Over a long radio career, Rush Limbaugh regularly slammed the Congressional Budget Office for its static analysis of tax cuts. It is natural to think in linear terms. If Congress cuts taxes by X, then government revenue should fall by X. Right?
Except, it often doesn’t work that way. Man and men in society aren’t linear thinkers. Sometimes the output is a magnitude larger and opposite to the input. Cut taxes by X and the output isn’t an X tax loss, but typically a dynamic increase in tax revenue several times the tax cuts. Dynamic response isn’t limited to economics. Society also responds somewhat predictably and dynamically to non-economic inputs.
During the Obama years communities held their collective breath if police shot and killed a minority. While the riot and mayhem were out of all proportion to the input, the disproportionate dynamic societal response was predictable.
Consider education and culture. What of the outcomes of an educational system that herds its inmates into dull thought-prisons? For decades, government and its allies blinded American society to its first principles in freedom. People cannot strive for that which they do not know.
This government influence, this outright control of government/media/culture to warp young minds isn’t new. Imagine the dynamic, revolutionary effect of suddenly pulling back the blinders that shade public eyes and minds; it would be as threatening to despotic government today as in any time in history. In the past, breaking the government/media education/culture monopoly made for out of proportion revolutionary outcomes.
King Charles Stuart II (b.1630-d.1685) of England held a tight grip on the media of the day. Licensing laws kept print opposition to a minimum. Every Sunday from hundreds of pulpits the King’s Anglican Church ministers preached the righteousness of monarchy, of the Divine Right of Kings to rule, and the duty of subjects to passively submit.1
In 1683, Charles II hanged the nobleman Algernon Sidney for treason. On the scaffold, he gave the Sheriff a brief paper.
From the first four of Sidney’s revolutionary tenets in opposition to the Divine Right of Kings:
1.) God had left nations unto the Liberty of setting up such governments as best pleased themselves.
2.) Magistrates were set up for the good of nations, not nations for the honor or glory of Magistrates.
3.) The right and power of Magistrates in every country was that which the laws of the country made it to be.
4.) Those Laws were to be observed, and the oaths taken by them, between the magistrate and people, could not be violated without danger of dissolving the whole fabric.
Through his martyrdom, Sidney broke the King’s lock on English media, pulled the blinders from society’s eyes, and educated the community on first principles in free government. Instead of silencing opposition, his questionable trial and especially his paper went viral and rallied Whigs at home and exiles across Europe. Such was the buzz that Charles II was forced to defend his Divine Rights in a blistering pamphlet war. For the first time, the overwhelmingly religious English people learned of Biblically derived republican principles. The word was out, and with the Glorious Revolution (1688) and Bill of Rights (1689), England and her North American colonies would never be the same. Tiny input made for dynamic output.
Like late 17th century England, Leftist elements of the US government and their allies in education, comedy (CNN, MSNBC, etc.), academia, pop culture and social media continually refine their propaganda. They know they cannot be rid of the Constitution, but they can certainly corrupt it. There is open talk of revolution, of civil war as the nation reaps Leftist filth. History informs that where an ignorant people is fertile ground for demagogues, a well-informed Christian community is the first line of defense against tyranny.
Such is the Left’s pervasive corruption, few institutions remain unsoiled. But, notice the difficulty the Left encounters with the two temporary federal institutions, the Electoral College, and yes, a Convention of States. These institutions are outside the day to day functions of the three dirty branches. The Electoral College in particular drives them to madness.
Now, to the point of this squib, Article V. Static analysis here will not do. The Left media doesn’t report Article V progress through the states. By their silence, the forces hostile to American First Principles reveal they are frightened to death of a COS.
The buzz in the months leading to a COS is certain to be dynamic. Twenty-eight of the necessary thirty-four states have submitted Balance Budget Amendment (BBA) applications to Congress. Once they reach the thirty-four threshold, the Deep State cabal will explode and savage Article V and its supporters. Leftists know exactly what is going on and what is at stake with this obscure clause from the Constitution. A COS is an end run, a flanking movement by the sovereign people around the crooked institutions Leftists control. Leftists will freak. They will all outdo Senator Cory Booker’s psycho antics of last week.
But, to the Left’s detriment, the Anti-COS campaign will break the media lock on public debate in first principles.
Good, because like King Charles II, the enemies of free government will find themselves on the defensive, publicly defending their secular divine right to tyranny. They will no longer find refuge behind a media that buries stories and events uncomplimentary to their Deep State allies. The vast American public, heretofore ignorant of their power to reform their government, will finally find themselves exposed to first principles. They’ll find that the best Constitutions are of no value if there isn’t a power to support them. With blinders removed, the people who put Donald J. Trump in office will be energized to finish the job of Keeping America Great.
This isn’t to say the entirety of necessary reforms will occur overnight. While I am skeptical of a BBA amendment, I wholeheartedly support a BBA COS. Whether it passes or not, it will prove to Article V opponents that a COS will not “runaway” into lunacy, and will pave the way for future conventions.
No, the tremendous aftershock of the first ever Article V COS will be an invigorating realization, realization that the dynamic federalism in Article V stands to protect and correct Leftist usurpations and tyranny. We are not yet beaten dogs who elect masters, but instead a people still capable of creating and keeping the law.
1. Houston, A. C. (1991). Algernon Sidney and the Republican Heritage in England and America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.