Author Terence P. Jeffrey talks with National Review Online editor-at-large Kathryn Lopez about his new book, Controls Freaks: 7 Ways Liberals Plan to Ruin Your Life.

LOPEZ: Why is a book published in 1910 important to you, Mark Levin, and the Social Security Administration?

JEFFREY: In Liberty and Tyranny, Mark Levin notes that Columbia University economist Henry Rogers Seager, in his 1910 book Social Insurance: A Program for Social Reform, laid out an argument for an American welfare state anchored in a social-security program. As Mark pointed out, the contemporary Social Security Administration is so taken with Seager’s statist views that it has posted his book on its website. Seager was the consummate Control Freak, someone who wanted to eradicate the pioneering spirit from American life, and he pushed not only for a welfare state, but also for eugenics — literally advocating the sterilization of people he believed unworthy of breeding. Seager exemplifies how modern liberals parted ways with both the constitutional and the moral traditions of our nation.

LOPEZ: Is the conscience front the most insidious? Or is the speech front?

JEFFREY: Yes, conscience is the most insidious. Liberals today don’t just believe they can force you to pay for the killing of someone else’s unborn child (and brazenly tell you they are not doing it), they also believe they have a right to teach your five-year-old kindergartner that same-sex unions are a good thing — without ever telling you they are doing it. There is a reason why liberal politicians like President Obama don’t like school choice, even if they send their own children to very expensive private schools. They see the public-school classroom as a moral battlefield where they can wage a 13-year insurgency to capture the soul of your child.