Posted on 08/02/2015 6:31:07 AM PDT by Kaslin
How do you know when a presidential candidate is being deceptive? No, silly, not when his or her lips are moving. Candidates often tell the truth -- like when they say they want your vote or your money. Moving lips are not a reliable clue.
So what is? Any statement that envisions an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
_Politicians often act as though the Constitution is a sacred text handed down from heaven, like the Bible. Unlike the Bible, though, they have all sorts of recommendations for improving it. These proposals fall into two general categories: hopeless fantasies and pathetic frauds.
This year, both Republicans and Democrats support revisions of the nation's charter. After the Supreme Court said gay couples have a constitutional right to marry, Ted Cruz said every justice should be subject to a retention election every eight years -- junking the life tenure for all federal judges provided by the framers.
Scott Walker wants an amendment to let states ban same-sex marriage. Bobby Jindal, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee also said the decision called for altering the Constitution.
Jeb Bush is against those proposals, but he has his own changes in mind. He favors an amendment to require a balanced federal budget. Rick Perry endorsed that when he ran in 2012. He, Huckabee and Santorum have endorsed an amendment to ban abortion.
Not that the GOP has a monopoly on such designs. Bernie Sanders is sponsoring a constitutional amendment to override the Supreme Court's rulings on campaign finance and "stop billionaires from buying elections." Hillary Clinton is on board, and so is Martin O'Malley.
What all these measures have in common is that they have no chance of coming to pass in the foreseeable future, if ever.
We've already elected a president who supported the Federal Marriage Amendment: George W. Bush. If he couldn't get it through at a time when the citizenry opposed same-sex marriage, a Republican successor is not going to get it through now, in stark defiance of public opinion.
Supporters may say Bush didn't make much of an effort, which is true but doesn't help their case. He didn't make much of an effort because he knew that trying to get it approved by a super-majority in both houses of Congress, and then winning ratification by three-quarters of the states, would be a waste of time.
The balanced budget amendment is one of those ideas whose time has come -- and gone. Back in the 1970s, there was even a push for states to call a constitutional convention to consider it, which fell short of the 34 needed.
Ronald Reagan was for the amendment, and so were many Democrats. But it went nowhere. In the 1990s, the need became even less evident when Congress and President Bill Clinton managed to eliminate the budget deficit all by themselves.
Overriding the Supreme Court's rulings on campaign finance regulation is even harder to imagine. In the first place, it would require a lot of ordinary people to demand action on a subject they understand only dimly. In the second, it would face concerted and well-funded opposition from the very interests that supposedly are empowered by the status quo.
The logic of the supporters undermines the plausibility of their strategy. If Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers can use their fortunes to prevent the election of candidates they dislike, why couldn't they prevent a constitutional amendment they reject? Passing the amendment, on the other hand, would prove it isn't needed, by dramatizing the weakness of moneyed interests.
In any case, it's not going to happen, if only because Republicans, who are universally opposed, are so dominant at the state level. After the 2014 elections, the GOP held legislative control in 30 states. Given their huge disadvantage, Democrats might as well try to land a kite on the moon.
Endorsing a constitutional amendment is a way of evading useful action, often because there is nothing to be done. Rather than admit defeat on a matter that is important to some voters, candidates try to gull them with solutions they know are bogus.
No one should be fooled. As Mark Twain might say if he were still around today, there are three kinds of falsehoods: Lies, damned lies and constitutional amendments.
I believe states can ban no fault divorce.
I don’t believe at all that Roberts has anything to hide. Nothing is being held over his head. Accept the fact that this is just the way he thinks. There is absolutely NO reason to think otherwise.
And that makes it worse.
Agree to disagree.
Is the author homosexual? Sounds like it because he failed to point out the entire gay agenda has been accomplished with scams, con games, name calling, and LIES LIES LIES. The proposals he is talking about are mere counters to that. There is no reason to believe they are lies except as another leftist tactic to pressure people into not voting for the candidates that want to restore and follow the Constitution as the Framers intended.
Under your logic, what good is the First and Second Amendment?
You either fight or you surrender....well, or you get killed. The argument from the position “but we are losing” is always a bad one. it is a display of WHY we are losing.
I was being, how you say?, sarcastic.
Sarcasm is logic with a funny bone.
Sadly, some people have their funny bone violently sucked out moments before birth. Or, if not at birth, at some point in his or her life.
I should start a charitable organization aimed at eradicating the scourge of Sarcasm Cognizance Disorder from the planet.
If only we could discover the gene.
; ) I like that my friend. Keeps us civilized. The LibTards could learn a thing or two from us.
The Bully Pulpit, with the right President in residence, can be an effective tool - especially if that President has no qualms about calling out the atrocities and standing his ground. Cruz and Trump are the only two so far that might be able to exert enough pressure to correct some if the crap we now suffer.
If you think for one minute that such a convention, as populated by the State politicians we have today, would limit itself, then you are delusional.
Oh. LOL. Sorry I could not tell.
'Course I say a lot of weird things.
And you say them so cleverly. LOL!!!
True, congress has the power, but the 17th Amendment deprived congress of the will.
phoney amendments like the 16th and 17th?
amen and the 14th
The people have a God given right to frame their government.
To that end, the Framers provided for the peaceful means to do so via Article V.
From George Washington's Farewell Address
"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield."
True indeed. The people also have the right to pick their representatives at both the State and the Federal level. Are you suggesting that the States are inherently less corrupted by public education? Hmm? Those are the people we have now to manage said Article V convention, with the exclusive option that they are restricted to whatever terms upon which 3/4 of the States will agree. That list includes Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, California, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Hawaii. That's thirteen. Any amendments proposed MUST include the approval of one or more of those States. So, are you suggesting a closed Article V convention producing a "take-it-or-leave-it" deal (similar to what the Constitution was in the first place, complete with its critical flaws), would produce an output superior to a 2/3 vote of both houses in full view of the public and the same list of States proposing amendments one-at-a-time?
I don't. I prefer the traditional route and have a few critically important Amendments in mind that would be hard for any politician to oppose.
To that end, the Framers provided for the peaceful means to do so via Article V.
Although Article V Convention of the States is probably a necessary alternative mechanism for proposing much-needed constitutional amendments these days, I wouldn't quite agree that it would be "the people" exercising such a right if it were to come to fruition. It would be the state legislatures (two-thirds of them) who would petition for such a Convention of the States, but once such a convention were established, it is entirely unclear how the delegates to such a convention would be chosen what voting procedures would be employed at that convention.
The author of the posted article reveals himself to be an advocate of the crooked and dysfunctional status quo of American government by sneering at all creative ideas of new constitutional amendments as if to say "why bother?" The idea of an Article V convention of the states never entered his narrow mind. I've never heard of him before, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were a fatcat elitist.
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