Free Republic

This squib goes hand-in-hand with my two earlier posts that made the case for an annual Article V state convention, here and here, to defeat both an out control administrative state and runaway scotus. My vision is a regular convention that will examine in detail the past year’s congressional statutes, regulations issued under the auspices of the president, as well as supreme court decisions. Those that infringe upon our liberty can, if recommended by the convention, be repealed or overturned by thirty-eight subsequent state ratifying conventions or state legislatures. What prompted me was the outrageous Obergefell v. Hodges scotus decision...

...But some seem to welcome a slide in that direction. “Tell me again why we shouldn’t confront Republicans where they eat, where they sleep, and where they work until they stop being complicit in the destruction of our democracy,” tweeted Ian Millhiser, justice editor at ThinkProgress. “Because it is both wrong & supremely dangerous,” replied Georgetown Law professor Randy Barnett. “When one side denies the legitimacy of good faith disagreement over policy — as well as over constitutional principle — the other side will eventually reciprocate. Neither a constitutional republic nor a democracy can survive that.” Princeton’s much-admired political theorist...

In the first chapter to his superb new book, Our Republican Constitution, Professor Randy Barnett opens with the events and intellectual background that led to our Declaration of Independence. Of primary importance is the concept and place of natural law and natural rights. Thousands of men risked their necks in order to assume “the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature” entitled them. Whatever structures of government were to follow, their designs would recognize self-evident truths, that all men are in possession of God-given, natural, unalienable rights. While the literature of the time emphasized rights to life,...

(CNSNews.com) – Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said recently that--"especially after last term"--he does not know if he is confident the Constitution can be restored to its original meaning. He likened his own efforts to do so to the character "Frodo" in the Lord of the Rings, who fights the good fight not certain he will win. While discussing his new book Reading Law at Stanford University on Oct. 19, the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson quoted to Scalia a passage from Scalia's book, Reading Law: "Originalism does not always provide an easy answer, or even a clear one. Originalism is...

Three of the four candidates seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Virginia agree that efforts to repeal the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution – which authorizes the direct election of senators – are impractical at best. In post-debate interviews in Roanoke on Saturday, where all four candidates participated in a forum sponsored by the Republican Party of Virginia, the candidates expressed their views on the 17th Amendment in response to questions posed by the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner. ‘Repeal Amendment’ alternative Jamie Radtke said that she does not think the repeal efforts are viable, “so I’ve been...

Re Randy Barnett's Proposed "Federalism Amendment", here's an amended version that I think would be an improvement: Section 1: Secession. Any State or Indian tribe may, by an act of its legislature, secede from the United States. Section 2: Nature of the Union. From the perspective of the United States, the States are sovereign and are the parties to the Constitution, which is a compact among the States. Section 3: Nullification. (a) When a national majority the States of the United States declares a decision by any federal court to be inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution, the said decision shall...

  Why Care What The Constitution Says? RESTORING THE LOST CONSTITUTION:The Presumption of Libertyby Randy Barnett An Excerpt from the New Book The U.S. Constitution found in school textbooks and under glass in Washington is not the one enforced today by the Supreme Court. In Restoring the Lost Constitution, Randy Barnett argues that since the nation's founding, but especially since the 1930s, the courts have been cutting holes in the original Constitution and its amendments to eliminate the parts that protect liberty from the power of government. From the Commerce Clause, to the Necessary and Proper Clause, to the Ninth...

On another list, Randy Barnett's Op-ed was posted. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/902705/posts?page=1 Rush Limbaugh endorsed this idea on his show today. You can hear what he said at the following link (at “Listen to Rush…): http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_042903/content/stack_c.guest.html