Posted on 03/17/2014 5:16:22 PM PDT by GraceG
First, as a test, stop all federal funding to state and local governments. That could be done by each of the state governments.
An amendment is not written to “educate” people - it’s written to either limit or empower the federal government. An “amendment” written the wrong way to give the federal government more power over our personal lives would be a DISASTER. Again, by far the greatest threat to our free constitutional republic, economy, and social and moral values is the federal government. It’s unconstitutional excesses must be destroyed or it will destroy our way of life.
Changing the laws, even changing the constitution, means nothing if the current laws and constitution aren't enforced. If we can't enforce what we have, what difference will a new Potemkin constitution make?
I was not arguing in favor of BAD amendments. I was pointing out that, because it educates the populace, the very process of passing an amendment makes its observance more likely
It would be nice, but the issue with these amendments is how they are worded. Forbidding fed interference is fine, except the Tenth Amendment already says that and the Progressives have ignored it anyway. Nevertheless, writing another amendment forbidding fed interference wouldn't seem to hurt, except that 50 years from now some Progressive majority in SCOTUS could figure out a way to say, "Well, they couldn't have passed the amendment to copy what the 10th Amendment says, so it must mean something else." They do stuff like that all the time.
The real answer here is cutting federal government and taxes to the bone except for our defense which should be streamlined, updated, freed of waste, and made the best on earth again. And force the politicians to do what they are sworn to do: preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution including the 10th Amendment. You force politicians to do this by throwing the bums out if they don't. That's the only language they really understand, Constitutional law and new amendments notwithstanding.
The amendments aren’t even written yet. It’s a process. What’s the point of railing against all these terrible amendments—that don’t exist.
And all this “cutting the federal government to the bone,” which you say is actually preferable to passing amendments.
WHO is going to be doing all this “cutting to the bone,” if the same un-term-limited Congress is in place, for instance?
States will not send representatives. They will send delegates with commissions. Delegates act as agents for their principals, the state legislatures. There is no way a convention can be blown wide open and into a free for all.
Proposed amendments will hopefully be structural in nature (like Mark Levin's) that cannot be ignored. Repealing the 17th amendment, term limits, state review of federal statute, regulations and Scotus decisions aren't subject to Leftist whimsy.
So true. Sure, proponents and amendments will be demagogued by the Left. That is to be expected. Public discussion for instance, over repeal of the 17th Amendment would necessitate a history lesson from our framing era. Why were the states included in the new government in the first place? Why was their participation necessary for ratification? Etc.
The amendment process will open a new world to millions of Americans purposely kept ignorant of our exceptional history, the history of a once FreeRepublic.
The Left has everything to lose, and patriots have everything to gain in an Article V amendment convention.
Deal the cards.
I’m all in!
That sounds like Nancy Pelosi saying we must pass it first before we know what it says. We know these are amendments meant to prevent the legal erosion of things like traditional marriage and abortion. The language of these amendments is critically essential as history has proven. Amendments and laws hastily and carelessly drawn up have been disastrous, worst case probably being the Fourteenth Amendment. In decades to come SCOTUS will dissect every word of the amendment to try to construe what SCOTUS wants it to mean, so the meaning must be very plain and clear.
We should know from the outset (NOW) the approach to how these intentions are to be implemented in these amendments. I see basically two possible approaches: 1) tell the feds they must UPHOLD and ENFORCE traditional marriage and sanctity of life in the womb, or 2) tell the feds that they have no power over marriage or abortion, that those things are reserved to the states and the people.
The first choice would be a disaster because it would EXTEND federal power to a police power over the states and people. It would help create a police state. We need to CUT government power, not increase it. Also, government has clearly demonstrated that it is no friend to traditional values, so giving it power over these social issues will sooner of later boomerang.
The second choice would be preferable, but because it essentially repeats the tenth Amendment, leaving open the possibility that sooner or later SCOTUS will change its intended meaning. SCOTUS has a history of construing things like a law that repeats itself as meaning something other than what it says because, like they have said in the past, it wouldn't make sense to have passed an amendment that is already covered by the Tenth Amendment, so it must mean something else.
There's also another problem which also has a nasty history because government including SCOUTS is, like the fox guarding the hen house, always trying to get at those it's supposed to be guarding by "lengthen its chain." The first ten amendments were not originally intended to be "a bill of rights". Russia has a huge "bill of rights." The difference is in Russia the government grants them and can therefore take them away a their whim. But government doesn't grant us a "bill of rights." The basic assumption of Constitution, spelled out in the Declaration of Independence (D/I)., is that God made man inherently free and that governmental powers are only those DELEGATED and ENUMERATED by the people as spelled out in the Constitution.
The intense argument about creating the first ten amendments was that it would be construed as a bill of rights with the presumption that government held the power if it was not in these amendments. And in fact, that is exactly how they have been and are treated. But the presumption of the Constitution is the PEOPLE have the rights if not delegated to the government. The same would be true with this kind of amendment. It could be construed to mean that whatever is NOT in there is under the power of the federal government.
These thing must be carefully weighed NOW, not later, to consider what is the goal and the best way to achieve it. IMO, the best way to achieve what we want regarding these social issues is for the states to NULLIFY unconstitutional SCOTUS decisions, including Roe v. Wade which has not a scintilla of Constitutional-based reasoning in its decision because abortion is completely outside the Constitutional powers delegated to the feds. Same with "gay rights." Same with all the other social issues the feds are increasingly interfering with.
WHO is going to be doing all this “cutting to the bone,” if the same un-term-limited Congress is in place, for instance?
The American people by making politicians accountable and THROWING THE BUMS OUT if they don't cut taxes and government and keep them cut. Politicians have clearly demonstrated that they understand that language much more than the Constitution. The PEOPLE must hold the Constitution dear and must be, as Jefferson said, "eternally vigilant" against politicians who are inclined to do otherwise. After all, the same Constitution that created government is actually an anti-government document.
It will never be up to the politicians, it will ALWAYS be up to the people. The government is the fox guarding the hen house. The people are the ones making sure the fox's constitutional chain remains short. Amendments can enforce but not replace the job of a free people to watch the fox.
Since government schools don't want people to learn about the anti-government Constitution, they don't teach it. Hence many do not know nor understand the presumptions behind this great document which is the short chain on the fox.
OK; I’ll mark you down as a “maybe”.
OK. And oh BTW, lets repeal the 16th Amendment while we repeal the 17th.
Another restatement of tired propaganda that has been debunked more times than can be counted.
That so-called debunking has never reassured me ... unfortunately.
None of the proposals I have seen (such as in Mark Levin's book) do anything like what you expect above. Most of the proposals are structural changes that return more power to the states, in keeping with the defined scope of the convention.
OK, well that sounds like the second approach I mentioned - reiterating the feds have no power in these issues and they are reserved for the states (which would be a reiteration of the basic assumptions of the Constitution confirmed by the 10th Amendment). If this were to happen, it would be nice, I guess, to reassert the presumptions of the 10th Amendment so these Fabian Progressive Socialist tyrants don't assume a presumption in favor of the government.
No, more structural than that - such as term limits for Congress and the Supreme Court; a state-level veto of federal laws, regulations and court decisions; limits on taxation as well as spending. You should check out Mark Levin's book.
Most of what I've seen discussed on FR has been about "social issue" amendments which Reagan favored dealing with things like abortion and gay "marriage."
Where does this language come from? To be honest, it's a relief to see that language.
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