There are two broad factions that stand in opposition to the people’s use of their sovereign capacity in Article V to stop and reverse the accelerating despotism of the executive and judicial branches. They are the Utopian progressives, and conservatives led by The John Birch Society (JBS) and The Eagle Forum. Strange bedfellows, eh? Why their opposition?
To the first, so-called progressives control the machinery of government, from the three branches and throughout the administrative state. Under a de facto living and breathing Constitution, congress has relinquished almost the entirety of its Article I powers to scotus and the president. With hardly a whimper from an emasculated congress, scotus redefined the ages-old institution of marriage and the president opened our borders to barbarians worldwide. With so many successes and few defeats these past hundred years, why would the Left risk their winnings through an Article V convention?
To the second group, those who follow the positions of the JBS and Eagle Forum, the risk of losing what remains of our precarious God-given and societal rights outweighs any possible good that an Article V convention may deliver. To these conservatives, whom I refer to as Men of Little Faith, the remedy is feared as worse than the disease. It is better to suffer the evils of a government that recognizes few, if any, bounds than to hazard the consequences of possibly reversing the madness.
In decreasing order of appeal, there are four approaches to securing free government.
- Through the structural design of its component institutions
- By legislative remedy
- Peaceful Article V correction via the sovereign people
- Violent restoration through the sovereign people
The free-government structural design of our Framers was obliterated by evil siblings, the 16th and 17th Amendments. In time, a popularly derived congress proved itself to be not only an inadequate steward of the people’s trust, but has actually turned against the people and betrayed the interests of the nation. When governing institutions are so thoroughly corrupted, replacing bad men with good men only ensures eventual corruption of the good.
What of a legislative remedy? Can we actually expect those who prosper so well from the corruption to work against their interests? Over time, the legislative remedy of punishing usurpers of the people’s trust has proven to be an ineffective means of securing free government. We have done incredible harm to ourselves by not holding high criminals in government to account. With every unpunished violation, they and their successors are only encouraged to continue their assaults.
America 2016 is slowly coming to realize that third approach represents the last peaceful opportunity to reform their institutions and reclaim free government. Renaissance and Enlightenment writers alike have noted that once good forms of government fall into corruption, the remedies are very challenging, yet they must be tried, because the alternative is tyranny. Machiavelli described civil war as a disease, but tyranny as certain death to a republic. To the JBS and Eagle Forum, I say nothing can be feared that is worse than the hardening tyranny before our eyes.
Fourth, shall we roll the dice and actually resort to our Founding Era solution in violence? If Article V opponents believe America is too base to calmly identify shortcomings in her structure of government, is it wise to risk our redemption through the sword? George Washington was a once in a millennia leader who, having defeated his enemies, cast aside the political power offered to him by his troops. Few men can resist what Washington casually declined.
Why must hundreds of millions of Americans suffer to enrich so few? Why continue to pin our hopes on the charade of elections? We are trusted in the polling place every two years to elect people who are certain to operate outside the limits of our Constitution, yet we deny ourselves the establishment of the only institution that may actually reverse the horrid corruption of our once free republic?
When nations fall under such corruption that government is utterly incapable of making right use of its power, and maliciously abuses the authority with which it is entrusted, those nations stand obliged by the duty they owe to themselves and their posterity, to use the best of their efforts to remove the evil, no matter the danger or difficulties they may meet with in the performance.
Through Article V, the sovereign people can stop the suffering.
We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Be proactive. Be a Re-Founder. Join Convention of States.