do you favor some sort of legal
protection for the unborn baby up until
birth?
A. Sure.
Q. What should be done to a woman
or doctor involved in an abortion?
Should there be criminal penalties?
A. There ought to be a sanction against
the doctor but not the woman.
Q. I saw you on TV saying that the
rumors about one congressman's al-
leged homosexuality got into a zone
thatis none of the country's business. If
a person in Congress is homosexual, do
you believe this is none oftbe country's
business, that this person's homosexu-
ality says nothing a bout his character?
A. The question I ask you is what right
9o people have to have private lives? The
only way, if you go back to what I was
talking about-
Q. But your question is a good one.
What is your answer? Does a person
being a homosexual tell us anything
about that individual's character?
A. I think it tells you a lot about how
deviant they are from Western values. I
want to draw a distinction between pri-
vate behavior by citizens, where I don't
see any value to our pursuing citizens in
their private lives. I think people have a
right to privacy.
Q. An absolute right?
A. No one has an absolute right Con-
versely, I mean, if you took your own
arguments as far to the absolute extreme
on the other end, they would be equally
silly.
Q. Like what?
A. The absolute right to intrusion. Do
you believe in this?
Q. By the state?
A. Who else? By reporters. By gossips.
By the person living next to you. I mean,
who's going to intrude? It seems to be
there' s some conunonsense zone in the
middle. And I would draw a distinction
between what adults do in their private
lives and the fostering and propagation of
the homosexual lifestyle.
Q. Are you against Jaws that prohibit
homosexual sodomy? Your state pro-
hibits this, even among so-called con-
senting adults in private.
A. It's not a topic I've ever gotten in-
volved in. It doesn' t occur to me that it's
very helpful, in a world of murderers and
drug dealers, to spend a great deal of
police resources chasing adults who
engage in consenting behavior in private.
Q. But do you think homosexuality,
including homosexual sodomy, should
be a crime? Bestiality?
A. You're getting close to the line. It
seems to me reasonably clear that bestial-
ity should be a crime.
Q. But you are less sure about homo-
sexuality, including homosexual sod-
omy?
A. If it's committed in private between
consenting adults, I don't think the state
has any business intruding. n
[This interview is reprinted, by permission,
from the December 30, 1989 issue of Hwnan
Events. The title in that publication was, A
PhilosophicalExchangewithNewtGingrich]
The Counsel of Chalcedon March,1990 page 21