Toward an Annual Article V State Amendments Convention Part I (2016)

The Framers envisioned a free people would keep and improve their republic through Article V and not through the social justice whims of nine unaccountable lawyers. Enlightenment philosophers and our Framers recognized that whereas power is aggressive, liberty is passive, and unless actively pursued, liberty will always fade in the face of encroaching power.

Much of America has come to accept as final the often fanciful mutterings of the scotus. As illustrated in its Roe, Lawrence, and Obergefell opinions, scotus not only supplanted the supreme law of the land, it trashed the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God. Its June 2015 decisions alone blew the lid off what remained of limited and free government; without saying, it formalized the Progressive dream of a “living and breathing” Constitution.

But be of good cheer, for there is an escape clause. These and many other decades’ worth of outrages and assaults on free government and society do not have to stand. Scotus is supreme among courts, but is inferior to God and the people acting in their sovereign capacity. It is through the Article V state convention amendment process that We the People can exert sovereign authority above and beyond scotus to not only repeal the 17th Amendment, but its evil offspring as well, for an Article V state amendments convention can reverse every scotus decision that is inconsistent with free government.

Are only good outcomes guaranteed from the Article V process? Of course not, but no people in history ever met in convention for the purpose of enslaving themselves. Like the United States, other previously free societies ran aground on the shoals of tyranny. Some famously extricated themselves.

Over their long republic, the Romans expelled the Tarquins, created consuls, admitted plebeians to marry patricians which rendered them capable of magisterial office, divided lands won from their enemies, erected tribunes to defend the rights of the commons, appointed and then destroyed the Decemviri, created military tribunes, created dictators. As the times required, a people covetous of liberty stepped back from encroaching despotism and restored free government. They deserve our attention.

Seventeenth century Stuart England was a horrid mess of civil and religious wars, revolutions, a dictatorship, and near absolute monarchy. When James II fled to France, Parliament met in convention to deal with the crisis. The subsequent Declaration of Rights and coronation of William and Mary in 1689 returned England to the path toward free government.

The enormity of an Article V state convention, whether congressionally sanctioned or not, cannot be overstated. In the weeks leading to a convention, our nation will be consumed like never before in actual debate over the purpose of government and how far it has strayed from its designed purposes. A 21st century peaceful rising of the sovereign American people would be the equivalent of the 18th century “shot heard ‘round the world,” for it could mean the rebirth of the American tradition of free government. Not seen since the ratification debates of 1787-1788, anticipation of a state amendments convention will engender national discussion over the foundational maxims of the American republic.

There is a lot of cleaning up to do. Scotus and the administrative state deposited a fetid crust of anti-freedom, anti-constitutional diktats on a once free people. In view of the sheer volume and regularity of Leftist assaults from the executive and judicial branches, the states should meet annually in convention. Too hard? Impossible? All that is necessary is to meet once, and upon completion of the business at hand, adjourn until a specified date the next year. By never adjourning sine die, and always rescheduling, the states establish a de facto standing and regular amendments convention. America has the means at her fingertips to regularly improve her institutions, to keep them on the straight path which could lead them to perfection.

It is only through the assertion of our God-given societal right to frame our government, that scotus along with the rest of the D.C. elites will know that a legitimate power well above and beyond their control will year after year examine and if necessary, reverse any assault on free government. The Article V state amendments convention could remain a recurring, established feature of the American governing scene by resolving to meet, for instance, every year a few weeks after scotus issues its summer decisions. Knowing that the only earthly power higher than themselves will immediately look over their shoulders and judge the judges, the rampant and unhinged social justice warrior temperament of scotus will be subdued.

Avarice and ambition, man’s tendency to abuse power for personal enrichment is active in all governments at all times. By comparison, lady liberty is somnolent. If never awakened, she will eventually die in her sleep. Through Article V, the sovereign American people can regularly nudge her awake, and together they can take stock of the health and condition of free government.

If I understand Mr. Dodsworth correctly, I respectfully disagree that the main problem with unconstitutionally big federal government is the Supreme Court.

Yes, the misguided, institutionally indoctrinated Court is certainly a part of the problem.

But the people can also point their fingers at themselves for abusing their 17th Amendment (17A) power to elect senators.

More specifically, crooks get themselves elected to the Senate by promising voters everything under the sun, constitutionally low-information voters clueless that the states have never expressly constitutional given the feds the specific power to fulfill most of the promises that career senators make to get themselves elected and reelected.

In fact, the congressional record shows that Rep. John Bingham, a constitutional lawmaker, had clarified that the drafters of the Constitution had given the lion's share of government power to serve the people to 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.)

Justice Brandeis later reflected on Bingham's words when he introduced his "laboratories of democracy" metaphor regarding the 10th Amendment protected powers of the states, the people of each state ultimately deciding domestic policy for their state.

"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."
"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose [emphasis added], serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” —Justice Brandeis, Laboratories of democracy.

In fact, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention originally gave the power to elect senators uniquely to the state legislatures. This is because the delegates expected the legislatures to elect senators who would kill federal bills that not only steal state powers, but also steal state revenues uniquely associated with those powers, the post-17A Congress now regularly stealing state revenues by means of unconstitutional federal taxes.

In other words, state legislatures unthinkingly gave up their voices in Congress, thus their ability to protect themselves from federal government overreach, when they foolishly ratified 17A imo.

After all, once corrupt senators are elected, not only do they help the likewise corrupt House to pass unconstitutional bills to fulfill their campaign promises, but senators then confirm likewise corrupt justices to the Court who declare the unconstitutional, state power and revenue-stealing laws that the Senate helps the House to pass to be “constitutional.”

"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.

What a mess! 8^P

In fact, militia issues aside, are patriots aware that the main thing that 17A won for voters concerning having a voice in federal domestic policy is the power to complain to senators about the mail service, one of the very few powers that the states have actually given to the feds to make domestic policy?

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

Also, as a consequence of the Senate being about evenly divided as a consequence of the constitutionally undefined political parties, the Senate cannot satisfy the 2/3 supermajority vote to give the boot to anybody that the House impeaches.

As a consequence, activist justices are undoubtedly aware that their jobs are relatively secure regardless of their politically wide interpretations of the fed's otherwise very limited, constitutionally enumerated powers, evidenced by the Post Office Clause.

Finally, Trump's tsunami of patriots voters need to primary (2022) any federal government candidate that does not promise to help surrender state powers that the feds have been stealing from the states back to the states.

In the meanwhile, in addition to federal candidates promising to make laws that require that all actions of the federal government must be reasonably justified by a power expressly constitutionally delegated to the feds, candidates must also promise this. When the federal government accuses someone of violating a law, judges and law enforcement officials need to be required to do the following.

Judges and law-enforcement officials need to be required by law to promptly inform the accused of the constitutional clause(s) that arguably justifies the allegedly broken law for further scrutiny of the constitutionality of that law, especially where unconstitutional federal peacetime gun control laws are concerned imo.

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