In this post I draw a parallel between the Second Amendment and Article V. The Second Amendment grants nothing. It is through Natural Law, the Law of Reason, and not by a Constitution or statute that we are entitled to defend ourselves. Not only do each of us have a natural interest in self-preservation, but because we are all God’s work, meaning His property, we have a clear and positive duty to preserve His creation.
To facilitate individual self-preservation, God made man naturally social. John Locke wrote, “God having made man such a creature, that, in His own judgement, it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligation and necessity to drive him into society.” Civil society forms government to secure the natural rights of individuals and those of the community. Society naturally possesses all the civil rights of its members.
To these ends, to protect the natural rights of individuals and society, laws are crafted by legislatures created by society to defend life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is the first and fundamental natural law which governs legislatures: their purpose is the preservation of society and every person in it. As summarized by the historian Forrest McDonald, “Thus constituted, government can have no powers except such as are compatible with the end for which it was established; and it cannot act arbitrarily, or depart from its own laws . . .”
When the executive branch or scotus depart from the supreme law and usurp the powers delegated by society to congress, they act arbitrarily; they are simultaneous attacks on society and individuals. Just as individuals have a natural duty to defend themselves, so does society.
When looked at in this way, from the standpoint of self-preservation, Article V is to society as the Second Amendment is to the individual. To argue that society need not defend itself from assault is contrary to reason. No government can justly operate outside of natural law, and natural law commands the individual and society to preserve themselves.
Why does the Left promote, among other destructive policies, the importation of islamists, single parent households, homosexual marriage and progressive income taxes? The Left understands the relationship between the individual and society. Saul Alinsky, hero to Obama and Hillary Clinton, wasn’t just a street rabble-rouser. His purpose, like that of today’s Democrat Party, is to destroy civil society. Accomplish societal destruction, and the individual is doomed to a State of Nature, in which control of the population is achieved through raw force. The process is underway. In select urban areas, police forces are being transformed into field offices for DOJ social justice warriors. Through its Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, the DOJ requires standardization of policing policies, which in time will subject local police to the DOJ’s operational control.
Against this background, Article V opponents find comfort in their slogan to “just enforce the Constitution we have,” as if wishful thinking and sending good men and women to corrupt institutions can restore free government. Society is to sit back and await its destruction? Not only is this contrary to reason; it is outright nonsense when the certain consequence of inaction is societal and individual ruin.
Convening the states under Article V isn’t just a natural right; it is our positive duty to save our shared community and ourselves. We are the many; our oppressors are the few. Be proactive. Be a Re-Founder. Join Convention of States. Sign our COS Petition.
References:
Locke, J. (2010). Two Treatises of Government, Edited by Peter Laslett. Cambridge: University Press.
McDonald, F. (1985). Novus Ordo Seclorum – The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
Great comparisons. Thank you Rodney. I support the http://www.conventionofstates.com. See how you can urge your state to support our liberties.
What a great way to start the day! Thanks again, Rodney, for letting us know we’re on the right track! Not only is your analogy spot-on, as always, but it couldn’t be more timely… now that the election is over and The Left is looking at Donald Trump as the evil jinni they wish they hadn’t summoned, and we may start seeing some converts from that side of the aisle, reaching now for Article V as one might reach for their bedside pistol in the middle of the night.
“Reaching now for Article V as one might reach for their bedside pistol in the middle of the night.”
Spot on.
Excellent as always. People on both sides of the aisle want to keep their Second Amendment rights. Fantastic analogies. Let’s hope many read this post. Tweeting it. Thanks so much!
The Founders knew the federal government might one day become drunk with the abuses of power. The most important check to this power is Article V. Article V gives states the power to call a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution.
By calling a convention of the states, we can stop the federal spending and debt spree, the power grabs of the federal courts, and other misuses of federal power. The current situation is precisely what the Founders feared, and they gave us a solution, in which, we have a duty to use.
After the states propose, debate, and vote upon the proposed amendments, they will be sent to the 50 states for ratification. Three-quarters of the states must agree for any of the proposed amendments to be ratified.
Congress has no authority to stop such a process. The Founders made sure of that.
The Founders believed that the structures of a limited government would provide the greatest protection of liberty. Not only were there to be checks and balances between the branches of the federal government, power was to be shared between the states and federal government, with the latter only exercising those powers specifically granted in the Constitution.
Collusion among decision-makers in Washington, D.C., has replaced these checks and balances. The federal judiciary supports Congress and the White House in their ever-escalating attack upon the jurisdiction of the fifty states.
We need to realize that the structure of decision-making matters. Who decides what the law shall be is as important as what is decided. The protection of liberty requires a strict adherence to the principle that power is limited and delegated.
Washington, D.C., does not believe this principle, as evidenced by an unbroken practice of expanding the boundaries of federal power. In a remarkably frank admission, the Supreme Court rebuffed a challenge to the federal spending power despite acknowledging that power had grown far beyond the bounds envisioned by the Founders:
“This framework has been sufficiently flexible over the past two centuries to allow for enormous changes in the nature of government. The Federal Government undertakes activities today that would have been unimaginable to the Framers in two senses; first, because the Framers would not have conceived that any government would conduct such activities; and second, because the Framers would not have believed that the Federal Government, rather than the States, would assume such responsibilities. Yet the powers conferred upon the Federal Government by the Constitution were phrased in language broad enough to allow for the expansion of the Federal Government’s role.”
http://www.conventionofstates.com/petition_manual?recruiter_id=2353327
In a follow-on post, I’ll review Ms. Huldah’s contention that George Mason didn’t press for Article V in order to deal with oppressive government.
Excellent comparison Rodney! I support conventionofstates.com. Come join in the fun.
http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_id=246073
Great comparison, Rodney and thanks for all you do!!!. I’m proud to be a supporter of Convention of States and hope you will join this fight to bring power back where it belongs… The States… If not US, then who?… If not NOW. then when?… Wait for the Tyrannical Federal Government to devour the Civil Society or join us. Visit here to learn more, sign the petition,
and volunteer: http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter-id=1636326
Bravo.. Excellent read.
The states should hold the vast majority of the power.. Not the fed.
http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter-id=1526090
Our Founding Fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they wrote our Constitution, and they know why they did it. The Founders expected We the People to use Article V’s provision of a Convention of States when the federal government became too powerful. Learn more and sign the petition at http://www.conventionofstates.com
Well said, Rodney, Well said indeed. Glad to have run across your site. The more varied explanations of the need for an Article V Convention of States the better the process is understood.
“His purpose, like that of today’s Democrat Party, is to destroy civil society.”
No good comes of of this party divisiveness. I understand where you’re coming from on this, but the routine rhetoric presupposes everyone sees partisan politics in the same fashion, and demonizing one faction over the other has become a sick sport. Republicans have done at least as much to put us into this bloated system of government as the Democrats have.
COS Project is for everyone who loves liberty. Liberty isn’t a partisan issue. We can turn people off by suggesting otherwise. We need good people of all parties to see that what we have is what they crave.
It is our duty! It’s using the constitution as it was originally written. That is the ultimate defend and protection of the constitution.