A Question for Article V State Amendment Convention Opponents

[Jacquerie]

To Free Republic opponents of Article V, I put this question, “what infringement of our natural and constitutional rights, or other high crime against our republic, could compel you to support an Article V state amendment convention to propose amendments to our constitution?”

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

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.

[GraceG]

[ Is it a dumb idea by itself, or because you believe there are far too many people in this country who really don’t understand what liberty, and their responsibilities to protect and keep it means?

I don’t think it’s a dumb idea. It’s an idea to be debated on its merits.

the feasibility of a successful outcome is a separate debate IMO. ]

I think an Article V Convention of the states to propose amendments is a Vital test. If we as a people deserve liberty we will pass it, if we don’t deserve liberty anymore we will fail and paint ourselves into the corner of tyranny that our decendants will have to break free of and hopefully learn from the mistakes of the past. The same way the Founders learned from the folly of Rome and Greece.

[sargon]

The problem is not with the existing document, but rather the refusal of man to adhere to the document. That cannot be changed by altering the document.

That's my opinion as well.

Not only would the NEW constitution also be ignored, just as the current one is, but there is also the distinct possibility of provisions which are too "democratic" being introduced. In other words, majority Tyranny.

The problem, as buckalfa stated, is not with the existing Constitution, other than a couple of Amendments like the 16th and 17th.

To me, the best argument for an Article V convention would have to be that the current constitution has been so egregiously altered, that it is no longer a "good" Constitution, and, despite my complaints with the 16th and 17th Amendments, among others, I don't believe that is the case.

IMHO, the dangers outweigh the benefits. We simply need to promulgate Amendments, laws, and policies which restrict the abuse of power and force government to function within its legal and philosophical bounds.

I don't want authoritarians from the left or right to rewrite the Constitution according to their pet whims. I want a country where all can pursue happiness in the way they see fit, as long as they are not violating the rights of others. Liberty and Justice for All is the ideal toward which we should strive, and discarding the greatest governing document ever created on earth is not the best way to do that, IMHO.

[GraceG]

Excellent sumary!

I find it funny that people have no issue with the People on the swamp in potomac, ie, The House and Senate can ALREADY propose new amendments, but want to deny their LOCAL State Legislatures the EXACT SAME power.....

Article V is not some imaginary process, it is IN the DAMNED Constiution for crying out loud!

So we trust Harry Reid and the RINOs in the senate not to try to Propose some new Amendment by 2/3 vote more than the State Legislatures of all the Republican majority STATE LEGISLATURES????

I just cannot see why people are so scared shitless over a Article V Convention to PROPOSE Amendments.....

[P-Marlowe]

Besides the states must still vote to accept the proposed amendments.

This is no longer the age of enlightenment.

This is the Age of Entitlement.

Better to try to elect leaders who will follow the old Constitution than expect that politicians in this day and age will meet together to create a better one. That ain't gonna happen.

[dware]

The problem is not with the existing document, but rather the refusal of man to adhere to the document. That cannot be changed by altering the document.

I've been on the fence about the issue for some time. I believe your argument is the simplest, most succinct and common sense argument against an Article V convention I've seen yet. Excellent!

[nathanbedford]

There are 99 houses in 50 state legislatures. Any leftist amendment would require only 13 of these legislative bodies from 99 to defeat ratification. In other words, three quarters of the state legislatures must ratify or 38 states. If 13 legislatures fail to ratify the amendment is defeated. Since ratification by legislatures requires both houses to consent, only 13/99 are required. That is very close to 13%.

If the Congress of the United States elects to have the ratification procedures conducted by conventions rather than legislatures, the method of selecting the delegates to those conventions would be chosen by the legislatures. If only 13 legislative bodies out of 99 object to the method chosen by the other body because it is considered to favor a leftist amendment, there is no ratification forthcoming from that state.

By either procedure the odds of a liberal amendment getting past so many conservative legislative bodies in so many states is both arithmetically and practically remote.

Finally, this is only the last line of defense, there are innumerable steps along the way which make a "runaway convention" virtually impossible and render the need for the states to fail to ratify very likely superfluous.

[familyop]

The following, along with their most influential constituents (government-linked, anti-competition business), are the people who would most desire to change the Constitution in order to further legitimize their activities.

Heavy Hitters: Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2014
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $60,949,129 [Democrat] 81% [Republican] 1%”
National Cmte to Preserve Social Security & Medicare $10,414,606 [Democrat] 82% [Republican] 17%

Leviathan (Uncle Sam employs more people than you think)
National Review ^ | 02/03/2011 | Iain Murray
"...nearly 40 million Americans employed in some way by government."

Spendthrift ways are ways of government-linked socialists.

About "70 million" people are receiving good incomes but are also steeped in debt and can't borrow more for big ticket items.

Helping them to further subvert the Constitution and institute slavery is not the answer to their violations to date, and it's certainly not the answer while their revenues are declining, and their debts, heading them toward defaults and eventual lack of political influence.

As you've seen term after term, they cannot be stopped from doing as they wish in politics without their default processes having been completed.

When they can borrow no more, they will be out of their offices and no longer be able to make trouble. That's why they're getting so desperate to subvert the Constitution now. When they can no longer borrow, we will produce and again take charge of our nation as Americans.

For now, focus on lowering property taxes in each of your locales--action that has been lacking for a long time. Build small. Become more frugal, healthy and self-sufficient. And in the meantime, from right now, onward, communicate with others in your communities to elect anti-regulation candidates to local offices. I saw such candidates getting two-thirds or more of the vote against incumbents without giving more than a few weeks' notice to their neighbors.

Make sure that voters for anti-regulation freedom get four years notice from this point on. Put some effort into it! Study poll watching and the legalities of it in advance, and do it. Get those local incumbents out.

[Kaosinla]

Washington has been engaged in an ongoing Consitutional Convention for the past 100 years. I’m in favor of letting the States, thereby the citizenry, to finally have a chance to propose amendments via an Article V process to make a last ditch attempt to rein in this oligarchy before an armed revolution.

Yes. I’m a proponent of this method.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Better to try to elect leaders who will follow the old Constitution than expect that politicians in this day and age will meet together to create a better one. That ain't gonna happen.

I'm willing to try, though. If they ignore the clearly stated amendments, then we'll try the ammo box.

[nathanbedford]

If the “old constitution” isn’t being followed, the “new constitution” won’t be followed either ... :-) ...

The "old constitution" was followed for many decades and was only seriously altered 80 years later as a result of the Civil War. Thereafter the amended "old constitution" was followed well into the 20th century even after Wilson until the New Deal. So the old constitution gave us quite a long stretch of service.

We do not know whether the "new constitution" will be followed but we certainly have no historical warrant to foreclose the probability that it will in fact be followed for decades, perhaps even long enough to save the Republic.

Much of what comes out of the Article V process of course depends on the kind of amendments which might be ratified. As one FReeper has already posted on this thread, it will be difficult to fail to follow an amendment which prescribes term limits. Other amendments, carefully drafted, would be equally difficult to evade. In any event, careful drafting will modify the old constitution and bring it back to its original conception and should not therefore simply be dismissed as a "new" Constitution but should be considered the restoration of the old.

Most of the advocates of this process support "process" amendments which change the way we are governed. I for one like an amendment which says that bureaucratic regulations which are not confirmed by a majority vote of both houses of Congress within a specified time limit are automatically repealed. We might not like the results we get in Congress when it comes time to ratify these regulations but at least the new process brings the bureaucracy under scrutiny and democratizes what has become a tyrannical combination in the executive of lawmaking, adjudication, and punishment. It would also return us to a separation of powers in this area.

My point is that process amendments make it more difficult for the establishment powers to play their games.

Finally, I simply cannot accept an argument of despair which says since it might not work we should not bother to try.

[Star Traveler]

To sum it up for me, the problem here has never been the Constitution, but rather the people. If the people cannot vote the right representatives in office, no amount of fiddling with the Constitution is going to make a difference.

My first point of change is with elections and the people in office and not the Constitution, because in reality all the Constitution is, is a piece of paper and nothing else, if the voters don’t have it in their heart. It starts with the voters and elections.

Another way to put it is, if one wanted to prove that a new constitution or an old constitution would be followed, one proves it by the voters and at the ballot box. If one can’t prove it there, they can’t prove it anywhere.

[familyop]

Simplified:

Many state and local governments and their few most influential constituents are violating the Constitution at least as much as their comrades in federal government are doing (see federal funding).

Allowing those same people to subvert the Constitution is not a good answer.

[nathanbedford]

Respectfully, I find two major flaws with your reasoning which I know expresses the best concerns of a conservative mind.

First, the idea that we must find the right people to rule over us was never shared by the framers as an exclusive remedy to tyranny. Although we have Adams' warning that a democracy requires virtuous people, the motivating premise among the framers was that men are inherently not virtuous, indeed, in the 18th century argot they are sinners and prone not only to committing sin but to misfeasance and corruption in office.

Hence the framers spent a whole summer concentrating all their energies and their vast knowledge of political philosophy of Locke and Montesquieu as well as the history of Rome and Greece to devise a system which would protect us from the failings of sinful leaders. That is why we have a Constitution so carefully constructed with separation of powers and checks and balances.

The framers never assumed that we would have good men governing over us or that the electorate would be wise enough to find them. They turned to the Constitution.

The impetus for the Article V movement is not so much that the voters at the ballot box have failed the government but that the government has failed the voters. In other words, our problem is not that majority will is being done but that an elite minority is frustrating the majority will.

This is done in innumerable ways. One need only look at the accretion of rulings from either the Supreme Court or from administrative agencies to recognize that an elite of very few, unelected judges and bureaucrats are ruling against the will of the majority.

One can hardly review the history of Obamacare, either by its cynical and corrupt method of passage or by way of its extraconstitutional implementation by the Obama administration and conclude that it represents the will of the people.

The examples are being made every day and the conclusion becomes more and more apparent that the elites have taken control, that they are immune from the will of the majority expressed at the ballot box, that the Constitution which was designed to prevent the state of affairs has been finally subverted.

For the very reasons I expressed in my first post on this thread, to believe that the ballot box will save the Republic is illusory.

[DiogenesLamp]

I study American History quite a lot. Beyond the first ten amendments, most of the subsequent amendments are utter crap. I can point to each one and tell you how it has adversely affected our freedoms. The only exception which comes to mind is Amendment 27 which is actually quite sensible... and was proposed by the founders over 200 years ago!

My point is this. The founders were geniuses who had a very good grasp of human nature and history. They put together a very good system, and all subsequent attempts to "improve" it have been utter bollocks.

The people of today are idiots. I suspect that they will not propose ANYTHING which might actually improve our situation, but even if they do, I have little hope that anything truly beneficial could win the approval of 3/4ths of the states.

However, I am fully confident that ridiculous and freedom robbing measures can get proposed AND ratified with little trouble.

If proponents are successful at achieving an Article V convention, I will be more afraid of it than any folly of congress. If we had the votes to get 3/4ths of the states to ratify an amendment, we would not now be having the utter clusterf*** going on in Washington today. We would be able to solve the problems directly.

The belief that an Article V convention will improve our lot is just an irrational fantasy in my opinion.

[DiogenesLamp]

That's why it would be an Article V convention; that is one for proposing amendments… and those amendments would still have to be approved by 3/4 of the States's legislatures.

And do you honestly think that anything sensible will be proposed? If we had 3/4ths of the states, we could elect sensible people to congress and solve the problem directly.

It is insane to think that a constituency which gave us Democrat control of the Senate and the Presidency could possibly give us a convention which would do anything beneficial.

[DiogenesLamp]

Given the ignorant and depraved state of the electorate and the body politic, I do not see how a convention could do anything other than make things worse. Making new law is not a cure for lawlessness and anomie.

You have voiced my exact sentiment in far fewer words. Thank you for that.

[DiogenesLamp]

And you must believe that whatever gets proposed will be an improvement over what we have now.

I, for one, shall not be surprised if they make "Gay Marriage" a constitutional amendment. Same thing with Abortion.

What will shock me beyond belief is that they do anything beneficial to the well being of the nation. The electorate of today are idiots.

[Publius]

If that sentiment is correct, then it follows logically that America is no longer capable of self-government. If this is true, then what are the alternatives? Military dictatorship? Theocracy? The sundering of the Union?

[madmominct]

Agreed - great post!!