Free Liberty and Tyranny by Mark R. Levin Page A

ends.
    In the civil society, the individual has a duty to respect the unalienable rights of others and the values, customs, and traditions, tried and tested over time and passed from one generation to the next, that establish society’s cultural identity . He is responsible for attending to his own well-being and that of his family. And he has a duty as a citizen to contribute voluntarily to the welfare of his community through good works.
    In the civil society, private property and liberty are inseparable. The individual’s right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property, which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and/or physical labor. As the individual’s time on earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his private property enslaves him to another and denies him his liberty.
    In the civil society, a rule of law , which is just, known, and predictable, and applied equally albeit imperfectly, provides the governing framework for and restraints on the polity, thereby nurturing the civil society and serving as a check against the arbitrary use and, hence, abuse of power. 2
    For the Conservative, the civil society has as its highest purpose its preservation and improvement. 3
    The Modern Liberal believes in the supremacy of the state, thereby rejecting the principles of the Declaration and the order of the civil society, in whole or part. For the Modern Liberal, the individual’s imperfection and personal pursuits impede the objective of a utopian state. In this, Modern Liberalism promotes what French historian Alexis de Tocqueville described as a soft tyranny , 4 which becomes increasingly more oppressive, potentially leading to a hard tyranny (some form of totalitarianism). As the word “liberal” is, in its classical meaning, the opposite of authoritarian, it is more accurate, therefore, to characterize the Modern Liberal as a Statist .
    The Founders understood that the greatest threat to liberty is an all-powerful central government, where the few dictate to the many. They also knew that the rule of the mob would lead to anarchy and, in the end, despotism. During the Revolutionary War, the states more or less followed the Articles of Confederation, in which most governing authority remained with the states. After the war, as the Founders labored to establish a new nation, the defects with the Articles became increasingly apparent. The central government did not have the ability to fund itself. Moreover, states were issuing their own currency, conducting their own foreign policy, and raising their own armies. Trade disputes among the states and with other countries were hampering commerce and threatening national prosperity.
    Eventually the Articles were replaced with the Constitution, which granted the federal government enough authority to cultivate, promote, and “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,” 5 but not enough authority to destroy it all. James Madison, the most influential of the Constitution’s authors, put it best when he wrote in “Federalist 51”:
    But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. 6

    For much of American history, the balance between governmental authority and individual liberty was understood and accepted. Federal power was confined to that which was specifically enumerated in the Constitution and no more. And that power was further limited, for it was dispersed among three federal branches—the legislative, executive, and judicial. Beyond that, the