Excellent article once again. This particular article gets right to the crux of the matter IMHO.
As I came upon the Article V issue this became the bedrock issue that I see we need to tackle. My original concern was bringing Congress to task for ignoring electoral mandates in many past elections. There have been numerous issues both Senators and Representatives have run upon and immediately abandonded or not been able to find support for. Term limits, balanced budgets, fair tax, defense of marriage, stopping illegal immigration, the list goes on and on. As I read looking for solutions which I could support from my grassroots level it became clear to me that the best first priority was to correct the historical error of the 17th Amendment.
The 17th Amendment is not the ONLY issue we need to address at an Article V Convention but it gets to the root of many current problems and would be a great first step toward correcting some of the Legislative blunders of the past century.
The rights of states were a tricky issue to bring up in 1913 as the civil war was still front and center in the minds of people. “States rights” was a phrase used by the losing side in that war. We still fight the war here on FR from time to time so imagine people in 1912-13 trying to use the argument of states rights to counter the passing of the 17th Amendment.
Furthermore, at that time in history, Marxism was the new, up and coming concept. True democracy is how Marxism was showcased. Socialists were chomping at the bit to use any tool available to implement a socialist regime in every country. Passing the 17th Amendment put us one step closer to their Marxist ideal by dismantling our Republic. We pride ourselves on being a Republic, not a democracy. We proudly repeat the anecdote of Ben Franklin’s reply that we have “a Republic if you can keep it.” But we didn’t keep it. We’ve been a Democratic Republic since 1913 when that infernal 17th Amendment was passed.
Passing an amendment repealing the 17th Amendment does not fix everything. But, it would give the States back their power within the federal government. It could give teeth to the 10th Amendment if we would use it. Our Senate is no more than a mini-house of representatives now. Our States have ZERO power of their own in our Federal arena. Let’s get behind this and repeal the 17th Amendment and restore our Republic.
Superb. States were not very well-regarded in the 1780s either. Many blamed the states for the condition of the nation. More than one delegate to the federal convention would have done away with them. Fortunately, cooler heads realized our woes were due to the structure of the Articles of Confederation.
Off topic next. IIRC, some eleven states have jumped aboard the pernicious National Popular Vote movement. The Left knows what it is doing; ever more democracy is an invitation to tyranny.