The previous entry revealed that Mark Levin’s primary distortion of information in his book Liberty and Tyranny was creating the impression that a paternal (Statist) Supreme Court began with the New Deal. In reality it began in 1800 and distorting this fact has implications for what is conveyed as paternal. This entry refers to my ten misinformation principles in discussing who Levin serves by his misinformation.
Levin’s distorted time line for federal heavy-handedness, or paternalism (principle #4), reveals the purpose behind his book. From the New Deal until the seventies the heavy-handedness (paternalism) was a federal attempt to serve social goals. For good or bad, from the forties to the seventies this country trended towards socialism. This runs counter to the heavy-handedness (paternalism) that preceded the forties, which was corporate capitalism. Corporations are heavy-handed (paternal) social organizations that can exist only through the blessings of heavy-handed (paternal) government, with many notable heavy-handed (paternal) decisions from a Laissez Faire Court paving the way. Add together some of these heavy-handed (paternal) decisions, such as granting corporations due process of law as individuals, with a dogma that property is a fence to liberty, and you can devise a convoluted thesis that what amounts to paternalism was all in the just cause of Liberty up until the New Deal.
I think it is fair game at this point to observe that Mark Levin is a product of corporate media, and will thrive as corporate capitalism thrives. He undeniably serves his own self-interest (principle #5) by conveniently describing paternalism as something that resulted from the New Deal, rather than predating it with the Laissez Faire Court and even before. The Laissez Faire Courts preceding the New Deal were drawn from wealth and power elites, most typically corporate lawyers, and wealth and power elites were best served (principle #6) by their paternal decisions. Perhaps Levin does not draw a cool $90 million dollars in stock options in a year, as did the CEO of Pfizer, but I’m willing to bet he’s benefited nicely from a system that, among other things, counterfeits capital.
There have been mistakes in the background links and documents for Liberty and Tyranny which I thought I had fixed for the last entry, but that turned out not to be the case. I believe I have finally fixed them all.
Here is previous background material.
An overview of misinformation principles
A basic understanding of free markets
