Last Friday I did the unthinkable and watched Sean Hannity’s show because I knew he was going to have Mark Levin on for the whole hour. The subject of the program was Levin’s new book, “The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic.”
Notwithstanding Levin’s cozy relationship with McCain-loving, Graham-loving, Austan Goolsby-loving Hannity, notwithstanding his inability to understand that libertarianism (as his former boss and idol Ronald Reagan once said) is the heart and soul of conservatism, and notwithstanding his childish rudeness to guests who try to make points with which he disagrees, Levin is still in a class by himself when it comes to making an unyielding case for liberty.
While it irritates me no end when someone of Levin’s intellect displays unbridled ignorance in badmouthing good men like Ron Paul and Grover Norquist, it does not change the fact that he has the courage to say things that no one else on radio or television would dare to say – and says them with an in-your-face passion that lets the enemy know the gloves are off.
But even more important than this pugnacious personality, Levin is a true scholar with a vast storehouse of knowledge about government, liberty, the Constitution, American history and more. On Hannity’s show, with a small but high-profile audience of conservatives, he was on his best behavior and talked more like the scholar he is rather than a hysterical redneck.
The focus of Levin’s book is that the states should invoke Article V of the Constitution and call for a convention as a way of bypassing the criminal class in Washington and passing 10 “Liberty Amendments” to the Constitution that would “reset the rules of the American system.” These include such noble ideas as establishing term limits for both Congress and Supreme Court justices, limiting federal spending and taxes, cutting the federal bureaucracy down to size and “promoting free enterprise.”
To be sure, Levin’s book will excite millions of readers who desperately want to restore America and save themselves and their families in the process. Unfortunately, however, the excited millions I am referring to comprise only a small fraction of the people who vote – and most of those voters not only won’t read his book, but have little or no knowledge of what has happened, and is happening, to America. Or, if they do have knowledge, they don’t want anything to change.
That’s why the Demopublicans will soon be raising the debt ceiling again. It’s why the Demopublicans will not defund Obamacare. It’s why the Demopublicans will continue to increase the federal bureaucracy rather than decrease it. It’s why the Demopublicans will continue to raise taxes. It’s why the Demopublicans will continue to increase spending. And it’s why the Demopublicans will block any attempt to amend the Constitution in any way that even vaguely resembles Levin’s Liberty Amendments.
To reset America’s system would first require resetting the American psyche – meaning the psyches of millions of individuals. As things now stand, most Americans have totally bought in to Washington’s doublespeak. Even the most passionate conservatives, though they love to prate on about the efficacy and morality of freedom and free markets, start with the premise that government, to one extent or another, is an important part of the solution.
Today’s American psyche is all about compassion. But when Demopublicans talk about compassion, they mean group compassion, which, in real terms, means forced compassion. And forced compassion is not compassion at all. It’s nothing more than an excuse to violate individual liberty. The only hope for people who think like this is to reset their psyches.
It’s all about people taking seriously the idea that government has the power to “get the economy moving” – let alone the moral right to do so. The only hope for people who think like this is to reset their psyches.
It’s all about fairness, the most subjective word ever invented. Who decides what’s “fair”? Politicians and the media, of course. And most people buy into this without a wimper. The only hope for people who think like this is to reset their psyches.
It’s all about food stamps, unemployment benefits, free cell phones, free this and free that. We are told that the only thing that needs to be corrected in these programs is “waste, fraud and abuse.” The only hope for people who think like this is to reset their psyches.
It’s all about the growing gap between the rich and the poor – a perfectly natural aspect of freedom that is neither good nor bad. Yet the vast majority of Americans believe there is something inherently bad about this natural consequence of free markets, and they want government to “do something about it.” The only hope for people who think like this is to reset their psyches.
The list is as long as you want to make it, but you get the idea. Levin is right. Resetting the system by calling for a convention of states to amend the Constitution is a great idea, but the reality is that you can’t amend the Constitution in ways that are contrary to the psyches of a majority of the population.
Is it possible to reset the psyches of tens of millions of people? Yes and no. Neither you nor I can do it. The only way people’s psyches can be reset is either through a brutal dictatorship that strips them of all of their remaining freedoms or decades of misery living in a government-controlled economy that emphasizes redistribution of wealth and makes them as poor as church mice.
People in Russia understand. People in China understand. People in Vietnam understand. People in the United States do not. Perhaps after 30 or 40 years of misery they will. But not now. I tip my hat to Mark Levin for fighting the good fight and writing an excellent book, but until the psyche of the average American is reset, the American system cannot be reset. In the meantime, things will continue to get worse, not better.
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