Posted on 03/22/2010 4:05:55 AM PDT by theBuckwheat
For those that forgot their civics lessons...The convention can ONLY propose ammendments. After that they STILL must be approved by 3/4ths of the states. The states control the destiny, not the pundits and power hungry congress criters in DC.
I would wait until 2010 elections when I expect to see 38 states that are solidly conservative.
go for it - it may be purgative. It wold get all the devils out in the open that have been trying to kill America by jot and tiddle.
ABSOLUTELY NO!!!
Thanks to all posters.
Yes. The same set of political clown running the US Government now are the ones who will get elected to a Constitutional Convention.
They would then hold the power to simply rewrite the US Constitution to mean what ever they want it to mean.
A Constitutional Convention is the WRONG answer.
The right answer is for everyone to get busy firing the clown posse in DC this Nov and replacing them with people who are at least some what sane.
Amen!
The same set of clown who run the Federal Government have clones in the state Governments. Almost evey one of the people who are in Congress now started out in State Govt.
The notion that the States politicans would serve as a check on the Convention is naive.
All a constitutional convention can do is propose amendments, which then must be ratified by the states. They have, in other words, WRT the Constition, the same power Congress has. BUT, they have no lifetime incumbents.
(WRT to anything other than the Constition, they have no power at all.)
Sound better now?
This statement is completely false.
NO!
Wrong. A constitutional convention opens the door to a complete re writing of the constitution. EVERTHING is on the table. What do you think happened at the Constitutional Convention of 1787? Yeah it has to be ratified, but I am not willing to risk what we have for a very uncertain unknown.
We don’t need any new laws or amendments. We need a government that follows the one we have.
I think you missed my point entirely. It’s not a matter of civics education or lack thereof. It’s a matter of the Constitution being replaced by a web of centries of jusrisprudence that states have been on the losing end as well as the people as more and more police power of the states have been handed over to the Feds. They have no more legal right, according to interpretations of the Commerce and Supremacy clauses to reject the will of the Feds than the average citizen despite what is written in the Constitution which has rendered the size, shape and power of our central government a fluid rather than fixed definition that can change dramatically with the political winds.
It might be that my confidence in a favorable legal outcome of any state challenges to the travesty that was passed last night is low. But one has to ask how we go so far down this path to tyranny and why the kind of world spelled out in the Constitution is so dramatically different than the one we are living in. Perhaps you have far more faith in the system than I at this point in time, but something is terribly broken and I have little confidence it can ever be repaired before we find ourselves in a crisis like we can only dream about.
“But is the spirit of the people an infallible, a permanent reliance? Is it government? Is this the kind of protection we receive in return for the rights we give up? Besides, the spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves united. From the conclusion of this war we shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten, therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights. The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a convulsion. “ - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virgina
How do you propose they do that? The Congress just proved they can ignore it at will. Two thirds of the state legislatures in their authorizing resolutions, can limit the convention. The Constitution specifically states that only amendments can be proposed.
Don’t disagree with anything said. My point is WE THE PEOPLE must do something to fix the ills. Courts won’t, Congress ignores the constitution as written. The only other means is secession en mass.
We fought a civil war over this very issue. The side that insisted on states' rights lost. The side that demanded absolute obedience to an all powerful central government won. Where precisely does that leave us?
No. Look at Congress and those are the kind of people who will be in your Constitutional Convention. Can you imagine what would come out of that?
The last thing we need is a constitutional convention.
Where is everybody getting the idea that a Convention would allow for the full re-writing of the Constitution? If you folks would be so kind as to read Article V (it’s only one paragraph, written in plain language) you would see that a Convention may be EXACTLY what we need!
(The words “Constitutional Convention” are nowhere to be found, by the way. A Convention under Article V is NOT a repeat of Philadelphia and besides, the Constitution has no provision for re-writing the entire document. Nope!)
Article V provides for two methods to PROPOSE AMENDMENTS to the Constitution. That’s all! Amendments may be proposed by Congress or by a Convention of representatives from two-thirds of the states. Any Amendments proposed must still be ratified by three-fourths of the states, when proposed by either method.
Congress doesn’t want you smelly commoners to propose Amendments. Why, you might limit Congressional pay, or call for term limits, or clarify the Commerce Clause or repeal the 16th and 17th or any of a number of things. You violent, gun-hugging rednecks might establish an enforcement provision for the oath of office, or Supreme Court term limits, or mandatory gun ownership, or any of a wide range of very creative solutions! Anything offered still has to be ratified in the usual manner, so that safeguard remains in place.
But Congress isn’t going to propose any such Amendments. And people are too scared to call a Convention to propose any using that method. So enjoy your chains.
And what makes you think that a Constitutional Convention would get you any of that?
While I am on the subject it is worth remembering that it was the Republicans who put us where we are. The Democrats could not have abused their prerogatives to such an extent had there not been Republican insistence, under Lincoln, that the federal government is the final authority in all matters.
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