Along with being both timely and timeless, the critical importance of Mark Levin’s latest, Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America, rests in its unique ability to empower and inform the Conservative, or activist, political junkie, and average citizen with a genuine interest in contemporary American politics.

Timely because it cuts to the heart of the political struggle playing out in 2012, timeless in that it’s a concise yet thorough primer addressing the two core philosophies that drive all American politics, the depth of understanding of both Liberalism and Conservatism and the critical struggle between them it provides represents a wealth of information and insight to empower the Conservative and political activist of today.

From government in general, to the particulars of the American experiment embodied in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, Levin extensively quotes unique and important thinkers, such as Plato, More, Hobbes and Marx on behalf of the utopianist view; with thinkers like Locke, Montesquieu, de Tocqueville and others representing the individualist, or Conservative view as we know it today.

Interspersed with extensive, insightful commentary by Levin himself, one comes to understand the bedrock, theory and practice of two very different political ideologies and how they apply to contemporary American politics playing out on a day-to-day basis, as well as in every election year.

Broadly at issue is, how will man structure himself, so as to function within a society. The utopianist would hold that said society must be structured from the top down, with rules, roles, regulations and laws all purportedly designed for the common good being issued from on high. The individualist, free-thinking, or conservative view would hold that, at the core of all civil society rests the individual, with his natural rights and inclinations, both good and bad, the ideal society being represented by a governmental authority that manifests the least amount of control possible, so as to empower the freedom, happiness and productivity of the individual.

By tracing the development of these two critical schools of thinking from their earliest beginnings, in theory, practice and thought, following them right up to today, one comes to understand American society as existing within a polarity between the two competing schools, with every political decision, be it a vote, or government mandate, as impacting precisely where within said polarity an American must live out his, or her life every day.

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My last article, Medicare is Already Rationing Care, focused on one small aspect of a much larger story, a story every American needs to know. The battle over the meaning of medicine began 2,500 years ago, not last spring.

In the late 1990’s I gave a lecture entitled “Post-Hippocratic Medicine in the Shadow of Nietzsche” in response to Peter Singer, the chair of bioethics at Princeton University. Singer had proposed we not consider humans “fully human” until they reached five weeks of age (after birth). During the first four weeks, he argued, we should allow the overt killing of infants with disabilities. This was “cost-effective.” It served the “greater good” by controlling the skyrocketing cost of healthcare.

For a decade I studied the question ”How did America reach a place in her history where we could seriously consider resurrecting the ancient practice of infanticide?” What I discovered changed my life.

For the past 2,500 years physicians served only one of two roles in Western culture. They either followed Hippocrates and served the wellbeing of their patients, or they followed Plato and served the greater welfare of the State. The philosophy of Peter Singer is not new—it has been with us for millennia. We once again stand at these same fated crossroads of Plato and Hippocrates as we debate the future of American healthcare.

Based on my study of history, philosophy, and current events, I feared we were rapidly returning to the world of Plato; a world where physicians worked at the behest of government, not solely for the patient. To help Americans understand what was about to transpire, I launched  Physicians for Reform in 2006.

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