[RKBA Democrat]

Thanks. I’ve actually read your #51 a couple of times. To summarize, the success of an article V strategy is contingent on some as yet unrealized black swan event. It’s in effect a bit of a Hail Mary strategy. Hail Mary strategies, while stunning when they succeed, don’t succeed all that often. It also assumes a more or less unified response to the black swan event. Is that really a valid assumption?

Your post also seems to imply that an article V convention is the only viable strategy. I strongly disagree with that. There are other strategies on the table that are viable (more viable in my view) that are also not mutually exclusive to an article V convention. I make no secret of my advocacy of an internal relocation and concentration strategy as a way of achieving freedom and liberty. There are some advantages of such a strategy that are not immediately apparent, such as it separating the talkers from the doers. Another advantage of an internal relocation strategy is that it doesn’t preclude other strategies but rather allows you to enter into those strategies from a position of relative strength.

You close your post by noting that a general chooses his field of battle. Given. But I would also add that a general is wise to have a place of refuge to base his operations from.

[nathanbedford]

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

I know of no opposition to alternative approaches to reforming our runaway federal government held by advocates of The Article V process except opposition to nullification which seems to be the obsession of the rump of the John Birch Society.

Hell, I'm not even opposed to nullification if it works.

I concede I am ignorant of the Internal Relocation Strategy to which you allude and I cannot therefore comment.

Because it only takes 13 legislative bodies from 13 different states out of 99 legislative bodies to defeat an amendment, I am not optimistic about the chances of passage of real reform in the absence of some event that galvanizes the public and pressures state politicians to actually do something.

I am however optimistic, or should I say, pessimistic, that such a national event will occur in view of precarious nature of our finances and the increasing overreach of the federal government. Some time in the not too distant future the rubber band will break. This is not the politics of crisis but the fact of how the American democracy usually works. Democracies do not usually anticipate and avoid problems they correct problems after they occur when it is more expensive but when the political will is clear because the problem is clear.

So I don't think I am saying anything radical or terribly pessimistic, this is the way we function. We did not have a convention until it was clear that the Articles of Confederation had failed. We did not have a 13th amendment until we fought a civil war. We did not get Ronald Reagan until we had Jimmy Carter. We will not get reform of a system living on a credit card until we max the card out.