This post is a brief review of Mark Levin’s new book “On Power“, which i downloaded on Audible.
In short, the book is mercifully short, but it’s also great, like all of Mark’s books. In fact, it might be the greatest.
I say that because while there is no shortage of conservative books discussing inalienable rights, it seems very few focus on the power underlying, protecting, and threatening those rights. Mark’s book makes the simple dichotomy of “negative power” effecting more authoritarian democracy or perhaps tyranny, and “positive power” which is used to establish and preserve maximal rights under ordered liberty. The brevity of the book makes sense in focusing on this very important and very neglected issue of power. Mark treats the issue efficiently, adds sufficient modern context to motivate the reader to action, and then gracefully ends the book without repeating all the great stuff we read in his other books.
Mark writes that there are many forms of power and lists several types of political power, but i would add “Family Power” which could be the subject of another book (i’ll write it if Mark won’t). You could also add “testamentary power” and a few other related subtypes. For several years i’ve been running ads on a local station that plays Mark’s show and each ad recites the mission of my law firm which is to help families grow Family Power by transmitting Life, Fortune, and Honor, to descendants.
My ads also make the point that without Faith and Family, there is no Freedom. In keeping his book short, Mark allows us to focus and act on its critically important message on the importance of positive power. The marxists have indeed put a bullseye on the nuclear family, however we cannot rely on politics and the courts to save the family. Only comprehensive estate planning can, as the most potent form of extra-governmental positive power, effectively transmit the necessary Life, Fortune, and Honor, to descendants.
There appears to be one defect in the book. Mark routinely states, or at least implies, on air and in his books, that Montesquieu originated the idea of tripartite governance with separate executive, legislature, and judiciary, and it is certainly true that our Founders were influenced by Montesquieu’s writings. Yet it was the seminal Ukrainian constitution, the 1710 constitution of Zaporizhian Cossack hetman Pylyp Orlyk, that first provided for a tripartite government with independent judiciary, and this was well before Montesquieu. I know that Mark is a great supporter of Ukraine (where my wife’s family is now getting bombed by genocidal Russian imperialist invaders), so i hope he will mention this on his show if he hasn’t already.
My wife and i look forward to meeting Mark at his book signing at the Reagan library this weekend. Once i get the hard copy i plan on re-reading it (another advantage of short books) and may update this post after i do so.
