Exactly why did the Framers give us the option of an Article V convention? Listen to the wise words of one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars. Professor Paul Bator wrote this in 1980:
I think the Article V convention represents a profound political protection for us, as a people, against the tyranny of central government. And whatever we say about Article V, I think it is very, very wrong, just because we may disagree with the content of any particular constitutional amendment that is now being proposed, to interpret Article V in such a way as to clip its wings as a protection for the liberties of the people.
He goes on to say that it is profoundly important, particularly for constitutional scholars, to be hospitable toward the concern that Article V represents - that there be a way out for the states and the people if a willful and intransigent central authority governs in a way we find unacceptable.
We definitely need a way out. Two of our best presidents explicitly supported using the Article V convention option – Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower.
Have any recent presidential candidates expressed support for an Article V convention, even mavericks like Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel, and Pat Buchanan? They have not. Have any third parties demanded an Article V convention? They have not. Have any mainstream media exposed Congress’ failure to obey the Constitution’s Article V? They have not. Has the Supreme Court or any elected official that swore to obey the Constitution faulted Congress for disobeying the Constitution? They have not.
If you are not a rich and powerful American, ask yourself: Has your government become so untrustworthy, dysfunctional and unacceptable that you should demand what our Constitution gives you a right to – an Article V convention?
Thomas Jefferson said “a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms are in the physical.” Have many Americans concluded that rebellion has become necessary? They have not.
Article comments
1 - CM
Well written article, right on the money.
2 - Dave Nalle
Wow, I can't even begin to express how disastrous a new constitutional convention would be. It would be an oportunity to see all of the terrible ideas of the demogogues of the right and left extremes enacted into the most fundamental structure of the government and would destroy the imperfect, but still functional system which we have and replace it with some godawful, unstable and oppressive system. The sad truth is that the American people are no longer capable of the clear and rational thought which framed the Constitution and to give them the opportunity to screw the country up would be a disaster.
And BTW, the framers fully intended for the republic to include elements of a plutocracy. It was an inherent part of the system they envisioned. The firmly believe in rule by the educated and propertied elite as the representatives of the people.
Dave
3 - moonraven
Educated elite--that doesn't exist in the US.
It's too late, guys--the US is a totalitarian state. There's one party in power--under two names.
You sold your birthright for a bowl of lentils.
4 - Arch Conservative
"If you are not a rich and powerful American, ask yourself: Has your government become so untrustworthy, dysfunctional and unacceptable that you should demand what our Constitution gives you a right to â€" an Article V convention?"
Are you implying that any American who has had great financial success has done so through illegal and/or ammoral means?
Here we have Moonraven chiming in again with " US is a totalitarian state"
Moonraven exactly whats rights have been taken away from the average US citizen en masse that the citizens of your adopted home of Mexico now currently enjoy? I'm just curious. Perhaps you could enlighten us all.
5 - moonraven
Start with habeas corpus.
Follow with one party state (with two names but the same politics).
Continue with restrictions on travel to other countries.
And a whole list of etceteras.
Wake up and smell the shit, Arch--it's getting really deep.
6 - Lee Richards
RE #2: The framers did not envision the educated and propertied elite becoming self-indulgent professional career politicans, for sale to myriad special interests.
7 - Lumpy
Democracy is mob rule where the whim of the majority can oppress anyone and everyone. Democracy will bring us the totalitarian state moonraven talks about for real.
And by the way moonraven the rights you confusedly suggest are gone in the US certainly don't exist in mexico along with a great many other rights we enjou here.
8 - Sisyphus
"...many parts of the Constitution – the supreme law of the land – have been directly or more deviously disobeyed or distorted."
So what makes you think that a new, rewritten Constitution would be obeyed or followed any more faithfully than the present one?
9 - Joel S. Hirschhorn
The whole point of having a convention and creating some new, important amendments is to make it so much more difficult for those elected to high office to disobey and play games with the essential elements of our constitution.
10 - Sisyphus
But the devil is in the details -- or perhaps some other deity. When I go to the web site you reference, "Friends of the Article V Convention," I see many comments such as: "we need to put God back into our country." This seems to be one of the main thrusts of the movement. I would be opposed to this idea from the git go, and it has nothing to do with my personal beliefs concerning God.
11 - STM
"Democracy is mob rule where the whim of the majority can oppress anyone and everyone. Democracy will bring us the totalitarian state moonraven talks about for real."
Not true Lumpy ... forget moonraven for a moment and think about what you've written. In a democracy, the government IS the people - and semantics aside, the US is a democracy and not a notional one. In a two-party political system like that of the US or Australia, where more and more the government is now there more for those powerful or rich enough to lobby and subsidise campaigns, rather than for the people it is supposed to represent, there must always be the opportunity for the majority to voice its opinion - at the polls, and through referenda. This is one way of keeping a check on government, rather than the other way around. That is why those checks and balances exist for you both in the US and here.
12 - Arch conservative
You're right Moonraven.....I'd much rather live in a nation like Mexico where guilty until proven innocent is the law of the land..and where public officials encourage and assist their own citizens to illegally invade neighboring countries.
I say that when we get finished in Iraq we turn our guns to the south. If Mexico's governments insists on continuing to be so insolent and thumbing thier nose at us in the face of the millions of their citizens entering our nation then we should just say fuck it and invade them. If we're going to be called imperialists by every leftist in every dirty little corner of the planet then we might as well live up to that moniker. We could invade Mexico on Monday, set up shop nad have our military home in time to watch the saturday morning cartoons.
13 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Sometimes, Bing, you do not really realize how stupid you sound.
Have you ever heard of the "Mexican Cession", the Alamo, the Gadsen "Purchase"?
Your country already castrated the Mexico once, leaving the part where most of the peasants lived to suffer in poverty while the US took the parts with the gold, silver and good grazing lands.
Now you propose to annex 80 million Mexicans to the States? Do you realize what a huge welfare bill your government would run up trying to feed these people? Or would you just let them starve and beg for scraps at your table?
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
American "democracy" disappeared a long time ago. At the local level, there is a good healthy plant that has not yet been poisoned by corporate control of the media and all the resources. You can still run for dog catcher and sometimes influence local affairs through democratic means. But the minute you get to the curriculum of the schools (the local school board), you run into the corporate influence over the country.
Has no one ever wondered WHY school seems so boring to so many kids, and yet there are really good teachers out there?
Has no one ever wondered WHY the corporate commercial world is so hostile to education in the messages it projects to the public to sell its products, but so assiduous in trying to get schools to rely on them so that they appear to be "good corporate citizens"?
Has no one ever wondered WHY newspapers in America rarely ever rise above 6th grade level in their material? This is a list jam packed with journalists and writers. Why does no one write about the pathetic level of reading comprehension in America and the economic consequences it has? (Hint, hint, Marthe - set up a crappy little blogspot and share your knowledge with us uncultured ignoramuses).
A fill-in question for you all.
"A healthy democracy depends on a well educated citizenry." An unhealthy democracy relies on ___________________________________________.
15 - MAOZ
Somewhere I saw a quote attributed to Ben Franklin: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner tonight. Freedom is a well-armed lamb."
16 - moonraven
The rights you jokers no longer have--you pissed them away like everything else of value--were mentioned by me above PRECISELY because we DO have them here in Mexico.
And the ignorant sod who wrote that here one is guilty until proven innocent is completely full of shit. Here almost everybody gets off because the prosecutors do such an incompetent job of building cases.
Ruvy makes some good points about the complete lack of democracy in the US. The candidates you are told to vote for are all puppets of financial interests--and for sure they aren't YOUR financial interests, bozos.
Incidentally, Ruvy, I have had a blogsite for more than 4 years--although it's been pretty neglected lately--but I cannot put its URL on this site because the deviants who frequent this place are not welcome on my site.
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Marthe,
Thank you for the kind words. I know you have a blogsite that is by invitation only. I was talking about you setting up a different one, so that you could qualify to write articles for Blog Critics Magazine.
I don't necessarily like your politics, but unlike many here, I can see the positive contributions you can make.
MAOZ,
A friend of mine, Sergio Tezza of K4, often uses that quote from Ben Franklin in his e-mails.
I like that idea about the well armed lamb. I'd like to see one of them dealing with the guy who want to slaughter it for shwarma...
18 - moonraven
Ruvy,
Thanks, but I believe I went on record as saying that as long as Dave Nalle is an "editor" on this site I will write no articles for it.
Probably wouldn't anyway--am too lazy unless somebody pays me well.
19 - Arch Conservative
Ruvy well how would you feel if instead of an invasion the USA put it's military on the southern border?
20 - moonraven
Since Arch the Geographically Challenged did not mention border between what and what I assume he's just farting in the thread again.
21 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Bing,
It's your military. So long as you keep your soldiers out of here, I don't care what or where they go.
But if you have a bunch of guys called Gonzalez or Rodriguez (American citizens, Bing, who sign on the dotted line to serve) shooting at Mexicans trying to sneak across the border, it could get interesting.
Just a stupid question.
Where are all these kids with the guns facing south gonna come from? Your government keeps sendng them over here to keep us kikes and ragheads in line and to "promote democracy" in Iraq.
22 - Dr Dreadful
Arch Conservative, comment #12:
'We could invade Mexico on Monday, set up shop and have our military home in time to watch the Saturday morning cartoons.'
Isn't that what they said about Iraq?
23 - moonraven
Considering that here in Mexico the army is either chasing after narcotrafincantes--or doing the trafficking themselves, Arch could actually be right this time.
24 - Dr Dreadful
Yes, but historically, Mexicans have proven themselves to be extremely good at insurgency.
25 - STM
I have today exercised my right and privelege as a citizen of a democratic nation: to elect a new State government in a continent a long way from the US.
The choice was hideous and odious: a socially equitable but tired old Government that seems to blunder from crisis to crisis, or an Opposition totally devoid of ideas and personality and whose main platform was the cutting of 20,000 civil service jobs to fund election promises and the introduction of recycled drinking water from stormwater run-off (Yuk). They say it's safe and foolproof, but most of us aren't keen to take the chance, despite six years of drought. I'd also like my phone calls answered when I telephone the Roads and Traffic Authority, or have my licence renewal completed in under 20 minutes when I go in at lunchtime.
Luckily, because voting is preferential rather than first past the post, I have been able to register a protest vote against the two main parties by voting for minor parties and independents, while still handing my preferences to that tired old government - and only because it will keep the other mob out of power and in the wilderness where they belong for another four years. Hopefully, however, they will both at least get a message from the many, many thousands of protest votes expected today.
BTW, do most of us realise how lucky we are, being able to put pencil to paper and elect a government of our choice? There are many who don't get that opportunity, and it is no small thing. Let's never waste it or water it down.