Rediscovering Americanism Quotes

“Locke said that there is a circle of freedom surrounding each person and all people at birth. And within that circle is the absolute human right to live and live freely. This is a natural right born of natural law or the law of nature. It is divine and eternal, unalterable by mankind. Moreover, man also has the ability to reason. And it is through reason that he discovers and discerns natural law, his natural rights, and their application to all of humanity.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Again and again, the goal of the progressives is to unmoor the individual and society from America’s heritage with populist tirades, prodding, and indoctrination, the purpose of which is to build popular support for a muscular centralized government ruled by a self-aggrandizing intellectual elite through an extraconstitutional and autocratic administrative Leviathan. Moreover, the individual is to be denuded of his personal traits, “primitive nature,” and “old beliefs,” since his true liberty, satisfaction, and realization are said to be tied to the universality of the state. The government, through “science” and administration—unencumbered by ancient and archaic eternal truths—can alter society in ways that supposedly modernize and improve it. Furthermore, the individual’s focus on self rather than community, and his old habits, beliefs, and traditions, must be altered through socializing education and training, thereby making him the kind of person and citizen whose behavior better conforms to the egalitarian purposes and general welfare of the overall society. Of course, this is the death of individualism and republicanism.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“John Dewey (1859–1952), among the foremost progressive thinkers. Dewey, like Croly and Wilson, among others, claimed that progressivism was, in essence, a science-based pragmatism. Like most progressives, he also argued that there is no timeless, absolute truth since all things are subject to change and situation. Therefore, he also unremittingly condemned John Locke and the Declaration of Independence, and the idea of permanent truths, a transcendent moral order, and individual natural rights.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Dewey insisted that the present attachment to the principles and values of the American founding must be repudiated and replaced with the new scientific approach, which he argued addresses the modern social conditions of the collective. “The scientific attitude is experimental as well as intrinsically communicative. If it were generally applied, it would liberate us from the heavy burden imposed by dogmas and external standards. Experimental method is something other than the use of blow-pipes, retorts and reagents. It is the foe of every belief that permits habit and wont to dominate invention and discovery, and ready-made system to override verifiable fact. Constant revision is the work of experimental inquiry. By revision of knowledge and ideas, power to effect transformation is given us. This attitude, once incarnated in the individual mind, would find an operative outlet. If dogmas and institutions tremble when a new idea appears, this shiver is nothing to what would happen if the idea were armed with the means for the continuous discovery of new truth and the criticism of old belief. To ‘acquiesce’ in science is dangerous only for those who would maintain affairs in the existing social order unchanged because of lazy habit or self-interest. For the scientific attitude demands faithfulness to whatever is discovered and steadfastness in adhering to new truth.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Wilson insisted that the centralized administrative state must, by logic and necessity, replace or thoroughly alter the constitutional structure—particularly the Framers’ incorporation of Charles de Montesquieu’s separation-of-powers doctrine, essential to curtailing the likelihood of concentrated tyranny, which must be abandoned in principle. Otherwise there can be no real historical progress. “The study of administration, philosophically viewed, is closely connected with the study of the proper distribution of constitutional authority. . . . If administrative study can discover the best principles upon which to base such distribution, it will have done constitutional study an invaluable service. Montesquieu did not, I am convinced, say the last word on this head.”44 Hence the administrative state is to effectively replace the constitutional state, the latter being old and immovable.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Like other progressives, Croly proclaimed a new secular “science,” a political and social science in which politicians, bureaucrats, academics, and experts harness the power of the state to indoctrinate and rule over the individual, and attempt to remake his nature and society in general through constant experimentation and manipulation. This is said to be progress. Croly also argued that the American mind-set—the view of the “all-around man”—must be altered. The people must be conditioned to accept and then demand the kind of centralized administrative state he advocated. This is accomplished not only by demonizing the successful individual and, as he explained, demonstrating the benefits of administrative governance, but by producing like-minded believers through higher education.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“In a recurring theme among progressives, Croly condemned the Constitution’s separation of powers, a doctrine essential to averting centralized tyranny, as the main obstacle to progress. “If the people are to be divided against themselves in order that righteousness may rule, still more must the government be divided against itself. It must be separated into departments each one of which must act independently of the others. . . . The government was prevented from doing harm, but in order that it might not do harm it was deliberately and effectively weakened. The people were protected from the government; but quite as much was the government protected from the people. In dividing the government against itself by such high and rigid barriers, an equally substantial barrier was raised against the exercise by the people of any easy and sufficient control over their government. It was only a very strong and persistent popular majority which could make its will prevail, and if the rule of a majority was discouraged, the rule of a minority was equally encouraged. But the rulers, whether representing a majority or a minority, could not and were not supposed to accomplish”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Progressivism was imported from Europe and would result in a radical break from America’s heritage. In fact, it is best described as an elitist-driven counterrevolution to the American Revolution, in which the sovereignty of the individual, natural law, natural rights, and the civil society—built on a foundation of thousands of years of enlightened thinking and human experience—would be drastically altered and even abandoned for an ideological agenda broadly characterized as “historical progress.” Progressivism is the idea of the inevitability of historical progress and the perfectibility of man—and his self-realization—through the national community or collective. While its intellectual and political advocates clothe its core in populist terminology, and despite the existence of democratic institutions and cyclical voting, progressivism’s emphasis on material egalitarianism and societal engineering, and its insistence on concentrated, centralized administrative rule, lead inescapably to varying degrees of autocratic governance. Moreover, for progressives there are no absolute or permanent truths, only passing and distant historical events. Thus even values are said to be relative to time and circumstances; there is no eternal moral order—that is, what was true and good in 1776 and before is not necessarily true and good today. Consequently, the very purpose of America’s founding is debased. To better understand this ideology, its refutation of the American heritage, and its enormous effect on modern American life, it is necessary to become acquainted with some of the most influential progressive intellectuals who, together with others, set the nation on this lamentable course. Given their prolific writings, it is neither possible nor necessary to delve into every manner of their thoughts or the differences among them in their brand of progressivism. For our purposes, it is enough to expose essential aspects of their arguments.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“The prominent British statesman and scholar Edmund Burke (1729–1797) emphasized another fundamental characteristic of the civil society—valuing human experience, tradition, and custom. Burke was outspoken in his sympathy for the American colonists and condemned the oppressions of the British monarchy that led to the American Revolution. However, he was also repulsed by the French Revolution. Burke saw the latter as a revolt led by elites and anarchists who had as their purpose not only redress against French rule but the utter destruction of French society, traditions, and customs. Burke explained: “There is a manifest, marked distinction, which ill men with ill designs, or weak men incapable of any design, will constantly be confounding,—that is, a marked distinction between change and reformation. The former alters the substance of the objects themselves, and gets rid of all their essential good as well as of all the accidental evil annexed to them. Change is novelty; and whether it is to operate any one of the effects of reformation at all, or whether it may not contradict the very principle upon which reformation is desired, cannot be known beforehand. Reform is not change in substance or in the primary modification of the object, but a direct application of a remedy to the grievance complained of. So far as that is removed, all is sure. It stops there; and if it fails, the substance which underwent the operation, at the very worst, is but where it was.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Natural law is superior to, and precedes, political and governmental institutions.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Locke said that there is a circle of freedom surrounding each person and all people at birth. And within that circle is the absolute human right to live and live freely. This is a natural right born of natural law or the law of nature. It is divine and eternal, unalterable by mankind. Moreover, man also has the ability to reason. And it is through reason that he discovers and discerns natural law, his natural rights, and their application to all of humanity. Let”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“In other words, once the poison of jealousy, contempt, and even hatred enters the bloodstream of the body politic, a dark and foreboding bleakness will begin to cover the society, from which nothing good will come.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“The Competitive Enterprise Institute determined that by December 30, 2016, in a record-setting Federal Register of 97,110 pages, agencies had issued 3,853 rules and regulations, 43 more than 2015 and eighteen times the number of laws (Public Laws) Congress passed during the year.68”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Comte’s positivism and “stages of development” theory and the Hegel-Marx historicism are kindred and lay the foundation for modern progressivism. They all presume to know and establish the final stage of human development (even if the final stage is in a state of constant remaking), denounce organized religion and timeless truths, and worship the narcissism of their own moral nihilism”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“The banishment of the Constitution and republicanism, like the disembowelment of the Declaration of Independence and individualism, has been scrupulous. There is now a vast gulf between the government the progressives have constructed and the framers’ Constitution.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“For the progressive, the answer is the centralized administrative state, where the individual is coerced in infinite ways, as willed by the machinery of the state. As such, reason transforms into will, which in turn transforms into an ideological pursuit of control and power. Actual science, reason, and knowledge are abandoned. Yet”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Dewey was a stern critic of capitalism and private property rights, which he condemned as a relic of early American principles reinforced in current times by the political party structure. On March 18, 1931, in The New Republic, Dewey wrote: “I do not mean that the whole alliance of the [political] parties with organized business is consciously sinister and corrupt, though it is easily demonstrable that this is somewhat true. I mean rather that both old parties represent that stage of American life when the American people as a whole felt that society was to advance by means of industrial inventions and their application; by the development of manufacturing, of railways and commerce. It was that stage of American life when all but a few took for granted the natural control of industry and trade by the profit motive and the necessity of accumulating money capital. This idea may once have played a part in the development of the country. It has now ceased to be anything but an obstruction. . . .”47”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Again, for Wilson and the progressives, the American founding was simply a historical event distinct to its own moment and condition. Progress requires that America not get stuck in its own history.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Lincoln embraced the Declaration of Independence before and during the Civil War to justify both prosecuting the war and abolishing slavery, Wilson denounced the same principles and language in the Declaration as nonsense or dismissed them as relevant only to the American Revolution, insisting that to treat them as the Founders intended served as an impediment to communal progress.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“The danger of rejecting America’s founding principles is illustrated best in this instance by Wilson himself. As is well documented, Wilson was an open racist who, among other things, as president resegregated the federal bureaucracy.32”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“genuine individualism and constitutional republicanism, the latter two being obstacles to a centralized state in which it is claimed that governing authority exists at the behest of the people and for the good of the people. Let us remember, for the progressive, historical progress is said to be a process of never-ending cultural and societal adjustments intended to address the unique circumstances of the time, the ultimate goal of which is economic egalitarianism and the material liberation of “the masses.” Unlike most of Europe, the American attitude, experience, and governing system were not compatible with the progressive ideology.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“THE END OF THE nineteenth century saw the rise of a movement thoroughly hostile to the underlying principles of the nation’s founding—the “Progressive Movement.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“And the people cannot be bothered with administration, for not only are they too busy, but they are simply unfit for and incapable of such a momentous task. It must be left to a relative handful of sensible and learned professionals.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Let us remember, for the progressive, historical progress is said to be a process of never-ending cultural and societal adjustments intended to address the unique circumstances of the time, the ultimate goal of which is economic egalitarianism and the material liberation of “the masses.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“It was an organization of obstacles and precautions—based at bottom on a profound suspicion of human nature.”11 Furthermore,”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“For Croly, the entire process of popular sovereignty exercised through representative republicanism, which led to the drafting, adoption, and ratification of the United States Constitution, was illegitimate, since it lacked direct popular voting. “In theory the fundamental Law should have been more completely the people’s law . ”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Herbert Croly (1869–1930) was among the leading academic and progressive thinkers.”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“Hence the American heritage and founding principles must be thrust aside if there is to be human progress. They are dismissed as outmoded and obstructive, impeding the pursuit of utopian ends, for they are unconnected to the present. Man,”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism

“By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain of continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the”
― Mark R. Levin, Rediscovering Americanism: And the Tyranny of Progressivism