Our $18 trillion federal government is threatening our Constitutional Form of Government.

 The $7.5 trillion in debt added by Barack Obama and the progressives destroys the intended vertical balance between the States and the federal government.

The Congressional Budget Office states that our deficit (the amount our annual spending exceeds our annual revenue) adds to the $18 Trillion debt at $468 Billion annually now and will grow to add to our debt at the rate of 1 Trillion per year by 2025 heavily due to the Affordable Care and Patient Affordability Act (Obamacare).  Is it intentional?

The Constitution, and our Republic with it, is being shredded at an alarming rate.

What happened?-Why did it happen?-How we can fix it?

This book-blog will examine the causes and solutions. From the prologue through the chapters we will examine the need for a serious solution from the States of this union.

The following are questions that need to be answered by you, not the author.  Find out what has gone terribly wrong and then answer the questions.

Will an Article V Convention for Proposing Amendments to the Constitution be a solution?

Will the Citizens For Self Government project “Convention of States” be the solution?

© 2013 as Our Constitutional Republic is on Life Support, updated and modified for online use 2015

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The First Attempt Fails – The Key Destructive Changes to What Was Working

PROLOGUE
“We the People…” seems to be a forgotten concept these days in Washington, D.C.  We have moved far afield from the constitutional republic formed by replacing the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States.  A new and bold experiment in governance was born when this new nation began operating as a constitutional republic with vertical power sharing between, the states as a whole, and the federal government; and the horizontal power sharing among the branches of the federal government, as spelled out in the original Constitution.

There is a big difference between today’s United States of America and the eighteenth century start-up nation – a union of sovereign states coming together to create a federal framework with just enough power to allow the federal government to function in the combined interests of the states and not enough power to make the states weaker than the federal government. It is amazing just how different the new nation was from today’s version.

If you wish to know how we got where we are today, with some saying that we are circling the drain and others saying that we are becoming a progressive utopia, this is the story of how we arrived at today’s United States of America, starting with the Constitution of the United States signed by the delegates from the sovereign states of the colonies, except Rhode island.  It was not until June 21, 1788 that the required nine states ratified the document.  The federal government with afforded limited powers began operating on March 1, 1789.  A very key point to know and remember is at that time the states appointed the senators to insure that the states retained control over the federal government preventing the federal government from dictating to the states.  The federal government was far less powerful (subservient even) than the states taken as a whole.

With the use of the internet, state legislatures, and an Article V Convention for Proposing Amendments we can make things right once again. To contact your state’s legislators and push for a states’ petition for an Article V Convention go to the Library of Congress or view the National Conference Of State Legislators website to learn about state legislatures.  We must ask ‘Will the new founders step forward?”

The Story

Our first national compact between states was the Articles of Confederation ratified by the original colonial sovereign states in 1777. This document retained so much power for the States that the new central government was left with so little authority that it simply would not be the binding authority that could serve the best interests of the States and the people of the States. The States called a Convention and most all delegates were instructed by their respective legislatures to fix or if necessary to replace the Articles with another, better document. Popular thought is that the delegates participated in a runaway convention. The popular thought is very wrong. The articles had no mechanism for change, such as an amendment process and it need so much rewriting that starting from scratch was almost universally recognized as the only alternative.

They did just this and the Constitution of the United States emerged. Upon ratification by nine states the nation began operating in March 1789 as the United States of America. What was the difference between the two documents? The goal of the states had always been to provide for common defense among other basic common matters confronting each of the states, and to retain as much of their state sovereignty as possible.

As the Articles of Confederation proved highly inadequate in meeting the needs for common defense nor other common matters since it retained for each state so much state sovereignty, that union was essentially powerless. The Constitution of the United States was intended to retain state sovereignty while granting limited powers to the new central government for common defense and matters of a common nature. It did just this with the states holding the upper house of the new congress, the Senate, and the citizens holding the lower house of the new congress, the House of Representatives.

This structure was key to the states’ preserving their respective “ownership” and guidance of the new federal government. The document gave limited authority to the federal government under the limited powers section, known as Article I, Section 8.

The fear that a limited central government would morph out of control caused a number of states to balk at ratification, New York and Rhode Island principally among them, until they achieved the promise that a Bill of Rights would be developed. This was offered to further protect the states and the citizens of the states, as well as prevent the central government from that morphing.  Maybe it was not enough. The Bills Of Rights was finally fully ratified in December 1791- twelve had been offered, but only ten made it through ratification at that time. The structure of the new Constitution coupled with the Bill of Rights worked rather well until the late eighteenth century, and we will get to this, but first we need a review of just how important was this new Constitution.

This new and improved union of states gave birth to the free market with uninhibited true interstate commerce, and about as much individual freedom one could have without anarchy. Under the new compact, our nation grew steadily to greatness for over one hundred years. The nation had survived the War of Independence, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, miscellaneous other conflicts, and of course the Civil War. The Civil War was the one conflict that could have ended this bold governance experiment by burying it with abject failure. Yet the nation survived and continued to grow and prosper. The standard of living of the citizens – not subjects – continued to rise, despite setbacks from time to time.

The change with the most impact to this country’s grand and successful experiment was not a war, but a movement. The progressive movement started in this country circa 1896 and brought not immediate radical change like a civil war might, but rather steady dramatic change, culminating in four constitutional amendments, known as the Progressive Era Amendments, and probably a law that changed everything.

The sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth amendments were authored and passed by two-thirds of Congress and after state ratification (questionable for the seventeenth) became part of our constitution.  This seriously handed the federal government power unchecked by the States.  The two most egregious amendments were the sixteenth and seventeenth which removed the vertical power balance of the states.

In addition, the federal government passed the Federal Reserve Act which turned national monetary policy on its ear by establishing the Federal Reserve System; you know it as the Federal Reserve – printers of fiat money. The framers of the constitution never dreamed that a quasi-independent organization, not really answerable to Congress or the Executive Branch, and not authorized under the Constitution would be created to make the national standard of living and prosperity decisions for the people of this nation. All this came to fruition between 1913 and 1920.

As we get further into this book, we will see the further impact of these changes and numerous other popular, unpopular, constitutional, or unconstitutional, changes that would befall this republic, making it almost unrecognizable to the founders and the architects of the Constitution, primarily James Madison, and an early key driver for the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton.

In addition to these changes, there have been culture shifts brought about by progressive changes to education and the legal profession, including the judiciary. Our republic is still under attack from progressives today; actually they are in full assault and now control the main stream media (with the exception of maybe Fox News and talk radio), the courts, the education, and financial systems. The Affordable Care and Dodd Frank Acts of 2010 have substantially changed the Republic by giving the executive branch incredible authority to write thousands of regulations with the full weight of law an altering our economy.

At last count the 2,000 plus page Affordable Care Act has enough regulation added to it to stand over seven feet tall on letter size paper. These two bills have achieved a key objective of the progressives by making the executive branch more powerful than congress and the Supreme Court.  Starting January 2015 the Environmental Protection Administration released 28,000 pages of new regulations heavily targeting coal and energy.

Today’s federal government with progressive bureaucrats wielding unconscionable unchecked executive branch power at the direction of the president has now moved this republic from a balance of power democratic republic to a four-year authoritarian, sovereign based power structure. Checks and balances are essentially gone.

In the following chapters we will see how this was accomplished and what we need to do to return this nation to the republic’s check and balances governance experiment. It is critical that the changes applied to this nation in the last one hundred years by the progressives or anti “We the People…” advocates be reversed or the experiment is over. Individual freedom, however, is over – somehow we have become subjects and are no longer the citizens in charge. A free market economy is over. A rising standard of living is over. The Bill of Rights is under assault. All this while power settles in the hands of a few, with the government having power over humanity.

The goal of these progressives is to achieve a statist society – Statism.

Merriam Webster defines statism as a “concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry”

This is just the opposite of what our constitution calls for and it was the absolute fear of the founders. They made every effort in the Constitution to prevent a highly centralized government. They knew that statism means the loss of individual freedom. Now for the specifics of why our country’s governance does not reflect what was originally practiced and intended.  Ask yourself this question: “Will the sitting Congress correct this after 118 years or do the states need to step up?”

I: What Has Happened to My Country

Due to a steady bombardment of the tenets of the Constitution, judicial principles, and education in America over the last hundred plus years by progressive socialists, we are on the precipice of losing the greatest form of governance ever created.  Governance built on man’s rights emanating from the almighty, supporting free markets, and the opportunity for anyone to succeed.  Our country has been divided and forces from the White House down continue to spread class derision so they can further split and then break this country.

In the late eighteenth century, a republic, made up of three equal federal branches and independent sovereign states was formed by what had to be divinely guided men.  These sovereign states, if taken as a whole, were eminently equal to if not superior to the federal branches, and this new federal government was clearly understood to exist for the purpose of serving the union of states and the people.

This totally new form of government was delicately built to be horizontal and vertical.  The vertical was the balance between the central government and the states, while the horizontal was the balance brought about by the separation of powers of three distinct branches, resulting in the well-known “checks and balances”.  The Constitution for the United States of America, when it was written, may have been a gift from the almighty, for without divine guidance – not my sentiments alone as these sentiments were shared by George Washington and other founders – man could not have created such an incredibly noble and profound document for humanity.

This was a document based on the supremacy of humanity over government.

In an effort to insure that government is always subservient to the people, the founders built in controls to limit a federal government to only meeting the minimum needs of the states and the people as a collective of sovereign nations.  Some of the founders believed that the new constitution would ward off government intrusion into man’s freedom as it stood. James Madison, the architect of the constitution, did not believe that a “bill of rights” was needed, because he felt the document to be strong enough to keep the federal government under control by the states and the people.  He wrote in Federalist # 51– The Federalist Papers:

“Hence, a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”

Yet, other influential founders and the people of several states and state legislatures in the whole demanded even more protection from a central government, thus the Bill of Rights, and especially the ninth and tenth amendments in the Bill of Rights;
Tenth amendment:

“The powers not delegated to the United States [the Congress and thus the federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

Unfortunately, that original federal government, functioning at the behest of member sovereign states, is no more.  Remember, the states created the federal government to make the union of the states stronger, but not to degrade the collective power of the states.  Today, the federal government is an overarching colossus, supremely powerful, threatening to make the states irrelevant and to seize control of our individual liberty.

What happened?  Has there been a coup d’état; a civil war; or a forced overthrow of the Republic?  No, we just allowed the constitution, the judiciary, and the education system to be hijacked.

II: Radical Change Is Taking Place

Our populace is suffering malnutrition of civics, thanks to the warping of education by the progressives, along with an attitude of “What can the government give me?” We are in search of the free lunch. Even though we were told by Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and holder of the National Medal of Science for Behavioral and Social Science, that “there is no free lunch” and everything has a cost. We are becoming a nation of tax takers and not tax payers. Today the attitude is let the other guy pay and take care of it or let the government take care of me.

Whatever happened to the President John F. Kennedy once famous quote?

“…ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”

Considering what we expect from our government today, we now have nearly half our people who do not pay income tax – 47%. The Congressional Budget Office reports as of March 2013: a record 45 million Americans (one out of every seven people) are now receiving assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a 70 percent increase in participation since 2007. The federal government’s poverty guidelines are suspect. It appears that the federal government has created poverty guidelines that are wholly unrealistic, most likely for the expansion of the federal government. A few years ago “The Heritage Foundation” did a study of poverty in the United States and looked at the life style of our “poor”.

“Air Conditioning, Cable TV, and an Xbox: What is Poverty in the United States Today?”
By Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield; July 19, 2011

“…According to the government’s own survey data, in 2005, the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment equipped with air conditioning and cable TV. The family had a car (a third of the poor have two or more cars). For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children in the home (especially boys), the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a microwave, refrigerator, and an oven and stove. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.

The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. (Note: that’s average European, not poor European.) The poor family was able to obtain medical care when needed. When asked, most poor families stated they had had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs…;

…By its own report, the family was not hungry. The average intake of protein, vitamins, and minerals by poor children is indistinguishable from children in the upper middle class, and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Poor boys today at ages 18 and 19 are actually taller and heavier than middle-class boys of similar age in the late 1950s, and are a full one inch taller and 10 pounds heavier than American soldiers who fought in World War II. The major dietary problem facing poor Americans is eating too much, not too little; the majority of poor adults, like most Americans, are overweight….”

We have allowed the devilishly sinister forces of formerly covert progressive socialists, promising unending care from the federal government to not so stealthily separate us from the finest form of government ever. These forces have many faces.
Today’s unions are pushing for socialism and universal health care (can you say SEIU) – in many cases their pension funds are seriously underfunded and will need government dollars to correct the problem.  In other cases where they provide health care to pensioners, the costs and promises simply cannot be maintained. They look to socialism and the government to solve this problem with your money. Believe it or not, Wall Street is on board thanks to the Fed’s tinkering with the money supply and interest rates. The ultra-big banks and investment firms have been solidly behind the forces of progressive socialism and statism. You might ask why.

Well, in socialist economies, the government picks and chooses the winners and losers, and the relationship between the ultra large financial firms and the government becomes symbiotic. These firms are the mechanism of the government’s financial control of the population, thus it has a tool to succeed with control. Other large corporations see universal health care as a means of dumping extraordinarily high health benefit costs on the government and of course you will now pick up that tab.

What makes this separation of us from our former form of government even more disturbing? It is that these progressives are not moving us to a new, better form of governance. Instead they are moving us to a form of governance, socialism based statism, which has repeatedly failed its people wherever it has been tried.

Socialism / communism /statism, or whatever “ism” you wish to call it, is never for the people, never of the people, and certainly never by the people. It is of, for, and by a ruling class – the rich do get richer and the poor do get poorer. In this case, the movement is powered by a small group of very rich, possibly godless people who simply seek the power derived from being the ruling class. These forces fund the soldiers of the movement, from unions to even the American Communist Party. The obvious players in the forefront of this movement include Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reed. Additionally, there are forces outside of and beyond those in the forefront. These include members of Congress including members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – more than 50, money power brokers, and well-meaning misguided moneyed folks such as those in Hollywood. Yes, the list even includes some of the Republican Party. These people represent the forces that have used money and power, through media bias, to fill, not only the presidency, but when the democrats have control of a house of congress just about every congressional committee chair is a progressive socialist.

Our once well balanced republican form of government has suffered radical change both without the requisite constitutional amendments, and with the requisite amendments. At the beginning, we did have a central or federal government with three branches and limited powers. We did have checks and balances. We did have the union of states as the ultimate power.

Taking stock of where we are today, radical change is an understatement! Our government today does not remotely resemble what was created in the eighteenth century. Some say we evolved; these espousing evolution are mostly elitist progressives. We have been push, mislead, and coerced.

Why should the Constitution need to evolve, beyond the amendment process? Doesn’t the amendment process, used by the progressives, already provide the evolution process? Under what authority do we evolve if it is not by the rule of law? Any change to the highest legal document in the nation is by amendment and not by evolution. If we have evolved, then we will amend the document. This was done in the early twentieth century with four amendments of the statists clearing the way to move us toward a larger centralized federal government and less individual freedom. Yet we did it the prescribed way. The basic tenets of individual liberty, with God given rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights; and a States created limited central government, remain as powerful today as it was when the Constitution was ratified. We simply started the slide away from these tenets.

If you doubt the almighty gave us these rights statement – you may want to check out that pesky Declaration of Independence. If you are more of a pragmatist and still doubt then consider that if people created the government, then government could not possibly give the people “rights”. If the people created the government, then they exercised their natural God given right to do so. It is logical to consider that if people created government, than these people would have retained their freedom rights to themselves. Further, if you believe that government gives you your rights, you must then understand that government can then take those rights away or decide which people get which rights. In this scenario, who then decides what rights you are permitted to hold; another man or woman working in the government?

Despite these strong continuing tenets of the Constitution, the forces of progressive socialism have managed to steal our government, by emphasizing that the Constitution no longer applies and is outdated. Have you noticed that our President, Mr. Obama, each time he quotes a passage from the Declaration of Independence leaves out three key words – “…by their creator…?”

President Obama regularly misquotes from the Declaration as follows: “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed [by their creator] with certain unalienable Rights…” Where does he believe our rights come from? By misquoting the Declaration, he intentionally misleads the listener – he simply will not admit that our rights come from God or are retained by the individual. The idea of statism does not work if people have rights.

We have been and continue to be told that our Constitution is outdated and that we must interpret it to modern times. A number of Supreme Court justices past and present truly believed and believe that precedent of international law or, simply put, laws of other nations should be considered as precedent for adjudicating our legal matters, including Supreme Court decisions.  Jutice Ginsberg has espoused this international law methodology.  Imagine using laws passed by another nation and not by the elected representatives of the people, our Congress, as precedent for our judicial decisions – bypassing the Constitution. Yet, this is happening now. Justice Ginsburg is only one example of those who have been vocal on this matter.

We are told this by the progressives who need to rid us of this pesky statement of our rights and the charter of limited government. Yet the founders gave us a method to keep the Constitution current, but by serious due process. We cannot change it on the whim of a movement or a simple majority of Congress. Any change is too serious to leave to a few with an agenda.

Since the Bill of Rights containing ten amendments was ratified in 1791, we have amended our Constitution seventeen times with one being overturned by a following amendment. The eighteenth amendment, prohibition, was overturned by the twenty-first amendment. The eighteenth is commonly referred to as being repealed. Yet the passage of this amendment was perpetuated by progressives bent on having the federal government telling its citizens whether they could drink alcohol. It passed because the media of the day, and the progressives in office achieved a victory by persuasion of the people and the states. The progressives are still using the media to change minds and culture.

III: Why the Electoral College

One important, unusual, and often challenged pillar of our republic is the system of presidential electors, commonly called the Electoral College. Today, too large a body of our population is unaware how its government is supposed to function. An example is the Electoral System. The “electoral college” is simply a key function of a republic and not a national centralized government with full democratic elections. This is because the union of states created a federal, but not national, government with a republican form of governance wherein they reserved the choice of chief executive to the populace on a state by state basis.

In this form, the voters of each state select their presidential electors. The power of the states was and is maintained where each state has say to the extent that its population affords them the equivalent number of electors to the total of congressman and senators from that state. These electors on behalf of the voters of the individual states cast their ballots for president. This is one way the republic works to prevent the smaller states from being overrun by the larger states. It manages the situation where multiple candidates are running and no majority of the popular vote is achieved for any one candidate. It also insures representation equality to each member state, on a sovereign state level, for the selection of the president.

What would happen if we elected the president based solely on the national popular vote? Many progressives are pushing for this change and want to eliminate the Electoral College. Incredulously, at either the behest of or consent of their constituents, some progressive ideology controlled state legislatures have been contemplating or passed legislation to require the electors of the electoral college from their state to vote for the President of the United States solely based on the national popular vote, thus negating a key purpose of the electoral college.

If a state voted 60% for candidate “A”, but the national popular vote was 51% for candidate “B”, then the electors would be bound to ignore their state’s voters and vote for candidate “B”. This is just another attempt to place states and the people of these states into a second tier status with the federal government and to further destroy the Constitution’s delicate vertical balance between the central government and the states.

For more detail on the “Electoral College” visit the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration website –

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html.

Remember, we were founded as a federal republic and not a national government. This was done to insure a union of or confederation of states, rather than to make a national government. We have local representatives in Congress, we had our state governments represented in the Senate until we frittered that away with the seventeenth amendment (more on this later), we combine our representation in Congress with the authority of individual states to amend our Constitution, and we as states, not a national government, elect a president. Our states’ electors are supposed to elect a president under the guidance of the will of the citizens of their respective states, and not the will of citizens of other states. Our states, no matter how small, have a say. In The Federalist, popularly known as “The Federalist Papers” – in Federalist 39, James Madison, the principal architect of our Constitution, wrote

“…if the government be national with regard to the operation of its powers, it changes its aspect again when we contemplate it in relation to the extent of its powers. The idea of a national government involves in it not only an authority over individual citizens, but an indefinite supremacy over all persons and things, so far as they are objects of lawful government.”

In a federal republic an electoral college serves a real purpose. Here is a case where those who wish to disband the college having insufficient knowledge of how their government was established and why it was established the way it was. Or they are progressives who wish to utilize the large progressive populations in a few east and west coast states to govern as progressives do – we become subjects and they believe they are the elite learned few who know better allowing little or no individual freedom.

Civics is an outdated subject in our schools because progressive have infiltrated our entire education process, thus our citizenry has been persuaded to give up a key tenet of our republic found in our Constitution, presidential Electors. This is one more instance where we simply want to abandon another tenet of the finest free market and individual liberty governance in the history of mankind.

The use of the presidential Elector system has resulted in a candidate getting either the majority of votes or the plurality of votes and not becoming president. This is not bad. By requiring the presidential winner to gain the affirmation of the Electors, we preserve the role of the states and the people of the individual states in this federal republic. From time to time key states formerly safe for one party switch due to economic or cultural changes.

IV: Progressive Socialism Influence

Over time, mostly starting at the turn of the nineteenth century, a movement called progressivism took a foothold in the United States. What is a progressive and what do they stand for? Well, they are a diverse group with differing goals and they stand for somewhat differing ideals. Yet, they all have one thing in common. They truly believe that the masses are ignorant and that only they know how you should live and generally sustain. If they weren’t so driven and so ideological about what they believe; they would simply be obnoxious. They believe that they and only they can govern, manage the economy, and use central planning to force you into the mold they are creating for you. They also believe that the end game justifies any means of obtaining what they seek. Thus, there are no rules to be broken. If they must smear and libel to achieve a milestone, then so be it. They will publish, do, or say anything to move the masses in their desired direction.

Who are today’s socialists and just what is the movement about? The movement is socialism, an economic form of government that has failed repeatedly everywhere it has been tried. These socialists just use the name progressives, because socialism has earned such a poor reputation over time. It just does not work.  When pushed with facts they resort to calling the challenger a racist.

Many, but certainly not all of today’s prominent socialists can be found in Congress in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Members of this Caucus are numerous and powerful.

Progressives saw and continue to see our Constitution as a very serious impediment to their efforts. They knew and continue to know that this nearly perfect guide for governance is a fortress against sudden change, thus a direct assault could not be achieved. Rather, an indirect long term approach was needed. First, they had to infiltrate higher education because this is where our future teachers come from. Once you influence our teachers, you can change history to shape goals – chalk up this infiltration as complete, and history has been changed, allowed to be forgotten, or minimized. Next you need to steer student opinion. An example of this influence is the documented attempt to teach that “Republicans hate Latinos” in the Tucson Unified School District, in Arizona.

Progressives use higher education to influence our journalists. Once you have journalists influenced, you can manage the news and its messages. This progressive coup has been done silently, with the aid of the media – true journalists are no more. Today’s journalists have been taught to use journalism for social change and social justice. A stated goal of journalists is to improve the human condition (check out the International Center for Journalists Board of Directors) and to free humanity by the Independent Media Center; not simply to report fact and let you decide. Improving the human condition means the journalist often has a built in conflict between the facts and their personal view of the human condition.

Thus you cannot trust what is printed or broadcast. So, when a radical change in your form of government occurs, you are not told because the journalists agree with the radical change and the journalists believe it aids the human condition.

They use higher education to influence new young lawyers about the law and the Constitution, in that it is irrelevant and outdated, and once you have co-opted our attorneys you now can infiltrate the courts and the judiciary over time. The law is simply the minor leagues for the judiciary.

Progressive and influential law schools instituted “precedent” as the key means of changing law, including the highest law in the land, the Constitution. Even the Supreme Court recognizes Constitutional precedent, known as “Stare Decisis”. This is Latin which means to let stand what was decided, thus a bad decision of the Supreme Court or a decision by progressive Jurists on the Court intended to change or weaken the Constitution, is not reversed, but rather perpetuated and built upon. Yes, some previous rulings have not been overturned but instead nudged aside. Rarely, if ever, has the Supreme Court clearly struck down a prior decision. Rather the court has nimbly found holes in or instances where previous Court decisions allowed further interpretation.

There are countless cases of progressive members of the Court blatantly ignoring the Constitution and inserting their secular, religious, or ideological view on how the world should be as their legal opinion. Whether you agree with Roe v. Wade, read the majority opinion. It is an incredibly circuitous and a most frail link to constitutional law that is possible, yet it is now the law of the land, and it usurped the power of the states in an egregious way. The opinion, as written, and not necessarily the decision, could have been played out on Oprah or opened on Broadway as a play – it was not an opinion based in law, but rather one that was based in very questionable equity. Drip by drip – progressive Jurists have been illegally changing the Constitution.

V: Myth of the “General Welfare” Clause

Our federal government was formed by sovereign states who jointly agreed to cede only eighteen of their individual powers to create a federal union of the states. This is found in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution – it is not 2,000 pages, so you can read or re-read it tonight. The Constitution is a surprisingly interesting read.

I particularly point out a phrase in the eighteenth power of Article I, Section 8 as it applied and continues to apply to the federal government,

“…To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing Powers…”

The key here are the words; “…foregoing Powers…”

These words mean that all federal laws must be limited to the eighteen powers. Every law must be integral to and support, substantiate, initiate, or enforce one of the eighteen enumerated powers, and currently a few subsequent amendments that have added to the powers. Any federal law must provide for the general welfare within the confines of the enumerated powers. The words “necessary and proper” are not a blanket authority to legislate just about anything Congress desires.

A fallacy perpetuated by the corrupt media, knowingly progressive socialist purveyors of misinformation, or by those poorly versed on the Constitution who just continue to spew the “general welfare clause” grants Congress the power to do just about anything it wishes. They tell you, and many in Congress truly believe that the federal government can do pretty much what it wants to do because it is charged with providing for the general welfare of the nation.

“General welfare” is mentioned in two places in the Constitution; the Preamble and in Article I, Section 8 – the section that deals with enumerated powers granted to Congress. The preamble to the Constitution

“We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…promote the general welfare…do ordain and establish this constitution of the United States of America.”

This is a statement on the purpose of the Constitution. It states the reasons why the people were creating the Constitution and one reason was to promote the general welfare of the union. The preamble provided a general description of what the role of the union would be under the Constitution. The preamble does not provide for the powers of Congress as many nefarious progressives, ill-informed elitists, and corrupt media would have you believe.

“General welfare” again appears in the “powers granted to Congress section”; Article I, Section 8. In the first power of this section, the Constitution does permit the Congress to provide for the general welfare, but in the eighteenth enumerated power of this section the Congress is limited to providing for the general welfare and all of its other responsibilities, to laws that comply with the eighteen enumerated powers, and subsequently additional powers provided by certain amendments to the constitution.

VI: Necessary and Proper

The last paragraph of Article I, Section 8 supports the position that the federal government’s authority ends at the limit of the enumerated powers, and any other specifically authorized power expressed in the Constitution.  The words necessary and proper are also found in the list of enumerated powers again in Article I, Section 8.  They are in the eighteenth power or clause. These too have been misinterpreted and looked to by those who feel that the federal government can be whatever it chooses to be, and as big as it wants to be.  The eighteenth clause has been called the elastic clause, because it has been stretched to meet just about any direction the federal government moves.

Well, anyone bringing the “Necessary and Proper” clause to a neighborhood near you should also bring along some additional words – FOREGOING POWERS. We looked at foregoing powers in the “Myths of the ‘General Welfare’ Clause”.  Progressives and big central government types have tried to use this “Necessary and Proper” clause over time to eliminate the states’ status in this Republic by conveniently quoting only a portion of the clause in support of their initiatives.

We should call this “foregoing powers” phrase the Rodney Dangerfield phrase, because it just does not get any respect.

Alexander Hamilton, a strong proponent of a powerful and vast federal government, was not only a Federalist, but also the founder of the Federalist Party (the big government party). Mr. Hamilton wrote heavily on the “necessary and proper” clause in The Federalist Papers. His defense of the insertion of the clause into the enumerated powers was based on protection of the federal government from the states trying to erode the federal government’s power.  Yet his defense points to the specific powers found in Section 1, and not a broad ability to pass any law it pleases. In Federalist 31 he writes:

“And it is expressly to execute these powers that the sweeping clause, as it has been affectionately called, authorizes the national legislature to pass all necessary and proper laws. If there be anything exceptionable, it must be sought for in the specific powers upon which this general declaration is predicated.”

James Madison also wrote extensively in The Federalist Papers on the reasons why necessary and proper were inserted.  His point was that to enable the federal government to meet its obligation of providing for the enumerated powers, laws would have to be passed. This is similar to what Hamilton was saying. The federal government had to pass laws that were necessary and proper to deliver on the enumerated powers – the foregoing powers. Nowhere can founder’s support be found stating the that necessary and proper laws meant that the federal government could pass whatever it wishes; that it could depart from its limited charge of delivering on the enumerated powers.

VII: That Pesky Supremacy Clause

A popular misconception among people and again knowingly promulgated by the progressives is that federal law is supreme to state law. We hear uninformed people, pundits, politicians, and journalists misuse the “Supremacy Clause” regularly, often to the point of intentionally, egregiously perpetuating a falsehood.

Article VI of the Constitution states

“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; …shall be the supreme Law of the Land…”

Yes, if the laws are within the outlined enumerated powers found in Article I Section 8, “Pursuance thereof”, in the constitution’s subsequent amendments, and do not violate the Bill of Rights, which include the ninth amendment – powers of the people and the tenth amendment – powers of the states, federal law is then and only then supreme. In order for a federal law to be supreme, Congress must play by the rules.  Failure to play by the rules means that Congress’ law is subject to overturn by the courts or nullification by the states. There is more on nullification later.  A Convention of States Article V could do wonders here.  In fact, the executive branch could refuse to enforce such a law as well.

Simply put, if a federal law is not made within the confines of the eighteen powers or subsequent amendments, the federal government is not empowered to make that law.  I might have to say this again in a different way for those very stubborn central government types.  A federal law not empowered by the Constitution – Article I, Section 8, or one that is in violation of the Bill of Rights or not empowered by subsequent amendments, cannot be and is not supreme to state law or any law, because it has no legitimacy of force under the Constitution.

[The ninth amendment] “The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

[The tenth amendment] “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This creation of a central government uniting sovereign states for self-protection and to improve the free market capability of each state was accomplished with a very delicate, almost perfect balance between states’ sovereignty and a union of the states. The union made the states stronger as a whole and the very limited powers granted the federal government, allowed the states and the citizens of these states to continue to be different, independent, and to seek life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as they saw fit.

The states intended the federal government to be powerful outwardly but not supremely powerful inwardly.  As a union, the states needed to be strong internationally and strong defensively, but the states and the people of the states were highly resistant to and fearful of losing their sovereignty, thus controls over the federal government were placed into the Constitution. The states even built in international and domestic protection for themselves by giving their representatives in Congress, the Senators, advice and, most importantly, consent on federal judicial appointees, executive branch appointees, and treaties.

Until the unfortunate seventeenth amendment, Senators were appointed by their respective state legislatures and truly represented the states at the federal government table.

The “Supremacy Clause”, “Necessary and Proper”, and “General Welfare” are all related and intended to give the federal government the ability to execute what the states had charged the federal government with in the enumerated powers and other specific powers that may appear in the Constitution, and nothing more. These are not wild cards provided to the national legislature.

VIII: Commerce Clause Abused to grow the Federal Government

Federalist 42 found in “The Federalist Papers” is an essay written by James Madison, the principal architect of the Constitution and its “Commerce Clause”, wherein he defines the intent and purpose of the clause. Despite a clear and exacting definition of the clause from Mr. Madison, progressive jurists have provided a wholly different meaning – a meaning that unconstitutionally radically empowers the central government. This new, clearly erroneous, definition has allowed for the usurping of the delicate vertical balance between the states and the federal government, now making the states subordinate. Didn’t the states create the federal government to make the union of states stronger? Didn’t they make every effort to make the union of states stronger, not a strong federal government? They would not have created the federal government if they wanted to be subservient, and almost irrelevant, as they are today. How and why did we let this happen?

The Supreme Court of the United States has done, over time, a grave injustice to the framers and the citizens of this country; and to that delicate balance by misrepresenting, either intentionally or unintentionally, just what the “Commerce Clause” means. The founders and especially James Madison were abundantly clear on what it meant and why the “Commerce Clause” existed as one of the eighteen enumerated powers granted to the federal government. Writings of James Madison actually define the Commerce Clause, thus there can be and should be no confusion on what the Commerce Clause means.

Under the predecessor to the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, states were charging heavy import and export duties on sister states for goods transported from and through respective states. This was causing enormous disunity between poor and rich states; indebted and un-indebted states. Unregulated commerce was threatening to break apart this fragile new union of States and the founders knew this.

When “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;” was written into the Constitution, the clear intent and reason for it was to simply insure that one state took no advantage over another state in transportation of goods and to insure a common treatment of foreign Nations and Indian Tribes.

James Madison talks to the classes of the enumerated powers – commerce between states being in the third class. (The Federalist Papers – Federalist 42). In 42 we find:

“The powers included in the third class are those which provide for the harmony and proper intercourse among the states.”

“…I (Madison) shall confine myself to a cursory review of the remaining powers comprehended under this third description, to wit: to regulate commerce among the several States…
A very material object of this power was the relief of the States which import and export through other States from the improper contribution levied on them by the latter.
…The restraint on the power of the States over imports and exports is enforced by all the arguments which prove the necessity of submitting the regulation of trade to the federal councils. It is needless, therefore, to remark further on this head, than that the manner in which the restraint is qualified seems well calculated at once to secure to the States a reasonable discretion in providing for the conveniency of their imports and exports, and to the United States a reasonable check against the abuse of this discretion…”

The enumerated “Commerce Clause” as it pertains to States was simply intended to insure that no one state took advantage of another. This Clause had nothing to do with the federal government deciding that it could derive almost unlimited and unchecked power from an incredulous series of “out of nowhere” interpretations of the “Commerce Clause” by prior members of Supreme Court. The founders and the states did not intend the federal government to control all goods and services in this country – why would they?

Further, it was abundantly clear about the intention of the states and the people to give the federal government as little power as possible to meet the needs of the union. The Supreme Court in prior decisions has, without due process (the amendment process), radically and unconstitutionally changed the fabric of that delicate balance between enough central governance to keep the union strong and the necessary autonomy and desire of the states to manage their own affairs – as was agreed to in the original compact, and it has put the citizens and the future of this nation at risk in the process. To put it simply: the Court has allowed and assisted the federal government to be in breach of contract with the union of states far too long.

Prior Justices who gave unusual, broad reaching, and extended power to the federal government by ignoring the clear and well defined meaning of the “Commerce Clause” again changed the highest law in the land – the Constitution – without use of the amendment process. They committed the ultimate wrong of a jurist – they made law, by altering the highest law in the land, the Constitution.

IX: “Judicial Review” Makes Supreme Court More Supreme

In 1803, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall, a staunch Federalist favoring a strong central (federal) government, wrote the majority, five to nothing, decision opinion in the case of Marbury v. Madison. The nature of the case was not as important as Chief Justice Marshall’s previous position as Secretary of State under President John Adams. Both were Federalists. After losing the election of 1800 to Thomas Jefferson, Adams nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court as Chief Justice on January 20, 1801 – two months before his term expired; subsequently he received the consent of the Federalist controlled Senate and was sworn in.

After being sworn in as President, Jefferson appointed James Madison (Marbury v. Madison) as Secretary of State. Again, the case itself is of little importance except that it allowed Marshall to include in the majority opinion, “Judicial Review”. This was the opinion that even though the Constitution did not provide specifically for the Supreme Court to declare an act of Congress or actions of the Executive Branch unconstitutional, that if a law or action was contrary to or not empowered by the Constitution, it could be declared unconstitutional.

Neither the Executive Branch nor the Congress did anything about this power grab, which effectively made the judiciary superior to the other branches, because it now had the last word. What exacerbated this decision was that it extended to the States. Acts of state legislatures could also be struck down as being unconstitutional, making the Supreme Court and inferior courts, a branch of the federal government, superior to the States, individually or as a union. Some would say that this was not a power grab, but it did elevate the Supreme Court as superior to the other two branches and the states under the theory of checks and balances.

If we accommodate a Supreme Court of five jurists at that time, and now nine jurists from 1869, making decisions of constitutionality, at least we have a panel of jurists with varying opinions voting. What is unconscionable is that judges of inferior courts, individuals, now routinely declare acts of entire legislatures and constitutional referendums, whether it be from the States or Congress and even of the citizens of States, as unconstitutional – one person can do this?

Just a few years or so ago a federal judge declared that the military must eliminate its “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and thus was attempting to force the military to change to an openly gay policy.  Whether you like the policy or not, should one unelected jurist be allowed to possibly have a detrimental effect or any effect at all, on our armed forces and our national defense structure? Should one jurist decide how our military is structured?

Subsequently the Department of Defense eliminated “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and has opened the armed forces up to both straights and homosexuals.  The Supreme Court refused to hear the case and the Obama Administration has complied with the lower court ruling, or as the Constitution refers to the lower courts as the inferior courts.

Back to John Marshall’s opinion: the real root importance of the Marbury v. Madison case was an attempt by Marshall, a staunch Federalist, to stick it to Thomas Jefferson, his political enemy. Yet, now we have given progressively trained, individual jurists supreme power over the States, Congress, and the Executive Branch – this incredulous situation was never intended by the founders. The separation of powers among the three branches of the federal government and the equality of the branches started to unravel as early as 1803.

Could it not be said that the states have the right to declare a federal action unconstitutional?  Can they nullify a law, regulation, order, memorandum, or judicial decision as being unconstitutional?

This decision, “Judicial Review”, made the Supreme Court unequal and superior to the other branches. No longer did a check on the authority or decisions of the Court exist. Congress and the Executive Branch were now junior partners. The Court was now able to remake our Constitution, write law, and at times enforce the law. The tearing apart of our Constitution had begun.

For more on this go to FindLaw to learn about the history of judicial review. For more on the history of Marbury v. Madison go to “John Marshall’s Judicial Mind”.

Also try “The Judicial Mind of John Marshall: Nationalism“

X: Congress Abdicates Its Lawmaking Power – balance of power shredded again

In 1913, the progressive socialists destroyed the vertical checks and balance between the States and the federal government, with the seventeenth amendment. Just as in 1913 with the action against the States, today, a critical milestone on the path to a socialist government and economy for the progressives was to destroy the horizontal checks and balance and the separation of powers among the branches of the federal government. This has clearly picked up pace in the last six years, with the progressive socialists, until four years ago chairing just about every committee in the House of Representatives and starting in 2015 with the Republicans chairing committees in the Senate. With the extreme progressive socialist leadership of Nancy Pelosi in the House and Harry Reed in the Senate, the progressives enabled the passage of two major bills with no one given time to read the bills – yet like lemmings fellow progressives and liberals voted for; a health care bill; and a financial regulation bill. Neither bill was truly about health care or financial regulation. These bills were all about progressives taking over the economy and collapsing the separation of powers in the federal government.

The delegation of Congress’ power is not new as it has been going on for thirty years, but it was now put into overdrive. These bills, combined, created numerous new federal agencies and thousands of rules to be written by executive branch and independent agency bureaucrats appointed by the Executive Branch – not by Congress. Bureaucrat written rules will now carry the force of law. These new and existing executive branch and independent agencies are empowered to write unchecked regulations – they have been empowered to write a massive amount of invasive law. Essentially the progressives in Congress just transferred, by law, their Constitutional legislative authority to the Executive Branch and to independent agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, also known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The Executive Branch and independent agencies now have the capability of writing law unchecked by your elected representatives and to selectively enforce existing law to control the future of this nation.

The horizontal balance brought about by the separation of powers and the checks and balances among the branches of the federal government are gone. The vertical check on the federal government by the States is gone. The executive branch and the CFPB are now able to control all aspects of our financial transactions, capital markets, and our health. They grew more powerful in 2012 as they wrote more new law – it continues today.  Check out the CFPB regulations site: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/regulations/

The President and his appointee at the CFPB can now actually penalize one or more businesses or industries and even seize companies it considers a threat to our economy, without due process. Where is the freedom from seizure found in the Bill of Rights?

As the new central government grows, our individual liberty will continue to shrivel until it is gone.

The progressives will now pick up the pace on their march to move us to failed socialism for the sake of power and world wealth redistribution. The executive branch can and will engineer events that will continue to move our economy to total collapse and thus with a groundswell of despair from suffering citizens, the public will readily accept a near totalitarian government’s help and an abandonment of what remains of the Constitution.

This will be the end game of the progressives and it is around the corner. History repeats itself and if you look at how totalitarian government comes into power, you will find that it is by promising suffering citizens a bright future – “if you will just follow us”. First, however, the progressives need to create the suffering and this is well underway. Our economy is at a crossroads – continue the Obama and friends progressive socialist prescription, and they will have achieved this goal of extreme suffering. Shall we rename this once great nation “The National Socialists of America” or “The EBCG of America” – “The Executive Branch Central Government of America”?

XI: Amendments From Hell

As part of that delicate vertical balance between the states and the federal government, the states were able to retain control over the federal government by sending their representatives to their United States Senate – senators. The founders set up this vertical balance between the states and the federal government to include the Senate as the House of Congress that directly and solely represented the interests of the states. Senators were sent to Congress by the states’ legislatures as representatives of the states’ interests, and not as representatives of the people, with the state’s legislatures directly representing the people of their state. Thus the states as a collective union had the ability to control the central government and keep it from overreaching.

The founders gave the Senate special tools to control the central government in Article I, Section 3, and Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. In Article I, the Senate was given the sole authority to try and judge in cases of impeachment. In Article II, the Senate is given advice and consent (consent being the operative word) to limit the actions of the President and the Executive Branch. Approval of two-thirds of the Senate was needed to make treaties. In addition, the Senate was and is needed to provide advice and consent for the appointment of ambassadors, public ministers, Judges of the Supreme and inferior federal courts, and all officers of the United States. These include Generals of the military, cabinet members, and key aids to the President. That is unless the President finds ways to appoint czars who provide guidance and have no executive authority, other than very persuasive authority.

The progressives, using Randolph Hurst’s national media empire, whipped up populism and created a ground swell for the seventeenth amendment and the direct election of senators by the people. This served to remove the states’ control over the decisions of the Senate. The States’ actually considered petitioning for a convention for proposing amendments, under Article V, to grant the direct election of Senators to the voters. States actually were willing to give up the corner stone of the vertical check and balance that existed. The Congress, fearing that this convention would escalate into something more, hastily passed the seventeenth for ratification, to avoid the convention. Just how much popular opinion had been whipped up by the Hearst Newspapers – how much of a stampede of voters had the progressives created – just how powerful were these progressives in the very early twentieth century?

After the seventeenth, the Senate was now perfectly set up to be complicit in the shift of power from the States to the Congress and the Executive Branch – the Federal Government. The Senate was now the second people’s house in the national government, along with the House of Representatives – the limited States’ controlled federal republic should have been pronounced dead upon ratification; long live the national democratic central government.

The sixteenth amendment allowed the federal government to tax incomes of the citizens of the various states progressively and then to use tax money as it saw fit. This allowed for the manhandling of those resistant states. The federal government was now taking money from all states and then was sending money back disproportionately to compliant states and withholding money from non-complaint states. By force of collecting dollars from and withholding dollars from non-compliant states, coupled with the new powers of the central government from a compliant senate, mostly due to the seventeenth amendment, the agenda of the progressive socialists to destroy the vertical balance between the states and the federal government was now complete.

While the seventeenth radically altered the balance between the union of states and the federal government, the sixteenth amendment gave the federal government a club to bludgeon any state that did not fall into line. A typical scenario will have the federal government passing a social give-a-way to enhance its progressive status with citizens and requiring states to partially fund the give-a-way. Compliant states receive more federal money, taken from that state via the federal income tax, to off-set the cost, while less compliant states are hung out to dry.

From the time of ratification by the very states it would disarm, the sixteenth has reined in states’ rights and has been the enforcement tool to destroy that delicate balance between the states and the central government – it kicked off the progressive era, thus the tax is aptly called the progressive income tax.

In 1913, the progressives had two key victories, in the name of what was good for the people – the sixteenth and seventh amendments. This was the start of the 100 year process to change our economic structure from free market to socialism, to move us to unlimited central government governance, and to distribute our growing wealth to the rest of the world.

Was the sixteenth amendment required for the federal government to pass income tax legislation? Apparently so.

During the civil war we had an income tax, and it was progressive, wherein the rich were taxed at a hire rate than the poor on their income. The claim of Congress at the time was that we needed funds to pay for the Civil War. Even back then there were charges that the progressive income tax was not about the war; but that it was about redistribution of wealth. Clearing the path for the tax was the financial situation of the nation. It was dire due to; are you ready for this – a severe recession caused by Wall Street which created a panic and runs on our banking system. Even the New York Times back then was against this tax. Despite the Times, Congress successfully passed the progressive tax. Subsequently, the tax was repealed in 1872.

Congress again tried an income tax in 1894. Of interesting note, possibly with some connection, in the election of 1894 the Democrats lost over 100 seats to the Republicans. This tax never got started because the Supreme Court struck it down after allowing a more progressive tax during the Civil War. The progressives of the time from both parties then pushed a constitutional amendment through Congress and it was ratified by the states in 1913. Since then the progressive income tax, which taxes earners based on whether they have deep pockets, has been used to choose winners and losers. The tax code as of 2012 had 73,608 pages and has become the darling of special interests.

XII: Can We Restore Our Constitution

Can we retake that delicate balance and reestablish the limited federal government intended by the founders? Yes, we can reset this country, but it will not be easy.

Can we do it at the national ballot box? Not likely, as the media is one of the primary causes of our demise. If we can get the message through, which is of little chance, the message will be twisted by the media. Today lawn chair carrying, very orderly tea party members are called racist. Images have been doctored to show “red necks” carrying guns at the tea party rallies. It was also widely reported, without any evidence, that racial epitaphs were hurled at members of Congress. Remember, they will say or do anything to achieve the goal of a broken country crying out for socialist rule.  Yelling racism is their primary tool when they do not have an argument.

We would have to elect enough members of both houses who are in agreement with resetting our Constitution, sufficiently so, that they would support and vote for the necessary Constitutional fixes as amendments and then pass these amendments on to the states for ratification.  Remember Republicans are not conservative, but there are conservative Republicans. This means two thirds of each house must be on board. Considering the media distortion of candidates and the progressives masquerading as conservatives, we have little chance of electing the necessary two thirds super majorities in each House who support the fixes – reducing the power of the federal government. Also consider that we only elect one third of the Senate every two years. This makes it very hard to push a continued assault on the progressives, exposing them for up to six years to achieve the numbers needed.  Do you really believe that the representatives in the federal government will seek to shrink their tool of power?

Currently, it would be a miracle if we elected all non-progressives to Congress. Despite this miracle, we might still not repeal the new powers afforded the central government and its Executive Branch. As long as a progressive socialist holds the White House and with only one third of the Senate up for reelection at any time, a two-thirds override of a Presidential veto is highly unlikely.

Can we do it in the courts? Again, not likely, as the courts remain progressively corrupt and federal judges are appointed for life. An example of the judiciary not respecting states, among a plethora of decisions by federal judges ordering states to heed the ruling of their court, is the recent case of a federal judge combining suits against Arizona regarding its S.B. 1070 illegal immigration law. The judge combined civil suits with an action for an injunction by the Executive Branch’s department of justice. Not only was this the wrong venue, the judge had no jurisdiction to hear the federal government’s case, at the minimum, or any of the suits. Instead of jurisprudence, this is “jurischutzpah”.

Article III Section 2 of the Constitution states

“…In all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a state shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction.”

Wherein the Supreme Court is an appellate court normally, when it comes to the states, it is the only Court. This case and numerous others currently taking place are examples of the states being relegated to second tier status by the central government, with the complicity of the judiciary, making the states irrelevant.

Can we do it with a traditional constitutional amendment? Not likely, as the Senate and the House are now progressive or near progressive and as stated earlier you will never see a two thirds majority with any interest in comprehensively amending the Constitution to broadly reel in the federal government and limit the powers of Senators and Congressman to the extent needed.

However; there may be an outside chance that the commerce clause can be revised and defined to its original intent with a constitutional amendment. The argument being that the abuse of the commerce clause is one of two primary causes of the explosive growth of the federal government since the early twentieth century – the seventeenth amendment is the other. Redefinition of the commerce clause may be the impetus needed to permanently reverse the federal government’s spending and growth. With a large Republican majority in the House and a slight majority in the Senate, conservatives and moderates might just convince remaining Senate Democrats under electoral pressure to sign on to such a constitutional amendment, where-in two thirds of each house would be needed to move the amendment on to the states for ratification. Do we have other alternatives? Yes, we do have other better possible alternatives given to us by the founders for the expressed purpose of reining a runaway federal government..

XIII: Convention For Proposing Amendments

The first and probably the surest alternative can be found in Article V of our Constitution. Article V allows the States, as well as Congress, to initiate change to our Constitution with Amendments.

Article V states:
“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…”

James Madison has in the notes of the “Debates in the Convention of 1787” – he kept the notes – that the method of Congress to amend the Constitution was added after much debate, as the original method entered into the draft of the Constitution was the States method.

This is the note found in my copy of the “Debate Notes” added to the transcribed notes of the debate – it is unattributable.

This Preface has been printed from Madison’s original manuscript in the Department of State. There is a transcript of the Preface in an unknown hand in the Library of Congress which was sent to the printer and from which Henry D. Gilpin printed The Papers of James Madison, 3 volumes (1840). The text of the Preface as here printed has been read with the printer’s copy thereof and important differences noted.

If you research these notes by Mr. Madison, you will see that today’s handling, interpretation, and abuse of the Constitution is not in keeping with what was intended. Try the Yale Law School repository for the Debate Notes.

They fear this occurring, as it bypasses the federal government and Congress’ input. We will be told by progressives, that if we ever did this; and we have never done this; that we would create chaos and completely re-write the Constitution, even though the progressives want the current Constitution gone. Even conservative groups fear this “proposal” convention for the irrational fear that we would lose everything at a convention of chaos. This is far from the truth.

Congress, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House, after receiving a constitutionally limiting petitions from two-thirds of the State Legislatures to call a “Convention to Propose Amendments to the Constitution”, can propose whether ratification of Amendments from this convention occurs at the convention (likely not to happen, allowing those who propose amendments to ratify – Congress may very well require a separate convention for each state – added 12/27/2015) with three-fourths of the state delegations, or delegates as a whole, voting to ratify one or more Amendments, or by the traditional method of three-fourths of the State Legislatures ratifying one or more Amendments. Congress can propose either method; convention ratification or state legislature ratification, but it cannot interfere with the business of the convention.

Since the Constitution is silent on how ratification occurs at the convention other than to let Congress propose a method, the State Legislatures could appoint their delegates, and also stipulate whether their delegates vote as a block, with each state having one vote. As Congress will likely propose the ratification by State Legislatures method; ratification at the convention will probably never occur, unless the States force the issue in their petition.

Since no time frame is specified in the constitution for ratification, except what is codified in the U. S. Code, any amendment proposed by the States really should have its own sunset clause. If ratification by the thirty-eighth state does not take place by a specified date, the ratification process for that Amendment then fails. States, to provide added protection against a wholesale re-write of the Constitution, can instruct their delegation that a wholesale re-write may not be attempted and will not be ratified.

States can also place into the petition for such a convention a limiting provision. Petition the Congress to call, under Article V, a Convention to Propose Amendments and add that any amendment must be solely germane to providing the states with additional checks and balance over the federal government’s branches.  Remember this, that only thirteen states NOT ratifying is the best firewall against a runaway or chaotic convention.

Ratifying states will send their certified official notice of ratification to the Archivist of the United States at the National Archives and Records Administration, pursuant to U.S, Code 106b. Upon receiving such notices from three fourths of the states, the Archivist will cause the Amendment to be published. There is no precedent for just how this would proceed, since an Amendment has never been proposed and ratified by the States.

To be successful, the goal of this convention must focus on restoring the checks and balance by the States over the federal government as it was in late December 1791, which was after the first ten amendments were ratified – the Bill of Rights.

Thoughts on What To Pass:

Any proposed Amendment that would attempt to negate the seventeenth Amendment, would face serious opposition to ratification. Opposing forces to this repeal or negation would whip up public sentiment claiming the states are attempting to take away the public’s right to vote directly for their U. S Senators.  Perhaps an alternate to repeal of the seventeenth amendment nullification would generate much less public enthusiasm to stop the process. Rather, the delegates should concentrate on one or two proposed Amendments, which they should tightly define.

The focus of the States should be the now abused Commerce Clause, and more importantly the “constitutionalization” of state nullification.

A proposed and ratified “Checks and Balance Nullification Amendment” will allow the States to nullify laws and regulations passed by Congress, regulations of independent agencies created by Congress, regulations and Executive Orders issued by the Executive Branch regardless of what name is given to these, or any constitutionally related federal judicial decision, whether it is from inferior courts or the Supreme Court.

Nullification under such an amendment might be a two-step process. Each house of a state legislature would vote on a joint resolution to “nullify”. If sixty percent of the States pass a “for nullification” joint resolution, then the law, decision, or regulation is nullified. Nebraska, being a unicameral (having only one house) legislature would only need a resolution and not a joint resolution.

Enough about this author’s potential cures.  If you now understand that something must be done or are unsure and want to learn more about the issues, the solutions, and the support behind this effort you need to visit the CONVENTION OF STATES website.  It is filled with expert commentary.  You might also visit a Mark Levin commentary on Article V and the issue at hand.  Mark Levin is a renowned attorney, talk show host, and a constitutional scholar.

Read more about the ratification process at:
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/united-states-code.html
http://www.archives.gov/about/laws/acts-and-resolutions.html

XIV: What About Nullification – What is Nullification – Interposition

The alternative to repealing the Seventeenth Amendment is “nullification”!  Nullification, assuming nullification does not become a Constitutional Amendment, means that any state legislature can declare an act, regulation, or a law of the federal government not supported by the powers afforded the federal government, to be unconstitutional and nullified under the powers granted the states in the tenth amendment

  “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This has been tried, but is not directly found in the Constitution. Nullification, that is not “constitutionalized”, as put forth in the previous chapter, would be a sticky event. There is precedent provided by and arguments for nullification from two founders.

The first appearance of the right to nullify occurred in 1798, and the two collaborators in the Resolution of ’98 were Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. This duo should bring gravitas to the argument. Madison wrote of the right to nullify in the Virginia Resolution of 1798, wherein his document was adopted by the Virginia General Assembly and agreed to by the Virginia Senate in that same year. These were a nullification of the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by Congress and signed into law by President John Adams.

Jefferson also very eloquently and clearly wrote of the right of a state to nullify in the Kentucky Resolution of 1798, where-in he cited Article I, Section 8’s enumerated powers and the tenth amendment. This collaboration, but mostly Jefferson resolution was adopted by the Kentucky legislature in the same year.

In time and separately, the Alien and Sedition Acts were found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States.

Nullification is a solution! Two very key founders were in favor of nullification. James Madison was a principal architect of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He knew and understood better than any human on the planet, the intended relationship between a state, the states, and the federal government?  Yes, Madison did late in life indicate that he did not intend for nullification, but his reasoning and words of the Resolution of ‘98 and Jefferson’s nullification argument can be used to prove that something nullification-like does fall to the states.

Nullification was also authored during the War of 1812 and with the Embargo of 1807 through 1809.  Oddly enough, Jefferson was President for the Embargo; the federal government enacted an embargo of shipping, prohibiting all American ships from leaving American ports bound for any foreign port. This was to combat acts from Britain and France against America’s neutral rights on the seas. These are not the only examples of nullification in the history between the states and the federal government.  The term better suited to getting nullification as an amendment is Interposition, utilized by Mr. Jefferson.

Read Thomas Jefferson’s reasoning at: http://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selected-documents/kentucky-resolutions-1798

XV: The Opposition

Con-Con Common Sense – The John Birch Society – 7 answered questions

(added January 29, 2015)

The John Birch Society, a staunch opponent of Article V or any attempt to overtly make an attempt to fix what is wrong with our country, has offered 7 questions which they have answered in a unique way to demonstrate why Article V and any amendments will not fix the problem.

Well I have also answered their questions, but in an honest and forthright manner.

Source: Con-Con Common Sense
By: JBS Staff
12/22/2014

John Birch Society Questions:
1. Do the Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court follow the Constitution?

JBS answer: It is obvious that none of the three branches of the government follow the Constitution unless it is in the interest of the branch to do so, not simply because it is the Law. The original intent of the Constitution was to limit government, not individual, business, or property rights. This aspect has been set on its ear with laws, executive orders, regulations, and court decisions handed down on an almost daily basis. The original intent as well as the letter of the Law is being ignored.

Ken Moyes answer: The three branches of government conveniently follow the Constitution, as long as they can interpret it to meet their needs and desires. This occurs because there is no longer a firewall provided by the States to prevent abuse of the Constitution either through blatant action or by misrepresenting interpretation. The Constitution was written with a horizontal balance, the three branches, and a vertical balance, the States, via control of the Senate. The critical vertical balance was removed with the seventeenth amendment. Thus creating the mess we have today. Fix the power of the States and you go a long way toward policing the federal government branches.

2. If the Constitution were amended for the better, why would the three branches follow the Constitution any more faithfully than now?

JBS answer: There is little chance that any part of government would follow an amendment or a revised Constitution if it was not in their interest to do so — they are not following the Law now. It is similar to saying that if we change the speed limit that people will not speed or if we change the time of day we will gain more hours. The people have to be changed who are in government in order for there to be a real change. This includes the bureaucracies and court justices.

Ken Moyes answer: If the Constitution were amended in a simplistic way, the three branches would not more faithfully follow the Constitution. The trick is amending it in a way that provides obstacles to abuse and misrepresentation, such as better defining the Commerce Clause and/or restoring States’ Rights and the clear ability for the majority of States, taken as a whole, to reject laws, regulation, executive orders, presidential memorandum, and Supreme Court decisions. Call it the tenth amendment on steroids or whatever description works. Repeal the seventeenth amendment or create a new mechanism to reinstate the vertical balance that originally existed – this could even be codified nullification or the Jeffersonian term for nullification “Interposition”.

3. Is the problem the Constitution, or is it the voters who elect those who are supposed to follow the Constitution and do not?

JBS answer: The root problem with the various branches of government is not the government but the people who elect the government. Government is always reflective of the society that instituted the government and maintains it. If the people do not change, government will not change no matter what amendments are forthcoming to the Constitution. Conversely, if society changes for the worse, the government will change to reflect it. The solution is a grassroots educational campaign to educate and then activate citizens to uphold the Constitution and vote accordingly.

Ken Moyes answer: By nature elected politicians will seek more power and will opt for power over the restraints of the Constitution. The founders knew this and designed the Constitution to control the growth of the federal government.

Two “progressive” amendments as commonly referred to, of 1913, were designed to remove the states from the control of the federal government and to give the federal government the ability to grow to the behemoth it is today.

The sixteenth amendment, giving the federal government the power to progressively tax, has enabled the federal government to become supremely powerful, again destroying the vertical balance that the founders originally created.

The seventeenth amendment stripped the states of their vertical power and has allowed the federal government, all three branches, to runaway unchecked by the vertical power of the States.

There were other amendments called the progressive amendments, but they did not have the devastating effect of the sixteenth and seventeenth on the future of this nation.

4. Can a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) work if its provisions can be waived by Congress for various emergencies such as military conflicts, high unemployment, poor economy, etc.?

JBS answer: Most BBA proposals include a provision for Congress to waive their provisions for a balanced budget whenever three-fifths of each House agrees to do so, or whenever a simple majority of each House agrees that there is an emergency, such as a military conflict, high unemployment, a poor economy, etc. The solution to balancing the budget is electing people who know how to balance the budget and will do so because it is the right thing to do. The caliber of people elected now will find ways to get around any balanced budget amendment, unless the amendment is longer than the Constitution itself, and that is assuming it would be followed to the letter.

Ken Moyes answer: The answer is it cannot work, based on the premise of the question. However, a current BBA proposal anticipates these excuses and defeats it. Under this structured approach – how the amendment is written – is the key to adherence. Under the current proposal the majority of States must ratify the new debt ceiling within sixty days or it fails. The Congress can only raise taxes, assuming time of emergency, with two thirds vote of the whole number of members of each house of the Congress. This is not easily accomplished, unless there was a national emergency. We apparently have not elected the “correct” people in the last 100 years – why will we start now. JBS should know this.

In addition, if the majority of States do not agree to the new debt ceiling within sixty days, any debt issued in excess of the old debt limit without said States’ approval will not have the full faith and credit of the United States behind it and thus will be considered junk by the credit markets. Any future president or Congress could simply refuse to honor the illegal debt and the lender to the United States holding illegal debt will be out of luck. Illegal debt has no value. This current BBA language self-enforces using the credit markets. Thus this method will most certainly work.

5. Can a BBA work if the Federal Reserve is allowed to continue to print money out of thin air?

JBS answer: Without discussing the role of the Federal Reserve and curtailing its ability to simply print money, any balanced budget proposal will fail. The Fed has an uncanny ability to manipulate procedures and move money around to avoid oversight.

Ken Moyes answer: The current method for the Federal reserve to inject printed, electronic or fiat money into the economy is to have the banks buy Treasury Notes or Bonds and then the “Fed” buys these notes and bonds from the banks using the new printed, electronic, or fiat money. This method must be used because it is illegal for the Federal Reserve to directly buy federal debt. If the federal government is restricted by the proposed language of the BBA, then there will be no legal debt to buy. Since the Federal Reserve is not authorized under the enumerated powers of the federal government in the Constitution, an amendment can be put forth to either scale back the “Fed” or provide for its orderly extinction. A law change can also do this but do not depend on the Congress to do so.

6. If the Constitution is not the problem, why not follow it instead of amending it?

JBS answer: The problem is not the Constitution, it is the people implementing it — rather, not implementing it — and the electorate allowing them to do so. There can be only one solution to not only the problem of not following the Constitution, but nearly every problem we experience today: the education of the electorate. It does not matter what will be done if the people keep voting in men and women who have a different agenda than the people. If they keep voting in those who have little desire to follow the Law, no matter how it is written, the Law will be violated

Ken Moyes answer: Prior amendments and bad interpretations to the Constitution have made the Constitution the problem, with the key point of removing the states as the vertical balance as was originally intended by the founders. Restore what was originally intended and better more narrowly define existing clauses and you restore the Constitution, the horizontal and vertical balance, and the original intent of the Republic. Restore States to their rightful position they had as the creators of the “limited” federal government and as the control mechanism to keep a runaway federal government in check.

7. What would prevent the liberal-left from using an Article V constitutional convention to impose their own agenda?

JBS answer: Government attracts men and women who want to use government for their own advantage, it is simply human nature. That is why the Constitution was written in the way it was: to curtail human nature and the nature of government.

The liberal-left wants more government — they see government as the solution to all of humanity’s problems. As a result, they have joined hands with other, more conservative groups to promote a constitutional convention, which they hope to control.

The 2014 election showed that people are tired of more government. Yet even with a trend toward conservatism, too many liberals in both parties remain in office. Add to this the ways in which politicians and the establishment elites in the media, education, big business, big labor, etc., can manipulate events, how can one be certain of a convention that would not seriously alter the nature of the Constitution? Ask yourself the question: Who would be the delegates to such a convention from your state? If you do not know, maybe that is the answer to whether such an event should even take place.

Ken Moyes answer: This is an easy question to answer. Thirty-eight states are needed to ratify each new amendment. Currently twenty-seven states are controlled in both houses by the Republican Party – not liberals. One unicameral state, Nebraska, has a conservative non-partisan legislature. A handful of other states have one house controlled by the Republicans, not liberals.

All that is need is for thirteen of these states to simply say no to a proposed liberal amendment. This is a built in firewall against liberal amendments designed to further tear apart the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Even if the convention ratification method is chosen by Congress the state legislatures will select delegates (with the possible exception of New Mexico – added based on comment – 12/27/2015) or  whose thinking conforms to their legislature.

Of note: the JBS intentionally used the term Con-Con to mislead. This cannot be a constitutional convention for a rewrite of the Constitution. The current Constitution, unlike its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation, has a provision for orderly amendment – Article V.

© Copyright Kenneth Moyes 2013 – updated February 13, 2015