Posted on 09/21/2014 4:06:15 PM PDT by SatinDoll
The issue is a Constitutional Convention, with the expressed intent being to return the United States to its Constitutional Roots.
Ahem. It is an Amending Convention authorized under the existing Constitution. It is no less and no more than any other Constitutional body.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Is it possible to use a con con to present a list of crimes that the federal government has committed against the American people and then be able to issue a warrant for the arrest of all guilty including executive, judicial and legislative? Then have a plurality of governors provide national guard troops to make the arrest?
You mean those manufacturing jobs with health and retirement benefits that allowed a high-school dropout to live a middle-class lifestyle? People don't want to spend 4 months' salary on a TV set.
Really, how tough can it be?
Things like this are sold to those who are looking for the magic bullet to fix their ills, by those who know they will direct it to achieve their aims.
We have a perfectly good Constitution. Let's use it for a change.
A “Con-con” is merely a derogatory expression, and nothing of the sort is authorized by the constitution. Those decrying the “Con-con” are attempting to paint the picture of an out of control convention whereby the US constitution is thrown out and Leftists install something akin to the Soviet constitution.
Article 5 of the constitution does provide for a state convention bypassing congress, with the purpose of proposing amendments.
What’s wrong with the states proposing and voting on amendments? If you don’t like it, then you need an amendment to remove article 5.
What do you propose to ensure its implementation?
While Article V is a great idea and many of Levin’s Amendments a good way to regulate the federal beast and out-of-control judiciary, the folks promoting the idea are not discussing the very truth Denninger cites: a lawless federal beast is NEVER going to permit itself to have a yoke put upon it by the states or the people when it currently demonstrates it does not abide by the current Constitution.
Levin says we are in a “post-Constitutional” period. I agree with that assessment.
How then, do any amendments ratified get implemented into a ‘post-constitutional’ lawless federal system that is no longer beholden to existing Constitutional law????
Anyone care to explain how that is going to happen?
Anyone care to tell me how the courts will not be used to strike down such amendments as ‘unConstitutional”?
Anyone care to tell me how they will get the Oligarchy and the executive dictatorship to abandon the idea of issuing policy and executive actions that tell the federal beast to IGNORE such amendments?
Article V is an interesting idea, but thinking we can restrain a tyrannical government by civil means without a plan of action to force it upon lawless tyrants and their corrupted system is an exercise in futility. You cannot cure rot and cancer by simply adding another few pints of fresh blood. The cancer and rot has to be removed first.
No one is discussing that aspect beyond the corrupted electoral system that serves to the benefit of the Oligarchy.
A post-Constitutional government that is lawless cannot be expected to abide by new Constitutional laws it does not agree with unless it fears the people who demand they abide by the law.
And this federal government DOES NOT fear the people. They DESPISE and loathe the people they intend to rule.
Big difference.
The Amendment V proponents better start discussing how they intend to get a lawless post-Constitutional federal government to abide by new amendments to a document it no longer follows in the first place.
If they do not discuss how they intend to do that, they are not going to win many over to their cause, because most who are skeptical are saying the same thing Denninger wrote here: if they aren’t following the original anymore, how do you expect them to follow any new additions?
The whole article is a bunch of Straw Men.
An Article V Convention of the States is NOT a Constitutional Convention.
Nobody is proposing changing any of the amendments the article mentions. There IS nothing wrong with the text of any of these amendments.
What has been proposed is new amendments to reduce the power of the ruling class, principally through term limits where none now exist, and some new limits on the power of Congress.
The morning after Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the governors of all the states should have started action for their states to secede from the Union, because with those two decision of the USSC, the federal government ceased to be legitimate, and started making overt war on the people. Of course, since all politicians have already been born, they did not care.
The Birchers are at it again. The constitution itself states that the states themselves can call for a convention to propose amendments to the constituion. So what is it? Are you all for federalism? Or are you against federalism? Are you all for following the constituion? Or are you all happy with the staus quo and oligarchs? Your choice.
Try reading
Levin
“As for your comment that the Constitution is perfect, if that is so, then why has it been amended 27 times?”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I would suggest that many if not most of those amendments were mistakes. For instance the eighteenth was a bad idea, the twenty first was a good idea but only because it repealed the eighteenth. There was great resistance to the idea of the first ten, the bill of rights, on the basis that they would give congress an excuse to pretend that only those rights mentioned in the constitution were valid rather than the original intent to preserve rights which were considered self evident to most people and therefore not needing to be mentioned in the document. I think those who objected may have been right in doing so. Had we passed an amendment saying that no citizen can be deprived of the right to live past the age of fifty without due process of law I can easily imagine the supreme court finding something in that language to justify executing anyone they please who has reached the age of fifty one, after all we have let them live past fifty, it doesn’t say they have the right to live past fifty one. That may sound crazy at first reading but think of the implications of the decision that Obamacare is constitutional, the logical implication of that decision is that the government can require people to do pretty much anything you can think of and tax them if they fail to do so and the extension of that is that they can be imprisoned for failing to pay the tax. I cannot think of a single more absurd and twisted court decision than that one and yet a lot of supposedly logical thinkers say that it is based on the same logic that allows the states to require someone to buy liability insurance to drive a vehicle on the highways which is monumentally ridiculous.
I will add one more thing. It is very difficult to clarify meaning by ADDING words. Some people would write a constitution as long as War and Peace. No one who understands anything about human nature believes that adding a lot of words without removing at least as many will make the constitution easier to understand or less likely to be violated by congress, the courts and the executive branch.
Do people understand that the product of a con-con is a proposed amendment to the Constitution that the states can choose to either ratify, making it a part of the Constitution, or ignore, in which case the Constitution remains untouched and the con-con a waste of time?
I understand that but I am concerned about what the states may choose to ratify if given an opportunity.
My feeling is that the stupid political parties have divided the country. So not only is Congress gridlocked, the House controlled by RINOs and the Senate by Democrats, gridlock arguably effectively what the Founding States had wanted for the constitutionally limited power feds anyway, but Article V is pretty useless too given the 3/4 state requriement for ratification.
In fact, the noise about a con-con is possibly nothing more than election year politics.
What are you going to add to statements like "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated...", like "...shall not be infringed."
Aside from sprinkling it with a few expletives for emphasis, what are you going to do? (I am being facetious)
When the entire raison d'etre of the Government en masse has become that of subverting the constraining documents of Government and perverting the allocations of and restrictions on power, how do you make them pay attention to their duty?
Is there any peaceful way to do this within the system?
They ignored a million marchers from the TEA party, "non-event".
They laughed at those who questioned the credentials of the one in the White House.
They have used Federal Agencies and abused Federal Power to attack those who disagree with them.
They have, in violation of our laws, armed foreign insurgents who have for profit and in criminal enterprise turned those arms against our own people.
They have failed to secure our borders and the persons of our ambassadors overseas.
They have taken direct action to damage the morale and effectiveness of our fighting forces and given aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.
What does it take to hold them to account?
The simpering mavens of Congress have also failed in their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution.
But do you seriously think any new Amendments to the Constitution are going to give them pause? ...That one more word will be the tipping point where they go, "Oh, I can only break 999 laws, 1000 would be too many?"
If the ballot box fails again, we're down to one box. If that's the case, may Almighty God help us.
And those states elected a raging leftist Muslim.
State legislators, not populace.
It doesn’t matter, the states have to agree to agenda prior to any meeting.
Proposed amendments would still require ratification by the states, as do amendments proposed by Congress.
One important difference is that Congress will never propose an amendment imposing congressional term limits.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.