The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Joseph Ellis Underscores The Need For The Convention Of States

Posted on | February 21, 2014 | 54 Comments

by Smitty

Ellis at the L.A. Times serves a moot point as though it were wisdom:

But, seriously, a second Constitutional Convention? It could never succeed, chiefly because the secrecy, elitism and the rest of 1787 reality could never be duplicated in our time. (And ought not be.) Besides — and here I feel an obligation to defend the legacy of the founders — the current gridlock in Congress is not a function of anything in the language of the Constitution.

Gerrymandering and primary election politicking are surely part of the problem. So too is the plutocratic character of our political culture in what has become, in effect, a second Gilded Age. But the core problem in getting legislation through the House and the Senate are procedural rules adopted by both bodies over the last century.

In the Senate, the culprit is the filibuster. Its history is long and labyrinthian, but, in the form it has assumed over the last 30 years or so, a supermajority of 60 votes is required for passage of any and all legislation. (The “nuclear option” weakened the filibuster when applied to some presidential appointments, but not to legislation.)

I think these are tangential points, at best.

  • The House has been frozen in size since 1910; it is relatively less representative.
  • The States as such have had no voice in DC since 1913 and the 17th Amendment. Senators are far more beholden to their party than their state, and generally rich enough to ignore the peasantry back home.
  • The beloved IRS has had eminent domain over the American wallet since 1913 and the 16th Amendment. Recently it has been an iron rod in the service of the White House.
  • The Federal Reserve has successfully demolished the purchasing power of the dollar since 1913.

In response to this, Michael Farris is offering the sort of leadership that the GOP would, were the Republican elite not a pack of anemic, spavined, emasculated examples of the species homo bureaucratus. John McCain, you broken down old tool, I mean you.

An Article V convention, properly controlled and pondered for years beforehand to get it right, (in other words, the precise opposite of ObamaCare), is Exactly. What. We. Need.

We’re going to recover this country from Progressive collapse, Ellis. Do try to keep up.

via HotAir headlines

Category: Constitution

Comments

54 Responses to “Joseph Ellis Underscores The Need For The Convention Of States”

  1. K-Bob
    February 24th, 2014 @ 10:57 am

    We’re already paying that price. The Constitution as it stands now is a zombie doctrine. Clinging to it as is is as bad as going down with the ship. It’s either fix it or war. There won’t be any middle ground.

    (It might seem like it for a while, just as it did in the thirty years or so before the Civil War. But that’s NOT middle ground.)

  2. NeoWayland
    February 24th, 2014 @ 2:03 pm

    I’m not clinging to the Constitution, I’m thinking about the aftermath.

  3. K-Bob
    February 25th, 2014 @ 1:26 am

    Well, someone has to pick up the pieces. I don’t think I’ll be around for that part of things. I’ll be in the thick of the turbulence.

  4. NeoWayland
    February 25th, 2014 @ 7:38 am

    Good luck.