Transcripts For CSPAN2 In Depth 20140120 : vimarsana.com

Host author mark with income and your most recent book, restoring the American Republic, you proposed amendment to the constitution, including term limits for members of congress, a repeal of the 17th amendment or the senate, establishing term limits for Supreme Court justices, limiting federal spending, limiting federal taxes, limiting the federal bureaucracy. Which of these and most important to you . Guest they are all of the same genre. Guest so theyre all quite important, and the goal or the purpose of the book is to notbot only talk about how to revive the constitution and restore the republic, but to inform people on what the republic is supposet to look like, how the s constitution is supposed tonsti function and to move some of the Decision Making away from thenta centralized Government Back to t the state legislatures acting collectively as the framers intended. Nte host you write in the liberty amendments about the 17th amendment. 17th amendment t the public interest, but the interests of the governing masterminds and their disciples. Its early proponents advance, it is not because they championed democracy or the individual, but because they knew it would be one of several important mechanisms for empowering the federal government and unraveling Constitutional Republicanism. Guest right. The framers didnt create a pure democracy. That would be absolute nonsense and crazy. In fact, if you look at the constitution, its very complex, what they created here. You have a value government with limited enumerated powers, three branches, each of which is supposed to be working with each other sometimes, checking each other. And, of course, you have the states where all the plenary power is supposed to exist, and the individual where all the individual sovereignty, obviously, exists. So this idea that direct elections is what the framers intended is not correct. They intended it for the house of representatives, and madisons notes make this clear. They debated this at length, what the senate was supposed to look like. They went back and forth with different models, but when it came to the senate, madison and the others made quite clear that you could not have the direct election of senators without creating this allpowerful, centralized national government. They wanted a federal republic, not an allpowerful, centralized government. And they even made this case to the states when it went to the states for the ratification of the constitution. They said, look, the senate is made up of individuals chosen by the state legislatures, so youre going to have a role in the federal law making process, among other things. So the federalists used the senate, among other things, and the nature of the senate to persuade the antifederalists to support the constitution. And if we had had direct election of senators in the original constitution, there the would not be an original constitution. The states would not have ratified it. Furthermore, who do the senators represent . Its the most bizarre body man has ever created. Theres two from every states, we get that, that was to balance the large states and the small states, but you have situations now where senators voted for, say, obamacare in states where the governor and the attorney general fought obamacare in court. And the state legislatures are trying to protect their citizens from obama. Its very bizarre. The senate today really is an odd construct. So the purpose of the senate was to empower the state legislatures and the federal law making process, not to have another ability to vote. Host recent rule changes in the senate to limit the filibuster, do you agree with those . Guest no. I think in the case of harry reid and the democrats in the senate, they abuse the rules, whatever the rules are. Ill give you an example. They were using the filibuster to block judicial nominees under george w. Bush like no senate in american history. Period. Then they complain when theyre in power and they can have the majority about the republicans not confirming executive officials quickly enough and not pushing through obamas legislation fast enough. And the very people who abused the filibuster rule and taught the republicans how to do it should the republicans choose to do it have now eliminated it for purpose of judicial nominees, the appellate level as well as executive officials. Look, what the senate is today, today, is a rubber stamp for obama. Harry reid might as well be in obamas cabinet. And this is a very odd thing because rather than protect the institution of the senate and the institution of congress which is what the framers intended, you actually have the majority in the senate today doing everything it can to support the executive branch in any way it can even if it means diminishing its own authority. This would be crazy to the framers. Matter of fact, it would have been crazy during Franklin Roosevelts period. You may remember Franklin Roosevelt tried to stuff the court. He tried to pack the court with liberal idealogues who agreed with him and his agenda. The individual who fought it the hardest was his Vice President whod been the former speaker of the house and Many Democrats opposed it, the democrats in congress, and they wouldnt go along. So you have to have people of integrity, people of virtue in whatever level of government were talking about. We clearly dont have that in the senate or in most of our institutions today. Host one other issue thats come up is whether or not its fair that a state like california, 50 million or so people, two senators; wyoming, less than a Million People, two senators. Guest well, thats exactly the point. The twosenator issue dose to the fact goes to the fact that the constitution never would have been ratified by all the states, ultimately, if only the big states virginia, massachusetts and pennsylvania, to name three could have as many senators as they wallet. And this goes back as they want. This goes back to the point where the house of representatives is the house of the people, quoteunquote. Direct elections, states based on their population. Thats how you determine the number of members of the house. Senate is a different institution. Matter of fact, the senate was supposed to be considered in many ways, and i hate to shock people, as the house of lords. But it hasnt worked out that way. Host some of your other liberty amendments, to promote Free Enterprise, to protect private property, to grant the states authority to directly amend the constitution, to grant the states authority to check congress and to protect the vote. Number nine, to granted the states authority to directly amend the constitution. What do you mean by that . Guest that threefifths of the state legislatures would be able to amend the constitution. Look, today it takes one justice to amend the constitution, and theyre doing it all the time. Today it takes the president of the United States, as this president does, refusing to uphold the law, refusing to adhere to the law, refusing to acknowledge certain aspects of a particular law, changing a law like obamacare. Theyre constantly amending the constitution and amending statutes. Congress passed obamacare, doddfrank, these are blatantly unconstitutional laws that confer power on the Administrative State and do other things that are outrageous. So the notion that threefifths of the state legislatures should be able to amend the constitution should hardly be radical when the Supreme Court is, in essence, a Constitutional Convention every time it meets, same with congress, same with the president and his cabinet. In order for that to happen, wed have to amend the constitution in the first place to allow the states to do that, which is one of the things i propose in my book. Host in your fist book, men in black, you write the Supreme Court in particular now sits in final judgment of essentially all policy issues, disregarding the constitutional limitations, the legitimate roles of congress and the president and the Broad Authority conferred upon the states and the people. Guest yeah. The progressives have won. And i dont know why theyre complaining or challenging what im writing, you know . Since before Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and so forth, they made clear what their objectives were; an allpowerful, Central Government. They didnt like this idea of checks and balances, they didnt like this idea of state sovereignty, and they did everything they could at the time to undermine that, to usurp that. So we have a Supreme Court now that sits in decision of virtually anything it wants to consider. Look, whatever your opinion is, look what happened in california with proposition 8. Hook whats happened with doma, with all these issues. We all sit restlessly, hows Justice Kennedy going to go, hows justice this one going to go, that one going to go . These are nine individual human beings. Theyre as imperfect as the rest of us. Theyre of blood, theyre of skin, theyre of bone, theyre of brain matter, and the idea that a Great Republic with 310 Million People has to await the decision of really one justice depending on how that justice swings or five justices to determine, you know, a particular social or cultural issue for the entirety of the nation is absurd. And the idea that theres no recourse whatsoever is absurd. And nobody, nobody can point to anything that took place at the Constitutional Convention or any of the state ratifying conventions that supports such a judicial oligarchy. There would be no constitution if thats what the constitution created, and it didnt. So one of my amendments, actually two of them, attempts to address this by term limiting Supreme Court justices, because my view is 12 years is enough whether youre a great justice or, in my view, not such a great justice. Its gotten way too political, and the other is that threefifths of the state legislatures if they act within a twoyear period can override a Supreme Court decision. And why shouldnt in this be recourse beyond one justice with the body politic, where the people of the United States if they can raise the resources and drive the agenda, can get threefifths of the legislature, a soup majority, its not that simple, to say, no, court, youre wrong. No, Justice Kennedy, youre wrong. Why would that be so horrible . I dont think it would be. Host when you talk about your liberty amendments, are you calling for a Constitutional Convention . Guest no. There can be no Constitutional Convention. Im calling for what article v calls for, a convention of the states. Its not a Constitutional Convention where everything is up for grabs. It is a convention of the states where twothirds of the state legislatures make application to congress to have a convention. Congress has no substantive role whatsoever. Its clear from madisons notes during the debates at the Constitutional Convention, and its also clear from federalist 85 that was written by hamilton, its a ministerial task. So twothirds of the states basically call for a meeting. And rather than congress itself having the power to propose amendments, twothirds of the states sending their delegates to this meeting, to this convention, they then come up with finish if they choose to amendments which then have to be sent to all the states. And you still need threefourths of the states to ratify. Host mark levin, are these amendments doable . Guest god, i hope so. If not them in particular, Something Like them because otherwise, i think were doomed. I think the trajectory of the nation is toward an out of control federal government that is becoming increasingly more centralized. You can see the increase and i dont mean to panic people in what i consider the Police Powers of the federal government. The idea that the irs is now going to enforce Health Care Laws and things of this nature is really disgusting. Its preposterous. And im looking for a lawful, legitimate, civil, constitutional way this is in the constitution. I didnt want create article 5, the framers did to address an increasingly repress i have and centralized government. Thats what george mason was concerned about. It was unanimously adopted by the Constitutional Convention and by the ratifying conventions this the states. I hope at some point thai doable. I mean, weve come a long way in six months. There was a meeting december 7th at mount vernon called the Mount Vernon Assembly where a hundred state delegates met from 32 or 34 different states to begin the process of talking about this. In indiana the legislatures passed two bills to prepare for this, outlining how they would choose their delegates and what the authority of the delegates would be, and the governor signed it. I mean, we shouldnt fear this. People need to understand, from my perspective we are in a postconstitutional period in respects. The system is upside down. Its topdown rather than bottomup, and its going to get worse. And im trying to say let us use the constitution to save the constitution and restore the republic. Host in your book from 2012, ameritopia the unmaking of america, you with talk about you taupe yangism. What is it . Guest its a whole book. Briefly put, what im saying is if you listen to the left and if you really understand the left, what they keep doing is promising theyre going to create these perfect systems or these magnificent Rube Goldberg type systems. Just surrender more of your liberty and your private property. Were going to improve our financial system, just give us more and more power in washington to control it. Were going to end poverty, just give us more and more of your wealth, well have this war on poverty. And on and on and on. And when it doesnt work, and it wont work because its impossible, its impossible for a few master mienlds in washington, d. C master mienlds in washington, d. C. No matter how big their administrative army is to know what 310 Million People know if terms of their own lives, in terms of what benefits them and so forth. But that said, the problem is that it becomes increasingly more centralized. So thats the basic proposition. Host you write utopianism is irrational in theory and practice for be it ignores or attempts to control the planned and unplanned complexity of the individual, his nature and mankind generally. Utopianisms equality is intolerant of diversity, uniqueness, debate, etc. , for utopianisms purpose requires a single focus. There can be no competing voices or causes, slowing or obstructing societys long and righteous march. Guest thats right. And you can see the attack on free speech whether its television, a e, duck dynasty, whether you see it on our college campuses, the languages being hijacked, fewer and fewer ideas are allowed to be espoused. And its really quite troublesome, to me. But in addition to that, the this utopianism notion, i call it utopian statism. And it always requires the federal government to have more and more power over the individual. And you can just listen to obama. And its not just obama. You know, if you listen to the Republican Leadership, today sound like neostatists themselves. But obama in particular excuse me. I have the flu. I just want everybody to know ive been fighting it for three days. This utopianism, i mean, and it can never fail. Ill give you an example. When obamacare fails, whats the problem . And not enough money . Not enough power . Not enough bureaucrats . Not enough something or another. It can never fail even though its a complete failure. And this is the problem we constitutional conservatives have in fighting it. These folks are always talking about what can be, what should be rather than reality, what theyve done and the damage that theyve caused. And, you know, it is our responsibility to try and do a better job to explain that, i think. Host mark levin, in your book prior that to that, 2009, you talk about statism. How do you define that . Guest well, i wanted to write a book, a restatement of conservativism. Recruiting a stating conservativism, you need to address liberalism. And then when i started to really think about it and, you know, do an enormous amount of research, starting to pull these things together, the names, you know, marxism, socialism, social democracy, liberalism, progressivism, i just decided to reach back to aristotle and use a word that kind of encapsulates all of it statism. And so i can remember when i used that word, my editor said whats this word statism mean . Well, statism is essentially those who believe in the power of a Central Government and less so in the power of the individual and lower levels of governing. And statism pushes the notion that government has as its purpose a good purpose which is the devouring of the Civil Society. And those of us who know enough about history and tyranny and liberty and so forth, we reject that idea. But you can see today the statists as i call them, some call them progressives or liberals, what have you, utopian statists more and more are devouring the Civil Society. So rather than the government existing in a limited form, you know, to insure that justice occurs and by that we mean legal justice, justice before the law; enforces contracts, takes care of basic necessities Like National security, securing the boarder and so forth we have a federal government that is ubiquitous. Its hard to think of areas of our life where the federal government is not involved in some way. Host should liberty and tyranny, the liberty amendments, should they with read as a trilogy . Guest well, as an author, i would hope so. [laughter] but, well, one does work after the other. You know, liberty and tyranny, you know, it just took off. It was, as i say, sort of from the my perspective a restatement of conservativism because i was really sick and tired of the Republican Party and the Republican Leadership and john mccain and some of these others who were really mushing up the message and really didnt stand for a hell of a lot and really werent explaining the principles of conservatives, conservativism and juxtaposing it to the left. And so i felt it was time for that. And ameritopia takes a much deeper, its really a book on political philosophy, but takes a much deeper look at the left and juxtaposes that, the central figure, to conservativism. You know, this utopian statism as an example, its not new. Its platos republic. Its more utopia, its hobbs leviathan, and i try to point that out, this most aggressive form. Its marxs perfect workers paradise. And i youngs juxtapose that to n locke, to charles demontague, to the framers of the constitution where you can really see the genius, the brilliance of liberty and then the bleakness and the darkness of tyranny. And i make the point that the left today, the statists today, really their philosophy is nothing new. Its steeped in many of the old philosophers who were preachingre in a fictional or nonfictional way the power of the state. And the power of the state is our undoing. Host mark levin, whos your favorite philosopher . Guest thats impossible. Its a good question, but its impossible. Theres so many. I mean, locke would be one of them. Locke, in my view, really laid out the most cohesive or comprehensive case for the Civil Society and the nature of man and natural law and had an enormous influence on our Founding Fathers. He was mostread philosopher during the revolutionary period, john locke was, by the colonists. And month skew, which is one of the reasons i have both of them in the book, ameritopia, was one of the most widelyread philosophers during the constitutional period. His argument for three separate branches of government, hes the one that maybe not first proposed, but most predominantly proposed it. So, and, you know, adam smith and david hume, and i can go through a whole list of them. Modern day, i guess i would say that people consider them philosophers, sort of milton friedman, high yak, men of that hayak, men of that sort. And there are many others, im sure i cant remember them all. Not one in particular, but all together. And by the way, the framers were well read on obviously, not men who didnt exist at the time, but many of the men at the time and before their time who did exist, they were well of informed about the enlightenment, about what had taken place before history. You look at jefferson, the declaration of independence borrows heavily from lockes second treatise on government. The constitution borrows heavily from montasgues laws. These are the philosophers and others, many others, who should be the focus of our educational system, who should be the focus of our public discussion. But i fear other than a very small percentage of the population, most people have never heard of them and certainly dont know much about them. So i try to do my best to spread the word. Host whos on the other side . Guest the processer ifs on the other side philosophers on the other side . Well, marx and edge ls. I think when people talk about progressivism or democratic socialism or even liberalism,of them may not realize many of them may not realize how much they take from marx in one form or another. Doesnt mean you have to round up people and put them in gulags, although that clearly has been done. The european socialists borrowed heavily from marx. I think the progressives at the turn of the last century borrowed from marx. This whole distributing wealth and radical egalitarianism and so forth, these are all marxist. But that said, marx talked about the withering away of the state. The problem is as lenin himself said, we cant figure out how that works. The state never withers away, in fact, the state becomes oppressive, horrific and all powerful. Host and once the state is under the control of the proletariat, its objectives will generally include the following ten tenets yeah. Id say that weve covered, what, six or seven or eight of those . Thats there marx. And the communist manifesto. And thats, those are his ten planks. And i think six or seven of those you just mentioned weve adopted. So, look, the socalled progressives and the progressive era, these people clearly rejected but let me put it to you this way, you cannot be a utopian statist and support increasingly centralized government and the diminution of individual liberty and state authority and support our constitution. I mean, its just not possible. And this is why i say were in a postconstitutional period. And the trajectorys completely in the wrong direction. Its increasingly centralized. I mean, today its health care. God knows what itll be tomorrow. But the fact of the matter is what these people are are pushing on the left and have been pushing is, is not within our constitutional framework. As a matter of fact, it attacks our constitutional framework. So you cannot be i just want the liberals out there listening to understand you cannot be a hardline liberal or as i call it a statist and support the constitution. You simply cant and you dont. Host weve talked about statists, weve talked about utopianism. Another book that you use in men in black, originalism. And you quote robert bork, and you say, this is robert bork talking originalism seeks to promote the rule of law by imparting to the constitution a fixed, continuous and predictable meaning. Then you go on to write originalists object to the judiciary grabbing power in the name of advancing a social good or remedying some actual or perceived injustice. Guest a couple of points there. First of all, the idea that the courts lets take the Supreme Court is this wonderful institution that never gets it wrong is simply preposterous. It was the Supreme Court that issued the dred scott decision. It was the Supreme Court that issued the plessy v. Ferguson decision. Itfrom my perspective, the supre court that issued roe v. Wade, these are inhumane, horrific, in some cases genocidal decisions. Because these are imperfect human beings, and thats been my point, and that will continue to be my point. I have no problem with a court system, with an implied judicial review power because its implied. An implied judicial review power where the courts or the justices understand the limitations on their roles. On the other hand, when they dont, there has to be recourse to this. Short of a constant National Loggerhead situation where one group feels this way and one group feels another way. And thats why i propose that the state legislature, threefifths of them, have the powers to override a Supreme Court decision. Wouldnt it have been wonderful if threefifths of these state legislatures had overridden the the dred scott decision, as an example . But theres a lot in there, in those one or two lines that i can address. I mean, the whole notion of the judiciary today as having the final word, um, season has to have of a final somebody has to have a final word at some point. I get that. But when the final word is so outrageous or so disconnected from the constitution from a perspective of a large segment of the community, of the nation, then the final word really doesnt have legitimacy, particularly if the court does it in a way where the court steps outside its bounds with. As for this notion of originalism, it simply means this without getting into the different disputes and there are about what it means among originalists, what it simply means as a general matter is this when a judge or a justice is deciding a constitutional matter as opposed to a statutory matter or a matter of equity and so forth, they are to try to discern what the framers meant, first, by the words in the constitution, then by the supporting historical record. And if none of that exists, that doesnt give them the option of going wildly into the darkness, imposing their personal policy preferences on the nation. Nothing gives them that power. So you can have originalists like a scalia and thomas who approach their job properly but come up with a different result. That happens. And thats the key. Its not the result, its the manner in which you seek to interpret the constitution and enforce the constitution, not necessarily the result that comes from that. So the alternative to that is you have a handful of lawyers who wear black robes who you call your honor who happen to get on the Supreme Court who impose their own wishes, who rewrite the constitution, who do whatever the hell it is that they want to do, and that is lawlessness. So, you know, lawlessness in the Supreme Court is a problem. Host good afternoon and welcome to booktvs in depth program. This is our Monthly Program with one author looking at his or her body of work. This month its author, radio show host, lawyer, mark levin. He has written five Nonfiction Books beginning in 2005, men in black how the Supreme Court is destroying america. And then in 2007 a book we havent discussed yet but we will, rescuing sprite liberty and tyranny, came out in 2009. Ameritopia, in 2012, and this past year, the liberty amendments restoring the american repluck. 202 is the area code if youd like to participate in the conversation, 5853882 if you live in the east and central time zones, 5853881 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. And if you cant get through on the phone lines, you can send a tweet booktv our twitter handle. You can also make a comment on our face book page, facebook. Com booktv. And finally, you can send an email to booktv cspan. Org. Mr. Levin, whered you grow up . Guest i grew up outside of philadelphia in a township called chel tonham for most of my youth in a Community Called elkins park. Host why did jack and norma live there . Guest thats a good question, because they were born in philadelphia, and they started a Nursery School and day camp right outside of philadelphia in springfield township, pennsylvania. So pulling back just a little, i was originally raised in erdenhime, and then we moved to the other township which wasnt far away. So they were Small Business people. My mother was a former teacher. My father was a artist, and they started that business together, and they ran it for almost 20 years. Host are they still living . Guest they are. My fathers 88, my fores 82. Mothers 82. They are just, you know, theyre wonderful. Host still in the philly area . Guest they live in florida. And be i have an older brother, doug, who lives in philly, a younger brother, rob, who lives in virginia. And my parents were role models for us. I mean, my belief in this country, my love of this country, my desire to do what i can in my own role, in my own way to preserve it, that comes from my parents. The notion of hard work wasnt just taught to us, i saw it how they worked 15, 18, 20 hours a day to make it work. And after they were done with the school and the day camp and sold it, they started a small store in pennsylvania which sold furniture, things of that sort. Host whyd you go to law school . Guest because i had to. I wanted to be a lawyer. I went to law school. I mean, i i dont know why. I mean, i feel i could have been a lawyer without having gone to law school, but thats the system, so youve got to go through the system. Because i wanted to deal with these issues. I mean, you need that certificate. You know, you need that diploma in order to be able to do what i do in another part of my life which is as president of Landmark Legal foundation. So i dont just write and talk about these things. We try and litigate around these issues, whether its the epa or obamacare, immigration and so forth. So i felt that that degree would give me a tool i needed in order to advance that i consider the cause of liberty. Host and how did you use that degree . Or how do you use that degree . Guest well, that degree by the way, i dont know that i could actually find the diploma anywhere. Im sure its hanging somewhere. Why i use it . As the president of Landmark Legal foundation. But i also use it in my radio show to analyze Court Decisions and other issues that may come up and also in my writings. Im not sure the degree itself really gave me an edge in terms of my own studies and drawing from scholarship and writing and so forth. It didnt hurt, but, you know, i was in a hurry. I got out of high school early, i got out of college early. I wanted to get out of law school early, but the dean wouldnt let me. So i wanted to get through all that and jump into what im doing to do. Host you worked with ed meese. Guest great man, great mentor. He was attorney general of the United States. I was, among other things, his chief of staff. This notion of originalism, he reintroduced it and promoted it in the 1980s as Ronald Reagans attorney general, which was absolutely crucial. We had some hectic times there because the left hated him because he was so effective. So they would try and unleash prosecutors and so forth. But the fact of the matter is, he was a really effective, forwardthinking attorney general. So a lot of the people you actually see on the courts today or in different organizations promoting liberty and the constitution and so forth worked in the Meese Justice Department in one unit or another, one division or another. So theres a whole army of conservatives libertarian constitutionalists out there who got their first job or the most prominent job in the Meese Justice Department. Host how did you get from chief of staff to ed meese to a radio show . [laughter] guest wow. Well, ill tell you, let me put it way, ive always been enamored or talk radio. Im 56. When i was a teenager, i would listen to the transistor radio outside philadelphia, to talk radio in philadelphia but more often in new york. And i would listen to various hosts there, gene shepard, barry farber, my favorite was bob grant who just passed away, and i just want to say one thing quickly about him. Grant was an icon in talk radio. He was always very gracious and kind to we, and he will be deeply missed because he, he really helped blaze the trail for conservative talk radio today. So id listen to him, and i wrote the local Radio Station, it was wcau at the time, i think its wpht now. And asked if i could do a talk show. I was 16 at the time. They let me in, i did one show, and that was the end of that. It wasnt intended to be a permanent show, but probably to get me off their backs. I wasnt planning on making it a career. And then over time in the 90s and in the early 2000 i was often on cable tv debating a clinton impeachment or what have you. And then, you know, i was a big fan of my friend, rush limbaugh, whos a mentor of mine, a big fan of sean hannity whos a mentor of mine. And i subbed for rush, but i subbed numerous times for hannity when he would take vacation. And the Program Director said, you know, i think you have a knack for this, would you like to try a sunday show . He said, now, we cant pay you anything. I said, thats fine, and i tried it. And sean kept prodding me to do it. And so i did it for a little over a year, and then i guess they wanted me to do more, to now im doing more, and now we have a very successful syndicated show. So that occurred postReagan Administration. Im not sure if there was one specific thing that did it. It just kind of came together. Host what makes for a good radio talk show host . Whats that key ingredient . Guest integrity. Not being a phony. Not getting on the air, listening to consultants telling you to talk about bologna sandwiches, to lighten up, talk about this, that or the other. You know, to try to get to the millennials, to try and be yourself. Have integrity. Have substance. Be compelling. And all of that, hopefully, is interor taping. Dont be be a entertaining. Dont be a circus clown, you know . Dont be a clapping seal. The most successful talk radio hosts, in my view, its not something you can learn, its not something you can teach. You either are or you are not. You either come through that mic and are compelling as your own personality, your own thinker, your own substantive person, or youre not. And you can tell when people are peaking. The audience faking. The audience, the other thing i would say is the audience is smart. The audience is really smart. Particularly in talk radio. So dont act like theyre stupid, and dont talk down to them, and dont try and mislead them. My Radio Audience the most important is the most important thing i have in radio. My Radio Audience is what makes me successful. Otherwise id be talking to the walls, you know, id be talking to the ceiling. And have respect for your audience. So i try to come in every evening when i do my show hours and hours and hours of preparation, of thought, of what i might say that is interesting, that might entertain as well and that affect peoples lives. So, you know, i crack jokes, i get angry. Youll see my, you know, all moods, personality. Thats the nature of the beast. Thats the nature of every human being. But as i say, integrity is crucial and having respect for your audience. Host you dont do much tv anymore, do you . Guest i dont do a lot of tv unless i want to do it or need to do it. I figure what i have to say, i say on the radio every day. People want to hear it, they can hear it. Im not into tv that much. Its not to say i dont like it when i do it, but, you know, the nearest studios 40 miles away. Thats an 90mile round 80mile round trip. And to sit there for five minutes and listen to some liberal in my left ear while im trying to get some comment out, it seems like a waste of time to me. You never know, maybe ill do more of it. We get invitations all the time, and i do appreciate the invitations, i just dont accept many. Accepted yours. Host we appreciate that. How much anonymity do you have . Guest well, my face is on all these books, so the last one i asked them to take it off. Host why . I noticed that. Guest well, how many of my faces do people need to see . [laughter] and if you google me, theres a sal pictures southbound pictures of me. I dont go to a lot of parties, i dont want go to a lot of events. Maybe ill speak three or four times a year. I dont do paid speeches, even though i get the offers to do those. You know, i like my anonymity, but on the other hand, i understand the times where i dont have anonymity. I have a great life. Im blessed. I enjoy every aspect of it. Anonymity or no anonymity. Host well, mark levin is our guest, and now its your turn to talk to him. By the way, his most recent book is the liberty amendments restoring the American Republic. That is our featured book this month on booktvs book club. Youll see book club at the top of booktv. Org. Click on book club, and youll be able to participate in the conversation with other viewers, other readers of the liberty amendments. As, and this will be for the entire month of january. Laura in new york city, please go ahead. Youre the first call for mark levin. Caller hi. Ive listened to mark levins show every night for years now, and from what he means by liberty is the criminal elite looting this country clean, impoverishing the middle class and paying no taxes on the wealth theyve stolen. What he means by liberty is to public money for Social Security, medicare, medicaid, education or the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure. He is a prop begannist for the criminal elite posing as a rightwing conservative. And his liberty amendments are to bring to an end once and for all in the United States of america any Political Representation for anyone in this country by the criminal elite. Host that was laura, new york city. Guest she figured me out. I confess, im part of the criminal elite. , i confess. I get callers like this all the time. One of the things that cspan does is you give em 60 seconds. I give em about 6 seconds. So what do you want me to say . Theres yeah. Host why do you give them six seconds . Guest because air time is precious. I take the. Kooks, you know, i could play a kook for ten minutes. Thats are entertaining. I could go back and forth with her, but whats the point if is shes a kook. Host because she disagrees with you . Guest not only because she disagrees with me, as most kooks would with, not that they necessarily disagree with me, but that theyre kooks. No, but that i dont believe in any public spending what so far. I believe in the constitutional system. There is public spending under the constitutional system. Im not an anarchist or anything of the sort. The other thing is the criminal elite taking everybodys money, im not in the government. How am i part of the criminal elite, im not in the government, hell am i taking everybodys money,e so like i said i could sit here and try to respond to that but its like another institution and someone is passing of but the demise of us to do, have a conversation . Its entertaining that im not going to have a conversation. Host this email is from andrew of wisconsin. Ive been a listener of the radio show for years. Recently have been listening to lectures on youtube and i was struck that the language was strikingly similar to that used by mr. Roth levin. I find it interesting these men will use such similar language to be on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Wondering if you would comment. Guest he should stop using the words i used. Thats right professor, you are dressed up like a professor, he and he is a radical statist. Why is it responsibility to bring rationality to a rational people . I cant explain chomsky. To my understanding he hates america and its institutions. He would disagree with me but i dont see how. So how am i supposed to make sense of him or that . I cant. I dont know how the guys like him get tenure actually, i do because the full people like that, that he can use whatever words he wants. I can express myself and he can explain himself. Host janice is calling from utah. Hello, janice. Caller first of all mr. Levin, a great admirer of yours. You are a National Treasure so dont let the kooks get you down. Host why do you think he is a National Treasure . Caller i just think he has got so many things right, and hes got a wonderful mind. I just add my ear his wonderful mind. As a conservative, im concerned about the division among the conservatives not over the goals, but over the tactics that seem to be kind of creating things that are going to be very detrimental in the success of the goals that we all want to achieve such as obamacare and stuff like that because we argued among ourselves over the tactics of how to get there and i just wonder if he felt like that was a concern or what your answer to that is. Guest that is a good question. The problem is in the republican establishment, theyve got their way. They nominated romney and the lost. Mitch mcconnell and the blaze and the senate are pretty much the same. Some of us had just drawn the conclusion that the country is close to the abyss. When you look at a trillion dollars of unfunded obligations, you know, when i finished the liberty amendments that came out in august we were talking about the 17 trilliondollar fiscal operating debt and now is 7. 3 and rising. These are unsustainable. The Social Security trustees say that Social Security fund is the state well who they say that is unsustainable. Obamacare is unsustainable. Unless and until the Republican Leadership and the republican bureaucracy figures out a way to address this, it is not defective. The Republican Party is going to keep losing. They dont win one here and there but the projector as i say will not change. From my perspective the Republican Party has to get back to its grassroots and become a party of principle again, not purity that principle. It has to have positions that juxtapose the left and with the president and the administration is doing. Also when you look at the prior Republican Administration the debt grew in the highest in history until the democratic administration. We have to be truthful about whats taking place and what responses should be and i dont know how this is going to work out but i think that the days of the republican establishment of bureaucracy getting their way without challenge, those days are over. Host and mr. Levin writes the government consumes nearly 25 of all goods and services produced each year by the American People and the deficits retain the exclude 1 trillion exclude the fiscal operating debt more than 17 trillion far exceeding the total value of the annual economic wealth created by the American People which is expected to reach about 26 trillion a decade. It has accumulated unfunded liabilities for entitlement programs exceeding 90 trillion which is growing at a 4. 6 to 6. 9 trillion a year do you believe, to followup on what you were talking about, do you believe the gop will be a line around the principles without a credible defection by the state to the third party . I dont support this third party stuff because that would mean endless victories by the hard left. Ronald reagan didnt support it either. I think what is needed to cut to the chase is a new Republican Party coming and i think that you need a new Republican Party about every 25 years. We have people who are effectively climbing the ladder within congress and getting into a leadership positions, but that doesnt make them statesman and they are not states and. And they are not effective at articulating very much. So, my concern is that the Republican Party needs to be improved. Im not a flag waver ive been in the Republican Party all my life that i am for liberty and we need an institution, a party institution that is going to represent more of us and unfortunately you have people in the party that have been leaders for 25 years and they are part of the problem. They may Say Something but they are ineffective so we need a new Republican Party. Host you write to the Tea Party Movement is a hopeful sign and its members come from all walks of life in every corner of the country. These citizens have the great enthusiasm of the Founding Fathers who claim the principles of individual liberties in the declaration and insist on the federal governments compliance with the constitutions limits. The debt would be bigger and the unfunded liability would be bigger and federal government would be more consolidated said it is a crucially Important Movement and it needs to grow, and i think it the Republican Party wants to go to war, the Republican Party is going to lose because the Tea Party Movement is there in america beah is nothing more than millions of citizens, taxpayers who had enough who see over the 100 trillion of unfunded liabilities and see the massive federal debt more and more and effective less effectiveness of the Democratic Party and say enough is enough. So of course both parties turn on multiparty in the attack as do the media which is to be expected. This is a washington mentality versus the people. Thats exactly why i wrote to the liberty amendment and the whole point of the state convention process is to bypass the federal government and to bypass the federal bureaucracy and bypass the federal court exactly as the framers intended in the Constitutional Convention. Every one of them that it tended voted for the article 5 so that we the people through our state legislatures can now least make an effort to take the republic back. That is in the same as every state legislature. Not far from here you have maryland. Thats a disaster. Deutsch california, rhode island, i get it theres a lot of disastrous state legislatures out there but a lot of the state legislatures are good or more positive. And if we can get a movement going and i think its starting. Time will tell. As a worse things get in this country, the more likely we will pick up steam when there is two years or 25 years i have no way of knowing. But the was the only serious recourse for whats going on today. It just is and as i said in the last chapter of the liberty amendments, even the most intelligent, politically muscular conservative who is elected president cannot reverse whats going on in the country today. Slow it down and try to pull some of it back. When he leaves office, george w. Bush comes back in and off we go again with the ft our model. So if people are serious about that, they should turn to the framers of the constitution and look at article 5 where george mason said here is your recourse. Host so if he were living in kentuckians which is pro Mitch Mcconnell in the primary and for the general. Guest i couldnt support Mitch Mcconnell not that hes not a nice person and so forth, but he is an ineffective republican leader and senator. That whole immigration bill he didnt take the lead in trying to cite against it the whole notion the president had in the power of the essence and vetoed the congress to decide not to raise the debt ceiling but Mitch Mcconnell came up with that idea and said it should be temporary for us. They dont have the power of the constitutional power in the purse. But anybody, the president , any entity. I was proud of him, really was the that is the first and last thing i can remember. Host calling from cedar hearst new york. I think that he would probably call me a kooks along with that last caller. I think the person she was referring to was the koke brothers that signed the Heritage Foundation and the ones that fund and other organizations that create bestsellers and then they give them away and will be people want to spend the money on them and the people who pay for the buses that take the Tea Party People through their rallies and they also now are paying the people that organized who know they are being paid for by the koke brothers in order to get people to rally, which of course is a very easy thing to rally against. Host lets talk about tyranny. What he is arguing about is the utility comes from people organizing that while in the preamble it says we should be promoting the general welfare and there are 3 Million People in the country he cannot accept the possibility he cannot accept that i am a kook who cant speak on the show because i cant get through the screening. Guest we have a line here on cspan now its called the kook. Let me remember some of this because i cant remember all of it. Number one, they dont find anything, number two, no groups buy my books. Number three, overall i cant remember everything. I have no idea about the leaflets but so what, they never use big money to fund anything. Lets see, what was the everything he said, do you remember it . I cant think of everything that he said. Host he couldnt get through the screeners. Guest sometimes they sneak through and sometimes they dont. But everything that he said is a lie. Host back to the larger issue or another issue of talking with and reading people you disagree with. Guest i have conversations with people disagree with, substantive intelligent conversations and if someone calls me and says somebody finds something that they didnt found if and if they are pushing the leftwing conspiracy cravath, what am i supposed to do . Sit there and have a discussion . I cut them off and i say get the hell off my phone. Call somebody else and have a good time. If you want to discuss the amendment process, the constitution, unemployment, the debt, we will have a serious discussion about those things. But the accusations, what am i supposed to do . I cut them off. Host do you enjoy the writing process . Guest i love it. Its a lot of work. I research and i deutsch the scholarships. And i have to spend every weekend and every night after my show working on these things. It takes time away from other things but its just something i believe very strongly in. Theres a discussion at least in part of the country about the amendment process. And i dont know that would be occurring accept that this is a New York Times bestseller. Host she visited mr. Levin at his home and talked to him about his writing process. There are a hundred things i want to write about. Its hard work, but the business part of it doesnt really drive me. On the other hand, im not comment on gandhi leaders. What drives me is to get my books into as many hands as i possibly can. Because my books are intended to try to affect peoples thinking come to give them ideas, maybe things they havent thought about triet and as i say, i cant imagine others thinking the same way but that is certainly where im coming from. I had one of the greatest editors and publishing. His name was mitchell and he really is terrific and he has an eye for this. So he might say you may not want to use that sentence or you might want to reorganize this chapter or that chapter. But hes also gracious about how he does it. Knowing full well that im a little stubborn, like i think most authors are coming and i certainly am so he may say he may not want to include that. Or he might say you dont want to include that and i will say youre right. But in the and i make those decisions. Has there ever been head butting . No pity to have returned in a book where they say good lord . No, they say they are thrilled to have the book because i hand them a complete book with all of the end notes in the book and all of the sourcing in the book and all the arguments in the book and all the chapters in the book, i put it together and i handed to them and at the end of the desk they have returned a few of them to me and i dont know that other authors do that, i just dont know, but in my case because i have no ghost authors or coauthors of the store they are just glad i turn them in on time. Theres things i want to write about and talk about and life is short. They dont need to say youve missed your deadline. Im excited to get my book and by the deadline and get on to the next one. Its hard work, it is because i do the radio show and im not done until 9 00 at night eastern time and im working until three in the morning on the book and i work on the weekend, and so it does have an effect on your social life and so forth, but this is what i do. This is what i love. People say what you do for a hobby . Of this is what i do. Its a hobby and its work and i love it. Host so mr. Levin, what is the next book . Guest i am working on the next book and im not going to reveal what it is yet. Im not going to get into it. Host are you allowed to discuss when its coming out . Guest no. Host we will get back to calls and this is jim in georgia. You are on book tv with mark levin. Caller hello, mark and i think its peaked. One thing they are good at is projecting. You mentioned earlier how you use to be a talkshow host and so one thing now im always frustrated when im listening is i agree wholeheartedly but want to hear one of you recount the conversation or anybody who gets in front of a camera somewhere and says stuff that is absolutely not true. The platform that you have, are you able to not necessarily put them in front of the camera, but to speak to them and say what you said on such and such a date and time is flat out wrong. Guest they dont talk to me anymore pbs i never talked to him in my life i dont think. I met him once accidentally several years ago. But i havent heard from john bader and i used to get calls. As you might imagine, i dont support his reelection. I dont initiate calls with politicians. Some of them try to initiate calls with us. Sometimes i take them and most the time i dont because some of them are my friends but i dont want to get friendly with many of them because it becomes much more difficult to speak about them and what they are doing. So i limit that as much as i can. Host so if they say i would like to talk about mark levin on the air. Guest we have invited him to come on the air multiple times. We would love to talk to him. Host do you ask marked up the left pointing to the general welfare clause to justify . Guest thats what i forgot, the general welfare. Its funny that was discussed and flanked in the liberty amendments. So people who say they are familiar with me and my books and so forth, many of them are not. The general welfare clause is not intended to neutralize all the rest of the constitution. You will hear the left talk about all the time and say the general welfare calls talks about this. What about the rest of the constitution, and its interesting because this did come out and the framers made it quite clear that it is absurd to say that it would neutralize all of the rest of the work that went into drafting and establishing the constitution, the specific powers and branches and the limited powers of the government and the bill of rights and so forth. You cant just pass all and say because it affects the general welfare and i am going to pass it. But what they meant by that is that it has to affect the general welfare and then it has to meet all of the other standards. So in other words they cannot pass fell law that is specific to say the township in pennsylvania when it comes to xy and z to read it has to have a purpose. Its in the state of pennsylvania to address the parochial issues. So that is what was meant by the general welfare calls and not to the rest of the constitution and as i said i discussed it at great length in the liberty amendment. And people who follow this note this isnt even an argument anymore to know that the general welfare clause gives the power to the federal government to do what it wants to do. Host jd says the problem relying on the framers refuting the constitution is that the sanctions of slavery. Guest they didnt sanction slavery in the constitution. As a matter of fact when the british kept importing the slaves and to the United States in the colonies, because we didnt have much control of the borders then either, theres a provision in the constitution that specifically in this the importation in a certain period of time after the adoption of the constitution. But i would tell the gentleman to read Abraham Lincoln who is also cited in my book and Abraham Lincoln praises the framers of the constitution. Many of whom were slave owners and he knew it and he said because they could not resolve this issue there and then they left it to their progeny to do it and thats what the declaration of independence the eyes as i have explained in my books, as Abraham Lincoln explained over and over again the same men who wrote and adopted the declaration of independence which talks about the natural any legal rights of the individual, not just white men, not just men but every human being. Set the stage for at some point the abolition of slavery. It is the only rational position that there is. But i would say why would you condemn the constitution . You can condemn the Due Process Rights of the probable cause and the fifth amendment, do you condemn the First Amendment and speech and religious liberty, do you condemn all of these amendments which were also adopted by many of the framers were sleeve owners slave owners the position should be what did these men create that is beneficial to the nation and what is beneficial is a society that couldnt be completely free of slavery then is free of slavery today and that is what the declaration of independence set forth. I reject the idea that these men are to be dismissed. One of the reasons he didnt assign the constitution is because he didnt think that it went far enough. As a matter of fact it came up very early during the convention in georgia and South Carolina threatened to withdraw. So here they were trying to put a nation together and they couldnt resolve some of these difficult issues at that time and i would say one other thing, if the constitution had failed, there wouldnt be a United States, would there, there wouldnt have been a civil war, and slavery wouldnt have been eliminated in the states. No. Those states would have been off on their own. Maybe they form their own country. Who knows what the future of the states would have been. But because of the constitution, because we had a union and ultimately because of the civil war it ended slavery if not just in parts of the northern states but throughout the United States host tauter on twitter wants to know if you would never run for office. Guest know. From my own perspective i think i could be more effective not being in the office. Imagine all the sound bites they pull from my radio show. I give it no thought whatsoever. When i was younger i thought about it. Matter of fact i ran for office when i was in law school. I was 19 and i got elected to the local school board. I was 20 and i did that for about three years. Ive calmed down since then. Host why the school board . Guest they were raising taxes on the community but the only property taxes could they do it and i could see how was hurting my parents and other people when i decided to run and i guess in my own Little Community of i created something akin to the Tea Party Group but for the tax limitation and while i was running in the Republican Party primary, also established this committee for tax limitation we would go from door to door and i would work the Community Day in and day out and i worked among others i won the primary and the general election and i served about three years until i left pennsylvania. Host but that got rid of the desire to run for office . Guest i thought about it. I sat in a state delegate running against him because i thought she was spending too much money and he got nervous. But no, i thought about it but not in the last 20 years. Host to politicians come to you for endorsement . Guest yes. Host do you ever endorse . Guest yes. Host who is your favorite politician today . Guest that will get me in trouble. I have a number of different politicians today. Ted cruce and mike leigh, and i like rand paul. I cant think. Im going to get in trouble. There are members of the house and the senate host marco rubio . Guest i strongly disagree on the immigration issue but i like him on other issues of spending, taxes coming and hes introduced a bill to prevent obama, he hopes come from subsidizing the Insurance Companies which will clearly have to be done and it shouldnt have to be done. So there are aspects of his record by like as well. Host 2016, jeb bush verses Hillary Clinton. Guest disaster. A disaster for everybody. I dont know if that will happen or not. I hope not. I hope both parties do better than that. I mean, Hillary Clinton was a disastrous secretary of state. The middle east is burning. Obama likes to say or even before john kerry was appointed that she was the best secretary in history. What the hell is he talking about . Her record is a disaster. John kerry of looks like he wants to one of her and me get even worse, constantly putting the pinch on is rell and israel and appeasing the islamic regime in tehran. Its a complete disaster and you can see they are not taken seriously. The Egyptian Military that runs egypt now is building ties with the russians, something the democratic president s have prevented. You can see we are losing turkey as it is becoming increasingly islamist. Saudi arabia is fed up with this president and the secretaries of state and so forth and the chinese have moved into the china sea and theres all kind of things going on globally that are usually problematic. And that is because of the disastrous policies of this president and his secretary of state. As for jeb bush, how many more do we need . Weve got jeb bush trashing people who dont support amnesty and hes pushing for this common core federal education mandate on the state. Weve been there and done that. Its a disaster. How about we do this, we pick somebody that is more in line with Ronald Reagan and how about we try to win the president ial election and talk about liberty and private Property Rights and free market capitalism and opportunity and Wealth Creation and obama is having a big picture today or tomorrow with Unemployed People behind him which is funny cents probably most of them are unemployed as a result of his policy. Why do we have people who can stand it confidently and coherently, they dont have to be purists, just conservative. I dont think this is asking too much. Why reject the one example of the Massive National landslides and keep increasing the losers . I dont know. But i think bushs is enough. Host chris christi. Guest i dont care for him. He is a truly terrible record in new jersey and among them the highest property taxes in the country. They did when he came in and they still do today. He is weak on limited government. All of these governors and the states attorneys general signed the brief against obamacare and Chris Christie refused and he still want to explain why he did it other than a lame argument that he didnt want to spend the money. It doesnt cost him anything to sign that hes expanded medicaid now which is a disaster for the state. One out of every 4 the states budget is spent on medicaid and will go through the roof and two or three years after the federal subsidies stop. He is pro amnesty and progun control. Again, why would the Republican Party go to another northeastern republican . They went to mitt romney and that field. Chris christy isnt going to work. I dont think the temperament is going to fly in much of the country. Host who is so sprite . Guest he was a shelter dog that leone, the first shelter dog that we ever had. How many years ago now . I guess it was 2004. We adopted him and brought him into our home. He was sort of a blond white dhaka said the family called him sprite because we had a dog that was black and white and we called him pepsi, so we had pepsi and sprite, like the drinks and we only had him for two years and he was a wonderful, wonderful dog and companion to our dhaka pepsi and i have a huge heart for dogs come animals in general but dogs in particular. And about a year in, he got sick part of his skulls tava danny and he had a tumor and it was just very sad at the end. We had to put him down. Never put down a dog before. It was extremely emotional and very upsetting and to be honest i got very down about it for period of months and whats interesting about that naming is i had in early discussions with simon and schuster about writing a book on conservatives that became liberty and sold 1. 3 million copies well then sprite passed away and i told him i wasnt interested in writing, and then i just wasnt in the nude, you know, because it hit me hard so they said how about you write a book about your dog and then write the book on conservatism because we really want you to read this book on conservatism. So why did and its rescuing sprite. It took me about three months to write and it was very difficult to write, but it was fairly quick and then when it came out i remember my editor saying to me you need to work on another book and then he called and said slowdown. Lets focus on talking about rescuing sprite because it took off and went to number two or three on the New York Times bestsellers list and its a very personal book. People who have adopted shelter dogs or even if they havent theyve lost a doll or animal and had to put them down they get much solace out of this book and im glad they do. The brothers had nothing to do with it and every penny i get from that book goes to Animal Shelters. Host do you have a dhaka today . Guest i do. He is a shelter dhaka i have had about two years and he used four or 5yearsold. He was turned in bye somebody to an Animal Shelter if and they dont keep them that long, one or two days. They were going to put him down but a volunteer called friends of mine at a shelter and very close to and i support called lost dog and cat in Arlington Virginia and they said their van over and picked up 67 of them and they go to these adoption things from time to time, i still do, and i lost pepsi. He died about six or seven months earlier and a friend of mine we were on the floor playing with dogs and this one in particular was receptive to us and he wanted to take him home but his wife said no and then i wanted to take him home. They had him for weeks, said he is my little buddy and he is a bundle of joy and i think when im done with radio and all this im going to spend my time trying to save as many of these dogs as possible. Host sean in hawaii heat kuran less author mark levin. Caller i agree with most of what you have been talking about and i would like to know if there is a public that ever existed in our history and how long did it last or does it still exist . Thank you. Host thank you, sean. Guest yes. The public was established and with some of us are trying to do is restarted. Its not perfect. No country is meant to be perfect, no government is keen to be perfect but we are not talking about perfection. We are talking about completely out of control and getting increasingly out of control. So some of us have kids and grandkids and want to take steps today to try to avert the public part of it will end and thats important. No nation is guaranteed existence in perpetuity and none of them really do exist forever. While there has never been a Perfect Society we just talked about the framers. They were not perfect, but the word genius and they were patriots and they put everything on the line to establish this nation. And i think that the next generation and generations behind us we need to do everything we can to restore this republic and reestablished the constitutional government. We have young men and women overseas 18, 19, 20, 25 years putting their life on the line in afghanistan and other places around the world. They dont have these discussions you and i are having. They are there because they are americans and they protect america to protect the liberty and the constitution. They are not fighting putting their lives on the line for obamacare or doddfrank or unemployment compensation. Theyre putting their lives on the line because of america the republic and it seems as we civilians who arent putting our lives on the line, the least we can do is make the case at home before its too late before we highlight our society and defend our principles. Host steve on twitter. Does mark purposely exaggerate his views on the radio . This book and interview display more self control. Caller i dont purposely exaggerate anything. I am a guest here on cspan. Its like being the guest at a wedding. You conduct yourself as a guest. Cspan is not talk radio. When i do my show, as i said earlier on this program, the host has to have integrity. So if you are as passionate as i am about these issues and the future of the country, that comes across on the microphone. I dont do npr where people sit there and speak like zombies. That is what they do. I myself on the radio, you are asking intelligent questions and im giving you straight answers. If eighth kook calls, i call him a kook. There is in that much difference but as i said im a guest here and i know how cspan conduct said. Host this is hour in that Program Featuring one author and his or her body of work and this month it is marked kook. Brenau in arizonan you are on the air. Caller i enjoy your books immensely. I have all of them cut i do have a question about the liberty amendment because there was something that ive been thinking about since we have an occupant in the white house that change the law and spends money driving us into oblivion and does whatever he feels like she wants to do if he wants to be a dictator and we have a senate where harry reid is carrying his water constantly. I know that other than elections , obama wont be impeached. If you have another idea that can be incorporated into the convention of the state that would allow the people to take other action to get rid of a person like obama because obviously right now we dont have a way of getting rid of him and they are waiting until 2016 we may not have a country left and allows for that guy that was complaining about the coke brothers i dont know if he realizes that they had about 100 or so leftwing organizations that are stepping up to destroy this country. But i really am interested in your idea host lets get an answer. Thanks for calling in. Guest i should say im a big fan of the coch brothers. They are successful businessman who contributed to society and our katulis which is why they are heated by the left and they see the country going to help and want to do something about it so i want to salute the coch brothers and salute them for all they do even though i dont get any money from them. Number two, what else can we do . Well, i dont know what anything else we can do. Article 5 in the state convention process is that it bypasses obama and kerry reed and john boehner and the massive bureaucracy and somebody might say how is it if they dont comply with the constitution today what makes you think that they will apply comply with these amendments and that is the brilliance of the process. The states will decide what the states comply with so if we say to the states to overturn a federal statute and obama wants to continue to implement a federal statute then he is violating the constitution and the states need not to comply. If you are going to have a president that this seoul call lists that they violate something of the sort there is no reason the states have to adhere to let the president. We are making the constitutional argument coming and the others are not. So hopefully people my hope is that people will talk about this process and the more we learn about it we will be compelled to support. Host you quoted whitaker chambers talking about the new deal on fdr. It was not a revolution. It was a revolution by bookkeeping and lawmaking in so far as it was successful. This is the basic power shift of all of the pollutions of our time and this shift was the revolution. Guest absolutely on that comment in particular. The revolution has already occurred in the progress of revolution of 100 years ago. We are living in and right now. And what i try to do in all four of these books, liberty and tyranny, and the Liberty Methods is to discuss at some length to make the case and we do live in a largely period they are perfectly happy with this and are prepared to accommodate it so they come up with proposals on the tax cut here or a Little Something on the edge over here but they will not address these constitutional issues of the foundational defect of the left and these other things that they have created so there is some of that to the extent there is a movement but you will see that more and more and they will quote edmund burke as an example then they supported the American Revolution and that was a part of the status quo and then post the french revolution for reasons that i agree with. But the American Revolution was considered pretty radical at the time. He did believe in experience. He didnt believe in going one direction or the other. He believed and moderation, but it is from some of these folks to mean accepting radical or a trajectory that is unacceptable and that in my view would alter or transform the country. I dont think that he would sit still and say all we need is another tax cut. I dont think that he would do that. I think that he would agree with george mason that it is so much of what it does with regulations for taxations to dictate and so forth that the people need a constitutional and nonviolent civil option. Host man in black how the Supreme Court is destroying america followed by rescuing sprite and then liberty and timoney the conservative manifesto with 29 and the mayor to be a was the first Nonfiction Book the unmaking of america in 2012 and just this last week is the liberty amendment restoring the American Republic that came out in august of 2013. He is working on another book but he wont tell us anything about that. You are on with mark levin. Caller i was wondering what you thought it seems to me the senate treats the house as the minor leagues. Ive never heard of a senator running the house. Guest that is a very good point. I havent thought that through. Maybe there is one somewhere hon quincy adams, but a former senator . I think its happened but i cant remember off the top of my head, but its a good point because the house of representatives really is meant to be the peoples house, and the senate really is meant to be the house of the state legislature, and the senate really isnt the peoples house. Its not the house of the state legislatures. We dont know what it is. Its a mess. And that was pushed in 1913 by the progressives as was the federal income tax, those two amendments adopted the same area. Progressives were republicans, too. Taft, roosevelt excuse me and this is great, because now were enfranchised. We can vote for our own senator. The problem is youre voting for a senator who is anxiousable answerable to whom . They treat the states like just another group. So theyll spend as much time dealing with a governor, say. They feel no obligation to these State Governments, t state no obligation to the State Government whatsoever so that was quite revolutionary when that occurred. And i think thats right. I dont think that there is any justification for that, but you have a lot of the members that think it is a step up to run to the senate and a lot of the senators that look down in the house it shows you how screwed up the system has become. Host mr. Levin, you often talk about class warfare in america. The study by the Congressional Budget Office found that the top 1 of households increased their income by about 280 after the tax was over between 1979 to 2007 and at the same time the average income of the bottom 90 of americans basically stagnated just 8 over the same period. Doesnt this prove that there is class warfare going on the very wealthy against everyone else . Guest lets assume we round up the wealthy and take everything they have. How is that going to improve his life . Its not going to improve it at all. It seems to me the opposite is the problem. The more government is the more skew of the income. Weve had obamacare and doddfrank and the poverty and medicare we have Social Security and a thousand other programs and a thousand agencies and millions of bureaucrats with a goal of the government now is the redistribution of wealth, yet the gentleman talks about, lets just assume for argument that they are, the top 1 . So this is a free society. We need to embrace private Property Rights and capital some more so that there is more opportunity for people that seek opportunity, not less. Theres more government where the apparently created what hes talking about. Host hank in maryland, please go ahead tell me what qualifications this president had to be president of the United States of america. Anybody that has ever done anything. My question for you is do you think the Education System for purposely dumbing down the young people anything about the country like this unqualified man that we have now. Thank you. I think it has become a huge issue. Social engineering is being used in the School System and ive been fighting the National Education Association Since i was a school board member, and now the Landmark Legal foundation has fought for them. Whats interesting about the antitrust law, the antitrust law is used against the corporation but the unions are exempt. I think that they need to be broken up and into 10,000 pieces. Thats what i think that that isnt to say that all teachers are bad. I know some are bad the problem is too many of them are of the Union Mentality and the schools are controlled by this agenda and the more the federal government gets involved the more youll see this happen. What isnt controlled by the federal government in the system right now . Even the cafeteria is controlled. Its amazing. Host i had a little quote que said the total Food Production is controlled by the federal government at this point the regulations, and i cant find what a book that is an a. Guest that would probably be in marital maritopia. Let me explain that. Whats grown, how it is packaged, how its shipped and offered in the supermarket and so forth. The federal government has a hand in every aspect of it. Host rob of new york. How did you get him the nickname the great one . That came from sn hannity. Not a moniker i gave myself, i can assure you. I had one liberal caller who once called me the great big one and i thought that was funny, i didnt hang up on that person. I laughed. Thats where that comes from, from hannity. Host another email is there an antireligious bias in america . Guest is there an theres an antireligious bias in the government and an antireligious bias in hollywood. Its quite obvious. Obamacare is the epit me of epitomy of an antireligious bias. We had the hart amendment and the federal government did not spend a penny of federal resours on abortion, and that was a negotiated agreement that had served this country well for a long time. Obamacare is going to subsidies it, even though the president said it was not. You have religious entities that doesnt necessarily mean churches and so forth, but Business People or individuals who are religious in and of themselves who do not wellto pay for policies do not wish to pay for policies that support payments for abortion or contraceptives or whatever you have, and theyre being told, you must. Its mandated. Thats clearly a violation of First Amendment. Well see what the Supreme Court decides at the end of our another june will come and well hope that five justices rule the right way. But this president , this administration, and this congress, they pushed the edge of the envelope as far as they can and theres an antireligious bias, and let me be even more specific. Theres an antichristian bias in my view. Certain things you cant say about certain religious groups and so forth. But if youre a traditional, practicing christian, youre written off as aut as a nut. As a fundamentalist and, its funny how ignorant people are who make these al probations, ben when you go back to our founding. The framers were very involved in and knowledgeable about the judeochristian background, ethics, principles and people try to, well, jefferson was a deist and franklin, yes they were but they werent atheists and the constitution is an extremely tolerant document, particularly when it comes to religion and particularly when it cops to the First Amendment which we all know was adopted later but, and we are in a extremely tolerant country with respect to all religions and religious practices. That is because of the judeochristian ethic at the time of the framing, so yeah, i think there is hostility in mass media and by the government against religion generally but particularly against christianity. I say this as a jew. Host in mark levins most recent book, the liberty amendment, he has several proposals for amendments to the constitution. Number one, establish term limits for members congress. Restore the senate by repealing the 17th amendment. Establish term limits, 12 years for Supreme Court justices. Limit federal spending. Limit federal taxation. Limit the federal bureaucracy. Promote Free Enterprise. Protect private property. Grant states authority to directly amend the constitution. Grant states authority to check congress and protect the vote. Professor william green, an instructor in Political Science at south texas college, emails in, mr. Levin, why do you continue to claim that James Madison opposed nullification when he clearly stated in that document you referenced that Thomas Jeffersons idea of the right of nullification is the natural right. What is nullification . Guest , you know, this happens from time to time, theres a relatively small fringe effort out there to push an agenda. Nullification is one of them. There are others too. Even a little sessization movement going on. I would ask the professor in one place, madisons notes, most comprehensive notes of the constitution where nullification is mentioned . He cant. Can the professor point to anywhere in the constitution where nullification is mentioned . He cant. What he does and others do, they try to construe the 10th amendment, which leaves all powers not specifically conferred on the federal government to the states as a nullification amendment . There is no such thing. They act like liberals the way they twist and spin and reinterpret what took place. He talks about jefferson. I have great admiration for jefferson. Jefferson wasnt at the Constitutional Convention. So thats interesting but so what . What did he have to say about it . Nothing. He was at the Constitutional Convention. What did madison have to say . He was at the Constitutional Convention and had a major role. When you point out a letter that he wrote to everett in 1830, a rather lengthy letter in which he provides exposition on this, at great length he goes into it. He also endorses article 5 which we imagine he would because he voted for it. He comes out squarely and strongly against nullification. But then they say, oh, no, that relates to South Carolina. Another letter in 1832. There is no winning this argument because it becomes circular. So i entertain myself now and then, then i move on the point is this, nullification is the notion, again deponed who is promoting it because they have different arguments. It is the notion that a state can on its own nullify a statute of the federal government if the state legislature concludes that the federal government doesnt have the power to do it. Now as a practical matter, putting aside all history, where would that take us . Lets say maryland doesnt like a particular statute passed by the federal government and says you know what . That doesnt apply to us. Were nullifying that. We concluded here in maryland that is unconstitutional. What if 10 states take that position . In other words, you cant, this is called anarchy. On top of that, i view these folks, they may not like it, as sort of neoconfederates. Im looking at the constitution. Language in the constitution. Something that was actually adopted at the Constitutional Convention. Trying to encourage people to take a look at it. Some state legislators are starting to take a look at it. It is right there we know who proposed it. We mow who wrote on it. We know what madison said on later but we have the movement that says no, it is an impossibility, lets go for state nullification. The big nullifiers out there as far as im concerned have been on the left. They have been nullifying the constitution left and right as far as i can tell which is one of the reasons why i think it needs to be reestablished and revived. So, professor, if you can show me anywhere in the Constitutional Convention where nullification was addressed, you can send it to me, if you can show me anywhere in the constitution where nullification is mentioned, rather than your implication or your, your interpretation, you can send that to me too. Which means you wont be sending me anything. Host brian, pikesville. Jon maryland, good afternoon to you. Caller i thoroughly enjoy watching cspan booktv and i regularly watch it on a sunday and i recall some time ago you had a lady by the name of Melanie Phillips from england who mass written a book, the world upside down. And i was very impressed by the remarks you made as to the one word, the progressives do not wish to hear and that is the truth. I think that really hits the nail on the head. I was at a party not so long ago. I was mentioning something about the obamacare problem, there was a problem. As soon as i mentioned that, without my further discussion i was told i was rightwinger. I was a fascist. So, but, what i would like to ask mr. Levin, who i respect very much is, what is the, what is the mentality of people of different ideologies . People of equal intelligence who agree with his concepts and people on the other side of the issues . I really like to hear some discussion on that. Thank you very much. Guest what is the mentality, im not sure i understand but let me use this as an opportunity to Say Something that relates to it in terms of this word ideology. I dont believe conservatism is an ideology. I believe conservatism is what naturally flows from Human Experience. Conservatism is based on Human Experience. Conservatism is based on reality. Its based on practicality. And its based on reason and knowledge. Thats why so many conservatives opposed obamacare from day one. It is not an idealogical thing. We know all this power over the individual and individual health care and decisioned about medicine and so forth, in a centralized government, run by politicians and bureaucrats is a dangerous thing and it is also an impossibility. In other words, it wont work well. And so, we dont say that for an idealogical reason. We say that based on Human Experience and on the other hand, those promoting obamacare theyre idealogues. They reject Human Experience and reality and knowledge and all these things that are important in making rational decisions. So i would say conservatism is not an ideology. Its a way of life. It is a way of thinking. It is a way of being based on Human Experience and statism or liberal system an ideology and it is based on utopiaism. Thats why you dare to say at the party some of the examples of why obamacare fails or is going to failure called a rightwing whatever. So the truth is youre probably being questioned by a cook. Then again i have already discussed that. Guest martin l wants to know what mr. Levin thinks of the club for growth . Guest what now . Host the club for growth. Guest i like these conservative groups, free market groups, voluntarily operate, raise money in the private sector, no Government Support whatsoever, use it to elect conservatives. I think we need more of it. I like the Koch Brothers and i like the club for growth and these other organizations. Why not . Host marine, flushing new york, go ahead with your question or comment for mark levin. Caller mark, i enjoy you very much. I have a couple questions what is going on with the nsa what is your opinion about the overreach of government in that aspect. And the other question is at the very beginning of the formation of this country, great minds all got together, agreed to disagreed and move the ball forward. Who do you have now who you think is of the same mind set that we have another renaissance in that regard . Guest i think there is a dearth of such people at this point to be honest with you so i dont know. When you look at congress, what a disaster. I mean i could go around the country and pick people who are smarter, wiser, better judgment. Who would look at what is going on in earlies of the debt and deficit and not securing the border around all these other things and make more rational and Intelligent Decisions than these people yet there they are. So i dont know. I hope that there are some at some point. That is why i rely on state legislatures. Not all of them, but a majority, supermajority of them. I think we have to work from the bottom up. What was the, oh, in the sa. The nsa. My position on. Nsa is simple. I dont think nsa should be collecting anybodys phone numbers or phone patterns and i think it is a complete waste of resources and time. I dont think they can point to a single example where this stopped any terrorist event. Every time theyre asked whether by a committee or by this Obama Commission or whatever it was, they dont come up with the supportable positions. I think it is unlikely that it violates the Fourth Amendment. I guess were going to find out but i think it is stupid and it ought to stop and i do think the Fourth Amendment or no Fourth Amendment it does violate our individual rights and, you know, im a strong supporter of intelligencegathering. Im a strong supporter of Law Enforcement. I mean, heck, i worked with the Meese Justice Department in the Reagan Administration but this goes way too far. I do not like this kind of, these police state tactics. And i certainly dont like them in the hands of this particular administration as we see with the irs and so forth. So, no, i dont accept that this is a, a justifiable National Security endeavor. I see this as outof control bureaucracy who has gotten into this and people defend it in a kneejerk way as some kind of a National Security intelligence thing and its not in my view. It would be like the local cop, he is on a murder scene, what does he do . In manhattan and grabs the manhattan phone book and starts looking at phone numbers you dont work a case that way. You find out what the specific, you look for specific issues, specific patterns and so forth. Then maybe you go to the manhattan phone book and so forth which is probably why despite all the effort and resources and manpower they cant show one example where this actually stopped somebody. Host so, edward snowden, whistleblower or traitor or somewhere in between . Guest probably somewhere in between. Luckily i dont have to make that decision but i will say this. I dont like the fact that he ran to china. I dont like the fact that hes in russia. Those are two of our enemies. On the other hand people say all he had to do was go to a congressman or senator with information . Are you kidding me . You go to a congressman or senator with this kind of information, they pick up the phone and call the fbi. They probably should. Otherwise they might be prosecuted too. There is no immunity to them. So, i think there should have been another way to do this rather than running off to enemy countries. Im also concerned about what he has revealed to them. I dont know what he told the chinese and russians and anybody else for that matter. But, the existence of this program, im glad we do know about it. Because i oppose it. I think it ought to be shut down. But i do believe in a robust intelligence gathering snags security, Law Enforcement operation of the federal government because, you know, our National Security is certainly one of the primary objectives of the federal government. Host mike, norwalk, connecticut, could mark expound on any personal anecdote between him and president reagan . Guest guest a personal anecdote. Well, i didnt see him a lot of times. I think i saw him total of in my lifetime maybe five times and i think, i dont think i ever mentioned this before. One of the times that i was with president reagan, in the oval office, i was also with attorney general meese. And, and a handful of others, including some members of the attorney generals family and Justice Department. And, attorney general meese just decided to leave office. And president reagan said to attorney general meese, who was coming under attack bit usual radical leftists and so forth, and president reagan said to him, i want to apologize to you, ed. All these attacks that are aimed at you are really intended for me. Im sorry that youve had to go through this. Thats what Ronald Reagan said. That is what kind of man Ronald Reagan was and ed meese too. Great men. Absolutely great men. Host one of the things we like to do with our in depth guests, what theyre reading, influences, what their favorite books are. Here are some of mark levins answers. Host mark levin, ahn of the authors you list as your favorite, raymond aaron, the opium of the intellectuals. Guest raymond aron. He was french. He is absolutely great book and great thinker. There is a philosopher i didnt mention. And he wrote particularly about the cold war and the iron curtain and but he, but he skewered in a brilliant way the elites, socalled intellectuals and its just a tremendous book and i learned a great deal from him. You know, these masterminds, not necessarily words he used, im using but he, and i gave great examples of it and the danger of it and he would talk about the communist elite and liberal elite and academic elite. While i didnt agree with every exact thing but the mentality and it was just superb. He is not the only one to do that. Joseph shumpeter, is another one, great economist and philosopher. He did the same thing and he is not alone either. Hayak did it in some of his books too. So this is the problem with centralizing all these decisions. We accept the fact that men and women are imperfect. We accept the fact that all our institutions are imperfect. Well then why would we give so few people so much power . So few imperfect human beings in such a narrow number of institutions, so much power over the rest of us to impose their imperfect decisions on rest of us. Host from your 2009 book, liberty and tyranny, you write, if words and their meaning can be manipulated or ignored to advance the statists political and policy preferences what then binds allegiances to the statists words . Why shouldas laws bind future generations if yesterdays laws does not bind this generation . Guest right. In other words, if the constitution is subject to change based on what a particular court says or a particular president says or even a particular generation says then why are we bound by what they say . I mean if were not bound to the constitution, why am i bound to a Supreme Court decision . Why am i bound to a federal edebt . Why am i bound to a president ial executive order . If the founding document, excuse me, if the founding governing document isnt to be revered, then why do we honor all these other decisions and statutes and so forth and so on . Why should we . Thats the point. Host mark levin is our guest this month on in depth. We have a little less than an hour to go. Bill in manhattan beach, california, youre on the air. Good afternoon. Caller i love cspan. You guys are great. Mark levin, youre a great asset of liberty. Please take care of your health to begin with. Guest thank you. Caller secondly allow me to appeal to you to bring your terminology down to the average voter. The average voter is not a business owner. He is not working wall street, et cetera. He is an employee, by and large and change capitalism to Free Enterprise, change Income Redistribution what it is, theft and votebuying. Change entrepreneurship to job creation. So appeal to the folks who, who want to go with you, but they dont talk like that. Thank you. Guest by the way, i dont think i know anybody on wall street come to think of it. Maybe the Koch Brothers but i dont really know them either. Host have you ever met them . Guest met them once. Wonderful people. Like to meet them again. I saw George Soross photo once too. The man makes a good point and i do try to do that. Im not always successful at it. But the gentleman makes a good point and i work at it as much as i can, we want to use terms that people can identify with. Host ashley, on our Facebook Page posts this comment. Who do you think was the best and worst president s and why . Guest well, i have to go with some of the obvious. I think, i think washington was our greatest president. If washington wanted to be a dictator, washington would have been a dictator. You look all over the world after these socalled democratic revolutions. You look at castro. Look at these other places zimbabwe, so forth, thats what these men did, they became dictators. Washington was not only a brilliant general who helped lead the revolution against all odds and win, he was a brilliant statesman and while the framers were united in their desire for liberty and Representative Government there were a lost opinions on how to get there and washington knew that he could push it one way or another and he understood that he needed to, to be sort of the invisible hand behind the process. I mean the fact that he agreed to even go to the Constitutional Convention. He had to think about that but decided he would go. He wanted to go back to mount vernon. That is where he wanted to stay but he cared about his country deeply where to the point he went broke as many of these men did because they were busy in public affairs. But so much of what washington did and said and so forth set the nation on the proper course in my view. Thats why i give it to him, very close second would obviously be lincoln, even though the nullifiers would disagree with me and some of the neoconfederates. Lincoln did some things we would question today . Yeah. But on the other hand the nation was, all hello was breaking loose and he wanted to make sure in the end there was a nation. We can debate the particular issues and so forth but there have been few men like lincoln and there will be few men like him in the future. And i would consider reagan one of our greatest president s too. People forget, for a half century or so the cold war was a very serious matter. Soviet expansion was a very serious matter. Nuclear threat was a very serious matter. Among other things reagan defeated the soviet union. He defeated them through a variety of policies and he rejected detente and he wanted victory. And he got victory and also his economic policies. You know, 25 million jobs created. President obama stand at white house with Unemployed People lined up behind him arguing for more extended unemployment. 99 weeks apparently isnt enough. Maybe under this president thats the problem. But what reagan would have done is stood behind, let people stand behind him who found new jobs. Reagan created such an economic dynamo it went through to the clinton administration. So as a matter of fact, i dont know that this nation has ever seen anything like it. Certainly not in 100 years. So, and of course he brought confidence back to a country that desperately needed it after jimmy carter and the disaster that he was. There have been a number of good president s too. Coolidge was a very, very good president. In my view, james polk was a very, very good president. Some people will attack him, calling him imperialism. I guess they better leave california and some of the other states but i thought he was a very good president. There were others. I cant remember all of them. There have been some very, very poor president s. Oh, im no fan of fdr. But on the other hand, he helped bring us through world war ii, so you cant dismiss that. Although the aftermath was a disaster. Him and truman, as far as im concerned. But i think obama has to be in the top ten of disastrous president s, if not in the top five. What hes done to this country, what hes done to one his rhetoric, his propaganda, i just think hes been a destructive and divisive force x its too bad because, you know, hes the first blackd president , and he could have done so many great things not only in bringing the country together, but advancing the cause of liberty and propertygh rights, all these other things that were so crucial, you know, to our thinking and to our country. And hes done the opposite. Hes done your kneejerk, hardleft, radical, leftwing agenda, and its been a complete disaster. And i think 50 years from now, um, when we look back on this or other people look back on this, i think itll be viewed that way. Host Mark High School hand posts on our Facebook Page, mr. Levin, when will the Republican Party give up the marriage amendment and the righttolife amendment . They are both losers for the gop. Guest i dont think we lose votes over the marriage amendment or the righttolife amendment. I mean, how many votes have we lost on that . In terms of losers for the gop, reagan was strongly prolife and supported an amendment. Obviously, the president has no role, only congress can or the states, state legislatures. And this terms of the marriage amendment in terms of the marriage amendment, it takes threefourths of the states to ratify an amendment. Well, you now have, what is it, 15 or 17 states that have made samesex marriage legal, Something Like that, some legislatures have done it, some courts have done it. But, so im not sure how that would work out. But i have no problem with people arguing for and proposing these amendments because it is the quintessential nature of federalism. In other words, as i said, it takes threefourths of the state legislatures to ratify them. So a loser for the Republican Party. I dont think its a loser for the Republican Party. I think whats a loser for the Republican Party are people who lead it who, who have no agenda, who have few principles and very little confidence in anything. Basically, are hanging on for their own sake. But i dont think those are losers. This always amazes me, the social issues, we call them. The social issues. Okay, well, call them the social issues. I dont want call them social issues. Theyre human issues. Theyre cultural issues. Who keeps bringing them up . Whos fighting for samesex marriage . Who keeps bringing it up . Activist groups, state legislatures, um, courts. So people who object to a particular position, theyre told stop talking, stop standing for what you believe in . If your faith tells you to fight it, just give it up, its a loser. I mean, these arguments are absurd. Why should people give it up . They should fight for what they believe. And if the Republican Party doesnt stand for traditional values, who the hell will . So i have no problem with people fighting for these things. And i dont think its a political loser. I think the moderates who stand for virtually nothing, theyre the political losers. I mean, mccain didnt lose because he supported either of those amendments. Romney didnt lose because he supported east of those amendments either of those amendments. They lost because they didnt have an agenda that connects with the people, and it is the liberty, Free Enterprise as the gentleman said of Wealth Creation, job creation, business creation agenda, the growth agenda among other things. And, yes, the traditional faith agenda that i think will get people to the polls and win. I know it, as a matter of fact. Reagan did it twice. Host pot sales in colorado, is that part of a liberty agenda . [laughter] guest oh, lord. So all the potheads are going to move to colorado right now. Something interesting has happened now. The federal government, to some extempt i think extent, i think holder announced, that theyre not going to enforce a lot of these pot laws. Colorado has passed a pot law. Would i vote for it . No way. But they voted for it, and thats the law. Thats the law in colorado. I live in virginia, what the hell am i supposed to do it, other than stay out of colorado . But thats and, again, the federal government has decided that it is not going to enforce the relevant federal statutes with respect to that. And thats a different issue to me. Whether or not you support those laws, how in the world does the attorney general decide i dont like that law, im not going to enforce it . When did he get that power . Never. So that would be my issue there. If colorado wants to legalize pot, then colorado will legalize pot. I think its stupid. I do fair decriminalizing it though. In other words, i dont think a 17yearold or 20yearold, a College Student or some pizza delivery guy whos caught with a joint smoking a joint should have to do prison time or jail time or be charged with a misdemeanor. That bothers me. And i will tell you right here, i dont have a bible to swear on, but ive never done drugs. Ive never done pot. But i still find it troublesome that if some young person has had a joint or Something Like that and theyre caught, that they should i dont know what the answer is, but i do favor decriminalization. Not no criminalization, but decriminalization. Host from liberty and tyranny, all cultures are not equal with as evidenced in part by the alien fleeing his own country for the American Culture and the american citizen staying put. If someone were shopping for books and they came across liberty and tyranny, ameritopia and the liberty amendments they could only buy one, which one should they buy . Guest liberty and tyranny, ameritopia, and the liberty amendments. You know, i have two children host these are books. Guest i know, if you could only have one, which would you have . I couldnt do that. Remember what solomon did . Yeah. The cutting of the baby in half . Well, he wouldnt agree to that, would he . So it depends what youre looking for. Let me put it to you that way. Liberty and tyranny is basically a primer on a restatement of conservativism. Which i felt in 2009 and feel today is sorely needed. And it provides a, my conservative manifesto at the end, and i call it that to mock marx and the communist manifesto. Ameritopia, which is probably the most important to me, is most difficult. It is political philosophy, and and to me, it gets to the heart of the problem with the left. And the conflict with those who believe in liberty. And the liberty amendments, i think, is crucial because i have callers to my show and others who say, okay, mark, this is all great, now what do we do about this . What do we do about this . And rather than give the usual phony, superficial response, lets elect more republicans, thats not good enough. Maybe thats good enough for some, but its not good enough because we are unmoored from our constitutional system. We elected more republicans under george bush from 2001 to 2007. They controlled the congress and the presidency. What happened . More federal involvement in education, more federal involvement in health care, the expansion of medicare, expansion of virtually everything. The massive increase this the debt in the debt. I mean, that alone is not going to be enough. So the solution, i think, is rather than be superficial about it and say, oh, well, ill just elect more of these folks although i favor electing many more conservative republicans the solution is a systemic one, and the answer is in the constitution which is the purpose of the liberty amendments. Host and speaking of the liberty amendments, booktvs book club is reading that this month. So if you go to booktv. Org, youll see a tab up there that says book clubment you can go in there, you can see some video of mark levin, some reviews of the liberty amendments, and you can post your comments. Its very simple. So go ahead and read along and post your comments, and you can have a discussion with other readers and other viewers of booktv on the liberty amendments. Todd in winstead, connecticut, thanks for holding. Youre on with mark levin. Caller well, thank you very much for taking my call. I listen to mark levin. I dont always agree with everything he says, but one of the problems i see with our political system is [inaudible] they debate issues ask ask them questions and all i get back is [inaudible] and with that said, thats the only pining im going opining im going to do, ive got three specific questions for mark, and id like to get his knowledgeable opinion on these areas. Corporate funding of elections, doing away with the Electoral College and, um, gerrymandering, doing away with gerrymandering. Id like to hear what mark has to say about those three host thank you, todd. Well have to see what mr. Levin says. Guest what was the third one . Host gerrymandering. Guest all right. Let me start with Corporate Funding of elections. Well, there are no there is no Corporate Funding of elections. What the Citizens United case did was allow corporations to fund advocacy ads. So they concluded that not only should unions be able to do it, but corporations should be able to do it too. Why not . As long as its public. As long as we though whos contributing what to these campaigns. And it ought to be online so you can get it immediately, and in many cases it is. I dont have a problem with that. I have a problem with the shadowy stuff that goes on with members of congress and so forth. But outfront donations is fine. And i say this as somebody who has a real problem with how the u. S. Chamber of commerce conducts itself and is now getting into republican primaries for the purpose of defeating conservative candidates and pushing big government, corporatist republican candidates. So, but that said, principle is principle. Free speech is free speech. As for the Electoral College, of course i support it. Theres a movement now to get rid of it just as the Progressive Movement got rid of the state legislatures choosing members of the senate. And, of course, they want to get rid of the Electoral College and have the direct election of president s. Let us remember the mindset of the framers. The framers did not want a purely populist, majoritarian government. They didnt want a purely democratic government. They wanted a representative republic. So the purpose of the Electoral College is not only to give some of the smaller states some footing in the president ial process, but as a check just in case you have the election of somebody who is a complete and utter tyrant. So we talk about we need checks, and we need balances, and we need such things. Thats the Electoral College. And it amuses me, pete, that we have some senators who oppose the Electoral College, and they want the direct election of the president. And i think to myself, wow, so why do we have two senators from every state . Why dont we get rid of them, too s and just have a house of of representatives . Here we have senators who by constitution exist two in each state, but we dont need them. Well just have like a parliamentary system. I dont support this, im being sarcastic. As for gerrymandering, i dont know how you would get rid of that. I mean, these Good Government types pretend theyll take care of it. I dont trust most of them. But gerrymandering, its something thats gone on for an awfully long time, and its something that i think were stuck with. Host robert has saved us. He mails this Claude Pepper of florida was in the senate, then the house. Guest hes right. Good deal, bro, thats right. I think there were others, but thats for sure. Host nick is calling from los angeles. Youre on booktv with author mark levin. Caller thank you, cspan. Hello, mark. You help me drive home every day and help me keep the rage on your show and not on the other drivers, so ive got to thank you for making me a better driver. But you do claim that James Madison rejected nullification, but in the same document that you cite, he was actually talking about a specific process of nullification that was advocated only by South Carolina. And then later James Madison said that, and i quote here nullification is the natural right which all admit to be a remedy against insupportable oppression, unquote. So, um, with that my real question for you is, um, you know, i appreciate that you talk about the constitution outlining a republic not a democracy, but you share a utopian Foreign Policy outlook which is unconstitutional. Anyone can look up your statements on president ial war powers and put them up against thomas e. Woods or louis fisher which cspan has also fish featured. Host nick, are you a fan of mark levin . [laughter] caller yeah. And im also a fan of george washington, as he is. If you quote george washington, he said the nation which indulges toward another as an habitual hatred or an that establish wall fondness is in some ways a slave host nick, why are you a supporter of socalled nullification . Guest well, im a supporter of nullification because i think it runs to the heart of what a Constitutional Republic is all about. And i think you cant have a republic and an empire too. So i think mark levins blind spots on foreign policies and nullification really undermine what, you know, he purports to be about. And i think host all right. Well get an answer. Just, mark or, nick, just a little bit more from you though. What kind of of work do you do . You say mark levin is on your raid slow on the way home. What kind of work do you do . Caller well, im struggling in this obama economy, so i have a few different parttime jobs. I work at a couple convert venues and ucla, also an inalternative with a nonprofit organization. So, you know, im very passionate about whats going on in the world. I think it affects my generation. Im 28 years old, it affects my generation very much. So i Pay Attention to all the voices and rye and stay involved but also got to pay the bills with some parttime jobs too. Host nick, thank you very much for calling in. Mark levin. Guest well, here we go again. Lets see. People have to read this 1830 letter on their own. Theres nothing, its not a narrow letter. Its a very long letter. Of hes addressing more than what nick has to say. He also is engorsing article v which nick doesnt endorse. He didnt say it, but he doesnt. They can quote professor this or professor that all they want, there are a lot of knuckleheads who are professors too. And so what . The fact of the matter is, and theres an 1832 letter that madison also wrote, but they say its specific to South Carolina. Theres nothing i can say thats going to dissuade nick or others because he didnt tell you what Nonprofit Group he works for. Theres a couple groups that keep pushing nullification. Im surprised you havent had a call for secession yet. Im not in favor of destroying the republic. Im not in favor of eliminating the union. I believe we fought a civil war over this. But nullification is not in the constitution. Nullification was not brought up at the constitutional confession convention. It was discussed leiter. There are some later. There are some definitive letters about it. But nub of that matters none of that matters. There is no historical support from this. You know, these guys who are originalists who claim to be, well, except in this case because theyre so angry at the federal government, theyre willing to turn to anything including this what i call neoconfederate agenda. The fact of the matter is it doesnt work, and you cant pursue it, and it wont work. The neoconservative agenda that i speak to is they want to see states split off from the union. And, good lord, are we going to go through that again . I mean, sorry, folks, dont count me this in on that. Im considered pushing the edge of the envelope with the liberty amendments, but these guys are already on the other edge of the envelope, and those are the talking points that are argued, that are put out there time and time again. Ignore this letter, madison didnt mean this. The tenth amendment means nullification. And yet they interpret this stuff like the liberals interpret the constitution. Host all right. Well, we have taken two calls on it now and had good discussions, so well end our discussion of it there too, as well. But heres an email from warren whos in los angeles as well. Kabc radio in l. A. Airs the mark levin show with a threehour time delay. 95 of the h. A. Audience is prevented from calling in and participating in your discussions, what can we do to convince kabc to carry your program live . Guest well, what can i say . I guess im just glad im on kabc. Yeah, i tell all the affiliates we only have a relative small percentage that run the show tapedelayed, and they do it, i think, often to run a local host in the slot. But the vast majority of our affiliates we are live. Well, you can tell them. But there are also other heres the thing. Some of us in talk radio have other platforms you can listen to. Im not talking specifically about this particular writer and kabc. But i have an app, mark levin app, which has half a Million People who use it. The i heart radio app is another way to listen to the show live, you can be your own Program Director. Obviously, we do a live stream on the internet, and im on satellite, the patriot. So were on terrestrial radio like kabc, were on satellite, ive got two apps where you can pick i us op on your smartphone and on the internet. So if you want to hear us live, you can listen to us live. Host tony is calling from woodburn w new york. Go ahead with your question or comment for mark levin. Caller yeah, hi. This is tony [inaudible] im not going to be as longwinded as your previous caller. I have one very simple question, im not going to give too much background,and i just want your opinion. Heres the question. What, if anything, should we do about the 14th amendment . Guest in what way . What do you mean . Host he is now gone. Guest well, it depends the 14th amendments not the shortest amendment, so i, i would need to know more what he means. Host do you write about the 14th amendment . Guest very little. But theres a number of things he could mean by that, so rather than me doing this, just throwing out three, four or five things, i he should have been more specific. Host garrett is in cumberland, maryland. Hi, garrett. Caller hi. And hi, mark, thank you so much for all you do. I i want to thank you for giving us the solution, because ive with just been talking to fellow conservatives and libertarians, this is contributing to a lot of excitement among the grassroots. Guest thank you. Caller i want to thank you also for forwarding along my article on the hi eleven yall. I recently got a letter published in the local paper spreading the word and talking about this to people. I find that there is a lot of excitement. There are also two kinds of people that seem to have some reservations about it. One is the Runaway Convention crowd, and i believe that those people will come around to it. The other is this crowd that has been a couple times today thats talking about nullification. And i wanted you to speak to, have the opportunity to speak to the superiority of article v to a nullification strategy and also that nullification, um, is it even finish would it not put the court system in, um guest yes. Caller in charge of that. Guest all right. First of all, youre exactly right. The brilliance of mason and the framers at the Constitutional Convention with the state convention process is that theyre proposing, theyre allowing the proposal of actual amendments to address things that have occurred in the structural abuses of the constitutional system. Nullification doesnt address any of that. Thats number one. Number two, the Supreme Court will allow nullity case, already said it wont allow nullification. So what are they going to do about that . Under the amendment ross, state legislatures can override a Supreme Court decision. But the nullification, its an ark call. Its not there is no constitutionallal basis for it. Now that said, one of the callers earlier what did he say, neocon and also that i, i support american empire and stuff of this sort. I dont know where these anytime wits get these ideas. Why, because i supported the troops during the iraq war . Which i did and i do and would coagain today . Do again today . So were talking about an extreme fringe element here. Like i said, the neoconfederate element. Not even mainstream libertarianism. Theres extreme fringe. Theres a couple of groups out there. Theyre flooding your phones out now, theyre nod flooding your emails, this is what they do. But they have absolutely zero impact on the body politic for the American People. The American People are not going to support secession. The American People are not going to support one state nullifying a federal law, 12 states nullifying theyre not going to support that kind of anarchy. In my view, what the American People want is a return to constitutional government. Or where the state legislatures have power, and the federal government has less power. Thats what were talking about. Not destroying the constitutional system or the constitution, not destroying the republic, not destroying the union, but addressing it. And reestablishing the constitutional system. I have nothing in common with these other folks, and i think the vast majority of americans would have nothing in common with these other folks. Host where did this movement thing begin . Guest its a couple of groups and a couple of professors. But i dont know the history of it. Host why have they chosen you as guest they havent just chosen me. They do this all over the place. Its just that i happen to be on cspan2. Guest gary emails in to you im an africanamerican man with conservative views, mostly a social and small government conservative. Never voted democrat in my entire life. What is your message to africanamericans and, for that matter, other minorities in the u. S. While many africanamericans are social conservatives on the major issues, samesex, abortion, etc. , how can conservatives and republicans reach minorities that vote traditionally democrat . Guest i think the general categoryies of promoting individual liberty, Free Enterprise and Wealth Creation which brings opportunity and traditional American Values which would include the power of state legislatures to make many of these decisions, in applying them to Current Events and Current Issues is the way to go. And i think thats what a Campaign Needs to do to be successful. Its not a question of what do you give to minorities, the hispanics are over here, the blacks are over here, the whites are over here, the straight people are here, the lesbians are thats not the way we should look at america. We shouldnt look at america like liberals do and break us down into physical features and sexual preferences. We should talk about america as americans, and we should, in fact, state publicly to the left during these campaigns that we reject their efforts to divide us along all these different lines. And i think a conservative republican candidate can talk about bringing people together to advance the cause of liberty and opportunity and Wealth Creation and let the liberals talk about extending Unemployment Insurance and doing all these other things while were talking about a positive, forwardlooking, growthoriented agenda based on good old American Values. Host from ameritopia, have the pennsylvania love yang appeals to equaltarianism and the fomenting of action through class warfare conditioned the people to accept or even demand compulsory uniformity as just and righteous. Guest well, thats the question i ask. Is it too late . And i dont think its too late, but i think were getting to a late time. But i do have open that we can avoid it, that we can avert this. You can see the reaction to obamacare. People do not like uniformity and conformity, because it does not address their own specific needs and interests and motivations. And obamacare is all about uniformity and conformity and topdown authoritarianism. So at least in regard to that, thats a positive. But on the other hand, a majority of those who voted also voted for the man who pushed the very legislation that they detest. So we have a problem here, and i think part of the problem is that the republicans have to offer the American People a serious alternative. Host Robert Calbert in chicago emails in to you mr. Levin, you listed several great libertarian thinkers, friedman, hayak, where do you, a thoughtful conservative, differ with libertarians . Guest i would say on Economic Issues i agree with libertarians mostly. I would say on some of the socalled social issues i would disagree with them. For instance, if a libertarian believes that some guy on the corner should be free to sell heroin, im not sure i can endorse that position. As a matter of fact, i wouldnt. So im not saying thats all their positions and so forth. But i would say in the main im probably a conservative libertarian. But i like to call myself a constitutionalist. And i believe there is a movement, a reinvigorated if not new movement of constitutional conservativism which is something that i am proud to be part of and something im crowd to be pushing. Constitutional conservativism. Not secession, not nullification, not destroying our country, not destroying the union, not destroying the constitution, but reinvigorating i. Host richard emails in mark levins live coverage on his show of the capture of the Boston Marathon bombers earlier this year was compelling, exciting, accurate and entirely lacking in the speculative, opinionated, talking head speak that is so wearisome in the mainstream media. Guest that was a remarkable day not only because of the horrific terrorist attack and all those people who were maimed and killed, but, you know, when youre a talk show host, you have to decide how to cover these things. And most talk show hosts, if they cant find reporters on the scene, theyre watching one of the Cable Networks or something and reporting what theyre regurgitating the news that is somewhere else. Well, my call screener and producer and i have two great guys, rich and mike, and theyve been with me from the beginning. Well, they were listening to the police scanner. So we were listening to the police scanner, i believe it was the local police and the state police. Two police scanners. So as things were actually breaking, i mean, breaking, they were telling me exactly what was being said on the police scanner, so we were breaking news on our coverage because of the great Radio Station wrko among my affiliates and it is a wonderful station in boston so we were breaking the news without any opinion whatsoever as we were hearing it. And then near the end somebody figured it out. I dont know if it was the local police or the state police. And they said, you know, careful what youre saying on the monitor. I also made clear that nothing we were saying was endangering what they were doing. Nothing. Because, obviously, terrorist number two didnt have access to a radio and had no idea what i was saying on the radio. So that was a very compelling evening. It was quite remarkable. Host lee, rockville, b maryland. Please go ahead with your question or comment for mark levin. Caller good afternoon, gentlemen. Enjoying the discussion. Mark, you and i are both natives of the city of brotherly love, and were both roughly the same age. And i think a lot of what you say makes a great deal of sense; limited government, libertarianism. Its, it makes an awful lot of sense. But you and i remember decades ago when 40, 50 or more thousand people were getting killed on highways. You know, automobile accidents. Well, what happened was the department of transportation came in and put in safety regulations. Now its half that. So those were very, very Good Government interventions, from my perspective. And thats why im so completely amazed, and i support conservative republicans a great deal. Guns, mark, are dangerous. They are very, very dangerous. And the position of the Republican Party, as far as i can tell, is give everyone a gun. No background checks. If someone is wearing a viva Osama Bin Laden sweatshirt and goes up to a gun show and says in an arab head address and head dress and goes up to a gun show and, you know, that person can order, you know, can walk away with the host all right caller an ak47. Host i think we get the point. Guest is that caller from colorado . I just wonder if hes into the the new movement there. Host rockville, maryland. Guest the suburbs. What was his question . Oh, safety. Let me explain something to this gentleman. The deaths on the road today are not significantly reduced because of safety belts. But let me tell you something, the automobile that most people drive is lighter now than it ever was due to cafe standards. And i explain this in liberty and tyranny. All of the deaths and all of the casualties on our highways as a result of cafe standards and its remarkable to me that you wouldnt call this program because youre so concerned about human life particularly on our highways and reject Government Intervention in that case with the cafe standards maiming and killing so many of our fellow americans on the streets, and they keep making these cars ligher and smaller and smaller and lighter. So im sure you would join with me in objecting to that. Thats number one. Number two, the Republican Party supports giving everybody a gun . Well, thats not true, but the and i cant speak for the Republican Party. Ill speak for myself. We have something called a second amendment, sir. Just like we have a Fourth Amendment and a First Amendment and a fifth amendment and a ninth amendment. Its nice that you dont like guns, its nice that you have an opinion about guns. Thats all well and good. But you dont have the right to tell lawabiding citizens who want guns for safety or hunting or whatever the reason is as long as its lawful that they cant. Im sorry, thats what the constitution provides. Just like i cant say see that guy in rockville, maryland . He doesnt deserve due process because, you know, due process for a guy like that endangers the community. So this is the problem with the left. They cant decide which parts of the constitution they like, if any of the constitution. And there have been study after study by, among others, john lott and so forth that contradict your premise. Whatever i say here wont matter to you anyway, but it may matter to somebody out there. Host doreen emails in people from all political persuasions cite tokevilles great work. Is that because de tocqueville was unclear in Practical Implications or because of Something Else . Guest well, i dont see him being cited that often by harry reid or nancy pelosi, and i dont even know if theyve read the two volumes of democracy in america or have them read to them. I have no idea. These are people that said you have to read the obamacare law to though whats in it, and apparently none of them read it including the president , because they didnt know whats in it. So i doubt that the left, many, cite alexis de tocqueville. I cite him in the at least two of my books because what he said so pertinent to whats going on in this country today. He was prescient. And he was a man who was very concerned about little d democracy and was a great fan of america as he traveled this country but also saw some weaknesses that he feared. And was very, very concerned about centralized government. So i dont know if the left cites him or not or what they cite him for, but he was a brilliant man and very worth citing. Host and hes features prominently in ameritopia. Eds calling from toledo. Caller good afternoon, gentlemen, and shalom. What i wanted to bring up, im a 76 article iv, section 4 republican. And i dont have much respect for the Republican Party, although i do can belong to it since its near ohio. But the northwest ordnance and what allowed ohio to become a state, it had to have a republican constitution and a republican government. Article iv, section 4 gash guarantees me and my descendants a republican form of government. Now the big lie is that were a democracy. So i guess noah webster, who could write a dictionary, defined republican because it gives sovereignty so we have no king but king jesus host so, ed, were running low on time here, whats your point . Caller my point is that you like democrats and liken democrats and republicans. Mark, why dont we go back to these original words . We have a republic with a republican form of government because it grants sovereignty to the individual. Guest i dont know what to say. Im not sure what the question is. You asked me in the first hour, somebody did, why do i cut people off . Now you know why. Host dorothy, ocean township, new jersey. Please go ahead with your question or comment. Caller mr. Levin, its a privilege to speak to you. I had the honor of seeing you speak at a [inaudible] a few months ago. And you are an inspiration and a true patriot. I wonder, it bothers me when liberals never fail to demonize conservatives as much as they can, and it gets very disheartening when im in a discussion with a liberal and the topic of the president and his policies come up. And right away the response is, oh, youre a racist, youre saying that because hes black. And is there a solution to this, or is there no solution . Its just something we have to live with until the end of the term . You know, in life there are people who you can communicate with and try and have a rational discussion with, and then there are the drones. So if you happen to be confronted with the former, then take the time to really have a discussion. And and try and persuade the person or learn from the perp. If, on the other hand, youre confronted with a drone, my suggestion is move along, be done with it. Host dan, st. Paul, minnesota. Got just a couple minutes left here on our program. Caller yeah. Im just calling to say, comment about the general welfare clause. A couple of, i think, liberals had previously mentioned using the general welfare clause to enforce government action. I read a wonderful work on that. In [inaudible] v. Davis the Supreme Court used the general welfare clause to justify taking money from one group of people, giving it to another to justify transfer payments. Yet in the 1780s the word general as an adjective which was in all kinds of writings meant to apply to everybody or nobody. The Supreme Court changed the usage of the word general from the authors intent to justify taking money from one subpart to a group, giving it to another. I just give that as one example to come to the point in marks book in the liberty amendments, the excellent point that we need to be able to use the legislature, the congress to override these ridiculous Supreme Court decisions. Host all right, dan, thank you. We got the point. Guest and he makes a very good point. There are many more who makes that point, madison, jefferson, joseph story, i could go on and on and on. The perversion of the general welfare clause is almost comical and yet, you know, the left uses it because its a simple hey, the general welfare. It just demonstrates their contempt for the constitution. Host what do you think of john roberts . Guest not much. Nothing he can do from here on. Can, in my view, justify what he did in the obamacare decision. He was part of the Reagan Administration. He was a fairly conservative lawyer in the Justice Department before i got there. And he knows better. He knows what he did. I read his majority decision. It is a disgrace. Its incoherent. Its illogical. And it was resultoriented. So he, hes going to have to live with that. That will be his historical reputation. Thatll be his epithet. And he helped unleash this disastrous law on in this country. Its unconstitutional in numerous ways. And for him to turn the tax section of the constitution on its head and to rewrite the statute and rewrite the history where obama and the democrats said this is not a tax, its a penalty, and he says, oh, no, no, its a tax, and and under our tax clause in the constitution, its just so outrageous, what he did, that i had a lot of respect for him. I have zero respect for him now. Host bill beatty asks via twitter, will Landmark Legal join with the 11 attorneys general in court on president obamas Legal Authority to change the 2010 Affordable Care act . Guest we dont we provide advice, and we are provide advice. We will provide advice in a lot of these areas. For instance, theres over 40 cases on the liberty issue under obamacare where were working with other groups. Weve got several pieces of litigation going against the Environmental Protection agency. So, yes, we will provide whatever support they want from us. Host for the last three hours, mark levin has been our guest on booktvs in depth program. He is the author of five Nonfiction Books and working on another one as well. His first book came out in 2005, men in black how the Supreme Court is destroying america. Rest pewing rescuing sprite came out in 2007. Not a lot of Public Policy in that one, but a best with seller. Liberty and tyranny, in 09. Ameritopia in 2012, and the liberty amendments just came out this past year, restoring the American Republic. By the way, the liberty amendment is booktvs Book Club Selection for the month of january. So if youre a booktv watcher and want to read along with other booktv viewers, go to booktv. Org you can pick up the liberty amendments, you can read along, and then you can post your comments at booktv. Org. Its very simple, just click on the book club tab up at the top of the page, and youll see there theres a format for posting your comments, and you can read along all month on your own time. Well be posting questions and comments as we go throughout the month on the liberty amendments. Mark levin, thanks for your time today on booktv. Guest great honor, pete, thank you. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies in 1979, brought to you as a Public Service by your televisioning provider. Next, robert gates at the National Constitution center in philadelphia. He discussed his m