If the Supreme Court fails us, we can call a Constitutional convention and re-define the relationship between the federal government and the States in any way that meets with sufficient approval of those states.
The number of states that have moved to protect their citizens from ObamaCare (tm) are just a few short of the number required to convene a Constitutional convention. So, it will not take too much additional alarm to provoke the next level of peaceful response within the current frameworks.
I used to be concerned about what such a Convention might do. My first response is that any changes that the Convention passes will have to survive the ratification process with all the States. The second is that ObamaCare (tm) destroys any remaining limits on the power of the federal government.
Here is how the Amicus brief by the Institute for Justice concluded:
“If the individual mandate of PPACA is upheld,
the power to regulate commerce will include the
power to compel it. This massive new federal power
would soon overtake the entirety of the states’ residual
police power, including the entirety of contract
law, enabling the federal government to eviscerate
hundreds of years of basic understandings of the voluntary
essence of legally binding contracts.
“Equally important, from the perspective of individual
liberty, a power to compel contractual relations
would have no logical stopping point. It would presumably
include, for example, the power to compel
individuals to buy any good or service – not just
health insurance – so long as Congress could rationally
conclude the market for that product would benefit
from forced purchasing. It would also presumably
include a power to compel individuals to work for
specific employers or in specific occupations, so long
as Congress could rationally conclude that those industries
or occupations would benefit from such forced
contractual relationships. When combined with the
Court’s highly deferential standard of review for exercises
of the commerce power, extending that power to
include the awesome power to compel would create
the very Leviathan government the Founders spilled
their blood to resist.”
from:
http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/amicus_briefs/obamacareamicus.pdf
In light of this, a Convention is the lesser of two evils.
A constitutional convention is the most dangerous route to take.
Anything can happen there.
The entire constitution re-written or done away with.
We could end up a monarchy ... it would depend on who had the guns during the decision-making.
It sounds good but it will be like juggling hand grenades with no pins.
We would be better off using the current constitution to remove the current congress, court and executive using a consortium of county sheriff’s.
The County sheriff is the highest law enforcement in the state (power over the governor and attorney general) ... any county sheriff can remove one or more bad apples.
A collection of sheriff’s from each state working together would have legal power to remove the corrupt bunch we have allowed to grow there in DC (and it could be done peaceably).
(I am not sure how likely the peaceably part is but it would be legal).