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Love Levin BUT...

JUST SAY “NO, NO” TO THE CONCON!

While an excellent argument can be made for term limits (which, along with elimination of the fat pensions, perks and LAME DUCK SESSIONS, I favor), I would offer that, currently, our chances of getting them are somewhere between slim and none.

The sad fact that we are even discussing them is a manifestation of the even sadder fact that, until recently, Americans have grown complacently inattentive to the actions of and abuses by government at all levels. The phrase “Let George do it” springs to mind. More folks know the names of the characters on “Lost” and “Dancing With The Stars” than know who allegedly “represents” them in the House.

Having said that, I must respectfully disagree with calls for a Constitutional Convention. I do so for the same reasons I joined with others to repel the push for a ConCon during the Carter maladministration.

Please recall that the FIRST ConCon was convened to REVISE the Articles of Confederation and, while it produced a radically different – and arguably superior – national charter, the problem to which I referred at the top would almost certainly lead to a loss of even more of the freedoms too many of us now take for granted.

A second ConCon would be populated by current STATE political elites who have been selected BY their fellow STATE political elites. Think Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Fortney “Pete” Stark, Maxine Waters or their philosophical clones etc. and be afraid. Be VERY AFRAID!

Unfortunately for us and our liberties, General Washington, Messers. Madison, Franklin, Adams, Sherman and the others will not be there this time. Once in session, THERE WOULD BE NO PRACTICAL WAY TO CONTROL THE NEW CAST OF CHARACTERS.

But, say you, the PEOPLE would have to ratify any such actions. Please recall that, today, these would be the same people who gave us Barrack Obama and hundreds of “progressives” on Capitol Hill in 2008.

Yes, so far 2010 appears to have been a SLIGHT course change and, no, I’m not giving up on the people. In our system, they should, within Constitutional constraints, have the last word.

Mr. Jefferson’s advice in that area comes to mind:

“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.”

Those of us who wish to save this nation and return it to a condition the Founders would again recognize must continue to “…inform their discretion.”

Check out GOOOH as a better way to get this country back on the rails (and run most of these incumbent bums out of town on one). WWW.GOOOH.COM.

Stand by Dicky boy, you are about to get flamed like I did last night.

Oh, I agree with you 100%. You are correct, but that won’t matter.

You, with your post, have “embarrassed” yourself. Chowderhead!

Open your mail tomorrow, you will see what I mean.

Keep a stiff upper lip!

A second ConCon would be populated by current STATE political elites who have been selected BY their fellow STATE political elites. Think Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, John Kerry, Fortney “Pete” Stark, Maxine Waters or their philosophical clones...

No on Schumer, yes on Frank, no on Pelosi, no on Reid, yes on Kerry, yes on Stark, no on Waters, yes on philosophical clones.

Article I Section 6.

-PJ

Your all-purpose copy and paste post is largely irrelevant.

Dear Mr. Bachert,

There seem to be a number of posters on this subject who fall into one or more of the following categories:

The willfully ignorant
The terminally indolent
The woefully indifferent
The pathologically negative

Let’s go one by one: You repeatedly refer to a Constitutional Convention. Please hear me on this, one and all: There is NO, repeat NO Constitutional provision endorsing or providing for a Constitutional Convention of any sort, nor is one under discussion here. Your insistent use of the term “Con-Con” reveals your willful ignorance.

Your reference to the complacency and inattentiveness of others is sadly reflective of your own complacency and inattentiveness, and reveals your terminal indolence. While you cavil about the abuses of government, it has fallen to me and my like-minded brothers and sisters (Georges and Georgettes) to actually DO something about it. Please enjoy your armchair while you can.

Your equation of the present effort with something that occurred during the Carter years (and IIRC there was an actual proposal for a Constitutional Convention floating around back then) is stunningly disingenuous, and reveals your woeful indifference, in this case an indifference to the truth.

Finally, I note that you argue that the present effort’s chance of success lies somewhere between slim and none, as if the success of a venture must be determined before the process is engaged. That attitude reveals your pathological negativity.

It is obvious to me from the number of people making posts such as yours that many people are suffering from one or more of the maladies mentioned. I chalk that up to years of living under the statist yoke. I hope that these folks will be encouraged by the coming debate and process - maybe even you.

On the other hand these posts could be plants by DU types terrified that true Americans might just actually succeed in taking the country back, and are trying to spread FUD.

I’m not sure which you are.

Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of the American Constitution:

The Constitution has become so distorted in interpretation and application that it has become at best ineffective in protecting liberty and at worst an instrument inflicting tyranny.

Nathan Bedford's second Maxim of the American Constitution:

The American Constitution is being amended everyday without the consent of the governed.

In order to believe that a Convention of the States presents a greater threat to liberty than our current state of politics one must believe:

1. The Constitution is not being amended by three women in black robes +1 liberal in black robes +1 swing vote on a case by case basis.

2. The Constitution is not being amended at the caprice of the president by executive order.

3. The Constitution is not being amended at the caprice of the president when he chooses which laws he will "faithfully" execute.

4. The Constitution is not being amended daily by regulation done by an unaccountable bureaucracy.

5. The Constitution is not being amended by simply being ignored.

6. The Constitution is not being amended by international treaty.

7. The Constitution is not being amended by Executive Order creating treaty powers depriving citizens of liberty as codified in the Bill of Rights.

8. The Constitution is not being amended by international bureaucracies such as, UN, GATT, World Bank, etc.

9. The Constitution is not being amended by the Federal Reserve Bank without reference to the will of the people.

10. The federal government under our current "constitutional" regime has suddenly become capable of reforming itself, balancing the budget and containing the debt.

11. The national debt of the United States is sustainable and will not cause the American constitutional system and our economy to crash and with them our representative democracy, the rule of law, and the Constitution, such as it is, itself.

12. The Republican Party, presuming it gains a majority in the House and the Senate and gains the White House, will now do what is failed to do even under Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush and balance the budget, reduce the debt, stop regulating, reform the tax system, end crony capitalism, appoint judges who will not betray us and, finally, listen to the people.

13. That a runaway Convention of the States will occur, that it will persuade the delegates from conservative states, that it will be ratified by three quarters of the states' legislatures among whom conservatives control a majority, that we will not be able to carry 13 legislatures in separate states out of 99 legislatures in 50 states, and the end result will somehow be worse than what we have now.

14. If we do nothing everything will be fine; if we keep doing what we have been doing everything will be fine; we have all the time in the world.