Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Mark Levin returns to the fifty five Cassey Morning Show
and nationally syndicated talk radio show host The Mark Levin Show,
host of Levin TV on the Blaze, host of the
Fox News Channel's Life Liberty and Levin cher Emeritis of
the Landmark Legal Foundation, author of Let's Count Them Eight,
consecutive number one New York Times Best Tellers, Let's Call
It nine. Now with the new book on Power, Welcome
(00:21):
back to the fifty five Cassee Morning Show. Always a pleasure,
Mark Levin.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Brian, I love that interview. I'm calling again tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
An anytime, my friend. I listen to you all the time,
your Sunday show coming in. I have serious XM and
I listened to Fox News on the way and love
what you have to say. I appreciate your perspective and commentary. Now,
in your book on Power, you discussed the concept of
power extensively. That's the point of the book. How do
you differentiate between legitimate political power and its abuse? You
(00:52):
know you talk about the concept of positive power and
negative power.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, those are that's a great, great question. The book
takes the word power and takes a very close look
at it. Because I realized the battle in society and
the culture and government in humanity is over power. I
mean even in our personal lives psychologically in some cases,
which is not where I go, but certainly when it
(01:16):
comes to governance and the Constitution is about power. The
Declaration of Independence lays out what I call positive power,
and then then there's the negative power. Positive power is
for example, in our country, it's the most unique country
ever established ever. And why because this is a country
that's based on the belief that God a sovereign Judeo
(01:39):
Christian belief systems fused with the Enlightenment, that is, we
are the sovereign God's children. Now, how do we manifest
that on earth? And the Enlightenment tells us how power
backing power, that's one of the main elements that came
out of the Enlightenment. Why against the monarchies, dictatorships, that
(01:59):
sort of thing, right, But look at the Marxists and
the Islamis and others. The negative power, what are they
all about? The centralization of power that people aren't the
sovereign and the ruling classes to solve well.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And that's the resulting in concentration of power in Washington.
And I guess you know as a lawyer, I always
go back to this distorted Washington all powerful. We live
in a republic. We have a tenth Amendment as well
as a ninth Amendment, but we also have Wickered versus Philburn,
which extended this regulatory arm against every aspect of our lives.
That's the problem right there. The court used as a
(02:33):
mechanism to get engaged in every element of our lives.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, that is a particularly devious decision where basically you
have a whed farmer, so the public knows who is
growing wheat on his own land, and they still claimed
it was interstate commerce capable of being regulated because if
he didn't sell the wheat into interstate commerce, it would
affect interstate commerce. So it's one of the most atrocious
decisions ever. And you're right, it laid the foundation for
(02:59):
economic socialism and endless government intervention. So on power, I
just decide, you know, you can't have liberty without rights,
and you can't have rights without power. And there's certain
kinds of power that are good and certain kinds of
power that are bad. And the struggle we're having now
basically those of us who are not in the Democrat Party,
(03:21):
the struggle we're having now with the Democrat Party and others.
By the way, is this issue over power. They want
centralized power. You talk about record versus soburn. This is
about a massive fourth branch of government, a bureaucracy. We
want to elected judges who aren't even in the constitution.
And what does that mean. We're supposed to be a
government of consensus, a government of representative government. So when
(03:46):
you have a bureaucracy, it doesn't represent the people. When
you want to elected judges, they don't represent the people either.
They rule, but the role is really outsized in terms
of what they do. So I break this down, I
look at this issue of power. I don't think we
as conservatives, or let me say this, non leftists really
(04:06):
think about this enough. This is all they think about.
They're obsessed with it.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, and you talk about you don't necessarily go to
the psychological reality. But as you're talking, and this is
something that I struggle with all the time, Mark, I
consider myself a little el libertarian. I remember the Libertarian Party.
But I trust you with your wallet and new zipper.
I don't want to take anything from you. When I'm
done fixing me, maybe I'll come after you, but that
day's never gonna come. I don't understand. Maybe it's a
(04:32):
psychological problem they have. Why do they want to control
all of our lives? Why does Zohan Mundami want to
you know, regulate you know, the price of how literally
the price of everything, micro manage everything. I don't get
where that need for power and control comes from, which
is maybe why I don't get the direction we're going,
because people tend to roll over and just allow it
(04:54):
to happen to them.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, if you look at history, and even if you
look around the world today, that is the rule. The
dark side of humanity, the reason why the Enlightenment was
so important, and the radical Islamis never went through the Enlightenment.
They're stuck in the primitive seventh century and the Marxists
reject the Enlightenment. It's the darker side of humanity. I mean,
(05:18):
men and women are imperfect, and so the whole reason
the Enlightenment is important, again fused with the Judeo Christian values,
is to get us past that. It is to embrace
the brighter side of humanity, to nurture the brighter side
of humanity, and so forth versus this darker side. And
you ask why, because people can be evil, because people
(05:41):
can be greedy, They want power, because people like to
lord over other people. We've got the millions of people
who've been murdered in this world as a result of
Marxism and Islamism, that the result of Judeo Christian values
and the Enlightenment. And so you set up a government
that protects us from evil, whether it's mob, whether it's
(06:01):
centralized government. And so where this is why our constitution
is so brilliant and it's so important. Even Scalia said,
what's the key to our constitution? Separation? Powers? What did
Montesquieu say, the most important philosopher during our constitutional period?
Power checks power? What did even Aristotle say? Power needs
to check out? And let me ask you this is
(06:22):
that the way Mandami thinks, is that the way the
Marxists think, is that the way Bernie Sanders thinks. Did
the Democrats think? No, this constant government program, government, taxation,
government regulation, government redistribution. Their views, their beliefs are simply
incompatible with the founding. And so I let it all
out in the.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Book The Book on Power. On my guest today, Mark Levin, Well,
let me ask you this in terms of reforms, as
you were saying that enlightened smart, critical thinking, logical, reasonable,
well educated people could see through this, they would see
through the lives, they would recognizing the efforts of this
(07:02):
negative power and rejected out of hand. Do you think
our education system is to blame for creating a generation
or two or three of useful idiots that are just
too uneducated to see through this, this this overreach and
this abuse of our civil rights and liberties.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I think just a lot of that. There's no question
about it that these people have conquered the culture, whether
it's the media, whether it's academia, whether it's Hollywood and
so forth. We're on the outs there, on the ends.
I don't think there's any question about that. But we
also have the problem where people actually vote for tyranny.
People like free beasts. People don't want to give up
(07:40):
what they have, but they want to take something that
somebody else has. And again, this is a darker side
of humanity, and the Marxists play right into that. And
also they plan to the fact that human beings are imperfect,
and so they compare something the imperfection of society with
their promises and what I say, is no, you got
(08:01):
to compare something to something because you know they'll say
you're hungry. I'll make it affordable. You can't, you can't
get a house. I'll make it. Excuse me, excuse mean,
let's come back down to earth and let's actually deal
with what it is that you're proposing.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Well, that someone can run as a socialist and actually
get traction in New York and Mondamia is an illustration, Yes, true, true,
no argument there, Bernie Sanders, Okay, I guess there was
a period of time, you know, in my lifetime. I
mean that nobody would touch you with a ten foot
pole if you set out loud. I am a socialist
or Marxist or communists. But we've changed the society and
(08:39):
or perception over the years. We don't study the mistakes
of the past. No one's looking at where these experiments
have have have been held. Like we had a moral
barometer when I was going up to Soviet Union. It
was freedom and capitalism versus breadlines. It was a perfect
point to make. Look, you want to be a commie,
you see how terrible things are there. But we lost
that when the wall came down, and since then I
(09:01):
feel like we've lost our way.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Mark. You make a great point. A lot of the
younger people today have no first hand onledge about what
took place. I mean, the Holocaust is just a distant thing,
and they throw around the word Hitler in the Holocaust
or the Soviet Union. They don't know a thing about this,
even nine to eleven, who hit us on nine to eleven?
(09:22):
The Islamist Okay, they don't. They weren't alive. Then they
don't think about that. And so this is a problem.
And that's why I feel like outside of the educational system,
we have to fight back. We still have free speech.
That's why I write these books. That's why you and
I are on the air trying to reach as many
people as we can with American ideals in the belief system,
(09:45):
trying to teach history, trying to explain these things because
they're not getting it in the school. They have no
context for this. But you know, we as parents and grandparents,
we have a responsibility too. You don't just send your
kids off the school and hope for the best. Certainly not. Now.
You got to take them under your wing. You got
to educate them, have them read certain things, or at
least listen to certain things. That is our responsibility, and
(10:07):
I'm hoping these books, this one in particular, will help
in that regard.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I'm certain it will, and I'll encourage my listeners to
go to fifty five krs dot com and my blog
and podcast page where they can easily get a copy
of Mark ar Levin's new book on Power. Please read it.
Wonderful and inspiring book. Mark Levin, you always are thank
you for what you do each and every day, and
you always have an open spot here on the fifty
five krssee Morning Show. When you write another number one
best selling book, you too get a copy of the
(10:33):
book fifty five kr se dot com
Mark Levin returns to the fifty five Cassey Morning Show
and nationally syndicated talk radio show host The Mark Levin Show,
host of Levin TV on the Blaze, host of the
Fox News Channel's Life Liberty and Levin cher Emeritis of
the Landmark Legal Foundation, author of Let's Count Them Eight,
consecutive number one New York Times Best Tellers, Let's Call
It nine. Now with the new book on Power, Welcome
(00:21):
back to the fifty five Cassee Morning Show. Always a pleasure,
Mark Levin.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Brian, I love that interview. I'm calling again tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
An anytime, my friend. I listen to you all the time,
your Sunday show coming in. I have serious XM and
I listened to Fox News on the way and love
what you have to say. I appreciate your perspective and commentary. Now,
in your book on Power, you discussed the concept of
power extensively. That's the point of the book. How do
you differentiate between legitimate political power and its abuse? You
(00:52):
know you talk about the concept of positive power and
negative power.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Well, those are that's a great, great question. The book
takes the word power and takes a very close look
at it. Because I realized the battle in society and
the culture and government in humanity is over power. I
mean even in our personal lives psychologically in some cases,
which is not where I go, but certainly when it
(01:16):
comes to governance and the Constitution is about power. The
Declaration of Independence lays out what I call positive power,
and then then there's the negative power. Positive power is
for example, in our country, it's the most unique country
ever established ever. And why because this is a country
that's based on the belief that God a sovereign Judeo
(01:39):
Christian belief systems fused with the Enlightenment, that is, we
are the sovereign God's children. Now, how do we manifest
that on earth? And the Enlightenment tells us how power
backing power, that's one of the main elements that came
out of the Enlightenment. Why against the monarchies, dictatorships, that
(01:59):
sort of thing, right, But look at the Marxists and
the Islamis and others. The negative power, what are they
all about? The centralization of power that people aren't the
sovereign and the ruling classes to solve well.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And that's the resulting in concentration of power in Washington.
And I guess you know as a lawyer, I always
go back to this distorted Washington all powerful. We live
in a republic. We have a tenth Amendment as well
as a ninth Amendment, but we also have Wickered versus Philburn,
which extended this regulatory arm against every aspect of our lives.
That's the problem right there. The court used as a
(02:33):
mechanism to get engaged in every element of our lives.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, that is a particularly devious decision where basically you
have a whed farmer, so the public knows who is
growing wheat on his own land, and they still claimed
it was interstate commerce capable of being regulated because if
he didn't sell the wheat into interstate commerce, it would
affect interstate commerce. So it's one of the most atrocious
decisions ever. And you're right, it laid the foundation for
(02:59):
economic socialism and endless government intervention. So on power, I
just decide, you know, you can't have liberty without rights,
and you can't have rights without power. And there's certain
kinds of power that are good and certain kinds of
power that are bad. And the struggle we're having now
basically those of us who are not in the Democrat Party,
(03:21):
the struggle we're having now with the Democrat Party and others.
By the way, is this issue over power. They want
centralized power. You talk about record versus soburn. This is
about a massive fourth branch of government, a bureaucracy. We
want to elected judges who aren't even in the constitution.
And what does that mean. We're supposed to be a
government of consensus, a government of representative government. So when
(03:46):
you have a bureaucracy, it doesn't represent the people. When
you want to elected judges, they don't represent the people either.
They rule, but the role is really outsized in terms
of what they do. So I break this down, I
look at this issue of power. I don't think we
as conservatives, or let me say this, non leftists really
(04:06):
think about this enough. This is all they think about.
They're obsessed with it.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Okay, and you talk about you don't necessarily go to
the psychological reality. But as you're talking, and this is
something that I struggle with all the time, Mark, I
consider myself a little el libertarian. I remember the Libertarian Party.
But I trust you with your wallet and new zipper.
I don't want to take anything from you. When I'm
done fixing me, maybe I'll come after you, but that
day's never gonna come. I don't understand. Maybe it's a
(04:32):
psychological problem they have. Why do they want to control
all of our lives? Why does Zohan Mundami want to
you know, regulate you know, the price of how literally
the price of everything, micro manage everything. I don't get
where that need for power and control comes from, which
is maybe why I don't get the direction we're going,
because people tend to roll over and just allow it
(04:54):
to happen to them.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Well, if you look at history, and even if you
look around the world today, that is the rule. The
dark side of humanity, the reason why the Enlightenment was
so important, and the radical Islamis never went through the Enlightenment.
They're stuck in the primitive seventh century and the Marxists
reject the Enlightenment. It's the darker side of humanity. I mean,
(05:18):
men and women are imperfect, and so the whole reason
the Enlightenment is important, again fused with the Judeo Christian values,
is to get us past that. It is to embrace
the brighter side of humanity, to nurture the brighter side
of humanity, and so forth versus this darker side. And
you ask why, because people can be evil, because people
(05:41):
can be greedy, They want power, because people like to
lord over other people. We've got the millions of people
who've been murdered in this world as a result of
Marxism and Islamism, that the result of Judeo Christian values
and the Enlightenment. And so you set up a government
that protects us from evil, whether it's mob, whether it's
(06:01):
centralized government. And so where this is why our constitution
is so brilliant and it's so important. Even Scalia said,
what's the key to our constitution? Separation? Powers? What did
Montesquieu say, the most important philosopher during our constitutional period?
Power checks power? What did even Aristotle say? Power needs
to check out? And let me ask you this is
(06:22):
that the way Mandami thinks, is that the way the
Marxists think, is that the way Bernie Sanders thinks. Did
the Democrats think? No, this constant government program, government, taxation,
government regulation, government redistribution. Their views, their beliefs are simply
incompatible with the founding. And so I let it all
out in the.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Book The Book on Power. On my guest today, Mark Levin, Well,
let me ask you this in terms of reforms, as
you were saying that enlightened smart, critical thinking, logical, reasonable,
well educated people could see through this, they would see
through the lives, they would recognizing the efforts of this
(07:02):
negative power and rejected out of hand. Do you think
our education system is to blame for creating a generation
or two or three of useful idiots that are just
too uneducated to see through this, this this overreach and
this abuse of our civil rights and liberties.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I think just a lot of that. There's no question
about it that these people have conquered the culture, whether
it's the media, whether it's academia, whether it's Hollywood and
so forth. We're on the outs there, on the ends.
I don't think there's any question about that. But we
also have the problem where people actually vote for tyranny.
People like free beasts. People don't want to give up
(07:40):
what they have, but they want to take something that
somebody else has. And again, this is a darker side
of humanity, and the Marxists play right into that. And
also they plan to the fact that human beings are imperfect,
and so they compare something the imperfection of society with
their promises and what I say, is no, you got
(08:01):
to compare something to something because you know they'll say
you're hungry. I'll make it affordable. You can't, you can't
get a house. I'll make it. Excuse me, excuse mean,
let's come back down to earth and let's actually deal
with what it is that you're proposing.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Well, that someone can run as a socialist and actually
get traction in New York and Mondamia is an illustration, Yes, true, true,
no argument there, Bernie Sanders, Okay, I guess there was
a period of time, you know, in my lifetime. I
mean that nobody would touch you with a ten foot
pole if you set out loud. I am a socialist
or Marxist or communists. But we've changed the society and
(08:39):
or perception over the years. We don't study the mistakes
of the past. No one's looking at where these experiments
have have have been held. Like we had a moral
barometer when I was going up to Soviet Union. It
was freedom and capitalism versus breadlines. It was a perfect
point to make. Look, you want to be a commie,
you see how terrible things are there. But we lost
that when the wall came down, and since then I
(09:01):
feel like we've lost our way.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Mark. You make a great point. A lot of the
younger people today have no first hand onledge about what
took place. I mean, the Holocaust is just a distant thing,
and they throw around the word Hitler in the Holocaust
or the Soviet Union. They don't know a thing about this,
even nine to eleven, who hit us on nine to eleven?
(09:22):
The Islamist Okay, they don't. They weren't alive. Then they
don't think about that. And so this is a problem.
And that's why I feel like outside of the educational system,
we have to fight back. We still have free speech.
That's why I write these books. That's why you and
I are on the air trying to reach as many
people as we can with American ideals in the belief system,
(09:45):
trying to teach history, trying to explain these things because
they're not getting it in the school. They have no
context for this. But you know, we as parents and grandparents,
we have a responsibility too. You don't just send your
kids off the school and hope for the best. Certainly not. Now.
You got to take them under your wing. You got
to educate them, have them read certain things, or at
least listen to certain things. That is our responsibility, and
(10:07):
I'm hoping these books, this one in particular, will help
in that regard.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I'm certain it will, and I'll encourage my listeners to
go to fifty five krs dot com and my blog
and podcast page where they can easily get a copy
of Mark ar Levin's new book on Power. Please read it.
Wonderful and inspiring book. Mark Levin, you always are thank
you for what you do each and every day, and
you always have an open spot here on the fifty
five krssee Morning Show. When you write another number one
best selling book, you too get a copy of the
(10:33):
book fifty five kr se dot com
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