Posted on 09/12/2015 11:41:59 AM PDT by Jacquerie
American style hard tyranny isn't conjecture; it is here and will get worse if we do not reclaim powers stolen from, and rights denied to us by the Uniparty apparatus. Our highest institutions, including the electoral process, have been corrupted to the point they serve ends opposite to those intended, and are therefore incapable of restoring freedom.
The question to be answered is, “How shall we reclaim liberty?”
We must appeal to first principles, to eternal truths that span time from the Creation to this very moment. One of those truths is that the only legitimate powers of government are those granted to it by the nation. Our Framers made provision for recurrence to this first principle via Article V of the Constitution, in which the people, serving in their sovereign capacity determine the envelope of governmental authority.
The DC Uniparty exercises de facto plenary powers at will. It recognizes no limits. Are we so emasculated, so frightened of our shadows as to not meet in convention to address the problem? Are we to relinquish our God given rights to a minority, to Leftists who occupy the commanding heights of government, culture, and academia? To not exercise our Article V right is to abandon freedom. If allowed to continue, our inaction means increasing serfdom to a master who knows no mercy and works to destroy civil society.
Perhaps from disuse, many of us mentally put aside the fact there is no earthly power above We The Sovereign People. Neither Congress, the President, nor the Supreme Court possess legitimate power beyond that which We The People grant them. These institutions do not own the sovereign power of the nation, of We The People. Fear of the unknown is a common apprehension, but as it regards Article V, it is unwarranted.
Article V opponents assume that ambassadors from the states will perform their duties in the same reprehensible manner we know so well from the Uniparty denizens in Washington, DC. Since most congressmen and senators would sell their souls today for reelection tomorrow, opponents expect states to send hacks with no interest beyond their own to an Article V convention. An erroneous equivalence is made between the familiar, and that which we have never seen.
Unlike the wild lawlessness of the Uniparty on display in DC, the Article V state convention process itself is a tremendous safeguard for liberty, for unlike our thoroughly debased and self-serving Congress, those attending a convention will join a fresh and uncorrupted institution. The difference in behavior and demeanor we can expect between congressmen and convention attendees is identical to that between men’s conduct in strip clubs and church.
States will send serious men and women of character and judgment armed with detailed, focused and strict commissions to promote their state supported amendments. State ambassadors to an amendments convention will be unconcerned with that which drives the DC Uniparty; money, personal power, and reelection will not be their focus or interest. Here for instance, is the Indiana statute that will govern the conduct of its delegation. Criminal sanctions and other penalties are provided in the improbable event of going outside of one’s commission.
We can have every expectation the states and their ambassadors will rise to the occasion. They will understand the gravity of their assignment and conduct themselves in a manner precisely opposite that of the Uniparty. Would states with majorities of their people fed up with joblessness, Obamacare, Mexican and muslim invasions, Scotus, EPA regulations and other administrative diktats too numerous to count actually recommend dangerous and liberty crushing amendments?
Every proposed amendment passed by majority vote in the state amendments convention must be ratified by three fourths of the states to become part of the constitution. Pause and ask yourself if proposals from the state legislatures that meet this high bar should not be in our governing document.
The trail of history is littered with fallen republics, of peoples insufficiently covetous of their liberty. We are admittedly far down that tragic path, yet we have not been sentenced to misery and destitution.
Take comfort in, and smile at the reality that no nation ever sold itself into slavery. Meet in convention and let good and serious men and women, isolated from the corrupt Uniparty, discuss the changes to our republic so necessary to reclaim freedom.
Article V before we can’t.
Trump/Cruz 2016
Trouble is, that is only a temporary solution, no matter who is elected. How much of Regan's legacy do we still have today?
Article V lets the states create Supreme law via the amendment process. Is this really scarier than how our current Congress just created Supreme law without ANY advice and consent from the states?
-PJ
I'm amazed that a Freeperdom which jumps to defend the 2A is so nonchalant and uninterested in exercising a fundamental, societal right.
They don’t follow the Constitution we have now, what difference would one with fresh ink make?
Because that’s not what it does.
Article VI, Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States [emphasis added], shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
With all due respect Political Junkie Too, why would the Founding States make the Article V amendment ratification process if they had also intended for the President and Senate to create new enumerated powers for the federal government by means of treaties?
Also, note that Clause 2 above was written before the ill-conceived 17th Amendment was ratified, state legislators uniquely having the power to elect senators.
Regarding constitutional limits on the federal government’s power to establish treaties, not that both Thomas Jefferson, and more importantly the Supreme Court, had clarified that the feds cannot use their constitutional authority to make treaties as a backdoor to expand the federal government’s powers.
Here’s relevant excerpts from Jefferson’s writings.
“In giving to the President and Senate a power to make treaties, the Constitution meant only to authorize them to carry into effect, by way of treaty, any powers they might constitutionally exercise.” —Thomas Jefferson: The Anas, 1793.
“Surely the President and Senate cannot do by treaty what the whole government is interdicted from doing in any way.” — Thomas Jefferson: Parliamentary Manual, 1812 .
Note that Jefferson undoubtedly based his insight to limits of treaty power on his experience as vice president and president of the Senate.
Here’s the Supreme Court’s clarification.
"2. Insofar as Art. 2(11) of the Uniform Code of Military Justice provides for the military trial of civilian dependents accompanying the armed forces in foreign countries, it cannot be sustained as legislation which is "necessary and proper" to carry out obligations of the United States under international agreements made with those countries, since no agreement with a foreign nation can confer on Congress or any other branch of the Government power which is free from the restraints of the Constitution [emphasis added].” — Reid v. Covert, 1956.
Jacquerie is on a roll.
<>They don’t follow the Constitution we have now . . . <>
Amend the structure of government such that they do.
Wasted youth.
That's a good question.
I'm not as knowledgeable about such things as I ought to be. Your quotes were insightful.
The Obama agreement commits the United States to defend Iran's nuclear facilities and provide some scientific research. As long as it's not ratified as a treaty, the next president can terminate the agreement. It's just that critics are calling it a de facto treaty ratified outside of the treaty process. There is no War Powers act committing USA troops, and mutual defense pacts are treaties (and the states would be providing the materiel without their consent).
It's a giant unconstitutional mess, and I cannot believe that an article V Convention of States could be worse than how the federal government is acting now.
-PJ
Note that the Oval office is not the most powerful office in the land as the corrupt media, including Fx News, would evidently like for everybody to believe. This is evidenced by the fact that the Founding States gave Congress the constitutional authority to impeach and remove lawless presidents like Obama from office.
The problem is that the RINO-controlled Congress is just as corrupt as Obama is imo, Congress refusing to remove lawless Obama from office.
I suspect that Congress is having Obama do some of the dirty work that it wants to do so that incumbent lawmakers don’t lose votes.
Note that the states could put a major dent in resolving the problem of lawless legislative and executive branches, imo, if the states repealed the 17th Amendment (17A). But even if 17A gets repealed, parents still need to start making sure that their children are being taught about the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers as the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood.
The Communist constitution had a lot of freedoms. But the text didn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what’s in the constitution if the Democrats take full control.
You can say this over and over but that does not make it true and you only look more and more ignorant at this point. If that sounds rude, I'm sorry but an Article V convention has been in the spotlight for a long time and there is no excuse not to be better informed.
Fact:
They do follow the constitution. Are the American people still armed? Are we not exercicing freedom of speech at this very moment? Are we not directly electing senators instead of appointing them through the state legislatures?
So "they" do follow the constitution just not to the letter as they have found loopholes around the letter of the law.
One of the reasons to use an article V convention is to close theese loopholes. The other is to repeal the 17th amendment and thus end the direct election of senators and restore representation of the individual states.
Posted on 4/11/2015 9:23:50 AM by Jacquerie
It’s a pity the Russians didn’t enforce the constitution they had. The Soviet Constitution shared more than a few similarities with the US constitution. The rights to property, private correspondence, freedom of religion & conscience, equality before the law, and the right to earn/keep earnings and to leave inheritances are there.
All considered, it wasn’t bad for peoples who had only known Mongol hordes and Czars for the past thousand years.
Despite these guarantees, the Soviet Union was a slave state from its inception. How could oppression have lived side-by-side recognized assurances of so many personal rights?
Slavery was certain because the Soviet system lacked institutions designed to secure liberty.
Similar to post-1913 American governance, the Soviet constitution set up internal contradictions. While it guaranteed certain rights and free will, the Soviet constitution purposely neglected to provide governing institutions to secure those rights.
At least history provided the Russians with an excuse.
History doesn’t leave Americans such an easy out. The self-inflicted wound of the 17th Amendment destroyed the Framers' careful structure of freedom. In 102 years we morphed from the freest nation on earth to one on the cusp of hard tyranny.
Oh, and the Soviet Union had elections too.
Here are two such:
Throw the entire Congress out of office, and bar them from ever returning, so state legislators can replace them and get the much more lucrative graft available to Congressmen and Senators. The wording of such an amendment would be simple:
No person who, as of the effective date of this Amendment, is now serving, or has served, all or any portion of a term in the Senate or House of Representatives may be elected to, appointed to, or sworn in as a Senator or Representative.
Wording of the next Amendment would be tricky, and getting it right will require a lot of work by lawyers, politicians and scholars. My idea is to eliminate unfunded federal mandates, which I define as those required only by federal statutes and regulations as opposed to compliance with the US Constitution. That would free up (my guess, but it isn’t wild-eyed) about 20-30% of all present state budgets for state legislators to happily boon-doggle.
Plus this proposed amendment should require the federal government to reimburse the states for the 5-10 years of unfunded federal mandates prior to the effective date of this amendment. Put a cap on that of about a trillion dollars.
My idea here is to also offer state legislatures a trillion dollar bribe to pass Article V Constitutional Convention resolutions. We’d save a lot more than that in a few years if such a Convention is held and actually proposes amendments for the states to ratify.
<>If we want state legislatures to pass resolutions authorizing an Article V Constitution Convention, we must give them some almighty powerful incentives.<>
Power sells itself, and their people are hurting. That is plenty of incentive.
I doubt most state legislators were aware of Article V until Mark Levin spoke to the ALEC conference last year. When I met my FL rep in 2013 he was ignorant of Article V and why the Framers’ constitution featured a senate of the states.
But until then, it must be only about making the sale.
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