Sunday, November 14, 2010

Mark Levin: "A Society Has To Be Insane..."

This is Cub Reporter Biff Spackle's transcription of the opening segment of The Mark Levin Show, 12 November 2010, click for MP3 download):

Something is happened in the last few days that's gone largely unnoticed. It's right in front of us, and everyone is talking around it, but no one is talking about it in a direct way.

Every single commentator, left, right and in between, is saying that our government does not work. I haven't heard anyone say that government is efficient; that government is doing what it's supposed to do; that government is terrific; no one.

Now this government, in so many ways, is not the government of our Constitution, is it? It is a massive, centralized vacuum that is sucking up pieces of our liberty, large and small, in a thousand different ways.

Unlimited Power

There's little this government does not do, and cannot do, if those in power want to do it. Given that the government is many times larger and more powerful than the Framers ever imagined... given that the Statists, with a short respite here and there, have had their way for the last 75 years... isn't it clear that the government they've created is defective?

The Statists themselves complain that despite the New Deal, the Square Deal, the Fair Deal, the Great Society and Obama Marxism... despite trillions and trillions of dollars... despite massive bureaucratic agencies... despite telephone books full of regulations... it doesn't work.

Despite Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid... despite government schools, government houses, government meals... despite the progressive income tax, the death tax, business taxes... it's not working.

And yet they demand more of the same. More government. More programs. More spending. More taxes. More debt.

75 Years

Even though the Statist model has failed over the course of three-fourths of a century in this country -- by their own admission! -- they insist that we ignore the evidence, reason, experience, and history... and continue on their path. Except, rather than moving gradually, that we continue on this path at breakneck speed.

Now, it is the Statist that has bankrupted the nation. It is the Statist who has destroyed the very entitlements they created, just as Ponzi and Madoff created "investments" and destroyed them too. It is the Statist that controls government-run education and has driven down the quality of education.

Even the Decifit Commission's report is at least a recognition that Statism has failed, although the report largely leaves the Statists in charge and their bureaucratic monuments in place.

The Statist argues against cuts... and for more of the same... while admitting that they failed.

A society has to be insane to continue to follow them and their course. Where does the Statist approach ultimately take us? When we will know that this Utopia they promise us exists? When will we know that it has been realized?

What Constrains Them?

What are the limits on the power that this government -- that we're creating every single day -- has over us? Since the Constitution, we're told, really doesn't apply any more. Pretty scary, isn't it?

You see, we conservatives seek to work within a Constitutional system that they abuse, and even reject. So it's not really a fair fight, is it? No, it's not. They use unconstitutional and extra-Constitutional methods against us. And we continue to abide by the Constitution to defend ourselves.

Now, what is a "moderate" or a "centrist" under these circumstances? That is, politicians or professors or writers or even political activists who choose not to take sides, but claim to be "moderates" or "centrists". What are they, really? Well, they're appeasers.

When you face a soft tyranny that uses extra-Constitutional and unconstitutional means to continue to drive a stake through the heart of this country, and you claim to be a "moderate" or a "centrist", then you're an appeaser. You're a quisling.

They reject the Constitution or evade it. They seek to institutionalize their models, their viewpoints, in lieu of the Constitution. And that's the difference.

Now you can hear today, Nancy Pelosi saying no deal on taxes, no deal on cutting. Why is that she, and they, are never required to lay out exactly what they stand for? Now, we know what they stand for, but shouldn't they be required to tell us their beliefs... the extent to which our private property will be taken from us, the extent to which our liberty will be taken from us, and what this new government -- that they are pushing for relentlessly -- is going to look like?

Why aren't they required to lay out their pledge and their plan, rather than go out each day and try to undermine this society as they do? And the answer is really quite simple: they can't.

They are driving this society over the cliff, some of them because they really want to drive it over the cliff, some because are rote, some of them because they put politics ahead of country, but they're driving us in the same direction nonetheless. Over the cliff.

The House Is Not Nearly Enough

This is why all their talk about "oh, we'll push off the age increase on Social Security to 2075", while they mean to pocket all of the resources now, is disastrous. If we do not change the unconstitutional and extra-Constitutional aspects of this society, how is anything going to change? They're not going to change. I'm also practical enough to realize that -- hopefully -- we conservatives control the House, but we do not control the Senate, the White House, and we do not control the fourth branch of government.

The White House controls the administrative state, the fourth branch of government, entities like the EPA or the other monstrosities. And they can use them against us. And they will.

The House, hopefully, will pass legislation that advances the cause of Constitutionalism and liberty. So what do we need to do, you and me? We're not elected officials. Well, in addition to keeping the pressure on, we need to continue our role -- informing our fellow citizens -- because there are future elections and we must win them... with conservatives in primaries.

We must continue to spread the word about where we stand. We are for a society that nurtures the individual, we are for a society that accepts the limits on government, we are for a society that promotes and rewards success, we are for a society that creates opportunities for everybody.

Versus a bleak, iron-fisted, defective, bloated, centralized model that fails everywhere's it's tried. We must continue to spread the word. It is our only hope.

Our Mission Must Continue, Relentlessly and Tirelessly

Liberty is never safe from tyranny. Let me repeat that. Liberty is never safe from tyranny. We have masterminds all over our government, who pay others outside in government-like organizations, to promote Utopian schemes that have -- at their core -- having control over you.

I don't care what sort of Utopian societies you've read about or heard about, they all have a similar thread. That common thread is: control over the individual. We hear these phrases like "shared sacrifice" -- the individual is required to surrender his heart and his mind and his soul for "the greater good". One way or another. That's what they preach, one way or another.

So we have no choice, if we want to live as free people. And if we want our children and grandchildren to live as free people. We continue to spread the word. And people who want to negotiate with this Statist forces or ignoring 75 years of American history. Negotiatie for what? With what? Listen to them: they just got their asses kicked in a historic election -- and they're trying to control the agenda!

We Must Defeat Them

Then we must defeat them. We have only one part of an elected branch of government. And we're going to hold their feet to the fire. But we need more. We need to take over the entire government. And, unlike the Left, we'll do so in a Constitutional and legal way. Not by dumbing down the voting system, not by changing citizenship in order to import liberal Democrats, no. We'll do it the right way.

But ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about it: this is a battle between liberty and tyranny. All the phony moderates and centrists who tell you to just relax, to pace yourselves, I say -- be more resolute than ever before.

Transcribed from: The Mark Levin Show, 12 November 2010, click for MP3 download.

5 comments:

WestForWestWing2012 said...

Add this one to the list of Great Opening Monologues by The Great One!

He says, "A society has to be insane to continue to follow them and their course"--a variation on Einstein's dictum that you can't solve a problem by continuing to do the same thing that created the problem in the first place.

We have a leader who's Oval Office-ready, if the American people will have enough sense and survival instinct to elect him: Allen West. And for anyone who wants to pooh-pooh a freshman Congressman, let them please remember that Dwight Eisenhower was never a Congressman, Senator or governor. He got all his executive experience in the same place Allen West did: the U.S. Army--where Col. West was a brigade Operations Officer, a regiment Executive Officer and a Battalion Commander, including in Iraq.

Please check him out:
http://westforwestwing2012.com/great-speeches/

Anonymous said...

Socialism is the fraudulent bargain that we each can live at the expense of others if only they would allow it. Christians should know better than to assume they have the right to seize the wealth of others to spread around as they see fit.

But it goes deeper than that. Economist Joseph Salerno in his essay, Postscript: Why a Socialist Economy is "Impossible":

"In "Economic Calculation in a Socialist Commonwealth," Ludwig von Mises demonstrates, once and forever, that, under socialist central planning, there are no means of economic calculation and that, therefore, socialist economy itself is "impossible" --not just inefficient or less innovative or conducted without benefit of decentralized knowledge, but really and truly and literally impossible."

Having central planning attempt to manage an economy is like trying to measure the height of the waves in a lake from a power boat circling in its own wake. Worse, while one central planning committee is pondering rule making and setting levels of benefits and subsidies, it must do so even though other central planners down the street have introduced their own economic distortions due to their previous intrusions.

Even though many people know this deep down inside, I think is a lack of faith in liberty and in other people that induces them to keep returning to using socialism to attempt to solve life's problems. Yet as Levin points out, it never has worked, and as Salarno and Mises prove, it never can work.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for transcribing this, Biff. I would not have heard it (no Levin outlets in my MSA).

This is American Gold. Should be heard and passed on to everyone who has a conscience and the intellect to read.

Jeanne Patterson said...

Let me second that thank you. I heard it but I want to save this one to read & refer to again & again.

SusanNaperville said...

Doug- Mark gave you kudos on his Facebook page with a link back.
"Mark Levin Thank you Bill Spackle and Doug Ross: http://tiny.cc/46bws Spread the word."