Reality Check 101

According to Sen. Ted Cruz’s Legal Limit Report #4, the Obama administration, building on the foundations from past administrations, had by April of 2014, racked up 76 instances of power abuses and lawlessness. By the middle of last month, the administration had issued Social Security numbers to 541,000 illegal immigrants in defiance of a federal court injunction. It could be approaching one million in a very short period of time.

Out of the 37 states that have created same sex “marriage”, only three did so by popular initiative. That represents eight-tenths of one percent of the total. Only eight states changed civilization’s most basic institution by legislative action. Every other state was forced to comply by unelected, unaccountable judicial decree. The U.S. Supreme Court, the same institution that made decisions like Dred Scott (no citizenship for Blacks), Buck v Bell (forced sterilizations) and, most infamously, Roe v Wade (killing unborn children), could now presume to define the nature of marriage, even though two of the nine justices have officiated homosexual unions. Both justices refuse to remove themselves from the case.

In addition, there is a depth of corruption, incompetence and abuse of power that is beyond the pale within the Veterans Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Environment Protection Agency and even the Department of Justice. Regulation of men and women now invades almost every facet of life and it is destroying America’s proud heritage of individualism, self-reliance and private initiative.

There are two ways to preserve a republic, by force of a humble government populated by just and righteous servants or, that failing, by constraint of that same government by the citizenry. The People acting in defense of their “unalienable rights”, which are endowed by “Nature and Nature’s God”, have the only ultimate authority under their Creator.

So at what point do the scales tip from a government which leads by exercising “just powers” derived from “the consent of the governed” to one which rules with unjust powers without consent? It began when nine justices imposed prenatal infanticide and our leaders bowed to their will. The freefall away from legitimate governance has spread like a cancer as courts are allowed to create a creeping apartheid of religion, first through forced national secularization and now by their war on the natural family. Just as discouraging, Congress squirms and faints under relentless fortifications of power by the most radical, if not most incompetent, president in modern history.

The United States of America is at that tipping point. But our Constitution still offers a mechanism for our preservation. When all thirteen original states ratified the Constitution, they recognized the possibility of a future threat from the new government. Under Article Five they vested The People with the power to exercise ultimate amendment authority through a convention of the states.

Article V stipulates that when two-thirds (34) of the states submit valid applications to Congress, a convention must be called. If that convention manages to actually agree on an amendment to the Constitution, the proposal then has to be approved by three-fourths (38) of the states. The states do not have the authority to rewrite the Constitution, only amend it.

According to http://www.foavc.com, since 1789, there have been well over 700 applications to Congress for conventions of states for a variety of purposes. The closest we have come to an actual convention has been in the last fifty years when two such movements each came within one or two states of the needed 34. Interestingly, whenever a convention became a real possibility, even when applications did not get close to the magic number, Congress began to act.

The current groundswell for an Article Five convention is one of the best kept secrets in the media. A year ago, Michigan possibly became that 34th state in the latest movement. It sounds fairly straightforward but as usual when dealing with constitutionally uncharted waters, let alone with Congress and multiple state legislatures, it is not. There are significant differences of interpretation between legal scholars and the idea of states asserting their sovereignty in a convention probably sends cold chills down congressional spines.

One of the best chances we have among all the various convention efforts is one parented by Citizens for Self-Governance. Known simply as Convention of States (www.conventionofstates.com), it focuses strictly on measures which would return the ability to govern to the American people without destroying the Constitution or our unique form of government. It has the ability to consolidate existing campaigns into one focused effort. Its strategy is clearly mapped and very doable.

Congressional leaders might get deathly ill at the prospect of a convention and legal intellects could debate the matter for another 50 years, but we need to save our great republic now.