Posted on 06/25/2015 9:57:29 AM PDT by Hostage
THE SOLUTION
Now it is clear more than ever that the Federal Government needs to be checked BY THE PEOPLE AND THE STATES.
Neither morality nor common sense can be 'legislated' via Congress ***effectively***. It just cannot be done adequately.
We need our states to assert AS SOON AS POSSIBLE their Article V constitutional right to AMEND OUR US CONSTITUTION,
Article V
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
To understand what must NOW be done will require us to think deep and to think of something that as Mark Levin says “is a solution as big as the problem” meaning a solution that gets its hands around the ‘whole problem’. And it has to be quick because time is of the essence.
We should first take note to understand the following:
(1) It takes 3/4’s of states presently equal to 38 states to ratify a proposed amendment to the US Constitution thereby making the amendment a part of the US Constitution.
(2) THE MAIN REALITY: THE STATES HAVE NO POWER BEFORE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
Now some may think ... “but Congress can amend the Constitution”. Think about this. Will the present makeup of Congress amend anything to express the Will of the People? The answer is absolutely not, they won’t even get it into a committee.
Think about it some more in terms of the 10th Amendment. Is the 10th Amendment respected, observed, utilized? No, it is not. It has been subordinated by other amendments or ignored altogether.
Repeat the main reality:
THE STATES HAVE NO POWER BEFORE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
Understand why is this. Understand how this happened.
This lack of power is actually a loss of power as a direct result of the 17th Amendment extinguishing the power of state legislatures before Congress.
NOTE: the 16th, 17th and 18th Amendments were all from the year 1913. They were all a stain on the US Constitution and serve as a clear illustration of how ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to problems and conflicts of the day result in disaster. We must avoid these types of 'knee-jerk' mistakes by ensuring our amendment is both broad and specific AND IN THE SPIRIT OF THE FOUNDERS.
THEREFORE, if WE THE PEOPLE through our state legislatures are to consider amending our US Constitution by asserting Article V, then we must be very careful, very thorough, and we must understand the CORE OF THE PROBLEM. We must not be 'all over the map'. We must be united. In all likelihood we only get one shot at this in our lifetime.
The root of the problem is the 17th Amendment. We can propose to repeal it and some very respected FREEPERS advocate for doing just that. But in my opinion repealing the 17th Amendment takes too long and is not necessary to solve the problem. Also the 17th is laden with emotional symbolism because it gave a power to vote to the people. In effect, to repeal it will launch a debate and war in society that will end up following so many directions that it will smother the entire reason of why we needed to do it in the first place; we risk the reason for the repeal to getting lost in the noise and being forgotten.
Let’s look at the problem from a slightly different angle. If we can’t get at the root of the problem, can we get at the core of the problem?
The answer is yes.
An illustration is needed that shows how the power of Article V can be unlocked by the States to restore federalism thereby restoring our liberty and saving our Republic. Note this illustration condenses several of Mark Levin’s suggested Liberty Amendments and incorporates valuable input from concerned Freepers.
************************************************
AMENDMENT XXVIII
To redress the balance of powers between the federal government and the states and to restore effective suffrage of state legislatures to Congress, the following amendment is proposed:
************************************************
Section 1. A Senator in Congress shall be subject to recall by their respective state legislature or by voter referendum in their respective state.
Section 2. Term limits for Senators in Congress shall be set by vote in their respective state legislatures but in no case shall be set less than twelve years nor more than eighteen years.
Section 3. Upon a majority vote in three-fifths of state legislatures, specific federal statutes, specific federal court decisions and specific executive directives of any form shall be repealed and made void. ************************************************
Section 3 of the above illustration puts an end to the social tyranny of the federal government. The 28th Amendment can survive as a predominant amendment of the US Constitution when voters and state legislatures unite to fight together.
WHAT MUST WE DO TODAY?
(1) Strongly recommend the following must-see video of Mark Levin be watched, consumed and studied:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdZuV8JnvvA
(2) Strongly recommend everyone to urge their respective state senators and state representatives, and the people that work for them, to view it also.
(3) Put it on your to-do list to find out who is your State Representative and who is your State Senator. Get their names, addresses and phone numbers. You will be astonished at how accessible and neighborly they can be.
(4) Sign up here as soon as possible:
http://www.conventionofstates.com
It is time.
My only concern with this would be cronies appointing cronies, but I can see the point that it would help somewhat, and it would certainly be more in line with the Founder's ideals. I don't care about the recall option since, historically, recalls are not that successful (we made history here in CO over the gun law recalls - BUT, the gun laws are still there, and we were unable to get rid of the commie chickensucker this last election due to a milquetoast GOPe candidate). It MIGHT be a better option than term limits.
LMAO! So, what you are doing is stomping your feet, pissed off because you didn't get your way, and now you want to change the rules. What a wuss! Get real, man.
That's the way it should be. Repealing the 17th (with no extra baggage to debate) would be the fastest way to shake up Washington. There can be no arguing about the meaning of restoring original language that was the process for over 120 years.
-PJ
I perceive that you are a person who does not have sufficient intellectual wit or understanding to argue with me. Perhaps if you put down the weed, you might have better comprehension of complex issues.
In the meantime, I see no further purpose in indulging your childish arguments. I feel like i'm back on a pot head thread.
> “Repeal the 17th amendment. Let the states decide for themselves the terms for their ambassadors to the federation. You vote for your representative every two years with no term limits, and for like-minded people to run your state government.”
I like that. It can’t happen fast enough. The problem is we need something real quick now.
Did you notice that if over time we see a great awakening among the people that the 17th Amendment must be repealed and in fact gets repealed, did you notice that the proposed Amendment 28 still stands and does not need the 17th to support it?
The history of the 17th Amendment reveals a lot of cronyism in state legislatures that led voters to seek a solution on their own. The result was to have US Senators elected by popular vote, but where did this remedy come from?
In the last stages of a grassroots amendment effort (actually an Article V effort) for the 17th Ammendment, which became a popular vote of US Senators, Congress stepped in and took control of the process. And I believe the 17th was the only amendment ever ratified by state ratifying conventions rather than by state legislatures. That mode of ratification was decided by Congress.
It seems to me that if the electorate of the 1913 era had proposed an amendment like that of Amendment 28 instead of Amendment 17, we would not be in the mess we are today. And following that line of thought, when Congress seized control of the process for the 17th Amendment, they would not have dared write an Amendment like the example Amendment 28. It would have given too much of their power away.
I would not be surprised to learn that Congress wrote the text of Amendment 17 with knowledge that over time it would grant them more power and leave the States without any power at all except to ratify amendments. I can imagine US Senators at that time felt relief they would no longer have to heed the call of anyone in their state’s legislature.
So it still seems like a good idea to have amendment 28 even if eventually the 17th is repealed. And in fact Section 1 of Amendment 28 allows for voters to still weigh in should the 17th be repealed. It’s a marvel how it all meshes together.
I think we can get Amendment 28 fairly quickly and we can get an amendment to repeal the 17th later after people are comfortable with the 28th and realize the 17th is no longer needed.
-PJ
The new amendments themselves would reduce the ability of the leviathan to overstep its bounds - term limits for Congress, term limits for SCOTUS, judicial revue powers for the states as examples. Those are fundamental changes to our current system that would put limitations on the leviathan from the outside, instead of relying on compliance from within.
Violations of these new amendments would be black and white instances of defiance. There would be no way to spin it otherwise. If a congressman refuses to step down in violation of a clear constitutioinal amendment on term limits, then at least the treachery and treason will be out in the open. If that happens then they are asking for civil war and will likely get it. If that’s the case, then at least the inevitable will come about because our side pushed the issue and forced the traitors to make an open break rather than sitting by passively.
As far as Congress trying to stop the Article V convention from even getting off the ground. Same thing. Their role in the process is very limited. If they tried to interfere, we would have a black and white instance of defiance on their part, at which point that will be as good a time as any for the battle lines to be drawn.
States with legislatures, like Arizona, that resist even taking up a vote on the issue should consider pursuing a referendum, if their states allow it. The up or down vote on the convention of the states would have to come from the state legislature itself, according to Article V, but presumabley a state referendum could at least force them to vote on the issue, one way or the other.
I'm numb over the King v. Burwell decision.
We can largely thank the 17A for the outrages of the New Deal, Great Society, Roe, . . . and Obamacare.
The outrages are certain to continue until we become a federal republic once again.
There have been hundreds of applications from the states for an Article V convention. I doubt that a few more will move Rome-on-the-Potomac to actually call a convention as per Article V.
As expressed in our Declaration, we have the God given right to frame our government when we please. IMO the states should convene now without the call from congress.
Well, just LIKE Stalin, this Oligarchy and dictatorial regime considers it's own people to be the enemy. Official government documents in the last 6 years bear this out.No word on Islamic Jihadists - but Right Wing Constitutional Anti-Government "terrorists' are the 'greatest threat to the country'.
A genocide is being prepared against us.
Why more Americans refuse to see this baffles me.
No need to obligate thousands of police when thousands of drones with face-recognition software and a GPS can do the same job. My guns are no defense against a small missile aimed at my house from a silent unmanned vehicle.
From a genocidal/racial-cleansing point-of-view, that kind of power and weaponry is the only thing this regime has invested in.
The question is, are we going to sit idle until we are rounded up and never heard from again? Because that is where all of this goes.
I think that’s the impetus behind the constant demonizing of right-wing “extremists” as the real terrorists. There’s already a large minority of people who insist that conservatives are dangerous. Actually fighting would tip those scales badly out of our favor.
Screw how we are viewed by the left and their seig-heiling masses! They are going to demonize us REGARDLESS. Our elimination is going to be attempted whether we resist and fight back or whether we sit idle as we have been and do nothing. They will continue to paint us as terrorists and racists, even if we do nothing but grovel and plead for mercy because Whites have 'unconscious prejudice' that is said to be a danger to the well-being of the country.
Ayn Rand had it right. Each person can drop away and stop contributing to a corrupt system, silliness like canyons hidden behind force fields notwithstanding.
None of that stops a tyranny. All that does is give them reasons to impose more terror and force to create a climate of fear to engender compliance and obedience to the state.
The overwhelming state that’s been built up can’t be defeated using Revolutionary War tactics.
No. It cannot. However, when one understands what the end-game is for those now in power - it is no longer a matter of restoring Constitutional limits on Government - but surviving an intentional genocide and wholesale replacement of the people that the Praetorian Media and this regime are now boldly telling us are 'monsters' and 'terrorists'.
Do you want to survive and live - or end up in a mass grave stacked up like cordwood alongside your children? That fate may befall us all, whether we resist this tyranny or not. Do you go down swinging, or do you walk yourself to the camps and the trench?
If the productive people stop working, though, the whole thing falls apart.
That is being done to us ANYWAY. BY THIS REGIME. They are paying HALF THE COUNTRY NOT TO WORK!
Falling apart is the intention because this regime cannot build it's utopia until we are ashes.
Sort of a reverse Cloward-Piven. IMHO
No, not a reverse - this regime is EMPLOYING Cloward-Piven. Starving the Beast that is Washington is not longer a viable option for us - because this beast will come to force itself upon you.
I can’t disagree with your point in principle, but if state legislatures aren’t willing to vote in sufficient numbers to pass the Artcle V threshold, then how likely are they to have the courage the strike out on their own in sufficient numbers? Those states that didn’t attend such a convention would likely view any proposed amendments coming from such a convention as illegitimate.
I’m assuming that when you talk of hundreds of applications already having been filed, you’re including some from perhaps 50, 100 or even more years ago? Do most of those applications have a statute of limitations or contain some restrictions on their content that would make them inapplicable to the current Article V push?
As to the objection about what will make “them” comply with new laws when they scorn the old: That, in itself, is one of the reasons for the amendments to be proposed: to fashion structural modifications to the Constitution that put the political mafia in Washington in a much tighter box. Levins book has a few that do just that.
> “The 17th might make the 28th moot.”
I think you meant “The ***repeal of the*** 17th might make the 28th moot”.
> “Why would a state send back a person who exempts himself from the laws imposed on the rest of the state? That person would become a pariah in his own state. A state-controlled Senate might not let clauses like that get by.”
I’ve asked Publius to join here because he has one of the sharpest memories on the subject of Article V that I know.
I am reading the history of the 17th amendment and indeed it was an Article V process that had 31 states signed on fully and another 2 states getting ready to sign on. It was close to being a done deal according to Article V. Then Congress took over by introducing the 17th proposal and eventually sent it out for ratification choosing state conventions as the mode of ratification rather than legislatures; the 1st and only time that was ever done.
The takeaway from the preceding paragraph is that the the electorate was very concerned about who their state legislators would appoint as US Senator. The fact that appointments of US Senators were staggered caused the subject to come up frequently.
And the call for a popular vote for US Senators started with a constitutional amendment proposed as early as 1828. In fact one of the original founders to the Constitutional Convention proposed a popular vote for US Senators and it was voted down by a very wide margin. So the idea behind the 17th Amendment has a very long history.
To address your question, let’s examine the history a little further. History records that elections for state legislators revolved inordinately around the question of WHO would the state legislator vote to appoint to the US Senate. During state campaigns, people became more concerned with who the state candidate would vote to appoint rather than focus on the qualifications and background of the candidate himself. So they would end up electing bad people to their state legislature for the sole reason that a candidate would tell them a name they wanted to hear. Further, in order for the voters to get the message across to state candidates of WHO THEY WANTED TO SEE APPOINTED to the US Senate, non-binding primaries or ‘straw-votes’ would be held where voters would vote for a name they wanted to see appointed to the US Senate. And this happened in many states; it wasn’t isolated.
I don’t think voters back then were stupid but certainly they were concerned that their will expressed in the US House of Representatives went nowhere because I imagine they could see that US Senators were very powerful and could thwart their will. Voters were connected to the US Senator only through their state legislator. So they were frustrated. Today we see that having millions and millions of voters for just one US Senator allows the US Senator never to get close to the people. The voters only know their US Senators via slick ad and media campaigns as well as dirty tricks played on them by their opposition.
Think about it for a minute. The population has grown enormous and yet the number of US Senators has remained a low number.
Of course the divide between the US Senators and the electorate has widened greatly with the great ratio of voters to US Senators. As Ted Cruz says all the US Senators have “an issues page” and they all say the same thing, like a script. We know they are all phony because they say one thing and do another.
So the 17th was a wrong move borne out of voter frustrations. But the original Constitution pertaining to US Senators wasn’t working well either. Something had to be done. Every time a candidate ran for election as a state legislator, he would be greeted by mobs of voters who threatened him “You’d better vote to appoint X or you’re history!”, And such candidates would cut deals with US Senators or US Senate candidates so they could gain something for themselves with their vote. Corruption followed. I don’t think this historical dynamic would change if the 17th were to be repealed.
So something is needed to alleviate voter frustrations with their state legislators for appointing the US Senators they want to see appointed.
I think ‘recall’ is the best way for voters to vent their frustrations.
One recall of a US Senator was tried in 1967 against Frank Church but the Supreme Court ruled that recalls of US Senators are unconstitutional. Therefore, the only way to get a recall of a US Senator is to amend the Constitution.
I think the corruption is so thick and there is so much money to be passed around that repealing the 17th will simply extend the corruption from Washington DC to state legislatures.
A voter referendum to recall a US Senator would serve to circumvent state legislatures that might largely be bought off.
Congress’ Present Duty to Call a Convention:
That is an excellent idea. It certainly would put pressure state legislators to get on it!
In 1912, enough states sent applications for an Amendments Convention dedicated to the direct election idea to Congress that it became necessary to call such a convention.
The House had always passed a direct election amendment by the necessary two thirds margin, but the Senate had always balked. Now that a convention was becoming probable, the Senate feared the convention would write an amendment that would require that the entire Senate be elected directly all at once, not phased in by senatorial class. The Senate slam-dunked an amendment that phased in direct election, and the House slam-dunked it also.
A number of states had appended Discharge Clauses to their applications in the event that Congress handled the situation on its own. Once that happened, Congress invoked the Discharge Clauses and stated that the number of applications from the states had fallen below the two thirds threshold. That's how Congress avoided a convention.
Thank you Publius. As always your detailed knowledge of the history is exquisite and always enriches.
Certainly now it is times that things change, and soon.
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