Article V - Assert our Sovereignty

ArticleVBlog ^ | January 27th 2020 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

Use it or lose it. Article V opponents believe America is too corrupt to be trusted with a Convention of the States. They believe We The People fulfilled Ben Franklin’s fears and are no longer fit for self-government, which if true, means we don’t have any business voting either. Nonsense.

Thanks to our collective failure to demand Article V Conventions of the States when necessary, We The People slowly, over decades, relinquished our sovereign authority to Scotus.

I challenge anyone to explain the practical limits of the Supreme Court of the United States. On paper, our system provides mutual checks, but what of actual limitations? Oh, there’s the “exceptions and under such regulations” check in Article III, but that was for the Framers’ Senate, the one with intrinsic moxie, and not the flaccid post-17th Amendment collection of showboating three-term congressmen masquerading as statesmen.¹

We’ve had a good run. James Madison thought the republic would slide back into monarchy around 1930.² Talk about prescient! That we’re still here almost a hundred years later is quite an endorsement of the Framers’ system, but thanks to surrendering our sovereignty to Scotus, our Framers’ gift to mankind is today a rickety contraption hostile to free government.

In contravention of the Ninth Amendment all judges swear to uphold, Scotus regularly dismisses civil and political rights declarations by the people, and often natural law itself. Scotus’ reversal of the 2008 California constitutional amendment to frame marriage as between a man and a woman was a seminal moment. Instead of passive nationwide acceptance, there should have been nationwide outrage, impeachment of the judges and calls for an Article V COS because Scotus was duty-bound by the 9th to defend the amendment, just as it is bound to defend the rest of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.

[Nateman]

..Repeal the 17th to allow slow restoration of the 10th, and the people’s 9th Amendment sovereignty, their right to define civil and political rights.

It seems a paradox that the states voted away their power in the Senate so I looked into that. What happened was people were so excited over whoever the State legislator picked as Senator they became deeply engaged in the state elections. The 17th became the way state level politicians could occupy their office with little push-back.

[Jacquerie]

Yes, I’ve also looked closely at that era. Progressives did a fine job selling their BS.

[veracious]

> ..Repeal the 17th to allow slow restoration of the 10th, and the people’s 9th Amendment sovereignty, their right to define civil and political rights.

Definitely agree with this part!

[Amendment10]

"What happened was people were so excited over whoever the State legislator picked as Senator they became deeply engaged in the state elections. "

Thanks for posting Nateman. Please consider the following about the 17th Amendment (17A). (Corrupt politicians are following the money.)

Note that one of the very few powers that the states have expressly constitutionally given the feds to tax and spend for domestic policy purposes is to run the US Mail Service.

"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"

So ordinary citizens in the early 1900s must have been very unhappy with the mail service to have been so concerned about the Senate. /sarc

Next, note that most post-17A ratification, Democratic vote-winning federal domestic spending is now based on stolen state powers and uniquely associated state revenues, state revenues stolen by means of unconstitutional federal taxes that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.

• "Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States."Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• ”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.

In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified that the Founding States had left the care of the people with the states, not the federal government.

”[…] the care of the property, the liberty, and the life of the citizen, under the solemn sanction of an oath imposed by your Federal Constitution, is in the States, and not in the Federal Government [emphases added].” —Rep. John Bingham, Congressional Globe, 1866. (See about middle of 3rd column.)

So since the Founding States had intended for the states to provide the social spending services that the legal majority voting citizens of a given state want, why are citizens now being oppressed under the boots of an unconstitutionally big, badly mismanaged federal government?

In addition to low-information voters abusing their 17A powers by unthinkingly using that power to empower the unconstitutionally big federal government, FDR's state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices put the feds on steroids by doing the following.

Regarding unconstitutional federal domestic taxing and spending, using inappropriate words like “concept” and “implicit,” the excerpt below from Wickard v. Filburn (Wickard) shows what was left of the defense of 10A-protected state sovereignty by the last of state sovereignty-respecting majority justices in United States v. Butler, FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices later blatantly ignoring the reasonable Butler interpretation of 10A when they scandalously decided Wickard in Congress’s favor imo.

• "10th Amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

• ”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.

• "In discussion and decision, the point of reference, instead of being what was "necessary and proper" to the exercise by Congress of its granted power, was often some concept [???] of sovereignty thought to be implicit [??? emphases added] in the status of statehood." —Wickard v. Filburn, 1942.

Again, today's ongoing tsunami of unconstitutional federal taxes is arguably based on the misguided abuse of 17A voting power by low-information voters in conjunction with the scandalous, effective repeal of 10A by FDR’s state sovereignty-ignoring activist majority justices.

The remedy for the unconstitutionally big federal government on our backs…

Patriots need to elect a new patriot Congress that will not only promise to fully support PDJT's already excellent work for MAGA, now KAGA, but will also do this.

New lawmakers also need to promise to work with PDJT to not only surrender state powers that the feds have been stealing from the states back to the states, but also to put a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers.

And to make putting a stop to unconstitutional federal taxes permanent, patriots need to further support PDJT in leading the states to repeal the 16th and ill-conceived 17th Amendments.

Remember in November!

MAGA! Now KAGA! (Keep America Great Always!)

• "The “Holy Grail” of organized crime is to control government power to tax." —me

• "The power to tax involves the power to destroy,” —Chief Justice John Marshall, McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819.

• "The 16th Amendment effectively repealed the involuntary servitude aspect of the 13th Amendment imo, evidenced by unconstitutional federal taxes." —me

  • "Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

  • "13th Amendment, Section 1:

    Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude [emphasis added], except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

  • "16th Amendment:

    The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

• "The ill-conceived 17th Amendment not only effectively politically repealed the 3/4 state supermajority requirement of the Constitution’s Article V for ratification of proposed amendments to the Constitution imo, politically correct interpretations of the Constitution now prevailing under Democratic judicial tyranny, but also consider this. That amendment also effectively nullified Congress’s constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers along with the Supreme Court’s clarification of Congress’s limited power to appropriate taxes." —me

  "Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

• "The constitutionally undefined political parties are basically rival, corrupt voter unions, “union dues” paid by means of unconstitutional federal taxes. Belonging to a political party means that you are a subject, not a member.” —me

• "Patriots need to support PDJT in demanding that Congress moves "April 15" tax day to the day before election day." —me

• "The smart crooks long ago figured out that getting themselves elected to federal office to make unconstitutional tax laws to fill their pockets is a much easier way to make a living than robbing banks." —me

• "Federal career lawmakers probably laugh all the way to the bank to deposit bribes for putting loopholes for the rich and corporations in tax appropriations laws, Congress actually not having the express constitutional authority to make most appropriations laws where domestic policy is concerned. Such laws are based on stolen state powers and uniquely associated stolen state revenues." —me

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

We The People slowly, over decades, relinquished our sovereign authority to SCOTUS.

Even if you did convene a convention, you could not reign in SCOTUS without repealing the 17th Amendment and requiring that each state government (rather than the people of the state as under 17A) select that state’s senators.

And if you really wanted to rein in SCOTUS by constitutional amendment, you would name the actual names of the justices of SCOTUS. Which would dramatize the ability to actually override the “lifetime appointment” nature of the SCOTUS justice job.

The right way to modify SCOTUS would be to require that the most senior SCOTUS justices retire (subject to temporary reinstatement to fill vacancies) as necessary to hold the number of justices down to 11, even tho each newly inaugurated POTUS would name two new justices (which would map to a 22-year term for each new justice).

But I doubt that any such amendments can be ratified, unfortunately . . .

[Jacquerie]

I don't expect substantive amendments from the first COS.

It would be great if the states met, decided they couldn't agree on anything, and didn't adjourn sine die but instead planned on another convention the next year.

Meeting and showing that delegates didn't "run away" would fundamentally change the political landscape for the better.