Publius, you make a series of presumptions and ‘reaches’ profoundly undermining the Constitution, that show why we cannot and dare not allow a Convention.
While you may think it a good remedy to write an amendment to “merely” indicate that States have the authority to require voters to have photo ID. However there is real cause to question whether sort of “common sense” at all positive.
The entire purpose of the Constitution is to detail create the Federal government, and define and limit its authority relative to the States. Adding what the States themselves may do, will provide the same “colorable pretext” (Hamilton, Federalist #84) as the inclusion of the Bill of Rights did in providing the federal government the authority to police, define, and invalidate our rights.
Such a proposed “mere” amendment would provide the federal government both the excuse and authority to create a required national identification system, and perhaps worse. “Ihre Papiere, bitte!”
As far as controlling the judiciary, as well as the other branches of government, those controls are already present in the enumerated powers listed in Article 1, Section 8. However there is conspicuously no evident intent from any the budding Convention Social Engineers to restore the limits of those enumerated powers.
It’s also an extremely bad precedent to hand the federal government any authority to “forbid” Citizens from doing anything, specifically journalists. The 18th Amendment (Prohibition) was an extremely bad precedent and corruption to the Constitution as well. The purpose of the Constitution is to define and limit government, not to dictate to the citizenry, which empowers the federal government.
In fact at least 70% of the Amendments to the Constitution have done nothing but undermine that document, enabling the federal corruption and tyrannous dictate we know today. By that consideration alone, writing further amendments is extremely unlikely to favor our liberty, and many now do specifically intend that liberty be diminished.
Incidentally, I would be fascinated to hear your perspective on how the broadcast of election results was critical to events involved in the notorious Florida 2000 election. People have so many widely-varied views on those events.
I do seriously question the assurance that Convention “actual negotiations” would (will?) occur online before the Convention was even called. Are you intending to imply that those “actual negotiations” online might somehow limit the real outcome of the Convention itself? I seriously reject that as being even remotely true. While there will undoubtedly be tentative understandings reached between certain delegates prior to a convention, I’m quite certain those understandings are accompanied by very small print indicating something to the effect of “actual performance may vary.”
For certain, actual Convention results will deviate quite wildly from the false assurances we’re being given now.
Incidentally, I would be fascinated to hear your perspective on how the broadcast of election results was critical to events involved in the notorious Florida 2000 election. People have so many widely-varied views on those events.
You are a Bush supporter in the Florida panhandle who is determined to vote. You get to the polling place and there is a line out the door and around the corner. You are going to have to wait for an hour or more, past the closing time of the polling place. . . . and then you hear on the radio that Gore has already won Florida.Do you then stand in line all that time, "for no reason at all?” In retrospect, you certainly would. In prospect, not everyone did. A couple of hundred more Bush votes would have prevented the whole FL 2000 fiasco. And without that premature, incorrect call, more Bush votes than that would have materialized.
- At Any Cost:
- How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
by Bill SammonThink of it this way: Suppose, as a fantastic counterfactual, that at the moment the networks are about to call Florida for Gore you are Governor JEB Bush, and you are able to freeze time for a week and raise money, without any “Campaign Finance Reform” limits on individual contributions, to pay the networks not to make that (we now know to be premature and erroneous, remember) call until the voting in the Panhandle is actually completed. How much money would you be willing and able to raise???
That tells you how much of a political contribution to the Gore campaign that premature, erroneous call was. And the networks exist at the sufferance of the FCC, which theoretically licenses the use of “the public airwaves” in “the public interest.”
And lest you think it unfair of me to exempt that fundraising from campaign finance “reform” limits, recall that the networks made that call knowing it would help Gore, and they were not subject to any CFR regulation at all. How much does JEB Bush raise in that counterfactual??? Half a billion? A billion?
I’m a First Amendment guy. The problem we have is monopoly journalism, created in the first instance by the AP in particular but the wire services in general. And reinforced by the FCC, and by the FEC. It’s not that journalists have too much freedom, it’s that we all have the right to the same treatment as journalists get. Journalists are not noblemen, and they are not priests of the official US religion - they are people. Difference is, they have printing presses, and I don’t - yet. In principle I have the right to own one, though.
The FCC systematically makes broadcast channels scarce and valuable (read, expensive). Suppose technology (e.g., cell phone tech) makes bandwidth free, though. That would reduce the importance of the FCC - so, naturally, the FCC isn’t going to actively enable that technology.