An Impetus For Reform

While federalism and the rule of plain language law took a giant step backward with the Supreme Court's Rulings in the #SCOTUScare and #SCOTUSmarriage cases last week, I think those of us that seek to restore order and good governance can use these cases as a call to action.

All of this revolves around an Article Five Convention of States as outlined in the Constitution of the United States. I know the idea makes some folks' heads hurt, but follow along.

Article V

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, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Because the elected Congress critters(is my disdain showing?) in Washington, DC show no original thought(there are a few exceptions, but a majority is needed), we, as a self governing people, need to take it upon ourselves to make true national reform happen. I know there are rogue state houses, like Nebraska, that openly defy the will of the people(see here), but the people still have recourse at the state level with ballot initiatives and recall processes. 

The only recourse at the national level is the ballot box. The ballot box at the national congressional level has shown to be ineffective when it comes to reigning in a government bent on usurping the rights of individuals and the states in which they reside to self govern. Lawmakers don't see their election as a chance to serve, rather they see it as a chance to lord over a dominion, accumulate power and pad their nest egg. The government in Washington, DC is no longer what Abraham Lincoln so eloquently stated in the emancipation proclamation, "government of people, by the people, and for the people". We have not ensured that this form of government would not perish from the earth. We now have a government of, by and for the government.

My proposals may differ from others slightly but any reform that serves to remove power from the federal government is something worth considering, in my opinion. Here are amendments I would propose for consideration.

• Term Limits and Compensation Limits for Congress 

Congress, as it is currently composed, is a career choice for most of the critters that work there. This needs to stop. I don't believe in limiting speech(ie: McCain/Feingold) and I agree with the Citizen's United decision but not allowing our Congress critters to be bought and sold for long lengths of time would do us all a great service. I propose all that all Congressmen be limited to a total of twelve years of service in either the Senate or the House of Representatives. Whether someone serves 6 terms in the House or 2 in the Senate or a combination of 3 House terms and 1 Senate term, that would be it. The second section would repeal all pay for Congressmen after they leave office. Congress was not intended to be a lifetime income for those that were elected. It shouldn't be any longer. A severance package once someone leaves office would be something I would listen to so that there would be no issues in transitioning back to normal civilian life but no pensions should be given. Congress shouldn't be an occupation but rather a call to service.
I also would entertain a limit on the number of staff members that Congressmen are allowed to have. All staffers do now is allow bills to balloon to thousands of pages because lawmakers don't actually right the bills they sign their names to.

• Repeal of the 17th Amendment

The 17th Amendment took the power to elect Senators from the several states' legislatures and gave it to state wide popular elections. All this has served to do is make the Senate a beauty pageant where the Senators have no fear of being held accountable by the states they serve as long as they bring home the pork. The intent was for each Senator to be the advocate for his respective state in the nation's capitol. With the combination of term limits and the repeal of the 17th Amendment, the effect of money on the Congress would be greatly diminished without limiting the individual's right to speech through the campaign contribution process. Each Senator would report to their home state legislature when they aren't in session in Washington. I think a nomination process with primaries at the state level would solve the need for citizen involvement in Senator selection.

• Repeal of the 16th Amendment

The 16th Amendment gave the federal government the power to tax income. This gave way to the "progressive" income tax. Nothing has done more to remove incentive from our country than a tax system that penalizes success. With half of the country paying the freight for the other half from an income tax perspective, all this serves to do is place people in a class system and discourage success. This has also given way to one of the federal government's most draconian arbiters of power. The Internal Revenue Service has the power to take anything and everything a person has with no recourse on the taxpayer's part. This would allow a national consumption tax on new goods and services to replace the current tax system. The mechanisms to collect this tax are in place in all but a few states and little would be required to make the change other than the firing of every IRS agent that works for the federal government. 
The Fair Tax, as it has become known, is a system that would eliminate tax fraud and tax forms altogether. A "prebate" would be given to all legal residents paying the tax on all purchases up to the poverty level. The system would also make sure that those who came to this country illegally would not receive the benefit of being able live relatively tax free and illegal residents would not be eligible for the prebate.
The percentage would seem high but once the average person realizes the benefit of zero payroll, medicare or income taxes on income and no taxes on investment or savings, our financial footing would be much better, save for the tax preparation people and IRS agents, and I don't have much sympathy for them and neither should you. Economic freedom would spur a new entrepreneurial revolution, the likes of which this has not been seen in this country in generations. 

• A Balanced Budget Amendment

A balanced budget amendment would prohibit the government from spending more than it takes in. An exemption for a time of Congressionally declared war could be added to enable emergency deficit spending. It is long past time that the country lived within its means. While Keynesians will argue that increased government spending stimulates the economy, there is little truth to Keynes' theories other than short term gain. Milton Friedman has proven to be the correct in knowing that less government spending allows a market economy to flourish. 
The current situation in Greece is a great example of government spending run amok. While some will argue that a default situation couldn't happen here, if the US Dollar would lose its status as the world's reserve currency, we could be in the very same situation. Russia and China are already working toward that end. Our country needs to live within its means. 

• Judicial Retention Elections

Senator Ted Cruz, after the recent Supreme Court rulings, suggested the idea of judicial retention elections as a way to keep the country from being ruled by a panel of 9 unelected lawyers. Many states already have retention elections for state appointed judges. Once a judge is appointed, a period of eight years would pass before that judge or Supreme Court Justice would face a retention vote. That vote would happen during the midterm national elections. Judges and Justices would be prohibited from campaigning so as to retain their independence from the donor class and other, nonjudicial interests.

• Plain Language, Bill Length, Citizen Review and Recorded Voice Votes

An amendment to reform the way Congress does business could encompass all of the reforms above. A plain language provision would not permit legalese or language meant to obscure. A bill length provision would limit bills to 5 pages in double spaced print. No more 2,000 page bills. A citizen review provision would require a period of 5 days, excepting bills regarding a declaration of war, for citizens to review and comment. No private hearings would be allowed but for those pertaining to national security and intelligence matters. All votes would be by voice in the affirmative or negative and would be recorded by video and audio in order for each Senate or House member to be reviewed on line. Perhaps a congressional YouTube channel. No more smoke and mirrors. No more saying one thing behind closed doors and doing another in public.

All of these ideas serve to limit government in the way that our founders sought. They were afraid a day would come and we would need to fence the ever expanding government back in. They gave us the provision, we need to use it. 

Of course, these are just my own thoughts, but I want to encourage everyone to think about what should be proposed during an Article Five Convention of the States. I know there are those on the far right that worry about a runaway convention. There is no chance in that because over half of all state legislatures are in conservative hands. Nothing is working at the Washington, DC level so the states need to seize the constitutional reigns and pull back on this unruly federal government. Senator Tom Coburn is leading the movement and I encourage you to visit the website established to help with the effort to make the Convention possible. This effort is, from my vantage point, the last stand for liberty and self government. Once liberty is lost, it will not be regained for generations and the time is drawing near.

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Ted Cruz talked about the possible need for a Convention of States on the Sean Hannity Radio Show on June 26th, 2015.

The Day the 10th Amendment Died

Today, June 26th, 2015 is the date that officially will mark the death of the United States of America as a federal republic. The states are no longer independent entities that are allowed to experiment, or not, with different aspects of self rule. The Supreme Court, in both of the major decisions that were handed down this week, totally and completely gutted the 10th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The twisted argument the 5 vote majority signed on to was based on the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, Section 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Since there is no right to marry codified in federal law and each state was, in the past, able to establish their own laws based upon the needs and wants of its citizens, the court made this up out of whole cloth. The protections of the 14th Amendment were created to deal with issues related to slavery and ensuring freed slaves the rights of any other citizen. While the criminalization of homosexual relations was wrong, those laws have been struck from the books. No one can be jailed for being homosexual any longer and that is good and proper. This "right" to marry was made up out of thin air. This is the same argument used in the Roe v. Wade decision. There is no "right" to "privacy" in the Constitution or subsequent amendments. The right against illegal search and seizure is not privacy, but a protection against government overreach. 

The rub comes here. The 10th Amendment was written to give each state autonomy over their own affairs except when engaging in trade and commerce with another state. Read the simplest of all amendments.

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 was made irrelevant today. Following this logic, how far can we be from totally ignoring other parts of the Constitution. When a church that believes in the Biblical view of marriage turns away a gay couple who wish to "marry" (undoubtedly, the couple is there to make examples of the church in the first place) and they sue said church, the first right codified in the Bill of Rights with be the next to be pushed aside. Don't doubt me.

 Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The usurpation of the 1st Amendment has been going on for years, with free speech zones and lawsuits against bakers, florists and wedding venue operators, and all this new found "right" to marry anyone, anywhere, has done is add precedent to those that argue against the ability of churches to follow their Biblically informed conscience. Many people doubt me on this but the progressive left will never quit on their imposition of an amoral, immoral statist agenda. As Edmund Burke said, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  We are doing little to nothing right now to push back against the statist agenda because people of conscious are deathly afraid of being labeled as racists, bigots, sexists, or homophobes. The time to get over the fear of being labelled something by your enemy is over. The left is the enemy to self government and has to be stopped. Undoubtedly, what we are experiencing in the country right now is the rise of tyrannical government. We fought wars to destroy collectivist, fascist and Marxist ideologies in the past and now the country is on its own path to the same type of government that we so strongly opposed.

The LGBTQZRDESATRP mafia will not like what I have to say next, but they have been fighting for a "right" that was actually put in place to keep whites and blacks from marrying. Marriage license laws didn't exist in this country until the advent of Jim Crow laws and the dark, Separate but Equal phase of our history. The license requirements were put in place as a sort of "poll tax" on marriage to keep people apart that the segregationist Democrats didn't want having children together. The federal government then took the idea that they could encourage people to have children with IRS incentives for married people in order to help replace the tax paying population after the advent of Social Security and welfare programs that depended on new income tax revenue. Just in case you flunked biology, homosexual couples can't bear children. The correct fight would have been to abolish marriage licenses and the federal government's recognition of those currently married. Just because two people are married before God or who ever they decide to pray to(Mother Earth, in the case of the green crowd), the federal government need not see them any differently than any other person that is not married. What this case actually will result in will be the marginalization of all that don't tow the progressive line.

To put this all in a more elemental light, the left and the Gay Mafia have been saying that this issue is like modern day equivalent of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. That could not be any further from the truth. Unless a genetic link to homosexuality is discovered, there is no basis in fact to support that argument. A black child can no more select their race than can they select whether they are born with girl parts or boy parts. To make this argument makes a mockery of the work of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his work. I guess what I'm saying is if being gay isn't inborn, it is a personal preference. Love has nothing to do with law. Unfortunately, feelings have now become a positive defense when arguing a case before the Supreme Court. Frankly, feelings shouldn't matter in the eyes of the law.

Another argument that I would like to see put before the Supreme Court that would illustrate to the leftists that were pushing for the abolition of states rights that states rights actually matter. Since most states have "must issue" rather than "may issue" conceal carry permit laws on the books already, shouldn't all other states recognize that and also issue conceal carry permits to anyone that is eligible to have one? Shouldn't one state's concealed carry permit be valid everywhere in the country? The logic is the same. What if I love my gun and want to carry it with me everywhere? Who's to say that I shouldn't be able to do that.

The past few days of Supreme Court decisions show that words no longer mean ANYTHING. If I was a defense lawyer, I'd be licking my chops. Now that all laws are open to interpretation and plain language no longer matters, why not challenge every single law on the books in the same fashion. Laws and amendments only mean what the Court says that the writers wanted them to mean, not what they actually say. 

I leave you with the excerpts from the dissent of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy.

The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.

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