(a book review by Dr. Ted Baehr)
No Liberty
For License: The Forgotten Logic of the First Amendment,
was written by David Lowenthal (Spence Publishing
Company, 1997)
Almost
everybody recalls Prof. George Santayana’s statement
that, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned
to repeat it." However, few remember that Prof.
Santayana made this profound statement while explaining
that primitive societies could not progress in terms of
civilization because they could not learn from their
mistakes.
The founders
of the United States of America learned from the
mistakes their ancestors made in Europe and created a
wonderful experiment called the American Republic. These
were men of strong faith and values, clear convictions
and deep understanding of political and philosophical
issues. Regrettably, for the last 75 years, the courts
in the U.S. and in particular the Supreme Court has been
unraveling the work of the founding fathers.
Many people
have touched on this serious problem and complained
about the Supreme Court’s deliberate deconstruction of
the free exercise of religion and free speech clauses of
the First Amendment. Now, David Lowenthal in his superb
book, NO LIBERTY FOR LICENSE, carefully exposes the
confusion of the courts and shows clearly where and how
the court erred and why we need to return to the
principles of the founding fathers as expressed in the
Constitution so that we can progress as a civilization.
There have
been several reviews of this book which have missed the
point. Some of them have been outright lies, showing how
powerful this book is. Mr. Lowenthal does not advocate
censorship, but rather an accurate reading of the First
Amendment, which will achieve the goals and affirm the
foundations of our Republic.
This book is
one of the most important books of the last hundred
years. Having studied law at a prestigious top ten law
school and worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the
Southern District of New York, I usually read fast and
don’t mark anything. Here, however, I found myself
treasuring every page, marking large portions of the
book and trying to memorize great passages for future
use in my work.
Every member
of the Supreme Court should read NO LIBERTY FOR LICENSE:
THE FORGOTTEN LOGIC OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT. Every
concerned American should read it. And, every Christian
leader should read this paradigm shifting book. It is
more than a must read. It is a book that can return us
to the right track so that we can go forward to a better
future.
Please direct
your comments to:
Spence
Publishing Company, Dallas, 1997
www.spencepublishing.com
