“The Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state,” writes Mark Levin, in his just released book, “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto,” he continues, “thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration and the order of the civil society, in whole or part. For the Modern Liberal, the individual’s imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state. In this, Modern Liberalism promotes what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville described as a soft tyranny, which becomes increasingly more oppressive, potentially leading to a hard tyranny (some form of totalitarianism). As the word “liberal” is, in its classical meaning, the opposite of authoritarian, it is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the Modern Liberal as a Statist.”
I am grateful for Levin’s desire to preserve the original meaning of the word “liberal,” as “the opposite of authoritarian,” which puts him in good company with Frederick A. Hayek who describes himself as a “classical liberal.” The term Statist, as Levin describes the Modern Liberal, is an appropriate title which becomes evident in Levin’s book.
I am hoping to let Levin, wet your appetite, for his book, by providing a few quotes from chapter 1, “On Liberty and Tyranny,” with a focus on the tyranny side of his discussion. Here Levin describes the Statist goals, agenda and disregard of the Constitution:
But in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the Statists successfully launched a counterrevolution that radically and fundamentally altered the nature of American society. President Franklin Roosevelt and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress, through an array of federal projects, entitlements, taxes, and regulations known as the New Deal, breached the Constitution’s fire-walls. At first the Supreme Court fought back, striking down New Deal programs as exceeding the limits of federal constitutional authority, violating state sovereignty, and trampling on private property rights….
The significance of the New Deal is not in any one program, but in its sweeping break from our founding principles and constitutional limitations. Roosevelt himself broke with the two-presidential-term tradition started by George Washington by running for four terms. His legacy includes a federal government that has become a massive, unaccountable conglomerate: It is the nation’s largest creditor, debtor, lender, employer, consumer, contractor, grantor, owner, tenant, insurer, health-care provider, and pension guarantor.
And yet, the Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has fully digested his last. His is constantly agitating for government action. And in furtherance of that purpose, the Statist speaks in the tongue of the demagogue, concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions and build popular momentum for the divestiture of liberty and property from its rightful possessors….
The Statist veils his pursuits in moral indignation, intoning in high dudgeon the injustices and inequities of liberty and life itself, for which only he can provide justice and bring a righteous resolution. And when the resolution proves elusive, as it undoubtedly does – whether the Marxist promise of “the workers’ paradise” or the Great Society’s “war on poverty” – the Statist demands ever more authority to wring out the imperfections of mankind’s existence. Unconstrained by constitutional prohibitions, what is left to limit the Statist’s ambitions but his own moral compass, which has already led him astray?
I believe Levin has identified the crux of the issue facing us today, the choice between liberty or tyranny. Weather you agree with everything Levin writes or not, this book is a must read. You can buy from it from Amazon.com by clicking here.
For Freedom’s Sake
