[Jacquerie]

I prefer to view our relationship as a compact. As opposed to compacts, in contracts there are itemized damages for failure to perform.

In any event, we gave up some powers to the government of our creation in exchange for security of our unalienable rights, keep civil peace, defense from foreign invasion, and to secure the blessings of liberty.

Reason informs us that taking peaceful means to the restoration of free government is the safest approach. Violence is a roll of the dice. History shows a Napoleon is more likely than a George Washington.

Other nations (Rome and 17th century England come to mind) have stepped up to the line of hard tyranny and stepped back.

While I can guarantee nothing from the outcome of an Article V convention, no people in history ever met in their sovereign capacity in order to enslave themselves.

[IronJack]

"Social contract" is John Locke's term, not mine. Call it that, or a compact, the bottom line is we voluntarily yield up certain of our liberties in exchange for services best achieved in the collective. But the key word there is "voluntarily." When the collective formed becomes destructive of those ends, and the cost in our liberties far outweighs the minimial -- or even non-existent -- benefits We, the People derive from the agreement, it becomes null.

That is the core of the Declaration of Independence. And it is clear that we have succumbed to a tyranny of our own making far greater than that which prompted our own Revolution.

Whether we resolve it by peaceful means or bloodshed, it will not long endure.