that some historian maybe 200 years from now, might be writing, look the normal state of affairs is arbitrary abuse and control by others, and there s this little tiny curiosity where, a relatively few people had a large amount of liberty for a short amount of time, but it all went back to the normal state of affairs. that is arbitrary abuse and control by others. mark: do you think liberty has the seeds of its own demise? that there s a paradox because people who are unwilling about liberty can use liberty to destroy liberty? that is absolutely right. they can use liberty to destroy liberty. they can use the if you look at totalitarians around the world, they always start at they are for free speech. that is because they need free speech to get their foot in the
again, never before in human history, and yet capitalism, liberalism, liberty, get this, if i wake up at 2:00 in the morning, i can go to 7-eleven and buy pretty much what i need. if you have an illness and need a drug you get it the same day or the next day. how can we explain, all americans have access to these things that the vast majority of us live in the lap of luxury created by us. that s right. mark: and our ancestors, yet it goes absolutely unnoticed. i think, and matter of fact, that is the even poor people in our country today, they have more than kings of yesteryear, they have air-conditioning, microwave ovens. mark: tvs, cars. , et cetera, et cetera, i think all this riches, it s a fruit of capitalism and it s a fruit of human ingenuity.
personal liberty and just morality in general. we have to do a better job of doing it. mark: do you think there are enough of us left who are willing to do it? i don t see a lot of them in congress, i can tell you that. you don t see a lot of them on college campuses either. mark: all right. ladies and gentlemen, don t forget during the weekdays, you can watch levin tv on crtv.com, join us there or call 844-levin-tv. that s 844-levin-tv. we d love to see you.
we have to ask ourselves the question: is it reasonable for us to expect a politician to do what he considers to be political suicide? i think no. it s unreasonable for us to expect that of a politician, so our politicians are running a congressman, his time horizon is two years, not 15 or 20 years. it s two years, and so that s what we have to live with. mark: so that is a circular problem, then, because these people will continue to do what they re doing, these politicians. in fact they grab more and more power from the private sector, from the individual, and yet they don t have the ability either because of the public or because of their own lack of will to do what needs to be done 20, 30, 40 years out. that s right. mark: so what happens to our country? well, people will say what can we do?
libertarian/classical liberal, i would say. fairly right. mark: is that about right? and you write for town hall, jewish world review, hundreds of newspapers across america. let s jump right into this. let s start with fundamentals. let s start with the basics. how would you define liberty? well, i defined it as people being able to engage in peaceable, voluntary exchange without interference by others, and typically and now through mankind s history, liberty is not the normal state of affairs, that is throughout mankind s history, he s been subject to arbitrary abuse and control by others, and so the amount of liberties that americans have and perhaps western europe as well, the amount of it, is relatively rare in human kind, and i think that the danger that we face is