Posted on 01/16/2014 4:59:35 PM PST by Slyfox
Recently, The New American has reported on the efforts by radio talk show host Mark Levin and others to push for a constitutional convention (a convention of the states, in the parlance of the proponents).
In his new book, Levin argues that such a convention is the last hope “to reform the federal government from its degenerate, bloated, imperial structure back to its (smaller) republican roots.”
Unfortunately, many otherwise well-educated and well-meaning conservatives have succumbed to Levin’s siren song and they have gone so far as to deny the constitutionality of nullification and to insist that an Article V convention is the only way to restore the balance of federalism in our Republic.
(Snip)
Its doubtful that Mark Levin’s legion of listeners would be as eager to get behind his Article V con-con agenda if they knew whom they were fighting beside and how radically their new allies want to change our beloved Constitution.
And that’s the problem. Regardless of the soothing words of Levin or others in the con-con camp, they cannot guarantee the outcome of such a convention. In fact, in light of the lists of leftist groups provided above, the results of the convention could be an outright scrapping of the Constitution written by the Founders in favor of one more in line with the progressive ideologies of Wolf-Pac, the Sierra Club, Code Pink, and others.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Show me in Article 5 the process for choosing delegates to an Amendments Convention.
Yep, it could happen. And Lord Fauntleroy might talk that psycho into putting down his chainsaw.
I think “Coup Against the Constitution” is the initial position that transitions to Constitutional Coup as the first gets understood.
So, transition from the first to the second.
Its doubtful that Mark Levin’s legion of listeners would be as eager to get behind his Article V con-con agenda if they knew whom they were fighting beside and how radically their new allies want to change our beloved Constitution. And that’s the problem. Regardless of the soothing words of Levin or others in the con-con camp, they cannot guarantee the outcome of such a convention. In fact, in light of the lists of leftist groups provided above, the results of the convention could be an outright scrapping of the Constitution written by the Founders in favor of one more in line with the progressive ideologies of Wolf-Pac, the Sierra Club, Code Pink, and others.Yeah, that's right. Thanks Slyfox.
[ I 100% agree with not having a constitutional convention (art 5).
There is no control over by whom and what get proposed, and we KNOW that the media, the liberals, and the GOP-E will control who gets selected to be delegates.
We must fight this tooth and nail.
Those who wrote our constitution fought for their freedom with their lives, they had proven their honor, and they wrote on paper a system of checks and balances that survives to our day.
Today any new constitution would be written by leeches, lobbyists, and lackeys.
Give me the honor of George Washington over the deceit of Boehner, Pelosi, Reid and McConnell always. ]
There are several orders of Magnitude less lobbyists and big money in the state houses and state senates than in DC.
Far better to put the states themselves in a role to regain some of their lost power over the last 100 years...
And it is far easier to get tea party people into the state level before this than trying to put a tea party person in DC.
As a great philosopher once said: “If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.”
There is a lot that will have to be done before an Amendments Convention meets, and the preparatory meeting at Mount Vernon was intended to head off Congress before it could make a claim for the ABA's vision.
Both documents have completely different visions of delegate selection, and that is one of the things that will have to be settled upon before a convention meets. This would be the first convention called under the Constitution, and a lot of precedents need to be set in concrete.
[ The country that elected Obama and a Democrat Senate are more likely to pass commie amendments than conservative ones.
Here is what bothers me about your statement. If you follow it through logically, it would indicate that you no longer trust your fellow citizens, and that would lead to the conclusion that you no longer believe Americans capable of self-government.
If that is your conclusion, then it’s too late for an Amendments Convention. It’s also too late for elections or even having a Constitution at all. It leads to one of three possible endgames.
A king and a theocracy.
A military dictatorship.
The breakup of the country, peaceful or otherwise.
I can’t help but find this line of thought disturbing. ]
The waiting for a “Political Messiah” is long since past due. as is waiting for the “right side to win elections”.
If we do not deserve a Republic then let it be brought down on the terms and tools which is was created and not by the perversion of selective enforcement and selective interpretation of the constitution.
“If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.”
[ I think “Coup Against the Constitution” is the initial position that transitions to Constitutional Coup as the first gets understood.
So, transition from the first to the second. ]
There has been a Coup against the Constitution since 1913.....
And some may argue 50 some years before then too....
I'd like to try it the constitutional way first.
Publius, I’m honestly not trying to be difficult or argumentative. I will look at the links. I haven’t yet.
But your response verifies what we already know. The Constitution does NOT provide the method for selecting the delegates to any convention. It’s not there. I’ve read it again and again.
I will trust what honorable men wrote in honorable times when their lives were on the line over what quislings will write in our day.
I think we are seeing ‘concern’ as the initial evolutionary state of a future panic.
Several newsworthy developments have emerged that show the Article V movement is considered serious and growing. Levin’s Amendments and educational calls are having an effect as more and more of the public learn of the Article V option. State legislatures especially are awakening to their constitutional collective power.
But the apprehension and anxiety of the Left is visible that they are vulnerable at the state level. Take a look at this NY Times Page A1 report from a few days ago:
“A National Strategy Funds State Political Monopolies”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3110883/posts
Clearly it’s a sharp whistle call to wake up leftists to the fact that conservatives are in command at the state level, and that funding is needed and worthwhile as measured against past performance in garnering rights and normalization for homosexuals and for voting structures such as same day voter registration.
I think we will see an increasing number of press reports and opinions that rally liberal money to state movements, that attempt to organize the Left to neutralize the conservative appeal at state and county levels and that utilize scare tactics of a runaway out of control con-con which the Article V Convention of States (COS) is not.
Then there is the category of Wolverton who seems to lament the unpopularity of his nullification pet poodle against the ‘entertainer’ host elements of a Levin. In other words he’s not feeling loved.
Disregarding the weakness of nullification when it comes to upholding its assertion against the supremacy clause wielded by federal courts and executive agencies, Wolverton resorts to the specious ‘runaway train’ argument of an Article V convention.
I wouldn’t worry about Wolverton and I wouldn’t worry so much about Soros and his kind, why?”
Soros and his agents and associates can buy politicians in Washington because the political class of the Beltway eventually offer their loyalties to the Beltway and its cash grifting lobbying infrastructure. So Soros and others like him have inordinate success in national elections but not so much with state elections.
An example of how state level manipulations can backfire can be seen in the example of Colorado and gun control. Recently a Soros-class variant in Bloomberg had success in gun control legislation in Colorado. But look at the recalls that bounced out the Bloomberg stooges in record time. And the grass roots there is determined to finish the job by repealing the anti-gun legislation that remains. And here Colorado was expected to turn from purple to blue. Now it’s gushing blood red.
Yes Mr. Wolverton we can expect Soros-class provocateurs to organize their own Article V cattle calls because they must; they must have a team in the game or else they know they can lose really big big very big. So we expect it and we expect more of it.
But it’s no reason to shut down Article V and follow the Nullification yellow brick road. Because if Soros wants money steered to Article V organizing, then it means Article V COS is a threat to the leftist urban archipelago.
[ At best, it would lead to a “velvet defederalization.” Secession won’t work.
At worst, and very likely, it would lead to a “dirty civil war,” since millions will never swear allegiance to a “false constitution” they believe to have been the result of corruption and ideological gerrymandering etc.
We will wind up with two Constitutions, old and new, or true and false, and a dirty civil war. Mark my words. I wish it were not so.
A Con-Con would be the fast route to your fork in the road, leading to the next Fort Sumter moment.
For example, which Constitution would the military follow? Old or new? True or false?
Fast track to CW2. ]
Maybe then one of the proposed amendments (prerequisite and mandatory amendment) should be a complete process for ANY state should it want to, to peaceable leave the union based on the will of the majority of people in that state.
Something like: “If 80% of the people in a state and 4/5 of each legislature in the state decide to leave the united states they may do so”
Basically make it a process that each state would have to leave the USA on it’s own and in doing so there is a peace treaty between it and the rest of the USA that only after they separate into their own “nation” before they can join up with the other states that have done the same. Also what to do with federal assets in those states after a state has decided to leave. So that say there is a good 4 year transition period after a state decides to leave to give back military bases and give the citizens dual citizen ship who want it and members of the military a choice on if they want to join the new state millitia or stay in the federal army, etc.....
I think the only option at this point is a peaceable breakup like Czechoslovakia. The trick is to convince the liberals that they don’t want the “hayseed” hicks in their cities and the Country people that they want to get rid of the influence of the disconnected idiot city slickers who have no connection to reality.
I think one of the things that caused the first civil war was the fact that there was no defined process for any state to decide to leave the union so people just pulled crap out of their rear ends and one of those things involved blowing up crap and killing people.
An Amendments Convention will represent the America of its time. People that we might see as "good" will be there, as well as people we might see as "bad". I have a little more confidence in the American people than a lot of people on this thread. Common sense and decency have departed certain cities and states, but I don't think they have departed the nation entirely.
> “The country that elected Obama and a Democrat Senate are more likely to pass commie amendments than conservative ones.”
More than 6 million blue collar conservatives, the old Perot Bloc, refused to vote for Romney which is the margin he needed to win. And there were millions more conservatives that refused to back the back-stabbing RINO establishment especially after the betrayals and filthy lies of Rove-like grifters during the republican primaries.
Why would conservatives refuse Romney thereby allowing Obama more time to create so much mischief and harm?
Read and heed:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3112171/posts?page=190#190
Congress is the controlling authority whether in a single amendment offered or in calling a convention.
Congress can propose amendments already.
Congress calls any convention.
Congress decides whether ratification is by Legislature or State Convention.
Congress = Reid, Pelosi, Boehner, and McConnell call a convention....I’d have to be nuts to agree to that.
Let them do it one amendment at a time.
Correct. Nobody at Philadelphia in 1787 wanted a union that was less than permanent. Hamilton wanted the Perpetual Union Clause from the Articles of Confederation brought over into the Constitution, but wiser heads took him aside and told him the issue could cause enough friction to disrupt the convention. Hamilton may have been brilliant and arrogant, but he knew when he was getting good advice. He and Madison agreed not to bring it up and carefully elided the issue.
However, in one Federalist paper, Madison explained that the Constitution was a contract, not a treaty like the Articles. Under treaty law, an aggrieved party can give notice and unilaterally leave. But under a contract, the aggrieved party must get the concurrence of all parties to the contract to leave. Thus, for even one state to leave the Union, the Union would have to be dissolved, and that would require unanimous consent. That was why Jackson, Taylor, Buchanan and Lincoln stated that unilateral secession was treasonous.
An amendment codifying a commonsense procedure to dissolve the Union might be a good idea. I'm not signing on, just saying it's something to be discussed.
As Hamilton lays it out, once Congress sets the time and place, the states are in charge. This is why I believe the ABA's vision of an Amendments Convention is invalid, because the ABA (ruling class) sees Congress in having a role in setting the rules for a convention.
How long will it take for that to get to Scotus and for Scotus to rule that they didn’t follow Hamilton closely enough?
But, it really does depend on the caliber of people who are involved. Are the likes of leftist teacher unions going to demand inclusion?
It’s also the only one that state legislatures benefit from. They’d garner more power, not less, and that’s usually the road taken by politicians. I suspect that Internet taxes would be another incentive which is why we need to strengthen our conservative base in the House and hold at least that half of Congress for a generation or two.
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