Laurence: As with his 1994 version of the same, tired theme, shouldn’t Gingrich’s proposal be titled a “Contract ON America?”
Advocates of constitutionalism — of which I am not one — might respond with the argument that the Constitution was intended as a “contract” between individuals and the state. Why, then, the need for this instrument? Furthermore, with an anticipated document of some 700+ pages — making it sound more like a bureaucratic tome than a statement of principles — it is evident that this boob-hustler figures that eighteen-year old baloney will still be palatable, if not to the voting public, then to the establishment powers he is trying to please.
By the way, anyone who invokes the concept of “contract” in matters political should recognize at least two points: (1) contracts are voluntary arrangements entered into by persons agreeing to exchange private property interests (see Blackstone on the topic), and (2) they are dependent on what has long been called a “meeting of the minds” of the contracting parties. Perhaps Newt will be kind enough to inform us of the identity of the “minds” with whom he has been “meeting” to advance his latest fraudulent scheme!
