State Sovereignty, an idea who’s time may have come.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

State Sovereignty

I am not one of those people who think that the United States Constitution is a living, breathing document.  I rather believe that the founding fathers intended to guide us exactly as they penned the Constitution.  The founding fathers anticipated that changes to the Constitution would be necessary in the future;  it is why they provided a process through which the American people could amend it.  They did not intend the process to be easy, however.  They sought to protect the Constitution from ill-considered, hastily prepared changes.  But they also wanted to ensure that the process of change did not prohibit it.

Constitutional amendment is possible through a two-part process, proposed in two ways.  The first and most common method is that constitutional amendments originate within both houses of congress, requiring two-thirds majority in both houses to proceed.  Subsequently, all constitutional amendments must pass through two-thirds of the state legislatures.  One never used is when States call for a constitutional convention.  We can only presume that should two-thirds of the states call for a constitutional convention, it would cause grievous worry within the House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate.

So then let us imagine that the each of my readers copied and pasted this information into an email and sent it out to everyone they knew, and those people in turn did the same. And each of these people sent a letter to their state representative.  Suddenly, state legislators would be getting very similar demands that states reassert their constitutional rights as sovereign states, equal in power to that of the national government.  How would the Washington bureaucracy react?  It may simply depend upon the issue upon which the states sought to reassert their power.  Suppose the states decided the Sixteenth Amendment (imposition of federal income tax without regard to state apportionment), should be repealed.  Two-thirds of the states could imagine that much of the wealth passed to the federal government from their own citizens is capital revenue denied to the states.  Money is power, right?   So, rather a situation in which states must beg for federal money, they might suggest that state legislatures shall determine what percentage of the state’s wealth it ought to share with the federal government.   And assuming that any of this could actually happen, how would an arrogant federal government respond to this sudden and forthright challenge to federal pre-eminence?

Think about it;  after you’ve done that, why not act on it?   Would this not clearly demonstrate that  ‘we the people’ retain power over the government?

by Mustang at Social Sense

Now you may be asking yourself many questions in regard to this.  Feel free to go to Social Sense and read through the comments there or comment and ask here.   If you have questions in regard to what you can do to support this idea,  I will be posting a list here of Indiana legislators with contact info and a sample letter that you may choose to use if you feel so inclined.  I will try to have both posted within 24 hours.

Hoosier Army Mom

Update – May 21,2009 – Another proponent of Mustang’s theory…

Have you ever heard of Randy Barnett?  He is a professor of legal theory at Georgetown University Law School and a proponent of states calling for a Constitutional Convention as a means to get us back to the principals of our Constitution. It gives further impetus to the idea that we have recourse under our Constitution to restore the liberties that the current administration is walking all over.  Even without a Convention coming into being per se, it sends a clear message to our leaders that “We the People” will call them on the carpet if they continue to ignore the founding principals.  You can read his full profile and view his video here.