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Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
The election of Barack Obama in 2008 led to a gusher of books in 2009 by writers opposed to the new President’s philosophy and agenda. If you judge by sales figures, one of the most successful of those books was Liberty and Tyranny by Mark Levin, president of Landmark Legal Foundation and a nationally syndicated talk-show host. His book sat high on bestseller lists for many weeks last year.
There is not much new in Liberty and Tyranny, but Levin’s attack on the statist–yes, that’s the word he uses throughout–mindset is for the most part sound and effective. Unfortunately, the book is marred by a glaring flaw. Levin tries to couch the predictable conservative-versus-libertarian disagreements as a battle between conservative “common sense” and statist folly; that is, he doesn’t even acknowledge that there are pro-liberty arguments against his notions about immigration and “national security,” but attempts to cast all who disagree with him as “statists.”
I will start with what’s good about the book, then deal with the chapters that are like fingernails on the blackboard.
Levin begins with this description of America’s dominant political philosophy: “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. . . .”
Because modern liberalism is infatuated with authoritarian mandates and prohibitions to bring about its utopian vision, it has nothing whatever to do with its root word, “liberal.” That’s why Levin insists on using the more accurate term “statist.”
Good. Calling those who want to, for example, force people into a politically contrived health care system “liberal” is a capital offense against the English language. I tip my hat to Levin for demanding terminological accuracy.
And statist thinking is responsible for most of our socioeconomic troubles, Levin shows. Statism has given us a panoply of “rights” that are not rights at all, but which actually undermine people’s true rights to life, liberty, and property. Levin takes issue with FDR’s horrendous “Second Bill of Rights,” wherein he proclaimed that Americans have “rights” to sufficient income for a “decent living,” to “adequate medical care,” and to a “good education.” Levin gives that babble the back of his hand, writing, “These are not rights. They are the Statist’s false promises of utopianism [used] to justify all trespasses on the individual’s private property.”
Exactly. Levin then approvingly quotes Frédéric Bastiat on the proper function of the law, writes an excellent chapter on the need to protect the free market against interventionism (the harm from which is then blamed on what is left of the free market), identifies the welfare state as responsible for our current and looming future economic debacles, and pummels the authoritarian agenda of “enviro-statism.”
Too bad he didn’t stop there. Instead, he moves on to immigration and national security.
On the issue of immigration Levin forgets what he has previously written about the benefits of liberty and repeats all the stock conservative tropes about the supposed danger of immigrants who don’t “assimilate” as quickly as he thinks they should and who pose some nebulous danger to “our culture.” The same things were said by nativists about immigrants 150 years ago. Levin tries to draw a distinction by claiming that the immigrants of yesteryear had skills that were needed for building the country. Of course they had a lot of skills, but so do current immigrants. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be hearing that they’re “taking jobs from Americans.” Worse, Levin tries to suggest that those of us who would just leave immigrants alone are on the side of statism and that cracking down on “illegals” is consistent with liberty. Is he not aware of the brutal, military-style raids the government launches against employers and workers suspected of immigration violations? Or does he think they’re part of “liberty”?
Equally weak is Levin’s chapter “On Self-Preservation,” an apology for neoconservative policies of military adventurism abroad and the constriction of civil liberty at home. He sets up a false dilemma between a statist foreign policy of the kind Obama favors (which, by giving power to international bodies to control the United States, is undeniably hostile to American freedom) and conservative foreign interventions (which impose enormous costs in lost lives and expended dollars, only to create still more enemies) without bothering to observe that there is a third possibility–a truly noninterventionist policy that ignores the United Nations, stays out of places like Iraq and Afghanistan, and leaves it to individuals to decide if they want to donate any foreign aid.
The bad chapters come at the end of the book. I can only hope that readers finished the first eight chapters and then got tired of it.
Comment by James on 30 April 2010:
The article points exactly to hole in both theories, both Mr. Levin’s Statist theory, and the Freeman’s liberty theory on immigration. The debate is not Left or Light, Republican or Democrat. It is about the the health and welfare of the American people and America.
Both parties are moving towards Corporatism, Satism, or Socialism whatever your preferred jargon is, at different rates of speed. Obama is looking like nothing more than a more radical, aggressive George Bush, on the domestic front.
No where does this become more evident than on the issue of “illegal” immigration more specifically “Mexican” illegal immigration. This wedge issue continues to receive very little public support, but continues to gain support from Democrats, who see 12 million more votes, and Republicans who see 12 million more potential cheap workers, both of whom are ignoring the real issue, the health, wealth, and well being of both the United States, and Mexico.
The situation with Mexico is very different from, Europeans, Asians, or other groups coming to America legally. Mexico who also is the wealthiness Nation in Latin America, is basically exporting it’s poverty to the U.S. for America taxpayers to subsidize. They do not tax their wealthy, or elites, because they send millions people to America for work, school, and health care, so why should they build their own infrastructure, schools, and hospitals if they can use ours. Also Mexicans in America keep a steady supply of billions of greenbacks flowing into the country. Of course the wealthy elite, and politicians in Mexico love this arrangement because it excuses them from taking responsibility of taking care of their own, Vincente Fox has even called the Mexicans in America “National Heroes” because they steal our wealth, not his.
It sounds lovely to preach freedom,when it serves your self interest, but maintaining this toxic relationship with Mexico does not help us or them.
Putting the illegal immigration problem with Mexico under the same umbrella with legal immigration is just another scam to steal American’s wealth, like to “Too Big to Fail” and it is coming from both the left and the right.
Comment by Tom Langley on 12 May 2010:
There is much I agree with in Jame’s comments.
What bothers me the most about not only the illegal immigration swarming across our southern border, but immigration in general, is how it is watering-down the values that America was founded upon. If you have a pan of water but continually add miscellaneous other ingredients, it eventually ceases being a pan of water.
We keep adding people to this nation with religious or political views that covet the lives, the liberty, and the property of their neighbors it will eventually cease to be America. Perhaps it has already happened.
This is no doubt unfair to ‘some’ so-called Libertarians, but I think of most Libertarians as “Conservatives searching for refuge from moral absolutes”.
Comment by No King But God on 13 May 2010:
James,
Who decides what constitutes legal versus illegal immigration? The state (i.e., the US federal government). So arguing that certain people should be allowed to work in the US while other people should not, and that the property rights of certain people should be respected while the property rights of other people should not, all on the basis of an arbitrary distinction drawn up by some statist bureaucrat, is this not a statist argument of the very kind that you, Mr. Levin’s book, and this article so rightfully condemn?
Why not let each American decide who he wants to hire, or sell to, or provide service to, or allow on his property, rather than force some statist bureaucrat to arbitrarily decide for him?
It seems to me that if you wish to rail against statism of any stripe, you must be logically consistent and rail against statism of every stripe.
No King But God