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Book Review of Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America

Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America
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Constitutional scholar & expert Mark Levin once said: "The Conservative does not despise government. He despises tyranny. This is precisely why the Conservative reveres the Constitution and insists on adherence to it." In "Ameritopia," Mr. Levin outlines the existential threat to our Constitution and our republican form of government. He says in the book "...the heart of the problem is, in fact, utopianism,...which is the ideological and doctrinal foundation for statism."

Levin respects his readers and has a wonderful way with words that will keep you wide awake and thinking as you read the book. In the book Mr. Levin notes: "Although the mastermind's incompetence and vision plague the society, responsibility must be diverted elsewhere--to those assigned to carry them out, or to the people's lack of sacrifice, or to the enemies of the state who have conspired to thwart the Utopian cause--for the mastermind is inextricably linked to the fantasy. If he is fallible then who is to usher in paradise?"

This book will involve you in a combination philosophy and history course led by Professor Levin and you will learn about the literature (Plato's Republic, Thomas Moore's Utopia, Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto, John Locke, Charles de Montesquieu, Alexis de Tocqueville and others), giving the reader the background support and discussion for the aforementioned quote. You will also get Mr. Levin's analysis and comparison of the philosophical reasoning behind republican vs. utopian forms of government, and you will get Mr. Levin's additional comments, analysis and opinion relative to the above. When Mr. Levin quotes, explains and summarizes De Tocqueville's thoughts in Chapter 10, he gives warnings that the American Republic is currently experiencing a "soft tyranny" brought about by an overbearing and controlling administrative state. With attribution to De Tocqueville, Levin notes that the degradation of our liberties is being brought about by a "miscomprehension of equality, resulting in the descent into centralized tyranny." In addition, Mr. Levin, in summarizing and further explaining De Tocqueville notes: "Rather than embracing equality as a condition of natural law and inalienable rights, which underlie a free and diverse society, equality may be misapplied politically in the form of radical egalitarianism and to promote equal social and economic outcomes."

As President Calvin Coolidge once said: "To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race." Coolidge also said: "We review the past not in order that we may return to it but that we may find in what direction, straight and clear, it points into the future." In addition to his keen intellect and writing ability, what is also great about Mark Levin is that he loves his country and is like-minded with Coolidge on these issues.

What I love about Mr. Levin and President Coolidge is that they, like President Reagan are very significant and substantial men. Meticulous and methodical in their approach, what they write is substantive and is supported whenever possible by source documents and supporting literature. Like President Coolidge, Levin doesn't sugar coat anything, he talks to you as a father would talk to his son or daughter, he always tells you the truth, and he never lets you down.