A couple of excerpts will suffice to illustrate the tone of the review.

• The Physics of Star Trek: This book is perfect for people who aren’t well versed in physics, but need a reference point, such as Star Trek, to make it understandable. Numerous fascinating little nuggets, like the possibility that our universe could be a black hole in some larger universe.
• 40 Days and 40 Nights: Darwin, Intelligent Design, God, Oxycontin®, and Other Oddities on Trial in Pennsylvania: The title from this book comes from the fact that the Dover trial lasted 40 days and nights. It’s pretty much a blow by blow account of what went on in the trial and stays good until the last chapter, where it gets a little preachy. The author is Darwin’s grandson.

I recommend these and would love discussion in the comments on other peoples’ thoughts on them, as well as your recommendations.

Chapter Five – On Federalism, pp. 49-60

Before I start this chapter, I have a feeling that I’m going to be bored. This is probably going to be a short entry, because I find it hard to get exercised one way or the other about federalism. Then again, maybe Levin will make me go on a long digression, we’ll see.

We open with a description of the Constitutional Convention that is fairly accurate. A good start so far.

After a first paragraph in which describes the intent of the Framers’ in terms of a national government, he underscores the importance of the delineation of state and federal power by referencing the Tenth Amendment. (Which, of course, was not adopted in 1787, but rather ratified by the states after the adoption of the Constitution, but both Madison and Hamilton considered the Tenth Amendment to be superfluous so I’ll let this point slide.)

Next, Levin notes that “States are governmental entities that reflect the personalities, characteristics, histories, and priorities of the individuals who inhabit them.” This is true, as far as it goes. But states are also arbitrary lines on a map, reflecting two centuries of compromise over slavery and the western territories, some of which make more sense than others. There’s nothing really special about them. Consider this: HALF of the population of the state of New York, 8.4 million, lives in New York City. That’s a larger population than 38 of the 50 states. The ten least populated states, COMBINED, have a smaller population than New York City. So why is New York City “just” a City, while much smaller political entities are considered states? Just the circumstances of history. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.

Indeed, it’s this strange and arbitrary makeup of the states that led Alexander Hamilton to walk into the Constitutional Convention with a plan that virtually eliminated state sovereignty entirely.

Next, Levin makes the usual paeans to Federalism, which we’ve all heard before, but let’s let him talk:

States are more likely to better reflect the interests of their citizens than the federal government. Localities are even more likely to better reflect these interests because the decision makers come from the communities they govern–they are directly affected by their own decisions.

A couple things worth noting here.

1. These are empirical arguments. If they’re true, we ought to be able to somehow make a determination that this is so. But Levin doesn’t do that–he just asserts it.

2. This begs the question — why have a federal government at all? Levin’s only support, so far, seems to be that the Founding Fathers wanted it that way. I’m interested to see if he defends the federal government at all later on.

3. I actually don’t think that state and local government reflect their local constituents better. The fact of the matter is, people don’t really care much about local governments except when they’re screwing something up. I guarantee if you stopped 30 random people on the street in a normal sized suburb, they wouldn’t be able to name their mayor, City Councilmen for their district, or their State Representative. I’ll bet they CAN name the mayor of the nearest big city; the name of their governor, and the name of the President.

4. One of the reasons why people don’t care much about local government is because people move around much more than they used to. For my own part, I have lived in two states, worked in four, and lived in five different cities, and worked in seven different cities. And I doubt I’m that unusual. I have much stronger bonds of affection for my country than I do my city.

5. In many important issues involving civil liberties, it is the federal government that prevents the states from infringing on liberty, not the other way around. The federal government integrated before the states did. The federal government passed anti-lynching laws. The FBI has pretty much removed the grip that a lot of organized crime syndicates had over local governments. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Let me add to these notes that I’m not opposed to local jurisdictions having jurisdiction in some areas but not in others, nor do I think that local communities shouldn’t have any say in how they govern themselves. I just feel obligated to point out that the real world is a lot fuzzier and grayer than Levin implies.

Next Levin talks about one of the benefits of Federalism – the concept that the states can experiments with different policies, and thus inform each other and the federal government about better ways to do things. I agree that that’s a cool feature of the system.

After that, Levin discusses another benefit of federalism – mobility, which I alluded to earlier. The idea here is that “[i]ndividuals with widely divergent beliefs are able to coexist in the same country” because of diversity among states. I think that’s a pretty cool feature, too.

At this point, I’m starting to wonder whether I’m going to agree with Levin about the rest of the chapter! But wait… oh. Never mind.

However, one of the most dramatic events undermining state constitutional authority came with the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment on April 8, 1913. The Seventeenth Amendment changed the method by which Senators were chosen, from being selected by the state legislatures–ensuring that the state governments would have a direct and meaningful voice in the operation of the federal government–to direct popular election by the citizens of each state.

My colleagues Doug and Steven have done the legwork on the ridiculousness of this argument, so I’ll refer you here, here, and here.

I’ll only add one note of my own. Anybody who has ever bothered to read the notes on the debates over the Constitution knows that this idea that Senators being selected by State Legislatures wasn’t carefully crafted to preserve federalism. It was a last minute compromise. None of the major plans for the Constitution included this provision in it. Madison’s Virginia Plan called for Senators to be selected by the House! Hamilton’s plan called for Senators to serve for life, but they were to be selected by electors who were voted for by the people–not state legislators. The New Jersey Plan called for the Congress to remain as it was under the Articles of Confederation. The Pinckney Plan also had Senators selected by the House. The idea of State Legislatures selecting Senators came late in the game – in July of 1787 – under the “Connecticut Compromise.”

Next Levin goes on to criticize the Wickard v. Filburn decision, which in his words “swept away 150 years of constitutional jurisprudence.”

Nonsense.

Although much maligned in conservative/libertarian circles (in fact, I recall arguing against Wickard in my Constitutional law class!) the plain fact of the matter is that Wickard wasn’t a unanimous opinion for nothing. It was firmly in the bounds of the plain text of Constitution. The plain text of the Constitution grants the Congress the power to “regulate Commerce … among the several States” and the plain text of the Constitution grants the Congress the power to “make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers.”

In the case of Wickard, it was within Congress’s authority to regulate commerce by controlling the price of wheat. Congress determined that in order to so regulate the price, the amount of wheat grown had to be regulated. Thus, its prohibition against growing excess wheat for private use was perfectly Constitutional. (Whether it was a good policy is an altogether different question — it wasn’t. But that’s not the point here.)

Did this line of reasoning overturn “150 years” of jurisprudence? Hardly. Wickard relies on John Marshall’s 1824 decision in Gibbons v. Ogden, in which John Marshall describes the Commerce Power thusly:

If, as has always been understood, the sovereignty of Congress, though limited to specified objects, is plenary as to those objects, the power over commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, is vested in Congress as absolutely as it would be in a single government, having in its Constitution the same restrictions on the exercise of the power as are found in the Constitution of the United States.

Moreover, there is an even stronger basis for this line of reasoning in McCulloch v. Maryland, where Marshall noted:

Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.

This formulation is virtually identical to Alexander Hamilton’s defense of the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States way back in 1791, where Hamilton wrote:

If the end be clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to come within the compass of the national authority.

Thus there is a clear throughline of jurisprudence, starting with Alexander Hamilton’s defense of the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States, through the earliest decisions involving the Commerce Clause, right on down through Wickard.

After this, Levin then complains that the states have become “administrative appendages” of the federal government, and further complains that the “Statists” have constructed a “Fourth Branch of government” vis a vis adminstrative agencies. Both of these arguments have little merit. The Constitution is quite clear that the federal government has supreme authority within its powers. It has every right to ensure that the states abide by federal law. As to the Administrative State, while there’s no doubt that it’s become a large part of the federal government, a bureaucracy to manage the duties of the executive office was not only contemplated in the Constitution, but also part of the very first government. George Washington himself helped create the first executive offices from which the modern bureaucracy emanates.

Levin then spends a paragraph complaining about federal regulations, but its unclear as to what his solution is. The modern economy is large and complex. Regulating that economy requires complexity. I have no issues with streamlining federal regulations and have no doubt that some pruning could be done. That said, some regulations are necessary for a number of reasons, and to simply dismiss them all without addressing the problems for which the regulations are purported to solve is absurd.

Levin then goes on to make a decent point about federalism — namely, that it was to their credit that the northern states resisted federal authority vis a vis the Fugitive Slave Laws before the Civil War. I think that’s a good point and, as I mentioned above, I think there’s definitely some value to a certain degree of give and take between federal and state governments.

But in my mind, this give and take doesn’t have any moral merit. It’s purely one of utility. Whether the federal government or state or local government should be the leading authority in certain areas should be a matter of what works best — not some arbitrary distinctions. Frankly, it makes a lot more sense to me for the Federal government to be the dominant economic regulation. And I wish it did more. For example, it’s silly that, if you get a license to be say, an electrician in Oregon that you have to be re-licensed if you move to Pennsylvania. That kind of local economic regulation serves no useful function. Better that rules governing electricians be centralized. On the other hand, it doesn’t make much sense to me to have the federal government control natural parks — that seems to me to be something that makes more sense for the states to manage. Now, maybe I’m wrong on these two specific policy issues. But the point is that it doesn’t make sense to ascribe some sort of magical power to federalism. We should focus on what works instead.

Levin then goes on to what I think is an excellent point — it was precisely the adoption of the Constitution that did lead to the eventual end of slavery, that did lead to civil rights, etc etc etc.

I have to say that, overall, I found this chapter to be the most interesting of the book so far, and certainly the one with the most insightful points. It is also, and this is no coincidence, the chapter that so far has had the least references to the Statist boogeyman and its associated logical fallacies.

Levin closes with a quote from Madison, and so I’ll do the same:

“A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”

Next up is Chapter Six, entitled “On the Free Market”, which is over 30 pages long. I wager I’ll be doing this chapter in several parts. Until next time!

So what’s next? Well, several commenters here have stated that Glenn Beck shouldn’t be casually dismissed because “nobody addresses his arguments.” Very well, I accept the challenge.

It looks like Glenn Beck has four books on politics: Arguing With Idiots, Broke, Common Sense, and An Inconvenient Book. I am willing to read one of these, but only one. So, Glenn Beck fans, I ask you — which is the best one to read to get a sense of Beck’s arguments?

And now, for the rest of you – once I’m done reading Beck, who’s next? I’m not going to limit myself to conservative pundits, FYI. I’m more than happy to tackle everyone. So what recommendations do you have?

Chapter 4 – On the Constitution, pp. 36-48

Mark Levin has a law degree from Temple, has served in a legal capacity to the government and practiced as a private attorney. So I’ve actually been looking forward to reading his chapter on the Constitution. Whatever ignorance Mark Levin may display about history in his book, surely his treatment of the law and jurisprudence should have a nuance and thoughtfulness that you’d expect from someone who has expertise in the field, right?

Alas…..

We begin with a typical Levin non sequitur —

Language consists of words, words have ordinary and common meanings, and those meanings are communicated to others through the written and spoken word.

I don’t know why Levin keeps kicking off his chapters with this kind of pseudo-intellectual sounding nonsense sentences. Note to Mr. Levin: the ability to write a complex sentence is not, in and of itself, an expression of intelligence. The sentence still needs to be coherent and understandable. Additionally, brevity is always appreciated. Indeed, some thoughts don’t require communication at all. For example, the target audience for a book always includes people who are literate. It’s a fair bet that literate people are familiar with the concept of “words.”

But I digress.

Levin then goes on to explain that a Conservative (always with capital C, by the way, which annoys me to no end) “believes that much like a contract, the Constitution sets forth certain terms and conditions for governing that hold the same meaning today as they did yesterday and should tomorrow.” He then notes that “[t]o say that the Constitution is a ‘living and breathing document’ is to give license to arbitrary and lawless activism.”

As a point of fact, I don’t disagree with this. At all. Indeed, most legal scholars — left, right, libertarian and socialist — pretty much agree on this fundamental point. Indeed, I think Levin might actually be surprised to learn that in the realm of legal jurisprudence virtually nobody disagrees with this. Levin continues by stating that

The Conservative seeks to divine the Constitution’s meaning from its words and their historical context, including a variety of original sources — records of public debates, diaries, correspondence, notes, etc. While reasonable people may, in good faith, draw different conclusions from the application of this interpretative standard, it is the only standard that gives fidelity to the Constitution.

Once again, I don’t disagree with Levin. And again, very few legal scholars do! Now, if you thought this was going to lead into a nuanced discussion of the difference between the conservative interpretative framework championed by, for example, Justices White, Black and Scalia against frameworks by Justices such as Brennan, Holmes, and Brandeis well — you forgot whose book we were reading.

Once again, the Statist boogeyman appears. And this time — HE’S COMING FOR YOUR CONSTITUTION!!!!

The Statist is not interested in what the Framers said or intended. He is interested only in what he says and he intends.

Paging Mr. Pot. Mr. Pot… are you there?

Consider the judiciary, which has seized for itself the most dominant role in interpreting the Constitution.

I love how he used the word “seized,” as though there was some sort of recent coup, and not something that happened in 1803′s Marbury v. Madison decision. A Court decision that was, I might add, penned by John Marshall, who was part of the Virginia delegation that recommended to the House of Burgesses that the Constitution be adopted. (Defeating his political rival, Patrick Henry.) He was joined in this decision by William Paterson, who signed the Constitution; Samuel Chase, who signed the Declaration of Independence; and Bushrod Washington — George Washington’s nephew. I have a feeling that these Justices might have had some inkling of “what the Framers said or intended.”

Levin then goes on to criticize the jurisprudence of Justices Marshall and Goldberg for pursuing the “just result” as an approach for interpreting the Constitution. Seriously, I’m not kidding. This is a serious complaint. In Mark Levin’s world, the pursuit of justice is apparently not the job of a Supreme Court Justice!

This is, of course, an absurd position. One of the stated goals of the Constitution, as stated in its own preamble, is to “establish Justice.” Using justice as a criteria for Constitutional interpretation is right there in the text!

Levin then extends this criticism:

Or is not the Statist saying that the law is what he says it is, and that is the beginning and end of it? And if judges determine for society what is right and just, and if their purpose is to spread democracy or liberty, how can it be that the judiciary is coequal with the executive or legislative branch?

There’s a lot of nonsense to unpack in this statement. Clearly, when Justices Marshall and Goldberg referred to pursuing a just result, they did not claim that they were not bound by the law, nor did they claim to “determine for society what is right and just.” In any case that occurs before a Court, there is always a dispute. The role of a judge is to settle the dispute based on the law, and he is to interpret that law through the use of judicial precedent. But it is a long, long tradition in Anglo-American jurisprudence that judges take into account the justice of a situation when making their decision. Indeed, the Common Law is nothing but judge-made law designed to reach just results.

Based on this tradition, we trust the judge’s discretion and prudence to interpret the law in such a way as to produce a just result. Now, sometimes a judge can’t — there may be no way to interpret the law other than to reach a just result. And when that happens, you’ll often see a judge opine in favor of the aggrieved party even as the judge rules against that party. But when you have several valid interpretations of a law, a judge should go for one the produces the best result.

No doubt, this is a messy process. It’s a process that doesn’t always lead to consistent decisions and it adds a layer of risk to litigation. But relying on a judge’s discretion to find a just result is a principle that’s served the United Kingdom, the United States, and other Anglosphere countries well. What Levin seems to desire, on the other hand, is a rigid and literalist school of legal interpretation. This type of school, however, is a profoundly un-American one (in a historical sense) and much more in keeping with the Civil Law traditions of most European nations.

Also, and equally funny to me, where in the Constitution designated as “coequal with the executive or legislative branch”? Go ahead, I’ll wait while you look it up.

Couldn’t find it? That’s because it isn’t there. The idea that the branches of government are “co-equal” is an interpretation of the Constitution. It’s not in the original text.

After this, Levin keeps the Statist boogeyman going, ending with quite possibly my favorite line in the book so far.

And the Statist on the Court tolerates representative government only to the extent that its decisions reinforce his ends. Otherwise, he overrules it.

This is my favorite because I’m not sure where he’s going with it. Is Levin trying to say that any judicial decision that overturns a law passed by a legislative body is bad? Even if that law conflicts with the Constitution? He sure seems to imply that, doesn’t he? But this point goes unaddressed for the remainder of the chapter. Too bad, because I’m interested in learning whether this only applies to liberal decisions.

Levin then goes on to continue his previous attacks on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In particular, Levin attacks Roosevelt’s “Second Bill of Rights” speech, which was Roosevelt’s speech in 1944 in favor of more economic justice in the United States. Regardless of what one thinks of the merits of FDR’s policies, Levin’s attacks are hyperbolic and nonsensical.

This is tyranny’s disguise. These are not rights. They are the Statist’s false promises of utopianism, which the Statist uses to justify all trespasses on the individual’s private property. Liberty and private property go hand in hand. By dominating one the Statist dominates both, for if the individual cannot keep or dispose of the value he creates by his own intellectual and/or physical labor, he exists to serve the state.

I’m sorry, but this is crap. I will grant you that a Communist state, one where there is no private property at all, is inevitably going to be totalitarian. No question there. But Levin’s inability to distinguish market liberalism from Communism exposes a complete misunderstanding of the nature of both.

Let’s be clear on this. Property rights are important. Property rights should, to a certain degree, be respected. But they’re not inalienable, and they’re not on the same level of fundamental human rights such as freedom of speech or freedom of religion. Indeed, government can’t exist without some abrogation of the rights of property. Taxes violate the right of property. Eminent domain violates the right of property. The Constitution provides for both. Frankly, if you believe in absolute property rights, you can’t believe in government at all. Anarchism is the only logical end of a belief in absolute property rights.

This distinction between fundamental human rights and rights to property is one that many of the Founding Fathers’ acknowledged. Thomas Paine, for example, in his Agrarian Justice, argued that ownership of land was a social convention, and that nobody had a natural right to own it. Thomas Jefferson was well-read in Locke, but changed Locke’s formulation of “life, liberty and property” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Moreover, note that Levin includes in his formulation of property rights the “protection of intellectual… labor.” But this is another point where many of the Founding Fathers would disagree with Levin. The Constitution doesn’t allow for the protection of intellectual property as a matter of right. It allows for such protection in order to “promote science and the useful arts.” In other words, intellectual property is merely seen an an instrumental tool to improve social well-being — not a right to be protected. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson opposed any such intellectual property right as all. Despite being a prolific inventor, Thomas Jefferson said, in a letter to James Madison, that:

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Given that Levin has lauded Jefferson on several occasions thus far in this book, I doubt that Levin considers him a “Statist.” However, Levin’s views on private property are positively radical compared to those of Jefferson and many of his contemporaries.

The next four pages consist entirely of Levin denigrating the work of Robin West, Cass Sunstein, and Bruce Ackerman. But he doesn’t provide any reason why. He simply assumes that it’s self-evident that their ideas are wrong. (In fact, he quotes a long passage from Cass Sunstein about the reality of the role of the government in the economy that I couldn’t actually find fault with.)

Levin then actually tries something interesting. He actually makes an argument, rooting his argument for property rights in a natural law theory.

What differentiated man from the rest of the animal kingdom was, in part, his ability to adapt his behavior to overcome his weaknesses and better master his circumstances. It is how he makes his home, finds or grows food, makes clothing, and generally improves his life. Private property is not an artificial construct. It is endemic to human nature and survival.

I’m actually almost so flabbergasted that Levin’s making an argument here that I’m tempted to just leave it be, the way you put a 2 year old’s first drawing on the fridge without criticism, because it’s neat that they did something besides just scribble randomly.

But I can’t leave it be. I can’t. Because it’s wrong.

Here’s the thing — private property is an artificial construct. Human beings, by nature, are not farmers and city builders. They are hunter-gatherers. And virtually every hunter-gatherer society in history has communal, not private, property. What we think of as civilization — property, hierarchy, laws, science — are products of agriculture. (Jared Diamond has some excellent work on this very subject — I’d encourage that you read it.) Because agriculture forces human communities to remain rooted in one place, rather than nomadically following food, property was a development that enabled society to work. As Thomas Paine explains in Agrarian Justice:

There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that improvement was made.

Property rights, then, are a product of civilization — they are not endemic in the human condition. This doesn’t mean that property rights don’t exist at all, nor does it mean, as the radical leftists of the 60s put it that “all property is theft.” I would argue that one’s work in trade does produce a property right, and that the fruits of one’s labor should be protected from predation and theft. Nevertheless, not everyone’s property is produced through one’s labor. You might receive a gift. You might inherit. There is no natural means of deriving these rights — they’re simply respected through law and custom. As such, they are rights that are secondary to the more fundamental rights of life and liberty. Property rights are only worthy of protection insofar as they promote the general welfare of society. This was the position of the classical liberals of the Enlightenment, and is still the position of most modern liberals today. Levin’s view is a radical departure from Enlightenment thinking.

Indeed, Levin views people who share this way of thinking as

an arrogant lot who reject the nation’s founding principles. They teach that the Constitution should not be interpreted as the Framers intended–limiting the authority of government through “negative rights,” that is, the right not to be abused and coerced by the government; instead, they urge that the Constitution be interpreted as compelling the government to enforce “positive rights”

First of all, it’s false on its face to assume that Framers intended the Constitution merely as a means of protecting “negative rights.” The Constitution’s goals are defined in the preamble as:

to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity

This goes beyond merely “protecting rights.” Indeed, the Constitution had to be amended to force the government to protect free speech, freedom of religion, etc. And its clear that the early Founding Fathers had a vision of the country that went beyond Levin’s. Let’s take a look at the first ten years of our nation through the eyes of the first Five Congress’s. All of them passed at least one major piece of legislation that went beyond merely protecting the “right not to be abused and coerced by the government.”

• The First Congress passed an Act establishing the First Bank of the United States. A controversial institution whose goal, promoted by Alexander Hamilton, had the goals of providing a single unit of currency in the country, establishing credit for the United States, and resolving debts based on the currency issued by the Continental Congress. None of these goals had anything to do with protecting rights and had everything to do, in the eyes of Congress, with promoting the general welfare.

• The Second Congress passed the Postal Service Act, which established the United States Post Office. Again, this was all about promoting general welfare and not protecting rights.

• The Third Congress passed several laws directing the building of lighthouses along the East Coast.

• The Fourth Congress passed a law empowering the President to use the armed forces to enforce quarantines as necessary.

• The Fifth Congress passed the Marine Hospital Service Act, which established Federal hospitals for civilian merchant seamen and made other provisions for their relief and health.

As you can see, Levin’s idea that the intent of the Founding Fathers was to establish a government whose sole purpose is to protect rights is proven wrong by both the words of the Constitution itself and the acts of the first Congresses. The examples I listed above are just a fraction of the laws that were specifically adopted to improve the country — not merely to protect rights.

Indeed, Levin’s entire thesis, throughout this chapter, demonstrates that is political philosophy is not that of the Enlightenment classical liberals, but rather has its roots in the radical libertarianism that developed in the 1930s as a reaction to Roosevelt. Levin’s “conservatism” is the philosophy of Albert Nock, Isabel Paterson, and Rose Wilder Lane — NOT Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Adams, Paine, and Jefferson. And that’s fine, as far as it goes. If Levin wants to argue for his version of radical libertarianism, I’m willing to hear those arguments.

But the problem is, he doesn’t make those arguments. He makes assertions about the “way things ought to be”, wraps them in a flag, chisels them in stone, and pretends that the Founding Fathers delivered his philosophy from God, as spoken to his prophets on Mount Vernon. It’s dishonest and disgusting. And frankly, libertarians and conservatives both would do better to repudiate Levin’s dishonest defenses of their principles.

Levin closes his chapter with a quote from Frederic Bastiat. I’ve never cared for Bastiat, so I’d rather close with a quote on the importance of the judiciary from our first President, George Washington.

“Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government, I have considered the first arrangement of the Judicial department as essential to the happiness of our Country, and to the stability of its political system; hence the selection of the fittest characters to expound the law, and dispense justice, has been an invariable object of my anxious concern.”

Next time – we explore Levin’s thoughts on Federalism. Be there!

Chapter Three – “On Faith and the Founding” – pp. 24-35

We kick this chapter off with the type of paragraph that sounds incredibly deep and meaningful — if you’re stoned.

Reason cannot, by itself, explain why there is reason. Science cannot, by itself, explain why there is science.

Why not? Because, according to Levin

Reason and science can explain the existence of matter, but they cannot explain why there is matter. They can explain the existence of the universe, but they cannot explain why there is a universe.

Why can’t they? Levin doesn’t say. He simply asserts this. He goes on in the same vein for the laws of nature, life, and consciousness.

But here’s the thing — there’s actually quite a LOT of science and philosophy on the cutting edge working to explain all of these things! There are teams researching why matter came about. There are tons of physicists examining the origin of the universe. There’s lots of exciting work going on to explain the origin of life and the origin and nature of consciousness. Anyone who reads the occasional Discover or Scientific American at the airport knows this. Of course, why I’m surprised at Levin’s ignorance on this point when he’s ignorant of basic facts of American history is a mystery.

He then goes on to explain that:

Reason itself informs man of its own limitations and, in doing so, directs him to the discovery of a force greater than himself–a supernatural force responsible for the origins of not only human existence but all existence, and which itself has always existed and always will exist.

If you expected this to be the beginning of at least a basic set of arguments for the existence of a God, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. This isn’t the introduction to the argument. It’s the end. To Levin, the matter is self-evident. Which tells me he never even took an intro to philosophy course.

Mark Levin then goes on to assert that Natural Law exists — because Edmund Burke said there was. End of argument.

He then moves on to the beginning of a discussion about the faith of the Founding Fathers. He starts with the Declaration of Independence, which he notes states that “all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Of course, what Levin doesn’t mention is that the “endowed by their Creator” language was a political compromise. The original draft doesn’t include it. Nor does it include the reference to Divine Providence that Levin also mentions.

Levin then goes on to ask, “Is it possible that there is no Natural Law and man can know moral order and unalienable rights from his own reasoning, unaided by the supernatural of God?” Levin’s answer, unsurprisingly is no.

This position would, it seems, lead man to arbitrarily create his own morality and rights, or create his own arbitrary morality and rights–right and wrong, just and unjust, good and bad, would be relative concepts suceptible to circumstantial applications.

From here, Levin then goes on to point out that every major sacred text of every major world religion provides clear and undeniable statements of individual rights and liberties, not to mention a clear delineation of Natural Law.

Ha ha, just kidding! He doesn’t do that because none of the major religious texts have any mention of individual rights whatsoever. They’re a product of philosophy, not religion. Philosophy influenced by religion, to be sure. For example, the great Muslim legal scholar Ibn Rushd was one of the first people in the Western World to advocate equality between men and women. Other Muslim legal scholars first developed the idea of freedom of religion. Muslim commentators on the Stoics, Aristotle and other Greek philosophers also began some preliminary steps towards a philosophy of rights. Their writings were transmitted to Europe after the Crusades, where they influenced a number of western philosophers, notably Thomas Aquinas and Giordano Bruno, and later John Locke, who in many ways was the intellectual father of the American revolution.

But despite the religious origins of the philosophy of rights, the fact remains that the doctrine was fully developed through philosophy. No document which claims to be divine revelation makes any mention of the doctrine of individual rights. Period. So this entire line of argumentation by Levin is absolute nonsense.

After this nonsensical discussion of Natural Law, I have to admit that Mark Levin surprised me by providing a full paragraphs of history that is actually correct. He notes — rightly! — that the colonies were settled by different religious sects, and there was a wide spectrum of religious tolerance among them. The next paragraph is actually about 80% right, but then he blows it at the end:

But when [the colonies] bound themselves to the Declaration’s principles, they bound themselves to, among other things religious liberty. It is little understood that the Declaration was a declaration of political and religious liberty.

*sigh* No, it wasn’t. The concept isn’t discussed in the Declaration at all.

Levin then goes on to point out that Christianity is America’s dominant religion — another true fact! He also points out Judeo-Christian values influence American law — another true fact! We’re on a roll! Until, well, crap.

Christianity itself does not preach operational dominance over the body politic or seek justification from it

This would certain be a surprise to anyone who lived in a Christian country until, oh, the late 18th Century. I suppose that Levin has never heard of the Divine Right of Kings, the Inquisition, or Ecclesiastical Courts. This, Levin notes, is a contrast to Islam. So I suppose that in Mark Levin’s fantasy history of Spain, it was the Muslims who had an Inquisition and drove all the Christians and Jews out of Spain, rather than the reality that the Muslims who ruled Spain respected religious liberty, which lasted until Ferdinand and Isabella successfully drove all Muslims and Jews out of Spain. And I also suppose that in Levin’s world, Islam was the official religion of the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

In point of fact, it’s interesting that Levin should bring up the idea of Christianity not purporting dominance in the context of the Founding. Apparently Levin is completely unaware that a great number of American Tories were opposed to the Revolution on Christian grounds! Specifically, their opposition to the Revolution derived from Romans 13:1-2, which reads:

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.

To be sure, many of the Revolution’s supporters had interpretations of Romans 13 which they believed were consistent with the American Revolution (James Otis’ writings on this provide a good insight as to how Christian revolutionaries interpreted this passage). But this was a contentious issue at the time.

Mark Levin then goes on to note — rightly! — that the purpose of the First Amendment was to protect religious liberty. Indeed, I agree with Levin that is is one of the best things to come out of the Revolution, and the United States has a lot more religious tolerance than other nations, even if there have been some issues along the way.

The next couple of paragraphs just talk about how the Statist boogeyman doesn’t believe in individual rights or the supernatural blah blah blah blah.

After that, Levin begins his discussion of the rise of secularism, which he blames (naturally) on the New Deal. First, he notes that Justice Hugo Black’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education, which stated that the First Amendment forbids taxpayer subsidies of religions institutions was a “betrayal of America’s founding.” He blames this decision on Black’s dislike of the power of the Catholic Church — a dislike that Black shared with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, I might add. Because in Levin world, it’s impossible that two people might reasonably disagree about a Constitutional principle without some nefarious motive.

Mark Levin then laments the fact that religious teachings are no longer made in public schools. (I’m interested to see whether, later one, he supports public education, since many conservatives of his stripe don’t.) Why religious teaching in public school doesn’t violate the First Amendment isn’t something that Levin actually explains. He notes that states did at the time of the Founding, but that’s because until the 14th Amendment, the Bill of Rights didn’t apply to state governments, so this argument makes no sense.

Levin then goes on to say that a theocracy is not established if “certain public schools allow their students to pray at the beginning of the day”. But that’s bullshit. Some religions don’t include prayer. Some religious beliefs — like my own — prohibit public prayer. Some people aren’t religious at all. So prayer at the beginning of the day is a clear endorsement of a particular religious belief.

Levin also believes that theocracy isn’t established by “Christmas or Easter assemblies.” Which ignores the fact that only some Christians celebrate Christmas and Easter. And not all sects celebrate these holidays on the same day! Indeed, the date of Christmas and Easter have been the causes of struggle between different Christian sects! So even picking a date of say, December 25th for Christmas, is to endorse Catholics and Protestants to the exclusion of Eastern Orthodox Christians, who celebrate a different Christmas Day.

Levin also dismisses the idea that a public display of the Ten Commandments is a violation of religious liberty, despite the fact that different sects of Jews and Christians all have different versions of the Ten Commandments! If a Town puts up, say, the Catholic version of the Ten Commandments, it’s pretty much saying that Jews and Protestants aren’t a part of the community.

In Mark Levin’s world, these things are no big deal because they don’t “require people to worship against their beliefs”. But that’s wrong. This is another level entirely. If a government promotes one religion above others, that’s an establishment of religion even if free exercise is still permitted.

Levin then goes on to say that secularism is bad because it’s opposed to religion and religion is important but Statists hate it and blah blah blah. Levin then closes with a quote by Barry Goldwater, which he claims shows that Goldwater believed in a link between God and the Founding of this country. I’m going to close this post with a quote from Barry Goldwater that I like a whole lot more:

But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”

Amen to that.

Next time: Levin attempts to explain the Constitution!

Part three of a continuing series wherein Liberty and Tyranny is blogged.

A word about my blogging style for this project — all I’m doing is reading the book and writing as I go along. Everything is pretty much just my immediate reaction to the words on the page. Most of my factual references are going to be just what’s pulled off the top of my head, edited for accuracy when I’m done with the post. So if the writing appears to be a bit schizophrenic at times, that’s why. A large part of my reactions are going to be mood dependent and mercurial, so be prepared for that.

Okay, enough meta-commentary. On with the show!

Chapter 2 – “On Prudence and Progress” – pp 12-23

Mark Levin opens this chapter with an idea that I wholeheartedly agree with: armed revolution against the government of the United States at the present time is a bad thing. I am happy to agree with him on something.

This is the world’s oddest segue way into a meditation to answer the question “What kind of change, then, does the Conservative support?” I’m presuming he means political change since this is a political manifesto. He boils it down to “change as reform was intended to preserve and improve the basic institutions of the state.” This is as contrasted with the Statist boogeyman, who

“justifies change as conferring new, abstract rights, which is nothing more than a Statist deception intended to empower the state and deny man his real rights–those that are both unalienable and anchored in custom, tradition, and faith.”

I’d love to see an example of what Levin actually means by this, but it doesn’t appear yet that he’s interested in actually providing evidence to support his claims. No doubt that’s a Statist deception, too.

Okay, so what’s the “right kind” (pun intended) of change? According to Levin, it’s that

“prudence must be exercised in assessing change. Prudence is the highest virtue for it is judgment drawn on wisdom. The proposed change should be informed by the experience, knowledge, and traditions of society, tailored for a specific purpose, and accomplished through a constitutional construct that ensures thoughtful deliberation by the community.”

For some reason, this sparked in my head the words of William Lloyd Garrison in the first edition of The Liberator:

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

Sometimes, patience and prudence are the right path. But sometimes, you know, they’re just convenient covers for men to do nothing, you know? There’s a time and place for different attitudes. Sometimes prudence is called for. Sometimes we need radicals. Sometimes it’s better for change to come slow. Sometimes it needs to happen now. This applies to all kinds of social change — not just political change.

But I’m also intrigued by the concepts Levin invokes here, because they appear to be anti-free market! I’m interested to see how his Conservative reacts to creative destruction, rapid technological change, dance clubs, the internet, and rock music. Chapter six is entitled “On the Free Market” where I’m willing to bet that prudence isn’t discussed. But we’ll see. In the meantime, Levin’s description of change reminded me of the description of the government council in Ayn Rand’s Anthem, which rejected the invention of the light bulb because the world was still transitioning from torches to the candle, which had been invented a century prior….

A couple of paragraphs later, and we’re greeted with this sentence:

“The Conservative understands that Americans are living in a state of diminishing liberty–that statism is on the ascendance and the societal balance is tipping away from ordered liberty.”

This is an incredibly simplistic way of looking at the world. In most ways — not all ways, but most ways — Americans are freer now than they’ve ever been. Consider the country’s state at the Founding — only landowners could vote. Women couldn’t own property. Blacks were property. Native Americans were being murdered and having their land stolen from them. Asians were prohibited from immigrating into the country. Trials were short, provided very few protections for defendants, and most people accused of crimes were on their own when it came to representation. Most trades were locked down by guilds, which were protected by law. State chartered corporations dominated the economy. Government jobs were determined by who was in favor with the local party bigwigs. You couldn’t have a business open on Sunday or overnight. Blacks, Germans, Irish, and Italians were forbidden from even entering certain towns, or at least staying overnight in them.

Almost 250 years later, can you honestly tell me that people are less free than when the country was founded? The economy is enormously freer. Civil service is determined by merit, not political bootlicking. (Thanks for that, James Garfield Chester A. Arthur!) Women can own property and their husbands can’t rape them. Slavery has been abolished. Equal treatment is the law of the land. Immigration is no longer determined by race. Defendants have much more protection from the depredations of the State. Every citizen can vote regardless of whether they own land.

There are a lot of problems, to be sure. And the federal government, in the name of the “war on terror” has adopted an enormous number of illiberal, unconstitutional policies. But I’ll take today over 1790 in a heartbeat when it comes to personal liberty. There is no doubt in my mind that this is a freer country than it was in 1790. Hell, I’ll go so far as to say that we live in a freer country now than we did in 1990.

The next few paragraphs are more Statist boogeyman nonsense. Statists hate freedom. Statists hate the individual. Statists are “angry, resentful, petulant, and jealous.” Blah blah blah.

But it culminates in what might be one of the stupidest paragraphs I have ever read in my entire life:

The Statist’s Utopia can take many forms, and has throughout human history, including monarchism, feudalism, militarism, fascism, communism, national socialism, and economic socialism. They are all of the same species — tyranny. The primary principle around which the Statist organizes can be summed up in a single word — equality.

Do I even need to explain how stupid this is? Does Levin really think that fascism, feudalism, and monarchism are expressions of equality? Or that American liberals support anything like the idea that the individual needs to “abandon his own interests for the ambitions of the state”?

I am banging my head into my desk here.

The next couple of paragraphs are about how liberals, and Barack Obama in particular, hope that the “individual surrenders himself to the all-powerful state.” I went into this in detail in the last post, but it remains unfair and ignorantly Manichean.

The next part made me laugh, because it’s a paragraph about how what makes America special and better than Europe is that it doesn’t have any type of class aristocracy. I laugh at this because of our first ten Presidents, two of them were Adams. We’ve had two Presidents Bush and two Presidents Roosevelt. Several Kennedys have held public office. Al Gore was a Senator — just like his dad. Vice President Dan Quayle’s son, Ben Quayle, is a Congressman. And that’s just off the top of my head — there are lots more examples, and I haven’t even scratched the surface of the business world. But it’s enough to note that the United States has pretty low social mobility compared to other countries. In other words, you’re more likely to be stuck in the same economic class that your parents were in the United States than you are in Canada, where you’re more likely to move up the economic ladder.

No aristocracy in America, indeed.

The next paragraph is a tirade against international institutions. Never minding, I suppose, that the United States was an early adopter of internationalism as a means to promote trade, fight piracy (the aar matey kind, not the music kind) and establish codes of conduct during armed conflicts. They’re a proud part of our American heritage — which is why treaties are considered to be a higher law of the land under our Constitution than acts of Congress are.

The next two paragraphs are an indictment of all academics, who serve as “missionaries” for “the Statist.” Something that no doubt comes as a surprise to my academic colleagues here at OTB. One thing he rails against in particular is that through academics students learn through “distortion and repetition” such falsehoods as “corporations as polluters, the Founding Fathers as slave owners, the military as imperialist, etc.”

Except I’m not sure what he’s getting at. Many of the Founding Fathers were slaveowners. Is he denying that? Lots of corporations did and do pollute! Is he denying that? The United States has fought imperialist wars — which is why Texas, Arizona, California, and New Mexico are a part of the Untied States right now and not Mexico. Does he think that the history of the Mexican War is all made up and we really just hired a realtor to make a sweet land deal or something?

The next couple of paragraphs lambast actors and the media in their roles as tools of Statists. So I’m looking forward to hearing about how much he hates Ronald Reagan in later chapters, since he was both an actor and a broadcaster. (And a union leader! But there haven’t been any tirades against unions in the book so far.)

Levin closes the chapter with a quote from C.S. Lewis that actually isn’t bad, but I’ll close this edition of the blog review with this much better one from the same author:

What can you ever really know of other people’s souls — of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole of creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculation about your neighbours or memories of what you have read in books.

I think that Levin should meditate on that the next time he’s tempted to create a straw man villain and use it to condemn his fellow citizens.

Next time – it’s Mark Levin’s chapter on religion!

Part two of a continuing series wherein Liberty and Tyranny is blogged.

Chapter 1 – pp. 4-11 (hardcover edition)

Since this is a Conservative Manifesto, and Manifestos tend to manifest against something, and we live in polarized times, I’m sure it’s not hard to guess what comes next. Liberal Bashing.

“The Modern Liberal,” according to Levin, “believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration” and further believes that “the individual’s imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state.” Is it even worth explaining how silly it is to think that liberals reject the Declaration of Independence and want an all-powerful state? Are the liberals who spoke out against torture during the Bush Administration representative of the “supremacy of the state”? Is Glenn Greenwald advocating an all-powerful state when he argues against pervasive surveillance and violations of the laws of war? Is Matthew Yglesias advocating for an all-powerful state when he calls for an end to most rent-seeking, zoning regulations, and licensure laws? It’s absurd and empirically, demonstrably false.

Levin then goes on to state that “it is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the Modern Liberal as a Statist.”

This is, of course, nonsense. In the broad strokes, there’s actually quite a bit of political consensus in the United States — much more so than in other countries. Most of the heavy fighting is on the margins, and is over social issues. Because American institutions don’t really allow for multi-party systems, in modern times people have a tendency to pick a camp and stick with it, because that’s where political authority is. To write off half the country as “Statists,” rather than fellow citizens with whom one disagrees about politics is an incredibly ignorant, naive, Manichean worldview.

After this little tidbit, we are then given a completely false picture of America from 1789 to 1932 as a nation where “Federal power was confined to that which was specifically enumerated in the Constitution and no more.”

Except for, of course, the Bank of the United States. And the Second Bank of the United States. And the Louisiana Purchase. And the Trail of Tears. And the annexation of Spanish Florida. And the French Embargo. And the Alien and Sedition Acts. And the Palmer Raids. And the Espionage Act of 1917. And President Cleveland using the army to stop the Pullman Strikes.

And that list is just off the top of my head. While there were definitely politicians who thought that the enumerated powers should be adhered to strictly, the fact of the matter is that throughout American history, most politicians have broadly interpreted the Constitution along Alexander Hamilton’s lines, and quite a few have simply ignored the Constitution altogether. To say that Federal power was limited until 1932 requires, basically, not cracking open a single history book. Ugh.

Levin then goes on to castigate the New Deal as the time when “the Statists successfully launched a counterrevolution that radically and fundamentally altered the nature of American society.” I find the rhetoric here and in the paragraphs that follow because they imply that the New Deal was some sort of conspiratorial horror imposed from above on an unwilling American populace, rather than a wildly popular set of initiatives, many of which survive to this day, but were hardly unprecedented — large scale federal intervention in the economy began with the Bank of the United States and the Federal government’s supplantation of the state role in many areas of economic regulation began in the 1870s with the Interstate Commerce Commission. And while federal economic regulation suffered some setbacks with the Lochner v. New York decision imposed during the Gilded Age, it still moved largely unchecked and most of the New Deal can find predecessors in the Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Coolidge, and Hoover Administrations. It’s not like the New Deal sprang up magically overnight.

Again, Levin’s knowledge of history appears to be sorely lacking, which is easily the most frustrating thing about reading this book. Also, I have 199 pages to go, which is terrifying right now. But I’m not going to abandon this project, so let’s press on to the post-New Deal stuff.

No, wait, I have to stop here. There’s one line that’s incredibly annoying:

Ironically, industrial expansion resulting from World War II eventually ended the Great Depression, not the New Deal. Indeed, the enormous tax and regulatory burden imposed on the private sector by the New Deal prolonged the economic recovery.

Okay, no, this is crap. Virtually every economist who’s studied the Great Depression noted that the length of the depression in most countries was linked to how long they kept the Gold Standard. Milton Friedman, Ben Bernakke, and Christina Romer all agree on this point, and if you have consensus between these three, you’ve got a decent chance of noting the correct cause of recovery. Hoover’s stubborn insistence on hanging on to the outdated gold standard prolonged the deflation of the dollar and that deflation prolonged the Depression. Upon abandoning the Gold Standard in 1933, the economy surged. Unemployment dropped from 25% to 11%. The economy continued to improve until 1937 recession, when Roosevelt cut federal spending significantly in an attempt to balance the budget. And the idea that World War II somehow magically made the economy better is a charge that’s often asserted, but rarely supported.

Okay, now let’s move on.

For the next few pages, Levin mostly talks about the Statist boogeyman, who “has an insatiable appetite for control”, “speaks in the tongue of the demagogue”, and is constantly “concocting one pretext and grievance after another to manipulate public perceptions”.

Another note about Levin’s style. Apart from his love of italics, he also so far appears to be immune to irony.

At any rate, he keeps blah blah blahing in this tone as he builds up his Statist boogeyman. A boogeyman who appears to exist entirely in Levin’s imagination, at least in the American context. My favorite bit is this, though:

As 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.

Does Levin think this is actually happening in the United States? Seriously? And keep an eye on the line “the individual must be drained of uniqueness and self-worth, and deterred from independent thought or behavior”, because I know…. I just know that later on in the book, we’re going to find this idea come head to head with Levin’s earlier assertion that “the individual has a duty to respect…the values, customs and traditions, tried and tested over time and passed from one generation to the next, that establish society’s cultural identity.” At least, I hope so, because that’s going to be really fun.

At any rate, in the next couple of paragraphs Levin takes a swipe at Michael Gerson, David Brooks, and William Kristol, whom he refers to as “neo-Statists” and not really conservative. He then goes on to describe the solution to the Statist devil as, of course, Conservatism, which he states is the “antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.”

Except that based on the first chapter, I’m going to hypothesize that what Levin sees as “founding principles” are nothing like what the Founding Fathers had in mind. And also that what he sees as “Conservatism” is pretty much limited to “Mark Levinism”.

Coming Next: Chapter Two – which features Burke! And Hoffer! Will they be taken out of context to prove points they had no intention of making? Stay tuned to find out!

A few days ago, I realized that I have, in some way, shape or form, been actively blogging about politics for almost ten years, which is a rather staggering amount of time — almost a third of my life, actually, which is kind of scarier. And for the past few weeks, people I know in “real life” have discovered this. (I usually don’t talk about politics unless directly asked–politics is for the internet. Also, when it comes to controversy, I prefer to stick to more enjoyable subjects in person, like religion). Inevitably, when someone discovers I write about politics, and they are also into politics, I’m always asked what I think of Glenn Beck/Keith Olbermann/Ann Coulter/Joe Scarbrough/Michael Moore etc etc etc. To which I invariably reply that I don’t watch TV pundits. Nor do I listen to opinion talk radio shows apart from the Scottish Calvinist preacher who sermonizes on one of the Christian stations. He’s awesome in his pure Calvinism.

Since this information is often greeted with shock, followed by exhortations to watch a favorite pundit or read one of their books.

Having given this some thought, it occurs to me that I might be missing something from the tenor of American politics, since I pretty much only interact with it through blogs, magazine pieces and straight news reporting. So I decided to embark on a project to pay more attention to the pundits. And blog about it. This is probably bad for my sanity, but losing my mind and blogging about it is probably good for pageviews so James will be happy.

I realized right away that there’s no way that I will be able to interact with pundits through the prism of radio or TV. Both formats are just TOO SLOW and not nearly as information dense as reading. So reading books it is.

So over the next few months or years, I’ll be reading books written by radio/TV pundits and blogging them. First up is Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, which I selected based on the fact that it was on an endcap at my local library. Mark Levin is a former lawyer and now a talk radio host of a show I’ve never listened to. I have also never read any of his op-eds, although it appears he’s written a few here and there. He also got into some sort of internet tussle with Conor Friedersdorf a while back. I’m a fan of Conor’s, but I’ll try not to let that bias me to much. Liberty and Tyranny is, as it turns out, a pretty good book to start this project with, both because of its bold decision to feature a burning flag on the cover as well as the fact that it was a New York Times best seller.

Okay, that’s quite enough introduction for now. Let’s take a look at the book.

* * *

Chapter 1 – On Liberty and Tyranny

Levin starts out by noting that there’s no way to define conservatism, so even though his book is subtitled “A Conservative Manifesto”, what’s really being presented are Levin’s own views about what it is to be a conservative. This takes up the first two paragraphs, and is quite possibly one of the most boring ways to start out a non-fiction book I have ever read. But let’s press on.

The next few paragraphs are an attempt by Levin to equate conservative ideas with the ideas of the Founding Fathers (and Edmund Burke), particularly that both groups of folks are influenced by Adam Smith, Charles Montesquieu, and John Locke. Which is pretty much what you’ll find in an 8th Grade history textbook. And, like an 8th Grade History textbook, it completely misses any nuance, sophistication, or support for its assertions.

Here’s the thing. Lately I have been having issues with the term “Founders” or “Founding Fathers” because it’s pretty nebulous and undefined. There’s Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who signed the Declaration of Independence but had no involvement in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison did a lot of the heavy lifting in drafting the Constitution but neither signed the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense and worked for the Continental Congress but pretty soon became a persona non grata thanks to his religious views. Patrick Henry gave the famous “Liberty or Death” speech but was also one of the most articulate voices against adopting the Constitution. Which of these are “Founders”? All of them? None?

Even if we accept all of these men as “Founding Fathers” (which I think most would), to say that they disagreed on fundamental political principles is the height of understatement. And an attempt to put together the varying strains of conservative thought under the same “Founders” rubric is overly simplistic and misguided.

Levin then goes on to explicate his Conservative political philosophy through the lens of traditional social contract theory, where “the individual is recognized and accepted as more than an abstract statistic…[and] is free to discover his own potential and pursue his own legitimate interests, tempered, however, by a moral order that has its foundation in faith and guides his life and all human life through the prudent exercise of judgment.” (The italics are in the original. If there’s one thing I’ve gotten out of the first few pages of this book, it’s that Mark Levin loves italics.)

Levin goes on to express the rather strange notion that people have a “duty to respect the unalienable rights of others” — so far so good, and I’m with him there — “and the values, customs, and traditions, tried and tested over time and passed from one generation to the next, that establish society’s cultural identity.” And there he loses me. There are, after all, lots of “values, customs, and traditions” that are in conflict with respecting the rights of others. Moreover, in a diverse society such as here in the United States, there are lots of different “values, customs and traditions” — not all of them compatible. So what should the individual do? Levin doesn’t answer that question in this chapter (or even address it, for that matter). I’m interested to see if he picks it up later, but given the four pages of long, banal platitudes that have constituted this book so far, I’m not going to bet on it.

The next paragraph leads me to believe that Mark Levin has lived his entire life in his basement, shut away from the world, with no concept of history, economics, or how the world works. This is a brief discussion of the “right to acquire and possess property”, which he defines as representing “the fruits of [one's] own intellectual and/or physical labor”, the “illegitimate denial” of which is akin to slavery. This, obviously, begs several questions, and I’m flabbergasted by the naive, simplistic, elegantly self-contradictory description of property in this paragraph. So rather than spend too much time trying to unpack it, I’m going to cross my fingers and hope he comes up with a more rational basis for property later. If not, I may come back to this in a later post. Property is way more complicated than this.

At any rate, that’s enough for now. Stay tuned for our next exciting blog installment, in which we learn what Levin’s Manifesto is manifesting against.

Andrew O’Hagan takes to the London Review of Books to offer an unflattering take on some modern war novels:

The problem with having no problem is that caution isn’t seen as anything other than cowardice, a rude philosophy that may have reached its zenith in the novels of Andy McNab. To say that this former SAS man’s view of the world is unhinged is only to observe that it constitutes an entirely accurate representation of the world as seen by many decorated soldiers. That is the reason men who don’t ordinarily read have come in great numbers to love the insiderish bravado of McNab and Chris Ryan. Their books are driven by stereotype and cartoon violence, by idiocy, prejudice and unreality, which is why they are inadvertent masterpieces of social realism, for in their garish video-game manners they enclose their subject. McNab and Ryan fully meet the present culture’s demand for the seemingly real, though it’s a reality centred on complete fantasy. Like Method actors, they have done their stint in the realm of the actual, have tasted the fare of which they speak, being former soldiers, decorated men who write under aliases. Who knows how many of the sentences in their books were actually generated by them, but that is not the kind of authenticity that matters in this kind of authorship. Each writer has been embedded with the fantastical elements of modern war – they have lived the virtual lives they write about – and that makes them the right kind of war novelist for this kind of generation. The only thing that could kill their books – reduce their relevance, vanish their massive audience – would be to make them better written. Their lousiness is their genius.

People have always liked a soldier who dreams of his typewriter. Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon are a staple of the National Curriculum, and Evelyn Waugh saw the possibility of comedy in the matter before anybody else, his William Boot a writer keen to make the rat-tat-tat of his typewriter fall into sync with the sound of gunfire over the hill. In America, a season in France or a period in the foothills of Spain was once thought to be a rite of passage for a first-rate writer of prose, and after the Second World War, every male contender – William Styron, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, James Jones, Joseph Heller – had done some service and wanted to write literary masterpieces filled with the perfumes of combat. It is only in more recent times that the task of writing novels about battle has fallen chiefly to bad writers. It might describe changes in our habits, our needs, or in the nature of war itself, but writing about combat is now the province of people who adore the violence they capture.

If you’re in a novel by Andy McNab, you don’t have hair you have a barnet. You don’t eat dinner you stuff your face. You don’t visit the loo you take a slash. You don’t go to bed you get your head down. You don’t speak rot you talk bollocks. Things are not broken they are knackered, and into every life a rain of bullets must fall. The authorly persona lives in a world where everybody who isn’t his main protagonist is a tosser – especially writers, one imagines – and his warrior is always battleworn and often down on his luck at the start of the book. He knows things that nobody else can guess at and soon finds himself involved in a mission impossible.

The review is three years old but just bubbled to my awareness by the gang at The Browser, possibly by accident (it’s in their RSS feed by not the linked page).  I actually bought a few McNab novels a while back, seeing them recommended somewhere, but never got around to reading them.  O’Hagan has piqued my curiosity.

His central thesis is that these are books for people who like video games.   But I’m not sure that everything has to be “literature.”   These seem a natural evolution of the genre popularized by Frederick Forsyth and Tom Clancy, if perhaps a bit less cerebral.

“It is impossible to read Dirty, Sexy Politics and come away with the impression that you have read anything other than the completely unedited ramblings of an idiot.”

That’s the thesis statement of Leon Wolf‘s critique of Meghan McCain’s new book for The New Ledger.   Some snippets:

[I]t is clear to everyone who has read Meghan McCain’s twitter feed, her “articles” on The Daily Beast, or her ill-fated campaign blog that Meghan is not a not a paragon of clear reasoning, exemplar of familiarity with facts, nor a model of English language expertise.  And after subjecting myself to 194 continuous pages of her “writing,” it became clear that none of the above-described works truly plumbed the depths of mental vacuity in which Ms. McCain aimlessly and cluelessly drifts.

[...]

In the final analysis, however, I determined that most of Meghan’s flaws – such as her unbearable narcissism, delusions of persecution, anti-religious bigotry, and mendacity – couldn’t be chalked up to her manifestly below-average intelligence.  These are blameworthy traits born of a malfunctioning moral compass, and they are laid bare in spades on every page of Dirty, Sexy Politics.  Furthermore, it is important to address them because Meghan McCain’s book is an active attempt to split the Republican Party in two and thereby destroy its ability to win elections.  And even though she is an idiot, she is a useful idiot in the hands of the media and other assorted Democrats, who also want to achieve this goal.

[...]

The most obvious problem with Dirty, Sexy Politics is that grammatically, the book appears to be the work of a high school sophomore.  To be more accurate, it appears to be the first draft of an essay written for a high school English class; the one turned in before the teacher makes all the pretty red marks in the margin that helpfully keep students from turning in final papers riddled with comma abuse, sentence fragments, and incorrect punctuation.  Each subsequent page of this book contains one grisly crime against the English language after another.

[...]

When I finished reading Dirty, Sexy Politics, I flipped to the acknowledgements section to find the name of the person who edited this travesty, so as to warn incompetent authors of the future away from utilizing this person’s services, but no such person was identified therein. Either this book had no editor, or the editor assigned to the original manuscript threw up his or her hands three pages in and decided to let the original stand as some sort of bizarre performance art, like Joaquin Phoenix’s appearance on Late Night with David Letterman.

[...]

Meghan’s primary goal in writing Dirty, Sexy Politics appears to have been to show off her encyclopedic knowledge of who was wearing what clothes on what occasion. From all appearances, it is physically impossible for Meghan McCain to describe a given scene or occurrence without describing in detail what everyone in the room was wearing (and how their hair was done), most especially including herself.

[...]

On the whole, I am simply not a talented enough writer to express how truly horrible this book was. The last line of the book implores readers not to let Meghan “pick up this torch alone.” I can honestly say that I was encouraged throughout to pick up a torch in order to burn my copy of Dirty, Sexy Politics, even though I was reading it on a Kindle.

There’s an excellent chance I won’t be reading this book.

Wilder Publications puts the following warning label on its reprints of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, Common Sense, the Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers, Fox News reports:

The key passage: “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work.”

Why would they do this?

Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, says the company may be trying to ensure that oversensitive people don’t pull its works off bookstore or library shelves. “Any idea that’s 100 years old will probably offend someone or other,” Olson told FoxNews.com. “…But if there’s anything that you ought to be able to take at a first gulp for yourself and then ask your parents if you’re wondering about this or that strange thing, it should be the founding documents of American history.”

You’d think. Not surprisingly, this move has been controversial.

Amazon.com’s customer reviews of Wilder’s copy of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of Confederation show an overwhelming number of people speaking out against the disclaimer, describing it as “insulting,” “sickening” and “frankly, horrifying.”

Another review for Wilder’s edition of the Federalist Papers calls for an all-out boycott of the publisher, sarcastically pointing out the “dangerous ideas” it’s trying to protect children from: “limited government, checks and balances, constrained judicial review, dual sovereignty of states and federal government, and deliberative democracy.”

Well, certainly, those are ideas new to people watching how American government has actually operated in recent decades. . . .

At any rate, the thing that first struck me about the warning label is the 2007 copyright.  So, apparently, this thing has been circulating for three years and just now drawing attention.

As to the merits of the warning label, it’s no doubt true that the world of the 1760s, 1770s, and 1780s was radically different from today’s in terms of race and gender relations, much less sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations.  Offhand, though, I can’t recall much discussion of any of these issues in the founding documents, with the glaring exception of race (mostly in the context of slavery) and (largely by omission) gender.

But am I offended by this innocuous statement being affixed to such esteemed documents?  No.   Would I buy them from Wilder?   Again, no.  Then again, who is it that’s paying for copies of these documents?  They’re small and in the public domain, widely circulated in free print editions and available online in pretty much any format you could want.  Mostly without warning labels!

Re-reading is much underrated. I’ve read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold once every five years since I was 15. I only started to understand it the third time.

I’m pretty sure that this contradicts the entire premise of Gladwell’s bestseller, Blink, but I’ve only read it once.  Scanning Gladwell’s own Q&A on the book, however, would seem to confirm my first impression — which, ironically, confirms the book but contradicts the advice on re-reading.

In fairness, I was only able to confirm this by re-reading — so there’s some value in it.  But maybe I need to read it a third time to be sure?

Boing Boing‘s Mark Frauenfelter reproduces some of his favorites, including exchanges with the National Hobo Association, Manson Family member Susan Atkins, OJ lawyer Robert Shapiro, and Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles.

While “Billy’s” letters were often insipid and insulting, the responses — at least those selected by Frauenfelter — were unfailingly polite and helpful.  Shapiro’s was the funniest and Atkins the saddest.  But all of them advised Billy to study hard, mind his parents, and treat people well.

AP summarizes some of the other exchanges:

• Attorney General Janet Reno, writing to settle the issue of whether Batman or the Terminator is the better crime fighter: “I read Batman comics when I was your age so I know of his efforts to fight crime better than I know of the Terminator’s work.”

• Former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, on Billy’s run for third-grade class president:  “You may be on the verge of a great political career. The first office for which I ever ran and won was as president of my third grade class! You, too, may become a governor and run for the presidency!”

• Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, advising Billy on whether he should dig a moat around his treehouse to keep his enemies away: “It will work if you dig it deep enough; and your enemies can’t swim!”