Posted on 05/02/2015 1:35:55 PM PDT by Jacquerie
A couple of prominent conservatives have expressed concern over the possibility of a ‘runaway’ Article V state amendments convention. Such is their anxiety that runaway tyranny from Rome-on-the-Potomac pales in comparison to the possible horrors of the states getting together to relieve their people from oppression. Are these concerns fact based or irrational or somewhere in between?
An important, and likewise extra-congressional vestige of the federal system of 1787, and quite similar to an Article V state amendments convention in its constitutional foundation remains in force today. It is the familiar Electoral College (EC). Like the state amendments convention, the EC is also a specific grant of constitutional authority distinct from congress, courts and presidents. Both the EC and Article V convention are temporary, and neither can be made subservient to any branch of the government. This renders the EC and state amendments convention separate from, and superior to the three branches of government. The state amendments convention process is created by Article V; it is not a component of any of the three branches of government created by the first three articles. The limits to congressional involvement and duties are in Article V. Congress must call a convention upon applications from two thirds of the states, and determine the mode of ratification. That is all.
The EC is also loathed by liberals. Witness the National Popular Vote movement. The EC and state amendments convention processes represent end runs around liberals’ wholly owned government in Washington DC and media. The EC and an Article V convention are federal and therefore anti-democratic, which is why libs despise the EC and are working toward complete nationalization of presidential voting. Libs love democracy. Recall the 17th Amendment which turned ambassadors from the states into three-term, democratic and demagogic congressmen.
The EC and state amendments convention processes are federal remnants of a more perfect union that placed liberty preserving institutions ahead of fuzzy pablum populism, and democracy.
If you oppose a state amendments convention, do you also fear the Electoral College?
The EC is extra-congressional and completely controlled by the states. If the states are so wild and politically insane, why haven’t we had ‘runaway’ sessions of the EC? For whomever the states cast their votes is entirely up to the individual states. They can split their votes between Uniparty candidates or cast votes for Joe Blow down the street. States can modify their statutes such that their legislatures may determine for whom to vote with zero input from their citizens. The EC confab is a one-day event. Isn’t that dangerous? There is no subsequent meeting that requires approval of three fourths of attendees to implement the results. Why haven’t we experienced a runaway Electoral College?
Why hasn’t congress set down the rules the states and EC must follow? Answer: Congress has no more authority to participate in the deliberations of the EC than it does to participate in, or set the rules for an Article V state amendments convention.
No state EC delegation ever ‘ran away’ because the simple fact is that the duties of electors are defined by state statute. Replace the term ‘elector’ with ‘delegate,’ and you have a situation identical to that of an Article V amendments convention.
Delegates will serve their states. They will have no attachment to any statutory authority under the US.
Article V now, while we can.
It might do you some good to take a look at “Faithless Elector” laws in the various states. Those states that have actual laws against electors voting contrary to their pledges. Moreover, to portray the EC and its record as pristine, worthy as the standard by which an Article V convention could not be subverted is insufficient. There have been several instances in the past where Faithless Electors have gone against their pledges.
The key, the very key to what’s so bad about the Faithless Elector thing is in where an election is extremely close, and all it takes is a couple or few of the electors to become “faithless”. I see these types of electors as planted inactive moles ready to be used where it hurts the most.
That said, I don’t convey that fear to mean the convention will or not be subverted. I’m just thinking it’s possible. But, certainly, I wouldn’t hold up the EC as a be all and end all model.
Exactly.
I happen to know what they are doing with that power. And it isn't conservative. They're primarily establishment RINOs who crush conservatism whenever it shows up in the bodies they control. I used my state as one example, but the same is true virtually everywhere in America now.
Face it. It is a virtual certainty that they would choose delegates like themselves, not delegates like you or me.
The chances of the whole delegation being in any way qualified to tinker around with the work of genius of our founders is virtually nil.
I don't think is the case anymore. Federal handouts have made people more beholden to the federal government. In fact, liberals are at war with state governments. Take Gay Marriage as an example. They pit one state against another, taking an advantageous result in one state to the federal level to force it upon the rest.
Many considerations, besides those suggested on a former occasion, seem to place it beyond doubt that the first and most natural attachment of the people will be to the governments of their respective States. Into the administration of these a greater number of individuals will expect to rise. From the gift of these a greater number of offices and emoluments will flow.
People have become more partial to the federal government, but not because of better administration. They're being bought by taxpayer monies approved by a Congress that no longer feels beholden to their respective states. The states have much to fear, because of federal encroachment of federal power.
If, therefore, as has been elsewhere remarked, the people should in future become more partial to the federal than to the State governments, the change can only result from such manifest and irresistible proofs of a better administration, as will overcome all their antecedent propensities. And in that case, the people ought not surely to be precluded from giving most of their confidence where they may discover it to be most due; but even in that case the State governments could have little to apprehend, because it is only within a certain sphere that the federal power can, in the nature of things, be advantageously administered.
The 17th amendment has upended this assumption. The roles have been reversed.
It has been already proved that the members of the federal will be more dependent on the members of the State governments, than the latter will be on the former. It has appeared also, that the prepossessions of the people, on whom both will depend, will be more on the side of the State governments, than of the federal government. So far as the disposition of each towards the other may be influenced by these causes, the State governments must clearly have the advantage. But in a distinct and very important point of view, the advantage will lie on the same side. The prepossessions, which the members themselves will carry into the federal government, will generally be favorable to the States; whilst it will rarely happen, that the members of the State governments will carry into the public councils a bias in favor of the general government. A local spirit will infallibly prevail much more in the members of Congress, than a national spirit will prevail in the legislatures of the particular States.
And if they do not sufficiently enlarge their policy to embrace the collective welfare of their particular State, how can it be imagined that they will make the aggregate prosperity of the Union, and the dignity and respectability of its government, the objects of their affections and consultations?
Because of the 17th amendment and the need for raising campaign funds, Senators are now more interested in the "collective welfare of their particular" party, not their state, because it is the party that drives much of their campaign financing. All of the liberal agenda in Washington was driven by party and national special interest, not state issues. States are pawns, a means to a national agenda end.
Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments. If an act of a particular State, though unfriendly to the national government, be generally popular in that State and should not too grossly violate the oaths of the State officers, it is executed immediately and, of course, by means on the spot and depending on the State alone. The opposition of the federal government, or the interposition of federal officers, would but inflame the zeal of all parties on the side of the State, and the evil could not be prevented or repaired, if at all, without the employment of means which must always be resorted to with reluctance and difficulty.
We saw this play out in Arizona over their immigration policy. Holder sued Arizona to prevent them from enforcing state immigration laws that the federal laws already permitted them to do. We saw it again in Nevada with the BLM trying to shut down private cattle grazing. They were successful in California closing down a 100 year old oyster farm on the Point Reyes National Seashore.
Now we see the call for nationalizing local policing.
On the other hand, should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter.
We saw this play out with the federal government shutdown and retaliation of closing national parks in all the states. The militarization of civil police are becoming much more intimidating to the average citizen of a state who is considering civil unrest.
Recently, Mitch McConnell's "embarrassments created by legislative devices," such as those regarding Senate votes regarding treaty powers and confirmation votes, have angered many. The actions of John Boehner's retaliations are not far behind.
But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm. Every government would espouse the common cause. A correspondence would be opened. Plans of resistance would be concerted. One spirit would animate and conduct the whole.
This is exactly what the Article V movement is trying to accomplish. Rally the states around the idea of taking back control of the federal government through exercising their Article V power to propose the amendments of change that Congress is unwilling to.
But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity. In the contest with Great Britain, one part of the empire was employed against the other. The more numerous part invaded the rights of the less numerous part. The attempt was unjust and unwise; but it was not in speculation absolutely chimerical. But what would be the contest in the case we are supposing? Who would be the parties? A few representatives of the people would be opposed to the people themselves; or rather one set of representatives would be contending against thirteen sets of representatives, with the whole body of their common constituents on the side of the latter.
We would have to see if this plays out. Would the whole of the people align with the states in support of an Article V convention, or would they align with the Congress and the President to maintain the status quo? There's the rub.
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
This reads like a Nostradamus prophecy. It is exactly what has happened over the last decade, most recently accelerated.
Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence... Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
Here is a gem for the 2nd Amendment people. It is clear from this passage that the 2nd amendment was specifically intended to prevent a tyrannical government from forming, for fear of an armed populace.
And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
The argument here is that the people will rise up in arms against a federal government that encroaches beyonds its limited, enumerated powers. And knowing that, it would be madness for the federal government to even try to engage with force, knowing that death and destruction that would naturally follow. Given the stockpiling of hollow-point bullets, and military anti-mine personnel carriers now being distributed across the United States, I think that our government is actually planning to do something just like this.
Madison calls it "insulting" to suggest that the American people sit back and let federal representatives solve their problems ("the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors... by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.")
What I see is a discussion of brinksmanship and inevitable civil war instigated by a federal government that refuses to back down to states that push back on encroachment.
On summing up the considerations stated in this and the last paper, they seem to amount to the most convincing evidence, that the powers proposed to be lodged in the federal government are as little formidable to those reserved to the individual States, as they are indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union; and that all those alarms which have been sounded, of a meditated and consequential annihilation of the State governments, must, on the most favorable interpretation, be ascribed to the chimerical fears of the authors of them.
I see signs that our current federal government is planning for exactly such a crisis, and is actively trying to incite it.
Madison calls the powers "reserved to the individual states... indispensably necessary to accomplish the purposes of the Union," including the power to call for a proposing Convention. The proponents of an Article V convention is an attempt to avoid a direct head-to-head conflict with the federal government by side-stepping them and taking a parallel path to making Constitutional change.
-PJ
Well, then you didn’t comprehend much what you read.
Why do Article V opponents like yourself question the founding of our republic?
> “Why haven’t we cleaned out the corruption in our state capitals already?”
Of the 50 state capitals, name which are of such a state of corruption that they should never be entrusted with the power to amend the US Constitution.
> “Why are they continuing to allow the mass slaughter of little babies within their jurisdictions, in spite of the fact that they swore a sacred oath to provide equal protection for the God-given, unalienable right to life of every innocent person within their jurisdictions, as both the U.S. and all of the state constitutions explicitly and imperatively require?”
Who says they ‘allow’ such? They have no power to void 1973’s Roe v. Wade. But now for the first time they have the muscle via Article V to get the power to do what you say they should do.
Again I don’t see how you miss the facts. You’re ranting about things I agree with but you ignore reality. Article V will change that reality so we can deal with it. So I don’t get why you seek to mislead on Article V discussions.
> “Why are they allowing the implementation of Obamacare within their states, even though it as unconstitutional as anything could be?”
More than 30 states are not setting up exchanges so that is a fact that belies your assertion. And again it was the Roberts decision that allowed Obamacare to go forward so the states have no power as or yet to void that decision but Article V can get the power needed. So why would you oppose it?
Again there is no logic in your assertions. In years past the state legislatures did not have the numbers to effect and Article V movement but today they do.
All the social tyranny issues of the day can be dealt with now because finally the numbers exist for state legislatures to assert their article V power.
Why do you Article V opponents feel the need to hijack Article V threads into the trashing of events and decisions that lead to our constitution?
I'm not aware of a vanity post from any of the most vociferous Article V opponents. If one of you has been brave enough to cite how Soros backs Article V, why the framing of the constitution was illegitimate, and why Article V is such a bad idea, please ping me to it.
According to the most important premises of this free republic, Roe v. Wade already IS null and void. It is no more relevant than Dred Scott vs. Sanford.
As Augustine said long ago:
"An unjust law is no law at all."
And Roe was not a law anyhow. It was a lawless court decision in a particular case, one which can only rightfully be ignored by decent Americans. Constitutionally, only Congress can make laws, and they can only make laws that are in accord with the Constitution if they are to be considered legitimate.
The Constitution explicitly and imperatively says:
"No person shall be deprived of life without due process of law.""No State shall deprive any person of life without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Abortion is illegal. Always has been, always will be. Anyone who tells you otherwise is completely deceived, or outright lying.
William Blackstone:
"Good and wise men, in all ages...have supposed, that the deity, from the relations, we stand in, to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensably, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever...This is what is called the law of nature, which, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is, of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid, derive all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."
Alexander Hamilton:
"Upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind, the supreme being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beautifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty and personal safety."Hence, in a state of nature, no man has any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property, or liberty; nor the least authority to command, or exact obedience from him....
"Hence also, the origin of all civil government, justly established, must be a voluntary compact, between the rulers and the ruled; and must be liable to such limitations, as are necessary for the security of the absolute rights of the latter; for what original title can any man or set of men have, to govern others, except their own consent? To usurp dominion over a people, in their own despite, or to grasp at more extensive power than they are willing to entrust, is to violate that law of nature, which gives every man the right to his personal liberty; and can, therefore, confer no obligation to obedience."
"When human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void."
The ultimate stated purpose of the U.S. Constitution:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to...secure the Blessings of Liberty to...our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The reason all human government, including state government, exists, according to our founders:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."
Abortion is not legal. It is a crime: against God, against the indiviudal child, against We the People, and against the very foundations of our claim to the right govern ourselves in liberty. Officers of government who go along with the mass murder of innocent within their purview are violating their oaths in the worst possible way.
The idea of people who don't understand what I just said messing around with the Constitution is appalling to me.
Just follow it.
Well, now we know you’re looney tunes and not worth listening to. Thanks for that post.
You might want to reread the title of your own thread:
To Those Who Fear A Runaway Article V State Amendments Convention
Perhaps you want to ask the Moderator to change it, perhaps to something like:
"To Those Who Already Completely Agree With Me About An Article V State Amendments Convention."?
Maybe the Moderator would make it into a "caucus" thread like in the religion forum.
You’ve added nothing at all to this discussion except Alinskyite personal attacks.
Just making a note of that.
You addressed the thread explicitly to people like me. I fear this plan.
Let me succinctly reiterate the reasons for those fears:
1. It diverts time, energy, and money from the real task at hand, which is to train up and elevate men and women to office who will keep their oaths.
2. It relies on delegations that will be chosen by those who have already demonstrated that they either don’t understand, or don’t care about, the most important obligations of their oaths.
3. It is being promoted by some who have demonstrated crucial misunderstandings of our constitutional form of government, causing them to offer destructive amendments, or amendments that are not on point in terms of the actual core problems we’re faced with.
1) Elect More Republicans!
2) You/Elect More Republicans!
3) Malicious Lies.
You don’t know me, obviously. If you did you would know that few have less confidence in the Republicans than myself.
The answer is not to elect more Republicans. It is to elect only those who will keep their oaths.
Again, hardly.
The judicial supremacist fallacy is the most destructive fallacy of our time. Upwards of sixty million innocent little children have been slaughtered now on its altar.
And again, Mr. Levin's proposed amendment presupposes judicial supremacy. And it would end, if he succeeded, with the enshrining of that fallacy in the Constitution, thereby officially overturning our republican, constitutional form of self-government, with its absolutely essential checks and balances.
Do you even know who are ***today*** “our creditors”? They don’t exist much any more outside member investment banks of the Federal Reserve.
The federal government government is propped up indirectly by the Feds channeling digitally created funds though bond markets administered by their member banks and bought from the US Government at auction.
The news of yesteryear crowing over the ‘Chinese’ as America’s biggest creditors is just that, yesteryear. Chinese government has largely divested themselves of their US Bond holdings. Today it is all on the Federal Reserve.
And you will notice that the Feds can’t stop what they are doing even though they know they must and even though they whisper they will, but they won’t because it will collapse in catastrophe.
But there is good news.
The federal debt attributed to the Federal Reserve (which is now by far the largest portion) can be cancelled, easily ‘deleted’ in a controlled process that is basically a controlled bankruptcy of the United States. And as long as it’s not characterized as a controlled bankruptcy, the corporate bond markets will continuing to thrive as long as the economy is growing fast enough to offset the tapered effect of cutting off the artificial Fed Reserve support. But this economic growth can only happen if the right tax reform and the right trade policies are put into action.
And you think they don't have specific interests? What the heck do you think the whole "carbon market" fiasco is about?
This is stupid.
Why do Article V opponents like yourself question the founding of our republic?
"How long have you been beating your wife?" I'm not wasting my time on your work any more.
See, this thread was about the federal basis of both the EC and state amendments convention.
But in true hijack form, you directed me twice to halfa$$ webpage that opened with Patrick Henry smelling rats.
i am actually quite familiar with Madison’s Federalist #46. Nowhere in that writing does Madison anywhere suggest that writing more Constitution is the remedy for the federal government deliberately ignoring the existing Constitution.
Furthermore, nowhere in Federalist #46 does Madison indicate that the State governments are somehow immune to the Corruptions seen in the Federal government, particularly when those corruptions originate from the ignorance of the people themselves.
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