Status
Available
Call number
Description
A nationally syndicated talk radio host and author of Rescuing Sprite presents a volume of essays for today's conservative leaders that recommends specific approaches to such issues as immigration, health care, and foreign policy.
Publication
Threshold Editions (2009), Edition: 1st, 256 pages
Pages
256
Similar in this library
ISBN
1416562850 / 9781416562856
Collection
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2009
Physical description
256 p.; 8.44 inches
Media reviews
"Mark Levin" whispers from the shadows. One feels the gentling hand of erudition in his prose. Reading his book is sort of like hearing "Animal Farm" as told by Dick Cheney.
Levin thinks there is nothing to learn from the present crisis, and indeed seems to regard the whole enterprise of learning as ideologically suspect. It’s very striking that nowhere in this book does he ever engage the ideas of intelligent people on the other side. He quotes stupid statements
I want to give Mark Levin some credit for Liberty and Tyranny. It is in its way an ambitious book, an attempt to offer a major political statement. Levin is not a stupid man, and Liberty and Tyranny is not a stupid book. What it is, unfortunately, is an airless and isolated book, an exercise in pure ideology radically quarantined from the life around it. It is a book for people on the defensive against contemporary society, people who have despaired of having much influence on the world around them. Liberty and Tyranny reveals the intellectual and psychological origins of the ferocious rage Levin broadcasts on his program. You can see why it appeals to conservatives now. You’ll know that conservatism is recovering when conservatives put it behind them.
Show More
from a fringe group like Earth First! But he flinches from any encounter with any more substantial opponent. He lives in a sealed mental universe, into which nothing new or unsettling can ever penetrate.I want to give Mark Levin some credit for Liberty and Tyranny. It is in its way an ambitious book, an attempt to offer a major political statement. Levin is not a stupid man, and Liberty and Tyranny is not a stupid book. What it is, unfortunately, is an airless and isolated book, an exercise in pure ideology radically quarantined from the life around it. It is a book for people on the defensive against contemporary society, people who have despaired of having much influence on the world around them. Liberty and Tyranny reveals the intellectual and psychological origins of the ferocious rage Levin broadcasts on his program. You can see why it appeals to conservatives now. You’ll know that conservatism is recovering when conservatives put it behind them.
Show Less
Mark Levin has written the necessary book of the Obama era. A book that he was born to write. Its best-seller success testifies not only to Levin’s smarts and popularity but also to the hunger in America for timeless conservative principles.
Inconsistency is the hallmark of Levin's thinking...Am I quibbling? No, I'm quitting Levin, tired of his love of contradiction.
Levin is not a dewy-eyed dreamer. His blueprint of solutions is ambitious not because it is instantly achievable but because our condition is dire. Among other things, he recommends ending the progressive income tax; a legislative veto over Supreme Court decisions; a yearly sunset of all federal
Show More
agencies subject to congressional reauthorization; breaking government’s ruinous education monopoly; repealing chain immigration and multiculturalism in public institutions; slowly reforming entitlement programs by reversing the education system’s proselytism on their behalf; rejecting treaties and other international arrangements that encroach on U.S. sovereignty; a revitalization of the Constitution’s original limits of government power; and a restoration of faith’s rightful place as the source of rights the citizen cannot be denied. Like conservatism itself, it is the work of generations. And taking its lead from Mark Levin, it is not for the faint of heart. Show Less
"Liberty and Tyranny" is a powerful book that will convert many Americans to conservative thought the way Milton Friedman's Newsweek essays converted an earlier generation. But until most Americans agree with Mr. Levin, the Republican Party will also need David Frum, Ross Douthat and David Brooks
Show More
to build national coalitions to govern in the years, and maybe decades, before the bloated federal state implodes. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member Atomicmutant
A rant.
A problem that I have with political discourse on both sides, from the extreme left or the extreme right, is evident in spades in this book. Levin sets up the boogeymen called "Statists", and then proceeds to tell us about their evil motivations. I've never met anyone who thinks remotely as
I also learned that you must, MUST believe in God to be a conservative. So is
conservatism religious, then? Wow . . . .
The whole book is filled with vastly overreaching statements, unbacked assertions, and cartoonish portrayal of his opponents. It's more like a drunken barroom argument than a reasoned manifesto in any way.
A problem that I have with political discourse on both sides, from the extreme left or the extreme right, is evident in spades in this book. Levin sets up the boogeymen called "Statists", and then proceeds to tell us about their evil motivations. I've never met anyone who thinks remotely as
Show More
he portrays these fictional characters. He also ascribes to them some sort of almost supernatural powers to control and manipulate, without stating the obvious--that his side does the same things in the name of their own ideology. I also learned that you must, MUST believe in God to be a conservative. So is
conservatism religious, then? Wow . . . .
The whole book is filled with vastly overreaching statements, unbacked assertions, and cartoonish portrayal of his opponents. It's more like a drunken barroom argument than a reasoned manifesto in any way.
Show Less
LibraryThing member cranmergirl
This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to understand the basic principles of Conservatism. It is well written and researched while also managing to present a plethora of facts in a very engaging and readable way. Conservative thinking about current issues and policies is well delineated. For
Show More
Conservatives trying to crystallize their thinking or for those interested in understanding how Conservatives think, this book is a must read. Show Less
LibraryThing member garyklimeck
A great educational read for all. A must read and a excellent tool to teach you children before they enter into high school and college which is laced with politically correct, anti-american teachers whose agenda is to fill young minds with lies.
LibraryThing member ServusLibri
Levin subtitles his book ‘A Conservative Manifesto’, but I can’t hold with that. Your opinion of the book will probably be shaped by your view of President Obama, and your liking of it in inverse proportion to your agreement with the president.
If this isn’t a manifesto, what is it? As in
But, if I sound disappointed, I am. He doesn’t have the sharp edge that he has displayed before, and still does regularly in his talk radio show. My feeling is that he tried to walk the line between a statement of principles and an action plan, and thus failed at both. Nevertheless, it’s worth reading if you are engaged in the war, on either side.
If this isn’t a manifesto, what is it? As in
Show More
his earlier book (Men in Black), Levin correctly points out that we are in a struggle to determine the nature and direction of America. But, rather than state the full parameters of that war, he gives a kind of tour through some of the fronts or battles of the war including education, environmentalism, free markets, federalism and welfare. He does write in a readable style, and does conclude with his “Conservative Manifesto”. He footnotes reasonably well.But, if I sound disappointed, I am. He doesn’t have the sharp edge that he has displayed before, and still does regularly in his talk radio show. My feeling is that he tried to walk the line between a statement of principles and an action plan, and thus failed at both. Nevertheless, it’s worth reading if you are engaged in the war, on either side.
Show Less
LibraryThing member SamSattler
Mark Levin begins his bestseller, “Liberty and Tyranny,’ with the premise that conservatism equates to liberty and liberalism to tyranny – although he almost immediately substitutes the word Statist for liberal. That is certainly starting a book off with a bang, but the rest of “Liberty and
(Full Disclosure: I believe myself to be a fiscal conservative and a moderate on social issues, even drifting over to the liberal side on some issues such as support for gay marriage. My chief concerns of the moment, other than the imminent bankruptcy facing this country, all relate to keeping the country safe from terrorism or to our current immigration policy, a policy sure to result in the balkanization of American society not too many years down the road. I say all this to admit that, going in, I knew I would likely agree with Levin’s case for the merits of Conservatism.)
Levin differentiates between the Conservative and Statist points-of-view in several key areas: Faith, the Constitution, Federalism, the Free Market, the Welfare State, Environmentalism, Immigration and Self-Preservation. He reminds the reader that this country’s founders considered the greatest threat to personal liberty to be “an all-powerful central government, where the few dictate to the many” – the obvious preference of the modern Liberal/Statist and a goal to which the current administration is supremely dedicated. Seldom in United States history have so few believed that they have the right (and, unfortunately, the power) to interfere so intimately in the lives of so many.
Sadly enough, both major political parties in this country seem to have abandoned the Conservative principles that made the country great, the very principles upon which the founders based our constitution. Make no mistake – George W. Bush did not govern as a Conservative, despite his claims to the contrary. These days, Conservatives, at election time, generally find themselves choosing between what is, in their judgment, the lesser of evils, a choice not always as obvious as one would hope in an age where the major parties are so much alike - and so thoroughly dominated by their corrupt leadership.
Levin ends “Liberty and Tyranny” with what he calls “A Conservative Manifesto” in which he enumerates ten things “the Conservative will have to do if the nation is to improve,” including: eliminating the progressive income tax, limiting Supreme Court judicial review power, applying anti-trust laws to the National Education Association, stopping “chain immigration,” fighting against a nationalized health system, and demanding that all public servants strictly uphold the Constitution.
The book also introduced me to an Abraham Lincoln quote with which I was unfamiliar, a quote to which, as a fiscal conservative, I am particularly drawn, “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Or, to put it in modern terms, assuring that his own shall be safe from the Statist who wants to confiscate it and redistribute it to “the houseless.” God help us.
Rated at: 4.0
Show More
Tyranny,’ in which Levin rationally makes his case, proves him to be up to the challenge sure to come from readers who disagree with his choice of words. (Full Disclosure: I believe myself to be a fiscal conservative and a moderate on social issues, even drifting over to the liberal side on some issues such as support for gay marriage. My chief concerns of the moment, other than the imminent bankruptcy facing this country, all relate to keeping the country safe from terrorism or to our current immigration policy, a policy sure to result in the balkanization of American society not too many years down the road. I say all this to admit that, going in, I knew I would likely agree with Levin’s case for the merits of Conservatism.)
Levin differentiates between the Conservative and Statist points-of-view in several key areas: Faith, the Constitution, Federalism, the Free Market, the Welfare State, Environmentalism, Immigration and Self-Preservation. He reminds the reader that this country’s founders considered the greatest threat to personal liberty to be “an all-powerful central government, where the few dictate to the many” – the obvious preference of the modern Liberal/Statist and a goal to which the current administration is supremely dedicated. Seldom in United States history have so few believed that they have the right (and, unfortunately, the power) to interfere so intimately in the lives of so many.
Sadly enough, both major political parties in this country seem to have abandoned the Conservative principles that made the country great, the very principles upon which the founders based our constitution. Make no mistake – George W. Bush did not govern as a Conservative, despite his claims to the contrary. These days, Conservatives, at election time, generally find themselves choosing between what is, in their judgment, the lesser of evils, a choice not always as obvious as one would hope in an age where the major parties are so much alike - and so thoroughly dominated by their corrupt leadership.
Levin ends “Liberty and Tyranny” with what he calls “A Conservative Manifesto” in which he enumerates ten things “the Conservative will have to do if the nation is to improve,” including: eliminating the progressive income tax, limiting Supreme Court judicial review power, applying anti-trust laws to the National Education Association, stopping “chain immigration,” fighting against a nationalized health system, and demanding that all public servants strictly uphold the Constitution.
The book also introduced me to an Abraham Lincoln quote with which I was unfamiliar, a quote to which, as a fiscal conservative, I am particularly drawn, “Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” Or, to put it in modern terms, assuring that his own shall be safe from the Statist who wants to confiscate it and redistribute it to “the houseless.” God help us.
Rated at: 4.0
Show Less
LibraryThing member WCallister
Awesome! This is a must read for every American. Mark Levin does an incredible job of presenting the facts and statistics in a way, which allows you to understand the context, and then the probable outcomes. One thing, that I think most people would agree with, is that the issue is not Republican
Show More
or Democrat, the issue is our nation. We have too many politicians who are in it for themselves, not for the purpose of serving the people. Mr. Levin basically moves from one news story, article, study, etc to the next, and yet he does so in a way that is both easy to understand and entertaining. It's not just a bunch of dry facts, he has a way of putting "flesh" on the dry, hard facts (bones), so we can see what they mean, when combined with the big picture. Show Less
LibraryThing member Jarratt
I thought the last few pages were great, but overall, there's little new here. If you listen to Rush, Hannity, etc., there's little that's eye opening. And if it's supposed to introduce people to what conservatives really are and think, it's not the easiest read.
LibraryThing member bigmoose
This book offers a well-written, concise and easy to undestand summary of Mr. Levin's view of conservatism. It may or may not be anyone else's view, but it makes clear how he sees it. The chapter on immigration demonstrates the problem with Mr. Levin. So much of his political outlook matches so
Show More
well the conservative's opinion, but his presentation is harsh, combative and radical in many ways. He is extreme, to say the least, and the modus of presentation of his arguments is generally arrogant and off-putting. Thus, few of those he attempts to influence, will listen or read him. Show Less
LibraryThing member cozyreader
It's pretty much preaching to the choir. Good stuff but not at all surprising to someone who's been around conservatism for a few decades. It's probably a good summary of a lot of conservative thought for anyone who is new to it.
LibraryThing member pennsylady
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction"
( President R. Reagan)
Comprehensive historical review and evaluation of current events with focus on conservatism
4 ★ Favorite ♥
( President R. Reagan)
Comprehensive historical review and evaluation of current events with focus on conservatism
4 ★ Favorite ♥
LibraryThing member highlander6022
A great book to feed my radical right-wing conservative philosophy (at least according to the news media). Seriously, I did enjoy much of what the author says, although some of it I could leave behind too.
LibraryThing member SusanGrimesGilbert
This book is an excellent review of the history of the founding of the United States and the philosophy of its Constitution. The book presents a concise explanation of the "states' rights" philosophy that was in place at the time the Constitution was written to replace the Articles of
The author, Mark R. Levin, gives a clear explanation of the increase of the federal government powers from the time of Herbert Hoover up to present day. Levin also makes the case that if readers hope to maintain a federal government that values individualism and personal liberties over a government that wants to create a multi-layered structure to "take care of all the people"; now is the time to act. This is a truly excellent read.
Show More
Confederation. It also applies that philosophy to several current policy issues. The author, Mark R. Levin, gives a clear explanation of the increase of the federal government powers from the time of Herbert Hoover up to present day. Levin also makes the case that if readers hope to maintain a federal government that values individualism and personal liberties over a government that wants to create a multi-layered structure to "take care of all the people"; now is the time to act. This is a truly excellent read.
Show Less
LCC
JC573.U6 L48