Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: Jacquerie

My concern is the same of the founding fathers. They realized that the particulars of any written constitution or law will be set to be subverted or undermined before the ink is dry.

So for this reason they decided to create constitutional bodies with different prerogatives, but all sharing the idea that each would use their power to prevent the others from becoming too powerful.

While this regulated growth of government for quite a long time, the growth continued, until government became unmanageable. Their error was in not including an *ordinary* pruning mechanism to *reduce* the size of government in an equally slow and methodical manner.

The two most commonly suggested ideas for constitutional amendments are oriented for this purpose: a balanced budget amendment, and a presidential line item veto.

The 17th Amendment, the direct election of senators, accelerated the growth of government, in the name of “democracy”, which was a lie, by making senators “free agents” who no longer needed to be responsive to their individual states, but could devote themselves entirely to the growth of the national government. And senators adore this lack of constraint, so would strongly fight efforts to repeal this amendment.

And the same individuals, again in the name of “democracy”, which is again a lie, now seek to undermine the Electoral College, another check against unbridled national government power. To make the president only responsive to the large states, making primaries in the less populated states superfluous, and tilting the balance of power to the progressives.

Yet even in all of this, I do not oppose an Article V convention in any way, but warn that even at its grandest, it will have little change on the way things are done today. This change must happen voluntarily by strong conservatives in the office of the president and congress and the supreme court.

The president must work with congress to substantially *reduce* the power of the office of the president. And the congress, specifically the house and senate judiciary committees, must do a substantial structural and procedural reform to the federal judiciary.

Only when this is done by the government, will the constitutional changes brought about by the Article V convention be enabled, and the system so changed that it will take another hundred years for the progressives to corrupt it again.


21 posted on 07/18/2014 1:27:55 PM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy ("Don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative." -Obama, 09-24-11)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: yefragetuwrabrumuy

“... presidential line item veto ...”
-
An absolutely TERRIBLE idea.


49 posted on 07/18/2014 3:44:56 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th (We have met the enemy and he is us.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson