by Jason Mattera
01/18/2012
Well, just take a look at North Korea, right? They are an egalitarian society, and do they have paradise?
“No, it’s hell. They can’t even feed themselves,” proclaimed Mark Levin in his interview with HUMAN EVENTS.
Besides the ruling elites, egalitarianism has made North Koreans all equally poor. And the case isn’t specific to North Korea either. As radio talk show host and author Levin points out in his latest book, Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, the utopian dream, wherever it is implemented, always leads to misery and widespread destitution.
“When you listen to the Left today, they talk in the same utopian terms,” said Levin. “They talk about the future vision where everybody’s earning a wonderful income, where everybody has access to quality health care, where everybody is equal, [and] where you don’t have any fears, any wants, [or] any risks.”
Yet to get to that idealist state, the utopian expects the citizenry to “surrender more of [his] liberty [and] surrender more of [her] property” to the government.
Watch part two of our interview with Mark Levin:
Throughout the ages, notes Levin, there have been many attempts to create a paradisaical society by philosophers and lawmakers, relentless efforts to shape man in their image. Chief among the utopian advocates, argues Levin in Ameritopia, was Plato. In his Republic, he tried to create what would be the “perfect city” if he were given the powers to start the process from scratch.
Plato’s attempt at “Let there be light,” if you will.
“In the Republic, Plato sets up a caste system,” explains Levin. “You have your guardians and philosopher kings. At the bottom you have your worker bees, and they exist to promote the state.” Personhood and individualism are scorned. As Levin writes, “The individual is indentured to the state. Justice is synonymous with the well-being of the City.”
If you’re keeping score: This means that even Plato, considered one of the greatest philosophers of all time, couldn’t himself construct a angelic utopia. His concepts of fairness and justice were tyrannical.
"I figure if Plato can’t even create a perfect social order," Levin quips, “then Obama and our modern politicians are going to have a tough time with it as well.”
Plato’s emphasis on serving at the feet of the government, of course, is exactly what drives the modern politician. More specifically, it’s an attempt to “impose their model society on the rest of us.” And that belief, the one that operates with the assumption that we serve the government and not vice versa, was why the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution adopted: to protect individual liberty.
Concludes Levin: “What the Founding Fathers created in the Constitution is the most magnificent government on the face of the Earth, and the reason is this: because it was intended to preserve the American society and the American spirit, not to transform it or destroy it.”
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To read another article on this subject, click here.
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