Free Republic

As the Article V movement grows, we COS volunteers are asked ever-more questions about Article V. While the COS website has a fine Q&A about the amendment process and safeguards, I wish to delve a little deeper here in support of a successful COS convention and subsequent state ratification debates. To the point, we will never make our goal, the return to free government, unless we are firmly grounded in America’s first principles and can explain them to others. Our nation is searching for its soul. Few are aware of the Natural Law basis of our founding and governing system....

On November 19, 1919, Congress rejected the Versailles Treaty ending World War I and with it the charter of the League of Nations which was a key part of it. Principal among the reasons for the treaty’s rejection was a provision that committed the United States, along with the other members of the League, to the mutual defense of any member that was attacked militarily. Because treaties are the supreme law of the land — second only to the Constitution — Congress refused to surrender its power to declare war. Almost thirty years later, Congress ratified the NATO Treaty despite...

Two little-known men had enormous influence during America’s runup to revolution. Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) and Saul Alinsky (1909-1972) were students of history and political science. Both advocated revolution when necessary, but toward opposing ends. In his Discourses Concerning Government, Sidney set out lessons learned since Biblical times in the hope that future generations would recognize and reverse emerging threats to free government. He encouraged men to be skeptical of their magistrates and institutions in order to improve them, to prod them always back toward the first principles of the nation. When the admirer of Sidney saw corruption, his first impulse...

Often people can only take so much pressure before they seek to release it in rash and sudden ways, throwing caution and a careful consideration of consequences to the wind. There were good signs when President Trump was elected that many Americans were entering into that kind of moment. And now, with millions realizing just how widespread and deeply rooted are the problems cool-and-collected President Obama had helped us emotionally paper over, the urge to find release in rash words and deeds is kicking into overdrive. There’s talk of a “cold civil war,” a bitter longing for “national divorce,” and...

While I don’t recall the first time I saw a hijab-clad woman, I know it was years after the Muslim surprise attack on September 11th, 2001. Similarly, I admit to viewing my first mosque, a shiny new one, just a few months ago. Why, only recently, and over a decade after 911, is Islam ascendant in America? The spark for this squib is Daniel Boorstin’s 1992 book, The Creators. In Chapter Eight he explores “The Uncreated Koran,” which sheds light on why Islam cannot coexist with American free government. For the moment, put aside the ongoing Ramadan Bombathon (Fifty-five worldwide...

When governors take their nation down an obvious path to tyranny, the governed have the right and duty to apply the best remedies as they see fit. Among America’s founding generation, Algernon Sidney (1623-1683) was a favorite radical, when, almost a hundred years after publication, his Discourses Concerning Government were regarded as the textbook to the American Revolution. Standing athwart Stuart tyranny, he paid for his opinions with his life. Sidney denied Divine Right, of sovereignty in one man. Authority to rule is derived from the people for the purposes of their own safety and happiness. He further observed that...

Subtitle: Court and Country. Article V opponents and some proponents view the Article V COS movement through the lens of our national political parties. The time is long past to dislodge oneself from this paradigm. To remain in this mindset is unhelpful at best, and destructive at worst, because the two national parties are one Uniparty incapable of reforming the racket that serves its members so well. Professor Angelo M. Codevilla coined the term, “Uniparty” in 2013. His explosive article nudged many conservatives to accept what they long suspected, that among the top echelons of the two parties there is...

Saying that Washington, D.C., is irrevocably broken and is structurally incapable of fixing itself, former Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has long advocated for an Article V Convention of States to propose new amendments to the Constitution. Now, Senator Coburn has written a book about it. In Smashing the DC Monopoly: Using Article V to Restore Freedom and Stop Runaway Government, Coburn explains how an Amendments Convention would bypass a corrupt Congress to return the federal government to the control of We The People as it was intended. According to Coburn, there are lots of symptoms, but the disease is a...

Over the course of my life I watched the Left evolve from a counter-culture phenomena into authoritarians. Along their journey, they necessarily deny self-evident truths. When I was a kid, the Left engaged in discourse. I watched them on William F. Buckley’s Firing Line. All of the big libs showed up to engage Mr. Conservative. I learned that while groundless opinions are eventually destroyed, rational arguments and judgments are confirmed over time. I believed that for most of my life. Today, I’m not as sure. In a new high school course on the Constitution during my junior year (1971), I...

Published on May 12, 2017 On May 12, 2017, the Show Me State became the 12th to successfully adopt the Convention of States Article V application to impose fiscal restraints, term limits, and other limits on federal overreach. Thank you to the thousands of COS Missouri warriors! http://www.cosaction.com

Subtitle: The Missing Preamble. In Part I we examined Justice from the standpoint of the Declaration of Independence, and concluded that no law or scotus opinion can be just if it violates Natural Law. Laws and scotus opinions which harm society violate Natural Law, the first of which is self-preservation, and are therefore unjust. Here, in Part II, from the same viewpoint of justice v. social justice, we will inspect the Preamble of our Constitution and scotus corruption of first principles. In the Preamble, We the People issued a mission statement, the reasons the demos of the United States joined...

The enduring crime of scotus is the enshrinement of social justice feel-good nostrums as rights. Over the course of two posts, I will differentiate between justice and scotus-derived concoctions, social justice that assault our senses and society. To this end, my attention is drawn to the Declaration of Independence and Preamble of our Constitution. I will connect the ‘just’ of the Declaration and ‘Justice’ of the Constitution’s Preamble, and their mutual reliance on Natural Law. We will find that no court decision can legitimately harm the societal foundation of our republic. Equivalently, if a newly discovered 'right' from scotus harms...

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Thursday, host Mark Levin suggested that the biggest news yesterday was not about Obamacare but was instead the fact that Texas joined the Convention of the States movement, and “this is going to be an earthquake.” “You wanna hear the biggest news today, the very biggest news today?” asked Levin. “The Texas House just passed Article V Convention of States resolution. The Senate already passed it. So, Texas is state number 11, state number 11 out of 34 needed. ... “I am telling you, this is going to be an earthquake as we...

Perhaps the most prominent commonality among conservative authors and bloggers is their emphasis on first principles, and the application of them to modern times. Everything flows from first principles. Since laws and traditions connect to the past, great truths will not appear until we see the chain which links them to others. Our Framers studied the past, yet were not slaves to it. They let experience be their guide as they applied first principles to their British and colonial heritage. As Charles de Montesquieu showed, and our Founding generation demonstrated, the first principle, the spring from which republics emerge and...

Under the Obama administration, non-elected bureaucrats worked to expand their power over the daily lives of the American people. Now they have a new target: President Trump. The Washington Free Beacon reported today that a White House security analyst had his top-secret clearance revoked as retribution for Trump’s appointees and policies. That analyst will no longer be permitted to work for the White House, and the Trump administration will have to find someone to replace him. This incident is part of a potentially larger move by D.C. bureaucrats to politicize security clearances to punish President Trump for appointing conservative aids...

I cast my first vote in 1972. I was four months into my eighteenth year, and pulled those levers with pride. Unlike republican Rome, America doesn’t have a formal coming of age ceremony in which teenagers leave adolescence, don a toga, and are recognized as men worthy of self-government. When I voted for Richard Nixon, I felt the rush of being a citizen, of one burdened yet privileged to partake in the civil society and having a say in local, state, and national affairs. Since then, I never missed a congressional election . . . until 2016. While I voted...

It’s blatantly obvious Trump voters have been betrayed. I’m not blaming President Trump, I’m blaming Congress who just passed a boondoggle pork budget that goes counter to everything we voted for. It has the usual programs intact, plus several funding increases, the EPA, Planned Parenthood, Sanctuary Cities and not one cent towards The Wall. President Trump must be furious, as are we. Their excuse is "It's just part of the 2017 budget process, Trump will do 'his stuff' in the 2018 budget." I don't buy it. How many times have they kicked the can down the road before? It’s blatantly...

Among the features of the ideal republic is the absence of factions and political parties. As per James Madison, a faction is a group of citizens, either a majority or minority, united and actuated by some common passion or interest adverse to the rights of other citizens or the aggregate interests of the community. A political party is typically a collection of factions. Imagine if every representative, senator, president, and bureaucrat took the Preamble of our Constitution to heart, and selflessly dedicated themselves to secure the Blessings of Liberty to themselves and their posterity. This is the public virtue hoped...

You can tell a lot about a man by his enemies, and I’d say the same thing is true about an organization. The Convention of States Project is using Article V of the Constitution to save the Constitution, because our Founders predicted the federal government might grow so large, corrupt, and unwieldy that it would never voluntarily restrain itself. They realized the citizens would need to reel it all back, so they gave us a tool in Article V to do just that.  Though we are just a grassroots organization, we are animated by the spirit of our founders –...

The meaning of words change over time, which presents problems to historians and patriots alike. Liberty, being so important to the American psyche, is one such word. With that in mind, hang on for a rocky read. Few words conjure more and varied impressions than the word, ‘liberty.’ Long before the American Revolution, liberty was the means to overthrow a tyrant, or alternatively, of appointing a chieftain whom all were obliged to obey. In the 17th and 18th century, no other political ideal was invoked more often, but with less precision. As opposed to today, where many view liberty as...