[Jacquerie]

Good post. Beginning with the 17th, the national government has slowly tightened its grip on the private parts of the states.

[OneWingedShark]

Repealing the 17th is a good step, but I think we really ought to look at other things like monetary policies too. I'd be all for an amendment that was to the following effect:

Fiscal Responsibility Amendment
Section I
The power of Congress to regulate the value of the dollar is hereby repealed.

Section II
The value of the Dollar shall be one fifteen-hundredth avoirdupois ounce of gold with impurities not exceeding one part per thousand.

Section III
To guard against Congress using its authority over weights and measures to bypass Section I, the weight in Section II is approximately 28.3495 grams (SI).

Section IV
The Secretary of the Treasury shall annually report the gold physically in its possession; this report shall be publicly available.

Section V
The power of the Congress to assume debt is hereby restricted: the congress shall assume no debt which shall cause the total obligations of the United States to exceed one hundred ten percent of the amount reported by the Secretary of the Treasury.

Section VI
Any government agent, officer, judge, justice, employee, representative, or congressman causing gold to be confiscated from a private citizen shall be tried for theft and upon convection shall:

1. be removed from office (and fired, if an employee),
2. forfeit all pension and retirement benefits,
3. pay all legal costs, and
4. restore to the bereaved twice the amount in controversy

As you can see it's lots of small, reasonable, utterly clear instructions that deeply impact the policies we are currently holding to. (i.e. this would effectively end the Fed, reign in debt-spending, and protect the people from confiscations.)