- Richard D. Fry, General Counsel, Patriot Coalition
Recently, Sean Hannity held a special “town hall” program featuring Mark Levin discussing his new book , The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic. The program was complete with a handpicked audience of “conservatives” many associated with Fox News.
It was reminiscent of a Ron Popeil pocket fisherman infomercial. A few of the audience raised straw issues with one of Levin’s proposed amendments which of course actually turned out to be a big plus before the script was played out. Yes nothing is more stimulating and convincing than “simulated debate.”
Keep in mind the fundamental problems (symptoms) we have in the Republic which are our elected officials:
1. No longer follow the Constitution,
2. Treat their oath to support the Constitution as a mere ministerial act, and
3. Neither represent or response to “We the People”.
These elitist constitutional revisionists use the devils own logic to confuse us. They mix truth (all the symptoms of our fundamental problems as noted above) with lies and then propose an illogical disjunctive as a solution:
”If our public officials will not follow the Constitution and honor their personal oath we will simply amend the Constitution.”
Perhaps instead of the eleven amendments Mark Levin proposes we only need one new amendment. “Thou shall follow this Constitution.” I assure you such would be every bit as effective as all eleven amendments proposed by Levin.
The uninformed take comfort from the “conservative” credentials these talking heads have and allow these members of the elitist establishment to be their surrogates on all matters political. This is the root problem of our woes i.e., uninformed, apathetic and yes lazy citizens who will not take up their duty to be even modesty informed and determined to hold our public servants accountable when they put on the majestic mantle of supreme authority.
Two historical quotes come to mind:
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Truer word have never been spoken.
One needs to understand there has been an ongoing effort to “rewrite” our constitution since at least the 1960s. The fact that this objective has been the darling of both the Progressive elitist and the “conservative” elitists should give us great pause when listening to anyone making such a proposal. I will provide this history in another post.
What are the lies they use?
1. A “state convention” is not a “con con,”
2. The ability to amend does not include the ability to replace or rewrite completely,
3. The topics of a “states convention” can be controlled by the states,
4. The fact that three fourths of the states have to approve any changes is a foolproof safety net.
Levin’s response to the concern that the statists will control any such convention and rewrite our constitution is the assertion that the statists already have the system open to them and they can push for such. Yes they do and yes they can. And, I submit they are through these talking head “conservatives”. What Levin, Hannity and others are proposing is to open the door and invite the statists in so the statists can legitimize their plunder of our Liberty and wealth.
Recall Hitler took over Germany and set up his fascist dictatorship legally. Takeovers always go smoother if you are acting under the cover of law rather than by an outright coup. “Let no crisis go to waste.” The end result is the same.
A “state convention” is not a “con con”
(Constitutional Convention)
False: First, there is no “state convention” as in originated and controlled by the states. The process laid out in Article V is a federal process under the auspices of the federal government.
As such process involves and deals with “political questions” it will be under Congress’ authority and only very rarely open to review by the Supreme Court. The Court has addressed this issue before.
Congress calls any such convention, not the states, who merely request such call be made by Congress. Article V provides in part:
“The Congress… on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments…”
This point is extremely important.
As any parliamentarian can tell you, he that calls the convention controls the convention, at least initially. It is the caller that decides the qualifications of delegates, how they are chosen, the initial rules of the convention including how the current rules are changed or supplemented and the convention’s agenda.
No matter what you want to call it an Article V “convention” is what it is and does what it does. These folks are trying to bamboozle the public with distinctions without a difference.
It is convincingly argued that legally such a convention is a super legislative body of the people themselves and as such once it is formally started it need not follow the directions of Congress or anyone else for that matter. This is what has happened historically.
The ability to amend does not include the
ability to rewrite completely
False. First, Common sense defeats this absurd assertion. One might define an amendment as anything from the change of one period to the change of everything but one period. These folks are playing word games with the public.
Second, we know the Philadelphia convention, from which we received our current constitution, was convened only to amend the then current Constitution. In fact, the focus and limit of the convention was supposed to be on interstate commerce issues. It was not convened (at least publicly) with the purpose “to form a more perfect Union”.
Under our prior Constitution any amendments required agreement by all thirteen (13) states (100%). However, our current constitution required only agreement of nine (9) of the thirteen (13) states or less than 70% agreement. (See U.S. Const. Article VII) The convention did not even follow the then current Constitution.
In fact, the convention was only attended by twelve states as Rhode Island did not send delegates. So much for unanimity.
Third, the current Constitution would not need to be completely rewritten to fundamentally and substantively alter the Republic. The proposed Constitution that was shown to retired Supreme Court Chief Justice Burger in 1988 did away with the sovereign states and created federal provinces in their place.
Doing away with the autonomy of the states is consistent with the effort within the federal government over the last thirty years to set up regional governance councils to implement Sustainable Development, an effort supported by Governor Brownback in Kansas. Some have proposed that the Governors should be the delegates to any such convention. Thanks, but no thanks.
Regional governance counsels were called “soviets” in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R. (Russia).
What the federal government has been doing in setting up these “soviets”, with a lot of help from state politicians, is in violation of Article IV of the Constitution. You can be sure such would be legitimized under any newly amended constitution.
It is likely global / United Nations’ definitions of our rights would find their way into any amended constitution. We would not have Freedom of Religion but rather Freedom of Worship. Freedom of Worship has been noted on numerous occasion by Hilary Clinton and President Obama. It is an incomplete bundle of religious rights which is basically summed up as “don’t ask don’t tell.”
The topics of a “states convention” can be
controlled by the states
As noted above in the A “state convention” is not a “con con” section, an Article V “convention” is inherently a federal process set up under the federal Constitution and is called and controlled by Congress. It is not controlled by the states and the states cannot limit the topics covered in an Article V convention anymore than the states were able to control the topics discussed in the Philadelphia Convention 226 years ago.
Some say that the states can control the topics by limiting their call for a convention to a particular topic. If you read Article V you will find that there is no requirement whatsoever for a state to specify a topic. Legally any such designation is superfluous and meaningless. Remember the Philadelphia Convention. Article V itself refers to “Amendments” plural.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach held the position that a convention is not controlled by the states the last couple of years and even publicly expressing it at various Liberty group meetings (some of which were recorded). Then he changed his position this year after he pushed a Kansas call for a “con con” at the last minutes of the legislative session. He acted through Representative Brett Hildabrand and Sen. Pilcher-Cook.
I debated this with Kris on his Sunday talk show and he backed down on his new position. A couple of weeks later at a meeting to discuss Kris’ push for a “con con” he again backed down saying the states could not control the issues but that it “did not matter because Congress would never call a convention” so we did not have to worry about a “runaway” convention.
His then-stated purpose for supporting a “con con” was to fire a shot across Congress’ bow. The only shot those folks listen to is the ballot box or lots of persistent public pressure.
The fact that three fourths of the states have to approve any changes is a foolproof safety net.
False. Really? What about the XVI, XVII, XVIII Amendments which were all approved “by the states” although Levin wants to change some of them. I guess the fail-safe is not so fail-safe.
Again Congress is in control. It decides whether the ” legislatures of the states” will be asked to approve the amendments or whether it will be done by “conventions in” the states. Who do you think gets to make up the rules for these conventions?
Also, there is a big difference between “of” as in belonging to the states and “in” as in merely located in a state.
Historically, we know that Congress has manipulated this process to get the results it wanted.
We must recognize that this push to “amend” the Constitution has been going on for decades and is part of the elitist agenda, both Progressive and “conservative” elitist. Such has been sponsored by big foundations and their stooges such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the National Governors Association (NGA), that also sponsors and promotes national Common Core educational standards, and Progressive NGOs. These folks have their self interest in mind and not that of “We the People”.
Arm yourself with knowledge or pay the price of your ignorance.
Richard D. Fry
Founder, November Patriots
General Counsel, Patriot Coalition
[ii]U.S. Constitution, Article V, ”The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress;”