NOTE: Many of the writers quoted in this book made frequent use of italic type. In the interest of accuracy, all italics appear as they did in the original documents and translations.
AN INTELLECTUALLY BRACING NEW VOLUME ON AMERICAS TRANSFORMATION AND THE CLASH BETWEEN CONSTITUTIONALISM AND UTOPIANISMFROM THE AUTHOR OF THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIBERTY & TYRANNY
MARK R. LEVIN
Hailed by Rush Limbaugh as the most compelling defense of freedom for our time, and the necessary book of the Obama era by The American Spectator, Mark R. Levins Liberty and Tyranny made the most persuasive case for conservatism and against statism in a generation. In this most crucial time, this leading conservative thinker explores the psychology, motivations, and history of the utopian movement, its architects, and its modern-day disciplesand how the individual and American society are being devoured by it.
Levin asks, what is this utopian force that both allures a free people and destroys them? Levin digs deep into the past and draws astoundingly relevant parallels to contemporary America from
Platos Republic
Thomas Mores Utopia
Thomas Hobbess Leviathan
Karl Marxs Communist Manifesto
as well as from the critical works of John Locke, Charles Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville, and other philosophical pioneers who brilliantly diagnosed the nature of man and government. As Levin meticulously pursues his subject, the reader joins him in an enlightening and compelling journey. And in the end, Levins message is clear: the American republic is in great peril. The people must now choose between utopianism or liberty.
President Ronald Reagan warned, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Levin agrees, and with Ameritopia, delivers another modern political classic, an indispensable guide for America in our time and in the future.
MARK R. LEVIN , nationally syndicated talk-radio host and president of Landmark Legal Foundation, is the author of Liberty and Tyranny, the 38-week New York Times bestseller that spent more than three months at #1 and sold more than one million copies. His books Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America and Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lovers Story of Joy and Anguish were also New York Times and national bestsellers; he also contributed the preface to his father Jack E. Levins Abraham Lincolns Gettysburg Address Illustrated. He has worked as an attorney in the private sector and as a top adviser and administrator to several members of President Ronald Reagans cabinet. He holds a B.A. from Temple University and a J.D. from Temple University Law School.
Follow Mark Levin on Twitter and visit him on the web at www.marklevinshow.com .
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COPYRIGHT 2012 SIMON & SCHUSTER
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Copyright 2012 by Mark R. Levin
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Designed by Joy OMeara
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Levin, Mark R. (Mark Reed), 1957
Ameritopia : the unmaking of America / Mark R. Levin.
p. cm.
1. United StatesPolitics and governmentPhilosophy. 2. DemocracyUnited States. 3. UtopiasUnited States. 4. UtopiasPhilosophy. I. Title.
JK31.L47 2012
320.97301dc23
2011042260
ISBN 978-1-4391-7324-4
ISBN 978-1-4391-7328-2 (ebook)
To my beloved family
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The Tyranny of Utopia
CHAPTER TWO
Platos Republic and the Perfect Society
CHAPTER THREE
Thomas Mores Utopia and Radical Egalitarianism
CHAPTER FOUR
Thomas Hobbess Leviathan and the All-Powerful State
CHAPTER FIVE
Karl Marxs Communist Manifesto and the Class Struggle
CHAPTER SIX
John Locke and the Nature of Man
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Influence of Locke on the Founders
CHAPTER EIGHT
Charles de Montesquieu and Republican Government
CHAPTER NINE
The Influence of Montesquieu on the Framers
CHAPTER TEN
Alexis de Tocqueville and Democracy in America
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Post-Constitutional America
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ameritopia
INTRODUCTION
IN LIBERTY AND TYRANNY , I described the nature of individual liberty and the civil society in a constitutional republic, including the essential principles of Americas societal and political order. I also discussed the growing tyranny of governmentstatism, as I broadly labeled itwhich threatens our liberty, the character of our country, and our way of life. At the time I warned that if we do not come to grips with the significance of this transformation, we will be devoured by it.
The symptoms of the tyranny that threatens liberty and republicanism have been acknowledged throughout time, including by iconic Americans. For example, Supreme Court associate justice Joseph Story, among Americas most prominent legal thinkers, explained in 1829, governments are not always overthrown by direct and open assaults. They are not always battered down by the arms of conquerors, or the successful daring of usurpers. There is often concealed the dry rot, which eats into the vitals, when all is fair and stately on the outside. And to republics this has been the more common fatal disease. The continual drippings of corruption
In 1838, Abraham Lincoln delivered an address before the Young Mens Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. He declared, At what point is the approach of danger to be expected. I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
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