How does an Article V Convention prevent the federal government from eroding our rights? How do you structure a new constitution to prevent them from circumventing it or just ignoring it? If the people we send to DC don’t play the game as currently defined in the Constitution, them how do we change our representatives’ attitudes? They have proven that they aren’t afraid of the people any longer.
They aren't afraid of the "voters" any longer. The solution is to eliminate the voters, at least in the Senate, and replace them with state legislators who pay attention and have the power to replace rogue Senators every six years.
So, what to do about it?
Some things will take care of themselves, if we can wait that long. The bell will toll for 73 year old McConnell, 81 year old Hatch, 79 year old McCain, 82 year old Grassley, 79 year old Roberts, 80 year old Inhofe, 75 year old Alexander, 71 year old Enzi, 77 year old Cochran. When the personalities leave the Senate, their weak behaviors will go, too. We have to ensure that their replacements don't follow in their footsteps.
Obviously, winning the presidency in 2016 is paramount, because the bell is tolling in the Supreme Court, too. The next president will get at least 3 SCOTUS picks. If Republicans are unwilling to fight the Democrat brand, then external groups must do it. We know in hindsight that Obama used the IRS to prevent these groups from gaining traction. We have evidence that Vichy Republicans collaborated in sabotaging their own base. This cannot be allowed to repeat. People have to be willing to shine the spotlight on the strong arm whenever it appears. It will likely first appear, again, as gag orders meant to prevent others from recognizing the widespread abuse of power. Somebody will have to be willing to be the whistle-blower and violate the gag order to get things started.
As stated elsewhere, there must be some structural changes to the federal government. Some power must be taken back by the states, making the federal government size and reach smaller. This begins in the Senate. First, state legislatures must take back the power to select their own Senators. People complain that state legislatures will just select cronies. I've said, so what? Personally, I think they will choose from amongst themselves. State legislators will be promoted to federal Senators. The Senate in Congress should be thought of as a United Nations of States, with Senators acting as ambassadors of state interests. The give and take will be over issues in common among several states. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist #85:
We may of course expect to see, in any body of men charged with its original formation, very different combinations of the parts upon different points. Many of those who form a majority on one question, may become the minority on a second, and an association dissimilar to either may constitute the majority on a third. Hence the necessity of moulding and arranging all the particulars which are to compose the whole, in such a manner as to satisfy all the parties to the compact;
Hamilton was referring to Constitutional Conventions, but the same is true for a Senate of states debating common interest legislation. The problem today is that the Senate is not of the states, and its interests are not the states' interests, nor the people's.
And what if the legislatures choose to send cronies? Again, I wrote "So what?" I asked what is wrong with that if the economies of those states depended on those companies? Are California Senators today not the Senators from Google and Oracle? Michigan and General Motors? Massachusetts and Harvard? I'm not as worried about local state cronies appointing federal cronies. As I've written before, at least the cronies will be contained to their state's unique interests. Today, the Senate is disconnected from the interests of their states-in-name-only, and more interested in a globalist agenda that is in conflict with their own states. State control of the Senate is a missing cheekc and balance in the Constitution, regardless of the trade-off of good and bad.
It is my hope that a Senate of states can then begin to dismantle things like the Department of Education and make education local again. Dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency and stop all the globalist regulating that is killing the private sector. Rein in the Bureau of Land Management and return control of "public" land back to the states so the public com actually enjoy the land again.
There is more that can be done: give back the stockpile of bullets that NOAA And the FDA don't need; take charge of immigration policy; restore the budget process, single-issue bills (no more "comprehensive" messes)...
I'll stop here.
-PJ
Members of our statist, oppressive, tyrannical government will not be a party to an amendments convention.
Never, in any process designed create or amend a government, such as parliament in 1688, the thirteen state constitutional conventions beginning in 1776, nor the federal convention of 1787, did any people EVER set themselves up to be slaves. Go back further and you'll find that the Roman Republic amended itself often enough to last 450 years. It did so not by declaring rights on paper, but rather by setting up institutions whose natural, structural interests tended to secure the liberty of the people.
The only worthwhile amendments are therefore structural, those that cannot be ignored without formal repudiation of the constitution and de-facto establishment of a tyrant. Despite galloping tyranny and thorough corruption of every ruling (not governing) institution in DC, the faux republic of the United States will continue to hold even year elections, it will continue the House, Senate, Presidency, Judiciary, limit the president to two terms, reps to two and “senators” to six. The faux US republic will not bring back slavery, stop women or blacks over 18 years of age from voting. These are hardwired, structural aspects of our government that cannot be disregarded or lawyered away.
Given the above, how for instance could repeal of the 17th Amendment be ignored? With repeal, the internal contradiction of a constitution that acts on one of its two broad classes of members (people and states), yet denies those members representation would be cured. Power would immediately be diffused across fifty states. Say adios to anti-10th amendment lawyers seeking federal judgeships.
Here is something else: The states will send delegates to a convention. Delegates will be agents of their states with strict commissions to consider certain amendments and no more. The states will not send reps with plenary powers.
Like a homosexual drag queen who puts on makeup, a dress and high heels pretending to be a woman, what we have today is tyranny in the drag of a republic. All of our institutions in DC have been corrupted into forms that work to purposes that are opposite of their constitutional designs. Congress hardly legislates at all, while the executive and judiciary wallow in arbitrary unconstitutional lawmaking. Consider the three Scotus decisions last week. Taken together and added to eighty years of similar assaults on freedom, Scotus effectively repealed self government. If we are to reestablish free republican liberty, we must address the corruption, and the source of it is the 17th Amendment. I'll go further and say that every freeper should review Mark Levin's suggested amendments, for they would further decentralize the powers that DC has stolen from the people and our states.
It is silly to fear the outcome of an amendments convention when REAL TYRANNY IS HERE.