OPINION:
When I wasn’t falling asleep in high school physics, I heard the teacher tell that class that power can neither be created nor destroyed but only moved around.
Years later, in 1981, another expert on power, President Reagan, told a small group of us at the Conservative Political Action Conference that yes, his tax cuts were about stimulating the economy but were really about taking power away from Washington and giving it back to the citizenry.
Reagan had seen power steadily move away from the people and toward the corrupt bureaucracy since 1932, and he wanted to restore the constitutional republic the framers had fashioned in 1787 when they wrote that brilliant document of negative governance and negative power.
The Constitution does not say what government can do. No, it says what government cannot do. It cannot take away free speech, nor can it take away the right to worship, the right to bear arms or the right of due process.
Journalist, political commentator and author Mark R. Levin and I go back to the Reagan days, when Mr. Levin was tearing apart corrupt federal agencies per Reagan’s directive and I was working for the Republican National Committee and the old National Conservative Political Action Committee.
Mr. Levin later became chief of staff for our old friend, the great Ed Meese, at the Justice Department.
Now, he is a one-man think tank, churning out books and commenting on matters daily on his massively popular radio show and his heavily watched Fox News TV show.
He is unique. Mr. Levin is nothing like the cleavage-showing conservative female commentators who depend on teleprompters, cue cards and talking points to do their jobs. One of those women said some years ago, “Pressing for a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would be a huge mistake.” That is precisely what happened, and abortion was sent back to the states where it and other such decisions belong.
The same young woman went on to say that she does not like books but likes watching television. “I have a very short attention span, so sitting down with a book is very difficult for me.” This sentiment is, unfortunately, all too representative of many talking heads on cable TV news today.
That’s not Mark Levin.
He is a man of great intellect, as he has proved again and again, and now with his new book, “On Power.” Many of his previous books have reached the No. 1 position on The New York Times bestseller list, much to the chagrin of the lefties who run the newspaper.
The uses and abuses of power is a difficult concept for some, but in “On Power,” Mr. Levin does a great job of breaking it down so the laymen can understand. As he writes, “Power determines your social arrangement, quality of life … more to the point … whether you are free or enslaved or some degree of either.”
Power can be nuanced. Government often takes away power in degrees, whether in speech, in travel or in money.
During the early days of COVID-19, Rhode Island refused to allow out-of-staters to come into the state, even though such action was clearly unconstitutional, per the commerce clause and the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV and the 14th Amendment.
Mr. Levin correctly writes that “the circle of liberty … surrounding each individual is shrinking” and the real enemy of individual rights in the 21st century is “the Democrat Party. It is a political institution that exists for the purpose of agitating for … breaching the Constitution’s firewalls.” The party “is home to … a conglomeration of Marxist, socialist, and Islamist ideologues and activists.”
When the history of our era is written, historians will inevitably turn to the writings of this public intellectual to make some sense of this age.
I am biased, but toward intellectuals. I am also biased toward great books, and “On Power” is a great book. I have tried to do it justice here, but more important, I urge you to buy it, read it, digest it and debate it. You will be better for having reading it, as I now am.
• Craig Shirley is the author of 11 bestselling nonfiction books, including six on President Reagan, two on World War II, one on Mary Ball Washington and one on the speeches of President Trump. He is now writing three more books, including one on Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign.
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