The fight for freedom: understanding the Statist assault
May 28, 2009 9 Comments
I have been reading and attempting to absorb Mark R. Levin’s book Liberty and Tyranny – A Conservative Manifesto. I say “absorb” because there is much information shared that is new learning and terminology that I have not focused on until this time in my life.
A new term to me is “statist”. Mr. Levin uses this term to describe the ‘modern liberal’.
Once I saw a young woman who was wearing a T-shirt that said “proud to be a LIBERAL”. I wonder if she knew that she was a ‘statist’ who Levin describes in this manner:
“The Modern Liberal (Statist) believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration (of Independence) and the order of the civil society, in whole or part.”
“The Statist has an insatiable appetite for control. His sights are set on his next meal even before he has fully digested his last.”
“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.”
“…the Statist is building a culture of conformity and dependency, where the ideal citizen takes on dronelike qualities in service to 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.”
While reading Levin’s words I came to visualize the Statists and their push to have their way with America to be like a cancer. The media, academics, and Hollywood are all playing a part in this deadly growth on America.
More words from Mr. Levin:
The Conservative must become more engaged in public matters. It is in his nature to live and let live, to attend to his family, to volunteer time with his church and synagogue, and to quietly assist a friend, a neighbor, or even a stranger. These are certainly admirable qualities… But it is no longer enough….
This will require a new generation of conservative activists, larger in number, shrewder, and more articulate than before, who seek to blunt the Statist’s counterrevolution- not imitate it- and gradually and steadily reverse course…”
And finally, what hit my heart as a new grandma:
“Parents and grandparents must take it upon themselves to teach their children and grandchildren to believe in and appreciate the principles of the American civil society and stress the import of preserving and improving society. They will need to teach their offspring that the Statist threatens their generation’s liberty and prosperity…”
The Statist’s have a voice in President Obama, who is helped along by the media. Conservatives are engaged in battle. We must win the war. Life as we have known it in America depends on the voices and actions of conservative activists. Count me in.
Ronald Reagan said it best:
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on to them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
You can listen to the Mark Levin’s radio show on 98.3 FM from 11pm til 2 am. Ive listened to his show and this is a man who loves America and hates to see its destruction at the hands of the socialist statist’s. Sounds like this was a very interesting reading from your excerpts from his book.
Just ask the Republican donating car dealerships business people who are being forced to close. See what they think of economic punishment. The statists are at work and it is painful to watch their sneaky and ever not so sneaky tactics.
Several weeks ago I purchased and read Mark Levin’s LIBERTY AND TYRANNY: A CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO. It is not a large book (about 245 pages)
but is a good summary of the superiority of constitutional conservatism and the manifold dangers and destructiveness of what he terms
“statism” (which includes communism and socialism and the different varieties of the leftist mindset and policies). You have featured some good excerpts from the book.
Thanks for sharing these excerpts – I will put this book on my summer reading list.
I see misrepresentation here. Modern liberals do not believe in the supremacy of the state. For example, we do not believe in wiretapping or torture. We do not believe the state can give rights to some groups but not to other groups. Most of us oppose the state’s biggest undertaking: militarism.
Affer reading that polemic, try getting a reality check. Maybe read Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal, just to be fair and balanced.
Your fundamental mistake is that you believe rights are granted by the state. This is the basic definition of a statist. This fundamental belief of where rights come from.
Individualist – natural law is source of rights
Collectivist (statist) – the state is the source of rights
In the Bill of Rights, the people “retain” their rights (9th amendment). I don’t think this is the same as saying those are “natural” rights.
I believe in the right to a trial by jury, but I don’t see how that is “natural”. The eighth amendment against excessive bail is not “natural” law, either.
Obviously these rights don’t come from states. These rights protect us FROM states. Hopefully the rights will be enforced by popular opinion, but sometimes (often) we rely on courts to enforce rights.
You might like to read the book “Rights from Wrongs.”
It’s about where rights come from. (Answer–the book says they come from human history as a way of protecting the future from the past.)
You might want to read the works of John Locke.
Statist should not be a new word for you. We’ve lived with statist presidents ever since Abe Lincoln. Time to do some major history reading.
Bush was a huge statist
Obama is an ultra statist.
Levin is half right but misses the statist in the “conservative” side. It is more like a line with tyranny on one side and anarchy on the other. Statist are near the tyranny side and the Dems and repubs are simply two sides to one coin.
Our founders were much more in the center balancing state power with individualism.
This is the root of the problem. The fight between collectivism and individualism. Do research.