The Red pill OR the Blue pill please

[John5319]

(Food for though for all on the issue of an Article V convention written by Phyillis Schlafly.)

      Powerful Leftists have joined forces with some misguided conservatives on the Right and together, they are promoting a national convention to revise the U.S. Constitution. Your most valued freedoms could be utterly destroyed.

      The most vocal Leftists, like Wolf Pac, Lawrence Lessig, and George Soros, want to rewrite and limit your First and Second Amendment rights.
You can bet there will be anti-family, pro-abortion delegates to such a convention, seeking to enshrine their favored amendments in the Constitution, too.  Even Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders came out in support of the idea.  But sadly, attacks on the U.S. Constitution aren't just coming from the extreme Left -- they're coming from all sides.

      Convention of States, a group that has gone to great lengths to smear and attack conservatives opposed to this idea, isn't even pretending to want a convention "limited" to a single issue; rather, they want a convention that covers a wide array of issues. These groups boldly claim a series of amendments can put our country on a wiser path.

      But why would politicians uphold their oaths to a new Constitution if they are violating their oaths to the Constitution we have now?  Is it worth the risk of losing our most cherished rights to find out if they will?
 
     The authority for such a procedure is Article V of our Constitution, so they are calling their plan of action an Article V Convention.  However, they are fooling themselves when they suggest that Article V creates a path to bypass Congress with a "convention of states."
  In a convention setting, the U.S. Congress would have a major say in how the process will work.  The only power the states have under Article V is the opportunity to submit an "application" (petition) asking Congress to call a convention.

      Hundreds of such applications have been submitted over the years, with widely different purposes and wording. Many applications were later rescinded, and some purport to make the application valid for only a particular amendment such as a federal balanced budget or congressional term limits.

      Article V states that Congress "shall" call a convention on the application of two-thirds of state legislatures, or thirty-four (34) of them.
If Congress ever decides to act, Article V gives Congress exclusive power to issue the "Call" for a convention to propose "amendments" (plural).

      The "Call" is the governing document which determines all the basic rules such as where and when a convention will be held, who is eligible to be a delegate (will current office-holders be eligible?), how delegates will be apportioned, how expenses will be paid, and who will be the chairman.
Article V also gives Congress the power to determine whether the three-fourths of the states required for ratification of amendments can ratify by the state legislature's action or by state conventions.

Do you trust the current U.S. Congress to determine the rules for how the Constitution will be rewritten? The most important question to which there is no answer is this: how will convention delegates be apportioned?

      Will each state have one vote (no matter how many delegates it sends), which was the rule in the 1787 Philadelphia convention?  Or will the convention be apportioned according to population (like Congress or the Electoral College)?

      Nothing in Article V gives the states any power to make this fundamental decision.  If Congress decides apportionment will be determined by population, more populous states will control the outcome.  Do you want California or New York deciding how the U.S. Constitution should read?  Article V doesn't give any power to the states to propose actual constitutional amendments, or to decide which amendments will be considered by the convention.

      Now imagine Democratic and Republican conventions meeting in the same hall and trying to agree on constitutional changes. Imagine the gridlock in drafting a constitutional plank by caucuses led by Sarah Palin and Al Sharpton.  Everything else about how an Article V Convention would function -- including its agenda -- is anybody's guess.

      Advocates of an Article V convention can hope and speculate, but they cannot assure us that any of their plans will come true.  If we follow the model of the 1787 Convention, will the deliberations be secret? Are you kidding me? Nothing is secret any more.

      What are the plans to deal with protesters at what would surely be the biggest media event of the year, if not of the century? It will be flooded with agitators from the gun-control lobby, the gay lobby, the abortion lobby, the green lobby, plus experienced protesters -- like union thugs -- trained and even paid with George Soros money.

      There is no proof that the VIPs promoting an Article V convention have any first-hand knowledge of the politics or procedures of a contested national convention. Don't they realize that the convention will set its own agenda and that states will have no say over which amendments are considered?

      To see how a convention chairman wielding the gavel can manipulate outcomes, take for instance the 2012 Democratic National Convention. A delegate tried to add a reference to God to the party platform, but the chairman ruthlessly called the vote wrong even though we all saw on television that the "Noes" won the vote.

The whole Article V "Convention of States" process is a prescription for political chaos. (Isn't that what the Cloward-Piven strategy is?)

Alas, I don't see any George Washingtons, James Madisons or Ben Franklins around today who could do as good a job as the Founding Fathers, and I'm worried about the men who think they can.
 
     Do you trust the U.S. Congress to determine the rules for how our Constitution will be rewritten?  Do you want California or New York deciding how the U.S. Constitution should read?

[Michael Alexander]

Why anyone would post this drivel is beyond me, especially on this forum. Schlafley (along with some equally misled members of the John Birch Society) has been peddling this same old, tired pack of lies, distortions and mischaracterization for years. Every one of these issues has been debunked so many times that it's laughable.

Any person who has spent more than an hour actually looking into the facts knows this, so I won't waste my time or theirs responding any further, other than to express my disdain for the OP who should be ashamed for posting this without including the following disclaimer:

"This Food for Thought Guaranteed to Induce Stupidity!"

[Craig Kiggens]

Michael, I do not know you or what your political orientation is; liberal, RINO, conservative, but your ideas would be more meaningful if you addressed the items in the opinion piece by Ms. Schlafly rather than just doing a drive by shooting with exaggerated comments. 

[Mrs.Tif Morgan]

Political orientation, my what a word, political orientation is allways a need to know, why ? It allows people to understand where views come from, as for opinions, if a person is to dis credit a posting or statement, it take more then just a statement against the share, it takes facts, I'm looking but I just can not see them yet.

 Like these guys below, most of them are creeps, my opinion.

[Mrs.Tif Morgan]

I dont trust the Birch Society, but they did expose the UN General in its on going goals for gun control.

[cliff wilkin]

Agreed, Schlafley may, at one point in time, have been on track in her conservative principles. Not anymore. This is an obvious solution to our systematic problems of corruption and debt. Term limits and balance budget mechanisms already work wonderfully throughout our government levels where they are passed. Please help Arizona join many other states in dealing with these destructive and republic threatening issues HEAD ON. The founders of our country provided these balance of powers to the states unanimously. Its way past time our states and WE THE PEOPLE acted in the way it was designed. A convention is only a starting point where these items are discussed. 38 states (both houses) will be required for ratification AFTER THE CONVENTION. This inversely means 13 (out of 19) state houses can block any proposal.

Please sign E-Petition. Takes less than 20 seconds.
http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_id=1310229

[Michael Alexander]

Thanks, Cliff... you couldn't be more correct!

[Mrs.Tif Morgan]

I will book this page, and submit it to the network team, Article V Convention Of States belongs to We The People, not Congress.

[Michael Alexander]

OK… you want specifics? I’ll give you the top three doozies:

Lie #1 – The efforts by the Left and the Right to advance a Convention of States movement are one in the same.

All one has to do is spend three minutes in Google to discover that Lessig, Soros and their minions in WolfPac want to overturn Citizens United. That’s it. That’s their whole enchilada. The other right-leaning group that she references, the Citizens for Self-Governance Convention of States Project, more commonly referred to as COS, is a totally separate, conservative movement whose goals are to propose a rather extensive slate of constitutional amendments that would REDUCE the size, scope and jurisdiction of the federal government, ranging from balancing the federal budget to term limits and just about everything in between. The only thing these two groups have in common is that they both intend to use the process provided in Article V of the Constitution to apply to Congress for their amendment conventions. The woman is either a moron or a fear-mongering liar… you choose.

Lie #2 – Congress will write the rules of the Convention of States.

Since this would be the first ever amendments convention called by the states, and since there are no guidelines in the Constitution itself nor in any applicable governing court rulings, it defies rational thought as to how she can make such a statement. Every convention ever held in the history of conventions has had a Rules Committee, and it is that committee that determines the rules.

Now, there is no doubt that Congress may WANT to exert more authority over the process than is specified in Article V, but it has no such authority whatsoever. Again… see for yourself… take a couple minutes and read the 143 words of Article V. There is no question that the Founders intended for the states to be able to propose amendments to the constitution independent of Congress – that means without interference. To suggest that Congress should be permitted to control any of the details of the convention would not only fly in the face of original intent, but would strain all logic... why in the world would the regulated party be allowed to control the determination of its own regulations?

Once again, you’d have to believe that the Founders were fools. Personally, I’m thinking it’s Schlafly who’s the fool... along with anyone who buys into her lunacy.

Lie #3 – Congress will meddle with the delegation selection process. She even suggests that members of Congress might end up as delegates themselves.

Once again, Congress without question would LOVE to stack the deck, as it were, but for the inconvenient existence of the Incompatibility Clause of Article 1, Section 6 which explicitly prohibits any current member of Congress from serving concurrently in any other federal civil office, either elected or appointed. A member would have to 1) resign his seat at the head of the federal government, and 2) somehow manage to convince a state to assign him the task of representing that state against that very same federal government. Since Congress already has the authority to propose constitutional amendments, wouldn’t it make more sense for that member to do so from his seat in Congress?

Yes, it would, and this whole notion is pure subterfuge… which is a much more polite word for bullshit.

And even if all of the above were somehow voided, she completely ignores the verifiable fact that all the states so far that have signed on to the COS movement, and even some that have not, have also passed sister legislation that tightly controls their own selection, or in some cases, election process for their delegates.

Now, like I said at the top... the woman is a deranged, fear-mongering liar interested only in protecting her decades-long reputation of being WRONG on Article V, and protecting the feathered nest of her Eagle Forum and JBS compatriots, all of whom have a vested interest in maintaining the existing power structure of the Establishment's status quo.

[Mrs.Tif Morgan]

Its about time you shared, sometimes its best to explain your opinion,Michael.

 One important step in COS, is keeping a eye on them as we'll as those who may try to control it. I will show you the link later, but some wish to reset Article V, and remove the people from having a voice, we are watching them, or should I say, the team is, they want let me play, because I have a big mouth...:)

[Michael Alexander]

I don't doubt for one minute, Tif, that there are insurgents within the movement who would like nothing better than to derail it entirely, or as some fear, steer it away from REDUCING the size, scope and jurisdiction of the federal government toward INCREASING it.

Now, if you and I are clever enough to have such suspicions, please believe me when I tell you that those same suspicions are shared by leadership at all levels, particularly at the District level where members are most likely to be known by others in the community. If we discover that our District Captains are suspicious of us, it's entirely possible that we may have inadvertently given them reason to be.

Personally, although I share your concerns, I am encouraged by the screening process I see used, and that I read about in districts in other states as well... assignments are given to members, and the results of those assignments are tracked. No one moves up in the leadership hierarchy unless they produce results, and no one can produce results unless they truly believe in the mission.

Needless to say, at this juncture the mission for many of us is educating the ill-informed by correcting a flood of disinformation, which in some instances includes visiting sites like this to speak out against the tripe posted by certain members of the John Birch Society and notorious hacks like Phyllis Schlafley and Publius Huldah aka Joanna Ruth Martin-Scutari.

If the most I can do is to cause even one person to think twice and do their own research before swallowing this garbage whole, then I've done my job, because that means there's at least one more educated person out there ready for the time when we will be invited to make one of the most profound political decisions in modern American history.

[Mrs.Tif Morgan]

Everything researched or shared with our team, is investigated, this includes web site for or against COS.

 As of today we have 6004 members, and the vto program is a full opt...

 We do not intended to educate, people, just let them make up their own minds.

John Birch Society- Obama's CFR Connections, Central Ohio John Birch Society / :http://teapartyorg.ning.com/forum/topics/obama-s-cfr-connections-ce...

There is really not to much that The Network team does not know.

[Gary Rosenbaum]

No rewriting or repealing any amendments already in the Constitution here with an article V convention...only a conversation about term limits on Congressional and Judicial branches, and limiting how much money these guys can spend... 19 trillion in debt... really?!!    What's good about an Article V convention?    A dialog of proposal's limiting government formed BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, and approved BY WE THE PEOPLE. Each state can set the rules for delegates and amendments. Its the only voice we have... our members of Congress are not listening to us now and are sure not going to limit themselves or their terms, so let's call a convention and they will have to hear us!!! Lets do this!!! Visit here to sign the petition, watch video's and learn, and sign up to volunteer: http://www.cosaction.com/?recruiter_id=1351201