Tag: Convention of States

More Convention of States Nonsense

On Tuesday, March 28th, there will be a Convention of States rally at the Iowa Capitol. I encourage everyone who is able to come out and oppose this dangerous and foolish nonsense.

I am saddened to hear that Bob Vander Plaats of The Family Leader will be speaking in favor of this foolishness. But it doesn’t surprise me really.

Bob Vander Plaats had a unique opportunity as a Believer to witness to Donald Trump who was a guest of The Family Leader before his 2016 Presidential bid and eventual nomination. But The Family Leader under Bob’s leadership tossed that opportunity aside and dived head first into to the Cruz campaign. Even being a co-chair of it and allowing the campaign to operate out of The Family Leader’s offices.

The dangers of having a Convention of States are well known. It is far too important to allow this wicked and foolish event to take place. Now those that support it will try to sale you on assurances that cannot be guaranteed. Namely that how there will be a stated agenda and rules that prevent any form of action contrary to what is being sold as a reason for holding the Convention of States.

Do NOT let this fool you. At any political meeting. There is always the opportunity to through out the rules at the very beginning or even suspend the rules during the course of the convention. I have been at conventions where this has happened. And I assure you it will happen at a Convention of States.

There are people who wish to destroy the United States of America. Who wish to end the Republic and create a socialist state. America wont fall because of an outside military force. But it will fall from within if the Constitution can be destroyed and replaced but something else.

Our Founding Fathers meet in convention with the agenda of amending the Articles of Confederation that governed the young American nation. But instead they changed those rules and agenda and tossed out the entire Articles and created the Constitution we currently possess.

There are other means to getting what the Convention of States movement claims they want to accomplish and those means should be used.

I do not trust any living person to make amendments to our Constitution. Let alone to write a new one. Not even myself.

And yet here is a Believer, who has been fooled into this trap set by those who will destroy everything the Constitution protects once the Convention of States is called.

Bob Vander Plaats would have never made these two big mistakes had he had wise council in them. Unfortunately the wisest of those, his former assistant in all but name, resigned from the organization 2 years prior to the Cruz debacle. She would have told Bob straight out, in no uncertain terms, not to support Cruz and toss Trump under the bus like he did.

She would have also been against this Convention of States foolishness and called out the wickedness of what it is as well.

I know this for 100% fact. This is not a speculation as Bob’s former assistant was my late wife Kristen.

Scared for the Future

A couple of weeks ago the Iowa Republican Party had its State Convention. And I am fearful for the future of my Country.

The mid-term convention is a quiet affair. It is filled with speeches of candidates running for those mid-term election offices and not much else.

There is always a vote on approving the rules of the convention and elected the convention chair and other officers. Usually without a hitch. No one wants to spend their Saturday all cooped up at the convention.

And then the only real business during a mid-term convention is to approve the party platform for the next two years. And this is where I became fearful.

There were two planks for consideration. The first was to have the state party be opposed to any call for a Convention of States. And the second was just the opposite, to have the state party in favor of any call for a Convention of States.

A hand counted votes was taken with the first proposed plank being approved by the majority of the delegates in the hall. A second hand count of votes was required and it resulted in the second plank being rejected by the majority of the delegates in the hall. A sure win for Iowa and the Republican Party.

But the Useful Idiots who support such a dangerous call wanted the results to be different. So much in fact, that they called for a motion to suspend the rules of the convention in hopes that the previous votes could be nullified and changed.

Ironically, this is what those Useful Idiots say would never happen at a Convention of States. The very thing that they are doing at the state convention of the party. And they are too blind to even see or understand it.

Fortunately, reason prevailed and the motion was defeated without the votes being altered or nullified. But this kind of thing could very easily happen at a Convention of States if one does get called. And it would spell the end for this Republic.

Convention of States

There is a growing political movement out there to call for a Convention of States (CoS). This is also known as an Article V Convention or a Constitutional Convention. Just different names for the same thing.

Article V of our Constitution reads as follows:

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 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.

The supporters of this movement appeal to the emotions of their victims to gain additional support and momentum. A classic move of Leftists everywhere. And the Leaders of this political movement refuse to debate their opponents. This should be very telling exactly were this issue stands.

The beginning of the emotional appeal is stating that a CoS is needed to combat and stop federal government overreach and to limit federal power. Many Conservatives, Libertarians, and Republicans all recognize this as a growing problem in Washington DC.

We are all fed up with how the federal government is encroaching on our everyday lives and we all want to stop it from happening and getting worse. And just think for a moment about this issue. What are your feelings? Anger or even rage perhaps. This is an emotional response and if one says yes to the CoS. It is due to that emotional outrage instead of a logical, rational, or intellectual response. That is what the CoS leaders hope happens.

The two big pushes for a CoS are a balanced budget Amendment and a term limits Amendment. What isn’t widely known is that an Amendment to the Constitution isn’t needed for either of these things. Congress can simply balance the budget without it. That does of course take self control and Wise spending practices on the part of Congress. Additionally term limits were never originally part of the Constitution because the Founders thought the American people would be educated and politically active. Thus automatically preventing career politicians with their votes.

In the false tongues of the CoS movement, we are told that there is no reason to fear or be worried about such a Convention. There are rules. Each State gets one vote. 38 States have to Ratify any new Amendment created by the Convention. And the States calling for the Convention all have to agree on reasons for calling it. So nothing could possibly go wrong.

So yes it is completely safe. Except when you look at the facts of history.

No one can guarantee what will happen if a CoS is called. Write all the agendas you care to write. But just because it is written doesn’t mean it will happen that way.

A case in point for those that have never attended a political convention. One of the first orders of business by the duly elected or appointed delegates is to either approve the rules or change them. This includes changing how the votes are counted. Secondly, after the rules question comes the agenda. It is either approved or also changed. Again by a vote of the delegates present.

I have seen this happen in my own lifetime during my political journey. To say it wont happen at CoS is just pure ignorance and naivety. And to say it wouldn’t happen with something as large and important as the Constitution in the United States of America. That too is ignorance of history.

Once before, here in the United States of America, appointed or elected delegates met for a Convention. Called by a unanimous vote of all the several States, which was at the time the requirement. They met at Independence Hall at Philadelphia in 1787. Their stated purpose, the agenda, was to amend the then governing document of the nation, the Articles of Confederation.

They did not. No, instead those men changed the rules and the agenda at their Convention. They throw out the Articles of Confederation and created our current Constitution in its place. They even changed the ratification rules with this new document. Instead of all the several States needing to ratify it. Only three fourths needed to do so.

There are many political groups out there on both the Left and the Right, who have already written a new constitution for their version of what the United States of America should be in their eyes. None of these drafted documents are better than our current Constitution. And all it takes is those delegates at a CoS to vote on changing the rules and agenda to have one of these new constitutions or some other to become our new governing document.

The leaders of the CoS movement say that the above would never happen during their Convention. That such a scenario is a scare tactic by the opponents of the CoS movement.

Yes it is a scare tactic. And you should be scared to death of what a CoS could do if called into being. I am, which is why I’m writing this article to help educate the public and spread the word about the dangers that calling a CoS can do.

Look at history again. Even without a CoS we have created Amendments that completely replaced previous Amendments or changed whole clauses of various Articles under the Constitution.

Within a CoS it becomes very easy to make changes or even create a new constitution. The danger of a CoS is too real to ignore despite anyone’s feelings that such events wont happen. It cannot be guaranteed.

If the CoS is called, will this nightmare scenario happen? Will they create a new constitution or propose changes other than what the original agenda was created to do? We wont know until it happens and then it is too late. It’s like passing a bill to find out what is in it.

The fact of the matter is that I don’t trust a single living soul to write new Amendments to the Constitution or even write a new constitution. Including myself in this. The majority of Amendments added to our Constitution since the beginning of the 20th Century have all been based on emotions and are poorly written and conceived.

Do not support the call for a Convention of States (CoS). Fight it with every opportunity you have. Your life, your children’s lives, and your prosperity depends on defeating this Pandora’s Box before it gets opened.