There are no simple answers to this… and that just makes our loss all the more frustrating. There are, however, some undeniable truths that help us understand the dynamics at work behind our defeat, and that will inform us in the run-up to and during the next legislative session.
We simply have to adopt a new attitude. Politics is a game. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you lose. Then you play again.
I am advised that Andy Biggs just barely won the AZ senate presidency this last term by one vote. It appears likely that his last-ditch alliance with the anti-Article V extremists of the John Birch Society against SCR1016 and against the will of the majority of the people of Arizona – as evidenced by its passage just last week in our House of Representatives – will most certainly assure his defeat in the next legislative session. And when he goes, so go his sycophants & psychophants – good riddance.
Regressives like Andy Biggs, whose reasoning on this particular issue is clouded by fear, cannot be allowed to continue preventing Arizona from taking her rightful place in the fight to return this nation to the ideals envisioned by our Founders.
We should constantly remind those who have been busy channeling Phyllis Shlafley’s decades-old paranoia, and haven’t had a chance to check the news lately, that many great conservative thinkers and leaders have recently joined us in support of one or both of the most popular conservative movements for an Article V Convention of States - the Citizens for Self-Governance Convention of States (COS), and the Compact for America Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA)... people like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Glen Beck, George Will, David Barton, Mike Lee, Sarah Palin and Alan West, among others... hardly a "Soros-funded globalist" in the bunch, and none of them members of the low-information crowd typically unfamiliar with the truth about our Founders' history.
Between now and the next legislative session, we will undoubtedly run across – actually we should actively seek out – those regular folks, initiates who have only heard the negative, anti-liberty, fear-mongering lies, misrepresentations and hate speech of the Birchers on this issue. We should tactfully suggest that they take a moment to read the plain language of Article V (A5), explaining that it specifically and deliberately assigns the power to propose amendments to the constitution equally to both Congress and to the States.
We must tell them that it’s only 143 words, and warn them ahead of time that it won’t tell them word-for-word, step-by-step how to do it… the Framers, as in so many other fundamental matters, didn’t believe that they had to spell it out for us… what it will tell them is that IT CAN BE DONE.
Once they understand the original intent of those words, all anyone needs is the courage and the trust that our Founders had in the American people, without neither of which, no one deserves the right to be considered a Constitutional Conservative.
A5 - http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html
If find the Bircher BS particularly troubling. Way too many freepers have picked it up. Although the recent frequency is lower, we still see freeper attempts to connect Article V supporters with Soros. We have a lot of notable talent in support of Article V; it is sure to increase.
I think some of the conservative reluctance to embrace Article V is related to cognitive dissonance. Simply put, an American dictatorship is felt to be a contradiction. It can't happen. It is an impossible inconsistency.
By refusing to accept the seriousness of our situation, one can stick to the comfortable and American belief in elections. Election of the right people is all that is needed, and that belief is consistent with our tradition.
OTOH, if one accepts the fact that Obama’s official conduct and power is closer to that of Hugo Chavez than Ronald Reagan, one has to decide what to do about it.
For us, there is one peaceful option, so it must be pursued. It is as simple as that.