The best-selling hardcover non-fiction book in the US at the time of this review is ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ by Mark Levin (Threshold Editions/Simon and Schuster). His subtitle says it all: ‘A Conservative Manifesto’. This book consists of only 245 pages, including his 38 pages of notes; however, it contains more insight into current politics and relevant economic and historical knowledge than any other book one can find in the wasteland of the unpopular American. -fiction today. It is also a philosophical work, and probably the most important American philosophical work published since Ayn Rand’s philosophical novel ‘Atlas Shrugged’ (1957).

Mark Levin is a “huge fan” of Ayn Rand, so it’s fitting that sales of ‘Atlas Shrugged’ have also increased dramatically since our current Presidential Administration took office in November 2008. ‘Freedom and tyranny’, and most of it was written, at least 18 months before it was released for mass consumption on March 23, 2009. Therefore, much of this book is prescient. The conservative ‘Freedom and Tyranny’ manifesto must be scaring the Liberals, the Democrats, and the RINOs, those who seek to give us hell on earth for our lives (but not theirs). These are times that test people’s souls; this book is a bright, burning lantern in the dark, which explains its huge sales. If enough people read and understand this book, crazy liberals will be in more trouble than they have been since 1980.

The great power of ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ lies in the fact that it centers entirely around timeless and timeless principles, the principles that manifest conservative thought and action. No liberal has principles; all liberal citizens want is for the government to guarantee that no one can be “better” than them, and all liberal politicians want is power, as much power as they can have over the lives of others. There are no principles in their views, only fear and lust for power, nothing more.

Mark Levin lays out in exquisite detail and in clear, concise, and coherent prose precisely where conservative principles have their origins, the objective evidence for why they work, and their historical precedents. He doesn’t actually call liberals by that name in most of the book, as that label has historically been applied in different ways and could cause some confusion; instead he calls them “statists”: those who worship government and/or work in government who want to expand their power relentlessly and, indeed, infinitely.

Conservatism is what gives us freedom; Statism is what puts us under the iron fist of tyranny. Conservatism has very little to do with what statism leads so many gullible Americans of all classes to believe. Levin proves this premise to be true over and over again, whether writing about the need to read the Constitution as written and derive its original meanings and intentions from historical context and extratextual letters, diaries, and notes written by the Founders; or the bland evil of crazy liberal science on issues like the spurious reasons for banning DDT and the massive man-made global warming fraud; or the evil of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; or the need for the federal government to do exactly the one thing it was supposed to do: preserve American civil society.

‘Liberty and ‘Tyranny’ tells us that “the United States today is so far removed from its founding principles that it is difficult to accurately describe the nature of American government.” Levin also reminds us that President Ronald Reagan said, “Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction.” The book ends with the epilogue of “A Conservative Manifesto” and lays out a 10-point call-to-action plan that everyone needs to hear in these dark days.

Read ‘Liberty and Tyranny’ by Mark Levin. Significantly mark it. Read it again. Read it slowly. Give it to your kids and grandkids as a gift, and when you do, put a little sticky note on the cover that says, “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”