Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto — Mark R. Levin — Threshold Editions — Hardcover: 245 pages — 2009 — ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-6285-6
There is simply no scientific or mathematical formula that defines conservatism. Moreover, there are competing voices today claiming the mantle of “true conservatism”—including neo-conservatism (emphasis on a robust national security), paleo-conservatism (emphasis on preserving the culture), social conservatism (emphasis on faith and values), and libertarianism (emphasis on individualism), among others. Scores of scholars have written at length about what can be imperfectly characterized as conservative thought. But my purpose is not to give them each exposition, as it cannot be fairly or adequately accomplished here, nor referee among them. Neither will attempt to give birth to totally new theories. Instead, what follows are my own opinions and conclusions of fundamental truths, based on decades of observation, exploration, and experience, about conservatism and, conversely, non-conservatism—that is, liberty and tyranny in modern America.
Mark Levin is worried. What worries him is the inexorable drift away from the principles of self-government as formulated by the Founding Fathers and formalized in the Declaration of Independence and the Consitution.
Does he have a justification for his concerns? Let’s see: The electorate have installed a person whom Levin characterizes as “the most ideologically pure Statist and committed counterrevolutionary to occupy the Oval Office,” elected as representatives people who continually prove their unworthiness to manage a lemonade stand much less propose, approve, and oversee multi-trillion-dollar public policy spending programs that tend to undermine the nation’s economic structural foundation, and allowed appointments of Supreme Court judges who progressively look abroad for guidance on how to administer American justice. Yeah, I’d say he’s justified.
In Liberty and Tyranny, Levin not only proffers a detailed analysis of what has been going wrong with America’s grand experiment in self-government but also presents in general outline steps that need to be taken to remedy these problems. Since Karl and Friedrich had their manifesto, I suppose Levin figures turnabout is fair play.
Throughout his manifesto, Levin continually compares and contrasts the philosophical viewpoints of the notional “Conservative” and his nemesis the “Statist.” A more profound difference in outlook it is hard to imagine. The two diametrically opposed philosophies have been in conflict with one another since the foundation of the American republic. At their base, each rests upon a fundamental view of what constitutes human nature and the society derived from it: One says man is basically flawed and needs minimal government to restrain him from his tendencies to harm others; the other says man is basically good and that government’s function is to enlarge that goodness without limit—hence Levin’s dichotomous distinction between “Conservative” and “Statist.”
For Levin, “civil society” may be the highest expression of American civilization, but it is constantly under threat:
The Statist’s counterrevolution has turned the instrumentalities of public affairs and public governance against the civil society. They can no longer be left to the devices of the Statist, which is largely the case today.
According to Levin, one recently controverted policy program being promoted by the Statist has the potential to be the final nail in the coffin of American freedom:
Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system. National health care is the mother of all entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being. Remind the people that politicians and bureaucrats, about whom they are already cynical, will ultimately have the final say over their choice of doctors, hospitals, and treatments—meaning the system will be politicized and bureaucratized.
A final note: Levin’s recommendations are all praiseworthy, but he needs to be more exact in some details (wherein, as we know, the devil is). For example, when he advocates “the denial of most social services to illegal aliens to deter their migration to the United States,” you stumble on that word “most.” You must wonder just which social services illegal aliens are entitled to in Levin’s estimation. Long-time readers of V-DARE.com are acutely aware that such imprecise statements are loopholes through which tens of millions of illegal aliens and hundreds of billions of tax dollars can be and have been funneled. Here Levin seems to be replicating the standard Wall Street Journal/National Review boilerplate advocacy for cheap labor.
In addition, Levin supports eliminating the progressive income tax, the automatic withholding of taxes, the corporate income tax, and the death tax—and correctly so—but then also asserts: “All federal income tax increases will require a supermajority vote of three-fifths of Congress.” Unless I’ve misunderstood him, he seems to concede that the federal government has a moral right to confiscate some, most, or all of a wage earner’s income; but who, when, where, how, and why was it decided that the government has any right to anyone’s earnings? Unexamined assumptions such as these could undermine Levin’s intent; he needs to revisit and clarify them in subsequent editions of his book.
Chapters:
1. On Liberty and Tyranny
In the midst stands the individual, who was a predominate focus of the Founders. When living freely and pursuing his own legitimate interests, the individual displays qualities that are antithetical to the Statist’s—initiative, self-reliance, and independence. As the Statist is building a culture of conformity and dependency, where the ideal citizen takes on dronelike qualities in service of the state, the individual must be drained of uniqueness and self-worth, and deterred from independent thought or behavior. This is achieved through varying methods of economic punishment and political suppression.
2. On Prudence and Progress
The Conservative believes, as Burke and the Founders did, that prudence must be exercised in assessing change. Prudence is the highest virtue for it is judgment drawn on wisdom. The proposed change should be informed by the experience, knowledge, and traditions of society, tailored for a specific purpose, and accomplished through a constitutional construct that ensures thoughtful deliberation by the community. Change unconstrained by prudence produces unpredictable consequences, threatening ordered liberty with chaos and ultimately despotism, and placing at risk the very principles the Conservative holds dear.
3. On Faith and the Founding
The Statist may wrap himself and his deeds in the language of enlightenment—claiming to be the voice of reason, the beholder of knowledge
, and the architect of modernity—but recent history has shown him to be unenlightened in his understanding of mankind, moral order, liberty, and equality …. For the Statist, revolution is an ongoing enterprise, for it regularly cleanses society of religious dogma, antiquated traditions, backward customs, and ambitious individuals who differ with or obstruct the Statist’s plans. The Statist calls this many things, including “progressive.” For the rest, it is tyranny.
4. On the Constitution
[Current administration official Cass] Sunstein believes that economic value and private property are not natural occurrences in human interaction but rather the outgrowth of government and law. Therefore, he and other legal “realists” assert that government authority should be used to better exploit and redistribute wealth …. Sunstein’s “realism” is not new. He creates the false choice between anarchy (where there are no laws protecting the individual, private property, and contracts) and tyranny (where the sovereign and the sovereign alone arbitrarily grants fundamental rights, including property rights). Having declared the sovereign paramount to God and nature, and having delinked liberty from property, the individual must rely on the government for his sustenance. Of course, history shows that man will starve and freeze if he relies on the government for his sustenance—and surrender his liberty as well.
5. On Federalism
In many respects, the once-powerful states, thirteen of which ratified the Constitution in the first place, have themselves become administrative appendages of the federal government …. Does anyone believe that the states would have originally ratified the Constitution had they known this would be their fate? [In undermining the founding document] the Statist has also constructed a Fourth Branch of government—an enormous administrative state—which exists to oversee and implement his policies. It is a massive yet amorphous bureaucracy that consists of a workforce of nearly 2 million civilian employees.
6. On the Free Market
… the Conservative believes the free market is a vital bulwark against statism. And it would appear the Statist agrees, for he is relentless in his assault on it. Indeed, the Statist’s rejection of the Constitution’s limits on federal power is justified primarily, albeit not exclusively, on material grounds.
7. On the Welfare State
But it is the Statist’s purpose to make as many individuals as possible dependent on the government. Most Americans are, in fact, satisfied with what they pay for their own health care, the quality of the health care they receive, and their health-care coverage. However, the Statist continues to press for government control over the entire health-care system. He is not satisfied with constraining liberty today. He seeks to reach into posterity to constrain liberty tomorrow.
8. On Enviro-Statism
The Enviro-Statist poses as the defender of clean air, clean water, penguins, seals, polar bears, glaciers, the poor, the Third World, and humanity itself. But he is already responsible for the death and impoverishment of tens of millions of human beings in the undeveloped world. Now he has moved on to bigger tasks—imposing his societal designs on a free and prosperous people, dictating their lifestyle, controlling their movement, and breaking their spirit.
9. On Immigration
The Statist’s argument for “comprehensive immigration reform” reduces to this: America is a nation of immigrants …. Of course, to say [that] is to say every nation is a nation of immigrants. Mexico, the source of most immigrants to the United States today, is a nation of Spanish (and other) immigrants. The implication is, however, that both legal and illegal immigration, no matter how extensive, is another moral imperative justifying the transformation of the civil society. This is not so.
10. On Self-Preservation
The Conservative does not seek rigid adherence to any specific course of action: neutrality or alliance, preemptive war or defensive posture, nation building or limited military strike. The benchmark, again, is whether any specific path will serve the nation’s best interests. It is difficult to imagine a theory under which a society could otherwise survive …. For the Statist, however, U.S. foreign policy is another opportunity to enhance his own authority at the expense of the civil society.
Epilogue: A Conservative Manifesto
So distant is America today from its founding principles that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government. It is not strictly a constitutional republic, because the Constitution has been and continues to be easily altered by a judicial oligarchy that mostly enforces, if not expands, the Statist’s agenda. It is not strictly a representative republic, because so many edicts are produced by a maze of administrative departments that are unknown to the public and detached from its sentiment. It is not strictly a federal republic, because the states that gave the central government life now live at its behest. What, then, is it? It is a society steadily transitioning toward statism. If the Conservative does not come to grips with the significance of this transformation, he will be devoured by it.
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—Mike Gray
Mike,
I started work on a longer response, but got tied up with other things today. But let me just say briefly …
If you listen to Levin’s show with regularity, as I do, you know that while he is an advocate of interpreting the intentions of the Founders as absolutely as possible, he is also practical. It would be great (and Levin has stated this) if we could repeal the 16th Amendment. And Levin has noted that the federal income tax was sold as but a small thing that would never be the oppressive monster it is now.
As you note, Levin favors ending withholding. That would go a long way to bringing about what you desire: A genuine and broad-based tax revolt that would (likely) result in government learning to live within its means. Levin’s book lays out what the Founders intended their country to be, and practical ways to bring it about. I just thought you were being unduly critical of him on this point. That’s all.
Best,
Jim
Actually, the true intent of the Constitution was very much harmed well before 1913- going back to 1865, to be accurate. The United States had always been very much a state-centered republic until secession destroyed it. Reconstruction efforts proved to very destructive, and made the pre-Civil War way of governance all but impossible.
The Progressive Era was a necessary counter for industrialization that had gotten out of hand, for those who controlled monopolies and such went too far in the name of profits. Like any reaction to pressing problems, it became an overreaction that led to the income tax.
Had the South merely realized the institution of slavery was morally wrong and the industrialists of the late 18th century realized that their labor practices and other contemptible practices had gone too far, overreaction would have not occurred and we may very well have a less intrusive form of government today.
My major problem with Reagan was this- if he was truly a “limited government” sort of person, then he should have been against forcing a mandatory drinking age of 18 on states and forcing morality on an entire nation. Economically he may have been right on, but socially he was far from an advocate of limited government.
C C—The point of the anecdote—and I’m not insisting it’s true—was that regardless of the outcomes of the primaries, the inner controlling clique of the Elephant Party would sabotage all efforts at a grassroots conservative representation in the elections. I guess you can call it a conspiracy theory and give it as much or little weight as it deserves.
Your explanation for Reagan’s accession fits history; it will remain the definitive one in my mind unless someone comes up with something better.
Thanks for the quick response, Mike. Actually, the primary process tends to accomplish the same thing as the backroom dealings–each faction manages to turn off the others because they are so sure of their own laundry list of what grassroots Middle America should want and unwilling to focus on the bigger picture.
Reagan got elected because 1) he was able to articulate an idea of limited government and freedom in such a way that everyone could get behind it, yet without being wishy-washy or lukewarm, and 2) Carter had just spent 4 years displaying a set of bad policies which the public could easily connect to terrible results.
C C — ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ was widely praised on its initial release, but you hardly hear about it much now.
Will it “do anything to help unite anti-statists under a conservative big tent”? I couldn’t even begin to venture a guess about that, but there is an apocryphal anecdote (the source of which I can’t recall no matter hard I try) about the Republican Party (of which, I hasten to add, I am NOT nor have I ever been a member), the party which for years put itself forward as the advocate of limited government and greater individual freedom.
According to the anecdote, an elite within the Republican Party actually exercised(s) a virtual choke hold on the candidate selection process. That meant that, while the grassroots of the party would laboriously select people who looked, thought, and acted just like Middle America, these potential candidates would be selectively eliminated by dirty backroom dealings, resulting in more “moderate” offerings to the public. That would explain practically every Republican president since Teddy Roosevelt being an exponent of the Progressive agenda. (Ronald Reagan would seem to be the singular exception—I have no idea how he got in there.)
Again, it’s only an anecdote, but it would seem to explain abortions like Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and “W.”
Nevertheless, I believe you’ll enjoy Levin’s book; he has a lot of good ideas to offer.
Mike, do you think this book will do anything to help unite anti-statists under a conservative big tent? IMHO, if we can’t get past the balkanization of those “competing voices,” we will be frittering away our last opportunity to steer the country back on course.
Looking forward to reading the book.
Jim — Thanks for your comments. Again, an alert reader has caught me being vague, the very thing I accuse Levin of being.
The target of my ire—and it would seem I’m in a minority on this—is the personal income tax and that elaborate shell game called the payroll tax.
I’ve read the Constitution and understand it calls for taxation, without being too specific; the need for some sort of tax is self-evident. It’s the personal income tax that I find morally objectionable. Article XVI was ratified in that evil year of 1913:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
(In case you’re wondering, two other evil developments at about the same time were Article XVII—involving direct election of senators—and the establishment of the Federal Reserve System.)
The federal government had been in existence for almost a hundred and twenty years without facing insolvency, but now in 1913—all of sudden—it can’t get along without directly taxing America’s wage earners? Oh, supporters of the 16th Amendment sold it by saying the tax would never amount to more than one or two percent of total personal income, so taxpayers shouldn’t really be concerned. This all occurred in the early stages of the Progressive Era, and the notion that the Technocrats knew best was commonly accepted. Today, of course, an individual wage earner often has to work from January to May just to meet all his tax obligations (federal, state, and local).
In my view, any tax on an individual’s income is immoral and unnecessary. Eliminate it and the federal government would have to live within its means—and that would result in, among other things, the feds having to think long and hard about such reckless actions as bailing out Wall Street and getting involved in pointless, no-win military engagements overseas.
Mike:
Love the post. Love the book. It’s still by my bedside months after I first read it through for reference.
But I have a bone to pick here:
Any right to anyone’s earnings? Even the Founders realized there were some legitimate purposes of government which must be funded. In today’s political environment, Levin’s “supermajority” rule would do a lot of good — and finally bring about the tenet that the best way to kill “Big Government” is to starve it to death. And it’s a little nit-picky to pull that out in a tome’s theme well articulates the struggle of liberty over (often soft) government tyranny.
That said, Levin’s book is a worthy best-seller. A tome that will likely (and should) mark an important point in the history of the conservative movement.