Five Threats the American Way of Life

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Five Threats the American Way of Life

By Newt Gingrich

Ten years ago last month, the 104th Congress was sworn in. I was honored to be elected by my colleagues to serve as their speaker. A key to our success, the Contract with America, was not only a remarkable political tool, but it served as a blueprint for governmental change. The House Republicans bound ourselves to do something, not simply to be for something.

Since leaving the speakership in January 1999, I have been intensely studying the major policy issues that affect our nation and, indeed, its survival. What I have learned should challenge all of us. The American way of life is vulnerable to five major threats as difficult as any America has faced.

The first threat is the potential for Islamic terrorists and rogue dictatorships to acquire and use nuclear or biological weapons. The second is the effort to drive God out of American public life. The third is the possibility that America will lose the patriotic sense of itself as a singular civilization. The fourth is that America's economic supremacy will eventually yield to China and India because of failing schools and weakening scientific and technological leadership. The fifth is that an aging America's demands on Social Security, Medicare, and related government programs will collapse the current system.

Each threat can be overcome, but standing in our way is an entrenched political system and news media that refuse to confront these threats seriously. Just as previous American generations have met the challenges of their times, however, so can we.

To succeed, we need a 21st-Century Contract with America to "win the future." The new contract would be not a political tool but rather an agenda that can be embraced by any American concerned with securing America's future. It is designed to build a grassroots movement large enough to implement the large-scale, transformational changes necessary not only to ensure America's survival as the freest, most prosperous nation on the planet, but also to create a stable governing majority of elected officials - both Republicans and Democrats - who embrace those values.

Over the last four decades, America has divided into two camps. Most Americans believe that 9/11 was evidence enough that we have real enemies who hate us and who would kill millions of us given the chance - yet our national security bureaucracies continue to operate within a peacetime framework. Most Americans support a strong military capability to keep America safe - but our liberal national security elites advocate gaining the approval of an ineffective United Nations and a skeptical Europe before defending ourselves. Most Americans believe that America was founded as a nation in which people are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that we rightly pledge allegiance to one nation under God - but an arrogant judiciary continues to drive God from the public square.

America is a good and decent country created by heroes worth studying - yet schools teaching young Americans and American immigrants have replaced their stories with politically correct, multicultural drivel that fails to teach American history. Worse, they ridicule what little they are required to teach.

Most Americans believe that hard work will keep America's economy second to none. But our efforts are hampered by trial lawyers who seek their own enrichment and not justice. Labor unions get away with special deals and protection from competition by bureaucracies that value process over achievement.

For this generation to pass on our nation's blessings, we need a grassroots movement that demands profound change to defeat fundamental threats to our way of life. This movement must be focused on values, solutions, and on telling the truth even when it is controversial.

The first Contract with America proved that it was possible to bring together people from all across America to forge a strong majority that would implement the promised program. If we have the same persistence and courage, we can win again.