Posted on 01/27/2024 11:21:31 AM PST by Jacquerie
Use it or lose it.
Article V opponents believe America is too corrupt to be trusted with a Convention of the States. They believe We The People fulfilled Ben Franklin’s fears and are no longer fit for self-government. If true, it also means we don’t have any business voting.
Thanks to our collective failure to demand Article V Conventions of the States when necessary, We The People slowly, over decades, relinquished our sovereign authority to Scotus.
I challenge anyone to explain the practical limits of the Supreme Court of the United States. On paper our system provides mutual checks, but what of actual limitations? Oh, there’s the “exceptions and under such regulations” check in Article III, but that was for the Framers’ Senate, the one with intrinsic moxie, and not the flaccid post-17th Amendment collection of showboating three-term congressmen masquerading as statesmen.
We’ve had a good run. James Madison thought the republic would slide back into monarchy around 1930.2 Talk about prescient! That we’re still here almost a hundred years later is quite an endorsement of the Framers’ system but thanks to surrendering our sovereignty to Scotus, our Framers’ gift to mankind is today a rickety contraption hostile to free government where civil and political rights exist at the pleasure of the judiciary.
In contravention of the Ninth Amendment all judges swear to uphold, Scotus regularly dismisses civil and political rights declarations by the people and often natural law itself. Scotus’ reversal of the 2008 California constitutional amendment to frame marriage as between a man and a woman was a seminal moment. Instead of passive nationwide acceptance, there should have been nationwide outrage, impeachment of the judges and calls for an Article V COS because Scotus was duty-bound by the 9th to defend the amendment, just as it is bound to defend the rest of the Bill of Rights and Constitution.
Ninth Amendment:
Nothing in the Constitution, certainly not the 14th Amendment, empowered Scotus to deny this biblical and traditional declaration in the CA constitution. But, we’ve developed the unfree habit of letting five lawyers upend society as their mood strikes. I suppose a people that, a few decades ago, let Scotus deny the 1st Amendment right to religious worship in public places and the right to life itself, wouldn’t be too upset when Scotus unconstitutionally fabricated rights to rear-end rodeo and homosexual marriage.
We can go along and pretend we’re still a free people, pretend that voting is all we can do and be satisfied with the existing, shaky, semi-conservative Scotus. But that reflects a cowardice, a cowardice that will certainly return to bite future generations when the next progressive president gets his or her turn.
Scotus simply doesn’t recognize a higher power. In practice it is superior to the parchment barriers of the Constitution, We the People, and God Himself. Scotus is a tyranny that only we the sovereign people can defeat through an Article V COS.
The 17th Amendment must go. Among the reasons it must go is because it so much as invited Presidents to nominate progressive judges. Progressivism has been around since the mid-19th century yet progressive judges didn’t appear in force until the New Deal when FDR encountered judicial resistance to his fundamental transformation of the US. Yes, FDR was a radical, but it was an elected, rather than a state-appointed Senate that confirmed his nominees. FDR was wildly popular and few senators would risk reelection opposing him even if it meant anti-Constitutional federal jurists.
This fundamental corruption of feeding, at first Liberal, then unaccountable Leftist judges into the pipeline depends of course on presidents and senators who expect judges to define civil and political rights in the cause of social justice. It’s why the Left mans the ramparts and threatens lives when Presidents nominate originalist jurists.
I’ve hammered the point at Article V Blog dozens of times and will only add that all good things, necessary reforms to our runaway government, are possible with repeal and impossible without. Repeal the 17th to allow slow restoration of the 10th and the people’s 9th Amendment sovereignty, their right to define civil and political rights. There is no other way.
The states have submitted hundreds of unanswered Article V applications to Congress.3 In recent years alone, twenty-eight states applied for a Balanced Budget amendment, while the Convention of States project is responsible for fourteen, five for WolfPac, and seventeen for US Term Limits.
To ensure standing, these groups should combine to convince a state attorney general to sue Congress to do its duty.4 While I am not confident the Scotus will apply Article V as written, meaning there is no requirement for identical or similar applications to count toward two-thirds (34) of the states, the lawsuit might launch a raucous national throw-down on the essence of who is in charge, because right now, it isn’t We The People, and never will be without an Article V end-run around Washington.
TX asserted its sovereignty! Twenty-five states in support. Keep up the momentum. Support an Article V COS!
The concept of Judicial Review needs to be revisited. The courts need to be put in their rightful place. John Marshall be damned.
When one reads the Bible, one will find that when the Jewish people were ruled by judges that it was a curse and they cried out for a king to save them from the vanity and avarice of their magistrate dictators.
Judges have their place. But it is not their place to make law, to issue edicts, to contravene the Constitution, to contravene the rights of free men, or to set themselves above our elected leaders.
Congress has failed us over the years by not asserting their exclusive power to legislate. It’s all about $$$ to them.
Going with Art. 5 could be a trap. Like the GOP put abortion on ballot and the left came in from all over the world with big bucks and won. The GOP did almost nothing to defwns pro-life. As a result Red State Ohio has embedded in its amended Constitution a prohibition against passing any law on abortion - anything goes! Worst in the country!
If an Art. 5 Convention of States really occurred we would likely lose the entire Bill of Rights and the Electorial College... for starters.
Fine. Believe if you wish that our Framers inserted a hand grenade into their Constitution.
Pretend 2020 and 2022 didn’t happen.
Just keep voting. Pretend it matters.
Is that daylight i see at the far end of this nightmarish tunnel?
Very good point.
Thank the 17th Amendment.
The same totalitarians who have corrupted our Constitution will triple-down on its’ destruction if any sort of Article 5 convention is invoked.
Rodney Dodsworth and his acolyte must be “consigned to the dustbin of history”.
The preventative to a possible rogue convention is named delegates in the enabling acts.
Texas could trust Ken Paxton.
Exactly.
The states will appoint delegates with defined authority and no more.
I don’t lose sleep or get upset when women who would murder their baby murder their baby.
You would cast our Framers into the dustbin of history?
Per the post, what are the practical limits on Scotus?
The Republicans in Congress should try to send to the states a constitutional amendment that would cap middle class property taxation, such as:
Property tax on any residential property of less than 2799 square feet of finished space shall be no higher the 2019 dollar amount on the property, or for a newer or since resold property what a similar property in the same area would have been taxed at for 2019 if it lacked owner specific tax breaks, increased by 3% per calendar year since 2019 and by any percentage increase to its finished space.
Fighting for such a property tax cap would add the electors of several deep blue states to Trump’s total and make Congress turn deep red.
Even multi-election Democratic voters do not want to get taxed out of their homes.
How would schools get funded if property taxes are capped to 2019 scale levels?
By higher sales taxation and by services taxation that is used in Florida in lieu of having a state income tax.
I don’t want to pay for schooling of the kids of the people pampering the well-to-do. The well-to-do need to pay for such schooling via service taxation.
Well-to-do often send their children to expensive private schools. They pay taxes and tuition after giving lip service to equity.
The Republicans in Congress should try to send to the states a constitutional amendment that would cap middle class income taxation along the lines of:
Federal income taxation of people with incomes within the range of 90% of the full-time federal civilian workforce [i.e. the middle class by income] shall not be at greater percentage rate burdens than in 2023.
What about if there is a war? Federal civilian salaries can be compressed downward as may be needed so the upper middle class becomes no longer capped.
Joe Biden has said he doesn’t want to raise taxes on (two) people making under $400,000.
“expensive private schools”
Groups having about 20 kids in a school should try to hire two full-time tutors instead.
That would cost maybe $200,000/year total split 20 ways.
I grew up in an era when eating at restaurants was not a usual practice and yardwork and painting was done by household members.
My Democratic neighbor still cleans her own house even after her daughters raved about having Hispanics clean theirs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.