From American Thinker:
Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny:
A Conservative Manifesto
Thomas Lifson

Mark Levin's new book, published today, is essential reading. It is a remarkable work on several different levels. It takes no degree of clairvoyance to predict that it will become an enormous best seller and very soon begin to influence the national political debate.

Liberty and Tyranny artfully presents a harmonious marriage of the timeless with the timely. On the one hand, the book is a thorough yet compact briefing on the major political issues of this era. On the other hand, the author brings to bear the principles of the American Founders and Framers of the Constitution (and the great thinkers who guided them), illustrating, dissecting, and explaining our current political arguments, while enlightening the reader with the genuine wisdom bequeathed to all of us -- the sacred trust of the Founders, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and Federalist Papers, all of which are quoted and applied with insight and precision.

Think of it as an outstanding tutorial in applied political philosophy, and you will begin to grasp the scope of Mark Levin's achievement. The fact that the book is lucid, unpretentious, and utterly accessible to anyone who cares to focus and think, means that it will elevate the quality of political thought and dialogue across a broad swath of the American populace.

If you care passionately about America, and worry for its future -- and who doesn't, given the current national leadership? -- then you owe it to yourself to buy and devour this marvelous work. It is an essential antidote to what ails America at the moment.

Each chapter is a well-constructed essay, so the reader is quite free to read it a little at a time. But, unlike so many contemporary political works, it is also a well-constructed and coherent whole. So you may be tempted to stay up all night reading it as soon as a copy comes into your hands.

Conservatives who read Liberty and Tyranny will be supplied with ample ammunition to outsmart, outthink and out-reason their liberal friends who are brave enough to actually engage in a serious political debate with them.

The overall plan of the book is simple and logical. Chapter One, "On Liberty and Tyranny," lays out the basic conceptual scheme. Levin contrasts two opposing political philosophies currently in contention: The Conservative versus the Statist. He grounds the Conservative in the values and insights on human nature of the American Founders, and does so economically and convincingly. For the other side of the debate, he quite correctly rejects the label "liberal", because in current usage the term has become entirely divorced from its literal meaning. He writes:

The Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state.... For the Modern Liberal, the individual's imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objectives of a utopian state. In this, Modern Liberalism promotes what French Historian Alexis de Tocqueville called soft tyranny, which becomes increasingly more oppressive, partially leading to hard tyranny.... 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. (p.4)

The following nine chapters, plus an epilogue containing Levin's own manifesto -- the political changes he posits as desirable (and with which I agree) -- are organized thematically, with titles such as On Prudence and Progress, On Faith and the Founding, On the Welfare State, and On Self Preservation (i.e., national security), wherein he encapsulates nearly all the major political issues of our day, providing essential up-to-date information, while also weaving in the wisdom a timeless thinkers ranging from Alexander Hamilton to St Augustine. As the book progresses, the chapters become more and more focused on current political disputes. But the beauty of the structure is that the principles discussed in the earlier chapters are brought to bear on the subsequent topics.

I am proud to note that American Thinker's Lee Cary is quoted in the book's chapter, "On Immigration." Considering the company Dr. Cary is keeping as a source for the book, this is a high honor indeed, both for him and for AT.

The epilogue, wherein Mark tells us what we conservatives can do, and where he outlines what changes he sees as necessary to beat back the now-ascendant forces of statism, may certainly spark some disagreement, because Mark pulls no punches. He is setting a lofty target, but one that is amply justified by the clear-headed research and writing that went into the body of the text.

Fans of Mark Levin's syndicated radio show will recognize the voice of the hard-hitting champion of conservatism they know and love. But there is also, for those unfamiliar with Mark's radio work (but perhaps propagandized by liberal media into dismissing him as a crazy right wing radical), a remarkable and persuasive tone, based on solid research, extensively documented, and unchallengeable reason. This book could actually change some minds, especially as the nation’s peril becomes more and more apparent.

All in all, Mark Levin has given us a remarkable gift. Read this book, and buy copies for those you care about, too. Anyone from a clever high schooler to a scholar of political philosophy can benefit from reading Liberty and Tyranny.

Thomas Lifson is editor and publisher of American Thinker.

From New York Daily News:
From anger to madness:
A class-warfare crazed government mob
is running amok
By Michael Goodwin

Saturday, March 21st 2009, 7:50 PM

Everybody makes mistakes, and I made a beaut the other day. I was wrong to call members of Congress blow-hards and buffoons and declare them worse than useless.

I was too kind.

I should have said our representatives are gangsters in pinstripes and pearls. They are petty tyrants and the more power they grab, the more at risk we are. Homeland Security should flash Code Red any time this Congress is in session.

It is twilight in America now. The House vote to use the tax code to retroactively punish bonus babies was an act of sheer madness. What started as phony outrage at AIG has crossed the line into insane policy. It is stunning that the vote was lopsided and bipartisan.

The Senate is itchy to go along, and President Obama says he's ready to tighten the thumbscrews on the banks. Is there no adult who will bring a straitjacket?

We should all be very afraid. Class warfare is mere predicate for a witch hunt that, once unleashed, will not stop with misbegotten wealth. It will punish success and stifle innovation. Dissent will invite dishonor.

That Congress is a gang of cheap connivers is not news. Chris Dodd, Charlie Rangel, Charles Grassley, Barney Frank - they have been national embarrassments for years.

But now they are dangerous, emboldened by public fear and anger. They know nothing, but have power and smell opportunity for more.

Missing in action is the Barack Obama who vowed to unite the country around common values. Lately he has been the very opposite of the man he promised. Instead of hope, many have a growing fear of the arrogant government he leads.

Obama is smart, quick and charming, and, as he showed on "The Tonight Show," owner of a thousand-watt smile he can deploy at will. He silkily manages to make the ridiculous sound reasonable. When he insults the Special Olympics, he is forgiven.

Yet even "Tonight" host Jay Leno broke from full flattery to reveal his qualms about the meaning of the bonus tax. "Here's something that kind of scared me," he said. "If the government decides they don't like a guy, all of a sudden, hey, we're going to tax you and then, boom, and it passes."

Obama brushed it off, part of an endless road show claim that he will bring back "common sense" to the financial system and restore "those values that built America."

If only. In truth, there is no history for what he is doing. He is the most radical President of our times, far outside the mainstream of our political philosophy.

He is not a reformer who fixes things. He fancies himself "transformative," a man who reshapes and reorders. It apparently begins with smashing the existing order under the pretext of managing the crisis he inherited.

During the campaign, a fellow journalist confided that "I know Obama is a Manchurian candidate, I just can't figure out what for."

I laughed then, but no more. Obama represents a secular religion that believes, no matter the malady, Washington is the antidote. More government is the chicken soup of his tribe.

It is an illusion of many Republicans and Democrats that Washington can successfully manage the economy and our lives. Our institutions and culture are too big, too diverse and too unruly to be run like a banana republic.

Yet the economic mess has robbed the nation of its confidence, and the vacuum is being filled by politicians bearing promises and borrowed dollars. The true cost of this "help" will come later, with back-breaking debt and a lack of growth and opportunity.

We can't say we haven't been warned. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad" is more than folklore. It predicts our fate if we follow the government mob.

mgoodwin@nydailynews.com

From Pajamas Media:
The MSM should resign over Obama’s failure
Posted By Roger L Simon

According to [1] Politico and PJM’s own [2] Jennifer Rubin, barely two months after the inauguration, the mainstream media has its proverbial knickers in a twist over Obama’s ineptitude in office. Even [3] Thomas Friedman - that most conventional of all purveyors of the conventional (except David Gergen - and he’s been straying off the reservation too) - is now complaining the onetime Messiah is not taking the financial crisis seriously enough, “getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian.” Meanwhile, CNN is appalled the President pushed through a skillion page skillion dollar stimulus bill no one seems to have read.

Hello, children, you elected this guy. Take some responsibility!

No, don’t go complaining the people did that. You did it. Obama is your man, your hero. You never vetted, never examined him in any depth at all, even though the candidate had hardly any experience other than running for office. (Oh, yes, he was a “community organizer.” So was I, in a sense. You want to elect me?)

So now we are going to hear that Timothy Geithner or Press Secretary Gibbs or whoever should be thrown under the bus. No, sorry, it is the MSM that should be going under that now overused vehicle, committing hari-kari before the public does what it should - disenfranchise them completely. [Must be getting pretty crowded under that bus.-ed. Like the stateroom scene from "Night at the Opera."] The election of Barack Obama was orchestrated by our mainstream media. They anointed him. They should suffer the consequences.

But what we have instead is an orgy of finger-pointing. The four New York Times columnists referenced in the Politico article above are simultaneously ganging up on the man they thought, only eight weeks ago, was a combination of the cat’s meow and the bee’s knees. Nary a word of self criticism in their attacks. No surprise there - and don’t expect it in the future, any more than you will get an honest apologia from Messrs Frank and Dodd over Fannie and Freddie. Just like the politicians, these columnists are men and women (Dowd) who are concerned first and foremost about their jobs and power. They won’t do anything to jeopardize that. They’ve had that power for a long time, thinking it was permanent; but now that they see it might not be, they are holding on to it for dear life. Their jumping off the Obama bandwagon so early is a sign of what deep trouble he is in. And they desperately don’t want to be blamed for it.

But they will be blamed - by us and by other people. They deserve to be. Their day is over. While pretending to be the friends of democracy, they have been the enemies of it. Their views have been so monolithic serious debate nearly vanished in this country. Only now, in the ferment of a still relatively tiny Tea Party movement, do you see the stirrings of bona fide discussion. Let’s hope there is more to come. And that the mainstream media, even if they don’t resign, will no longer be the gatekeepers.