Man of the Year 2009: Mark Levin

Though the egregiously biased and transparently liberal Time Magazine picks their Man of the Year based upon sheer newsworthiness without regard to whether the recipient had a positive or negative impact, I do not share their lack of concern for the results.  My Man of the Year nomination can only go to someone who has made positive contributions to my country.

Every conservative in America should be familiar with Mark Levin.  If you do not know him you are missing out on perhaps the sharpest mind in conservatism, and you are doing a disservice to yourself by not taking advantage of his knowledge and deep intellect.  The more you listen to “the Great One”, as his good friend Hannity calls him, the more prepared you will be to intellectually battle those on the left who seek to make us all slaves to the State.

Before early 2009 my exposure to Mark was limited to seeing him once or twice on Hannity & Colmes and hearing him call into Hannity’s radio show a few times.  To be completely honest, though it was obvious that he is brilliant, I considered him a little obnoxious.  Then last January, after the inauguration of the least qualified president in US History, I discovered the Mark Levin Radio Show podcast and started listening to it on my Zune whenever I was driving.  Being from the Atlanta area, I grew up listening to Neal Boortz, and I went through periods of listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and Martha Zoeller, but with a demanding job as a software developer I could not sit around and listen to their shows live.  My job simply requires too much concentration.  Additionally, coming from the libertarian side of conservatism I had little patience for GOP talking points and defense of their watered-down conservatism.

Unlike most of the rest of the syndicated conservative radio hosts, however, Mark Levin provides his radio show in podcast form for free.  In fact, it is almost always posted on his web site within 30-45 minutes of the end of the show, which runs live from 6-9pm eastern time.  Free access to his radio show in podcast form allows people like me to listen to his show when convenient, and I typically listen to the previous evening’s show the next morning while commuting.  In addition to clearly articulating the positions that I have been espousing for years, to a certain extent he has also restored my faith in my fellow Americans.  On his Friday show he closes with Ray Charles’ incredible version of America, and though I would initially skip it to get to those last three minutes of his show, now I listen to it and take strength from it.

In the spring of 2009, Mark released the most significant political book written in my lifetime.  The book, Liberty and Tyranny, is simply brilliant.  In one rather short book he very cogently brings together the most important concepts and historical perspectives of conservatism and American liberty that I have ever seen, and I have been reading the works of thinkers like Friedman and Hayek, as well as our founding documents and the Federalist Papers, for 20 years.  The fact of the matter is that if you are conservative and have not read Liberty and Tyranny, you are truly doing yourself a disservice.  Carefully reading this book will arm you for philosophical exchanges around the water cooler, or your favorite blog, like nothing else can.  To gain the insights that you will get from Liberty and Tyranny, you would have to read dozens of other books, but Mark has pulled together the most important concepts and historical examples into this one short book.  Furthermore, it is a remarkably good read, which is more than one can say for most political books by conservatives.

Libertarian leaning conservatives like me have been quoting the founding fathers and the US Constitution from memory for a couple of decades, but thanks to Mark Levin’s book and his radio show regular people are now doing the same thing.  They are actually reading the text of the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and even the Federalist Papers.  They are learning more about the history of their country, the greatest nation in the history of mankind, and are gaining more depth and perspective to fight this battle against statism, a word that Levin has pushed back into the lexicon.  Mark Levin has made that happen through his great book, his entertaining radio show, and the force of his honest and direct personality.  Mark also shares my feelings of respect for our country and the people who serve her, giving a shout out to the military, police, and firefighters at the close of each show.

It is unlikely that I will ever be fortunate enough to meet Mark and express my gratitude and respect, but he is and will always be a brother.  One need only listen to Mark for 10 minutes to realize that what he says and the positions that he takes are based upon a deeply held love for America and what it stands for.  His show is not just entertainment; it is full of deep philosophical thought and reverence for the greatest country in history.

God bless you, Mark Levin.  You are the man of the year in my book.

Now let’s kick ass and take names in 2010.

No Money For RINOs

A blogger over at CarnabyFudge replies to an RNC questionaire/money request with this:

I am with you, brother.

Mark Levin Interview – Talkers Magazine

Mark Levin is interviewed in the upcoming issue of Talkers Magazine.

You can read the interview here.

Hillary Was Right

That may be the only time that I ever utter those words.  But as we say out in the country, even a blind squirrel finds a nut from time to time.

Sign from the 9/12 Patriots March On Washington:

Levin’s Conservative Manifesto, Part 2: Environment

I wrote another piece in a series of posts discussing Mark Levin’s Conservative Manifesto.  Please give it a read at my other blog:

Levin’s Conservative Manifesto, Part 2: Environment

More Photos from 9/12 in D.C. II

A big thank you to a friend of a friend for making the trip to DC and for taking these great photos.

Joe Wilson had nothing on me, I was yelling at our empty-suit POTUS throughout his speech, which was typically full of obfuscation and word games.  Soaring rhetoric with no real substance.  POTUS did lie about illegals but of course the Left and their advocate journalists in the lapdog media let him get away with it.

 Just in case TOTUS the President is wondering how close the mob got to his palace…

 

Levin’s Conservative Manifesto

I have started what will be a series of posts on the “take action” chapter at the end of Mark Levin’s incredible book Liberty and Tyranny.

Please go over to my other blog and take a look:

Mark Levin’s Conservative Manifesto, Part 1: Taxation

If you have not read Levin’s book, you need to go get it right now.

Soldier gives a brief Constitutional Lesson

[HT: HotAir]

At an ObamaCare town hall meeting in St Louis, a young Army soldier gave a brief but spot-on lesson on constitutional grants (and limits) of power.  Watch the video:

I know that all of the powers for the legislative branch of government are confined in Article 1, Section 8.

Completely correct, with the exception of the fact that subsequent amendments do indeed grant additional powers to the legistative branch.  I try to make this same point when I am arguing with statists on this subject.  The soldier points out that many statists will fall back on a rather lame argument that the “General Welfare” clause grants them more powers but he points out that the founding fathers made it clear that that clause only applied within the constraints of the enumerated powers defined in Article 1, Section 8. 

Politicians try to turn the constitution into some giant elastic document

That is the basic approach of the Left, isn’t it?

One other point that I would like to make involves an appeal to common sense.  Please take a moment to go look at Article 1, Section 8 at this link.  Don’t worry, the list of allowed powers is a lot shorter than you think.  Take a look at that very specific list of powers.   Now here comes the common sense part: why would the founding fathers make such a concise and specific list if they also meant and anything else that you think needs to get done?  Seriously, why would they grant the power to coin money and build post offices and maintain a Navy unless they specifically meant to limit the legislative branch to just those (and a few other enumerated) powers?

What you will find is that some dishonest people will try to selectively quote the last line from Article 1, Section 8 in order to throw up a smokescreen.  They will tell you that it also says that they can “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper…” but they stop there.  They intentionally do not finish that sentence because it continues “for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers”, which means that those necessary and proper laws still have to pertain to the enumerated list of powers.

Underscoring this entire philosophy is the tenth amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The tenth amendment says that if something is not a specifically delegated power then it is unconstitutional, i.e. illegal.  I submit that a significant majority of the federal budget is blatantly unconstitutional and that both parties are guilty.

The Real Culture War is not about moralism

The real “Culture War” in America is not about religion or abortion or gay marriage or anthropogenic climate change.  The real culture war being waged in this country, most recently evidenced by the well attended Tea Parties on tax day, is about the appropriate relationship between Government on one side and The People and our economy on the other side.  Arthur Brooks wrote a smart piece in the WSJ that outlines his view of the true culture war:

Despite President Barack Obama’s early personal popularity, we can see the beginnings of this schism in the “tea parties” that have sprung up around the country. In these grass-roots protests, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans have joined together to make public their opposition to government deficits, unaccountable bureaucratic power, and a sense that the government is too willing to prop up those who engaged in corporate malfeasance and mortgage fraud.

That was exactly what I saw when I attended my (not quite) local Tea Party with 20,000 other very vocal citizens.  Brooks points out that these were regular people engaging in a true populist movement which he labeled as “ethical populism”:

The protesters are homeowners who didn’t walk away from their mortgages, small business owners who don’t want corporate welfare and bankers who kept their heads during the frenzy and don’t need bailouts. They were the people who were doing the important things right — and who are now watching elected politicians reward those who did the important things wrong.

After quoting some rather scary statistics about support for capitalism versus socialism among different age groups and different parties (“Republicans were 11 times more likely to prefer capitalism than socialism; Democrats were almost evenly split between the two systems”) he points out that government is helping this along:

The government has been abetting this trend for years by exempting an increasing number of Americans from federal taxation. My colleague Adam Lerrick showed in these pages last year that the percentage of American adults who have no federal income-tax liability will rise to 49% from 40% under Mr. Obama’s tax plan. Another 11% will pay less than 5% of their income in federal income taxes and less than $1,000 in total.

To put a modern twist on the old axiom, a man who is not a socialist at 20 has no heart; a man who is still a socialist at 40 either has no head, or pays no taxes. Social Democrats are working to create a society where the majority are net recipients of the “sharing economy.” They are fighting a culture war of attrition with economic tools. Defenders of capitalism risk getting caught flat-footed with increasingly antiquated arguments that free enterprise is a Main Street pocketbook issue. Progressives are working relentlessly to see that it is not.

I have always argued that collectivism, which I personally utilize as an umbrella term encompassing socialism, communism, marxism, maoism, etc, is inherently immoral in and of itself, regardless of what results come from it.  Collectivism says to me that I am owned by the government and am a cash cow to be milked for what they (Ellsworth Toohey’s all) deem to be the collective good.  I argue strenuously that collectivism is not different from slavery in kind, only in degree.  I was happy to see Brooks echo that sentiment, though perhaps in more toned-down terms than I just did:

Advocates of free enterprise must learn from the growing grass-roots protests, and make the moral case for freedom and entrepreneurship. They have to declare that it is a moral issue to confiscate more income from the minority simply because the government can. It’s also a moral issue to lower the rewards for entrepreneurial success, and to spend what we don’t have without regard for our children’s future.

Brooks ends with a pep talk about the present opportunities for free marketeers.

We had better continue what the Tea Parties started if we care about our childrens’ (and grandchildrens’) future.  Please read Brooks’ entire piece here and draw your own conclusions.

CNN reporter becomes Anti Tea Party Obama spokesman

Showing once again why conservatives despise CNN, so-called reporter Susan Roesgen was completely unable to contain her obvious pro-Obama bias while “reporting” from the Tea Party in Chicago on tax day.

UPDATE: CNN got YouTube to pull the video to which I had linked.  Click here to see the embedded version instead.

The CNN reporter’s tone was mocking from the get go and her opinion on the subject of the protest is obvious even before she starts overtly defending the Obama administration.  Like a good MSM reporter she brought an agenda to the Tea Party in Chicago, and that agenda involved mocking and undermining it.  One sure way to piss off a thoughtful conservative is to bring a mocking and smirky attitude to a subject that they consider intellectually defensible.

The guy with the baby had a point that he was trying to make, convoluted as it was, but the reporter had no concern for what he was saying – she simply wanted to make her point.  It was about her…  and of course, her new Dear Leader.

As the guy tried to make his point about Lincoln’s position that we should be able to keep the fruits of our labor, this “reporter” actually starts attacking the premise that it could have anything to do with his taxes; I suspect that she wasn’t even listening, instead just waiting for the next opportunity to defend her beloved Barack.  As she essentially morphs into Robert Gibbs when she tries to tell the guy that he will get a new child tax credit she proves to any observer that she is nothing more than another Obama spokesman at CNN.

When the guy finally finishes his point the “reporter”, going into complete Obama defense, responds by telling him that his state (IL) gets $50 billion in the stimulus package.  It is interesting that when she continues her Obama defense, she turns to look at the camera as if this interview is all about her – perhaps this will help with the liberal bonafides that it takes to get into the beltway cocktail circuit.  She arrogantly sums up “the tenor” of the rally when handing back off to the anchor desk as “anti-government” and “anti-CNN” (because it was promoted by the “right-wing conservative network Fox”, she further editorializes).  She also claims that “this is not really family viewing” without providing any justification for that.

We are not anti-government, but are anti unconstitutional government.  The most fundamental position at the tea parties was that we cannot borrow trillions from future generations to spend on vote buying today.  That is how I see both the stimulus package and the budget: conventional liberal huge spending on vote buying schemes – simply every off-the-shelf collectivist program of the last 40 years carted out under the cover of the economic crisis.

The video I linked above from FoundingBloggers.com has more video taken by bystanders after the CNN story where a woman makes the point that the reporters are intentionally not talking to the mainstream people, instead seeking out people that they can perhaps caricature more effectively.  The woman going after the so-called reporter makes the point that the media wants to ignore: we are pissed at both parties.  The media wants to paint this as simply a bunch of sore-loser Republicans whipped up into a frenzy by evil rich Conservatives.  Interestingly, one never hears media criticisms of the incredibly evil George Soros and his always-astroturfing MoveOn.Org.

At the end the reporter even tries to get into the alleged “astro-turfing” allegations, questioning how all of these people found out about the tea party.  One has to surmise that since she knows that the media has been ignoring the Tea Party movement she does not understand how the proles found out about it.

I saw a sign at the Atlanta Tea Party that deserves a mention here:  CNN – YOU SUCK!