Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: The Ultimate Guide on Today’s Issues

By Justin Wilmeth

1787 Society Vice President

“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some, the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name – liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names – liberty and tyranny.”

 – Abraham Lincoln, 1864

Those words, uttered by arguably America’s greatest president, are found on the back of the book Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark Levin, a firebrand radio host and stalwart of limited government. And that quote sets the table for Levin’s argument – that America is straying further and further from its historical governing roots and that we must, as a people, stand up and fight to return to the true nature of the United States government.

Before I start breaking down the book, I want to say right off the top that this is a fantastic read. Levin addresses problems and considers real solutions to 10 of our nation’s greatest current challenges. I consider it the second-most important book for any person new to the Conservative cause to read behind the 1960 classic, Conscience of a Conservative, by Barry Goldwater. Levin’s book is patterned very similar to Goldwater’s, in that each chapter deals with a specific issue of the day and what must be done to correct problems at the time. And, just like Goldwater’s book before it, Liberty and Tyranny addresses today’s landscape in a way that is just as effective, commanding and thoughtful.

The bottom-line premise of the book is simple: Statists, those who wish for the federal government to have total control over our lives at the expense of state government and individual liberty, have worked hard the past 80 years to kill the original intent of our Founding Fathers and fostered the growth of a hulking, sprawling leviathan of centralized government so sweeping that it threatens what this country is really all about.

With that focus, Levin hops from subject to subject, writing about what the Statists are pushing for and what Constitutional Conservatives need to be aware of in order to fight back. In chapter four, Levin talks about matters related to the Constitution itself and how Statists view it as a living, breathing document, instead of a binding contract as was originally intended. This snippet from the book shows you what to expect from Levin’s arguments:

If the Constitution’s meaning can be erased or rewritten, and the Framers’ intentions ignored, it ceases to be a constitution but is instead a concoction of political expedients that serve the contemporary policy agendas of the few who are entrusted with public authority to preserve it. … To say that the Constitution is a “living and breathing document” is to give license to arbitrary and lawless activism. It is a mantra that gained purchase in the early twentieth century and is paraded around by the Statist as if to legitimate that which is illegitimate.

That’s just one passage in a book full of great, insightful takes on the issues impacting us all today. This book is easy to read, chiming in at only 205 pages and light in structure, especially considering the subject matter. Plus, there are only four chapters over 20 pages. And since it is broken down by topic, it is also a handy reference after reading in case you need some ammunition to deal with your Statist liberal friends. I still reference it today, in fact, though I read it two years ago.

This is a book, I believe, that will guide Conservatism moving forward in the 21^st Century. Young conservatives like us will see it as a guide to proper governance in the future. In short, Levin gets it. He sees the problems in our system at the moment and has solutions to pull us out of the slide into Statism we’ve seen in American since the days of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. If anything, his final chapter is a must-read to consider what we need to do now to turn this country around economically, socially and in areas of immigration, faith and the welfare state.

On a scale of one star to five stars, I give this book six stars. I feel it’s one of the most important books out there and can really help 1787 members see what we’re fighting for in the battle of liberty versus tyranny in our government.