And the Constitution clearly states FROM THE FIRST SENTENCE ONWARD that it is "WE THE PEOPLE" who grant powers to the government and that clearly means that WE THE PEOPLE can choose to rescind these powers in the manner put forward (a constitutional convention).
Unfortunately, with only a handful of exceptions, our elected representatives have been totally ignorant to this fact for about two hundred years.
Which is the long way around to saying, "Consent of the governed."
To put this in context, it's important to recall that this particular conversation started over this particular claim: "We are the true government, according to our founding documents."
While I fully agree with the idea that legitimate government operates only with the "consent of the governed," it is simply not true that "we are the true government." That would be democracy -- and we are a republic.
"Consent of the governed" means, explicitly, that we are the ones who are governed; and the Constitution defines the three branches which form the government.
It also means that once the government acts outside of the bounds of consent, that "We the People" are empowered to reign it in.
It's almost pedantic to draw this out for you and Jim, but the meaning and boundaries of "Consent of the Governed" is nevertheless the crucial point in this whole debate.
For example, there is probably never unanimous agreement on any government action. Short of perpetual stalemate, how is "Consent of the Governed" actually defined, as a practical concept?
There's really only one way: local politics define "local consent" by majority vote; and national consensus is defined by the accumulation of local results. The Democrats have the majority in both houses because they won more local races -- and thus they currently hold, in some sense, the imprimatur of "consent."
There's more, though: even at the local level it's almost never true that "consent" boils down to a single issue like immigration. It's usually a trade-off between a bunch of disparate issues. With the current Congress, "consent" on immigration is mixed in with "consent" for the war in Iraq, and "withdrawal of consent" from Republicans, and so on. It's a mixed bag, in other words.
In terms of illegal immigration, I think there is a broad consensus that it needs to be dealt with .... somehow. But there are a lot of different ways to deal with it, and the "consent of the governed" is scattered all over the map.
The truth is that people on this and similar threads are thrashing around about wanting the "consent of the governed" to rest with their particular solution.
Well, there might actually be a solution that a "majority of majorities" can accept -- imperfect, perhaps, but much better than what we have now. The way to achieve that national consensus is through the political process. If various FReepers want their solution to be THE solution, they've got to work for it.
But that solution will require acknowledgement of the facts of the problem. And it also demands a style of debate that doesn't sound like the end of a 6-day drunk -- something that more than a few FReepers seem unable to achieve.