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in partnership with:
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is pleased to present
Tom DeWeese, President
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“Sustainable Development: The United Nations’ Agenda to Eradicate Private Property Rightsâ€
Saturday, April 30th, 2011 on the campus of The Ohio State University
31 Hitchcock Hall, 2070 Neil Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43210
10:00 a.m.—2:30 p.m.
Tom will sign copies of his book “Now Tell Me I Was Wrongâ€
Free and open to the public
To RSVP call:Â 614-989-5293 or email: [email protected]
The question that should constantly be on our minds – “who owns you?” This is not a trivial question. It is a philosophical ‘fork in the road” for people who call themselves “libertarian” (note small “L”). The answer you give to it will mark you as either a Christian libertarian or an anarcho-libertarian. This well-done video is an excellent illustration of what we mean. Watch this closely and see if you can detect where it goes off the rails-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6J730PqBik&feature=player_embedded#at=39[/youtube]
Did you notice that the video presents an either/or dichotomy in answer to the question? That’s pretty easy to see- self-evident, if you will. But did you notice that the “either/or” dichotomy presented is a false one? The only choices given are “me” and “someone else.” There’s a third choice and it’s the most important choice. The third choice brings the question into clear focus because it provides an answer to all of the “yes, but’s…” created by the two other choices. For instance the video asserts that “each person by virtue of being a human being has the absolute right to control his or her own body and remain free from outside interference [emphasis added].” The video then asserts that “our founding fathers believed that self-ownership was a self-evident truth” which leads to the idea that everyone has the “right” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Yes, but… where in the writings of the founders or in the foundation of the founders1 can we find this idea of “self-ownership?” John Locke is quoted in the video… out of context… regarding self-ownership. Locke’s true view on this is important, central in fact, so we’ll expand on it in a moment.
Yes, but… it is asserted in the video that we possess “rights.” The 800-lb gorilla in the room then is “where do “rights” come from (especially the idea of “absolute rights”)?” Are rights merely the agreement of all people in a social contract? What if all don’t agree? What if a majority in one body-politic or another decide to exclude minority members of that body from the contract for one reason or another, for instance exclusion on the basis that they haven’t obtained “full personhood” status or once had but no longer meet the criteria for that status?
Yes, but…is the video’s claim of the founders’ philosophies even in the correct category regarding the “self-evident truth” found in the Declaration of Independence?
To make it clear, we believe that there is a vitally important third choice for the question “who owns you?” But it’s ignored by the video maker.
That answer is- God. Now if you choose God as the answer the “yes, buts…” disappear. To demonstrate that we’ll examine our “yes, but…” list in reverse order.
First- The founder’s philosophies of government were formed by reading theologians and philosophers like Calvin, Knox, Beza, Luther, Pufendorf, Ockham, Grotius, Augustine and, yes, John Locke among dozens of others. Note we said theologians and philosophers, the vast majority of them Christian. The self-evident truth held by the founders was not the “truth” of self-ownership, but the truth of “inalienable rights,” that is the belief that rights that are an intrinsic property of the individual. Sounds more or less the same doesn’t it?
That is, until you examine the origin of those rights, the gist of the second “yes, but…” In the philosophy touted in the video, rights are the sole result of the social contract- an agreement between the members of a particular body politic subject to whatever the majority decides the standards and boundaries of the contract might be. If you doubt this view the video at the Youtube website and read the comments on the video. Several of the video’s viewers are under the impression that “free” health care is a “right,” and that all be done to make it a “right” is convince enough members of the body-politic that it should be a right and- VOILA! A new “right” is created.
In the founders’ philosophy, inalienable rights are an endowment from the Creator- God. That philosophy does not deny that the social contract exists, but in the founders’ view the contract, properly formed, has an authority that it can’t have outside of an endowment of those rights by God. Men can band together and form a social contract for the protection of individual rights because they have, as the image-bearer of God, the right to protect and defend those individual rights collectively within preset boundaries and standards. And the God who endows those rights also sets those boundaries and standards on man’s rights. Thus the notion of the “absolute” right is swept away. Also swept away is the notion that certain individuals may be excluded from the social contract by the arbitrary agreement of the majority regarding the definition of “personhood.” That definition is in the hands of God and is not subject to human will and whim. Hence the inalienable right as the gift of an omnipotent and omniscient Creator.
We claimed that Locke was taken out of context. The video implies that Locke was an anarcho-libertarian but, in fact Locke was a Christian. There can be no doubt about this. Both of his Treatises on Civil Government- the source of the the quote on “self-ownership” is in the Second Treatise 2– and his The Reasonableness of Christianity are undeniably Christian in character, being argued from scriptures. His Christianity was not untainted by the “enlightenment,” but he still maintained a Christian worldview about what “property” and “ownership” are. From a Christian perspective, God retains ownership of all persons and property. He providentially bestows His blessings on whom He chooses. They, in turn, are expected to act as good stewards of God’s providence. This is the contextual framework that Locke’s “self-ownership” MUST be interpreted within. Outside of this framework Locke looks like an anarcho-libertarian, inside it he looks like what he was- a Christian libertarian wherein rights are a gift of God to be exercised within His boundaries and limits. Under the former, rights are the result of societal contract. Government is an unnecessary encumbrance of the contract. Therefore anarchy reigns and there is no mechanism for actually enforcing the social contract. Under the latter, rights are a gift and the social contract is entered into in order to protect them from those who would violate them. Government is a Providentially ordained and limited institution for enforcing the rights given by God.
Barry Sheets, the Director of the Institute for Principled Policy did a series of video presentations over 2 years at Camp American. The subject was the Foundations of the Founders. He has a different take on John Locke as this excerpted portion of a larger 2-hour video shows.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk_0LDq9MqA[/youtube]
So where does the “Who Owns You?” video make reference to Locke’s Christianity or his clear references to scripture as the undergirding of his arguments in in both the First and Second Treatises on Government ? Well, clearly any such references would muddy the water regarding the case the video maker is trying to make. Locke certainly understood who owned him- God. And he clearly understood that rights were a gift of God, not the result of the evolution of a social contract. He also understood the concept that God is the true title holder of all and that we are merely appointed through His Providence as stewards over His holdings.
Kind of throws the discussion into an entirely new light, doesn’t it?
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Notes
1 Sheets, Barry, The Founders’ Foundations, video series on what the founding fathers studied in forming their ideas for government, available at http://www.campamerican.com/?page_id=27&category=11&product_id=25
2 Locke, John , On Politics and Education, Walter J. Black, Inc., Roslyn NY, 1947, P. 87
Hey kids! Let’s build a perpetual motion machine in the back yard!
No, Andy Hardy and the gang never uttered this absurdity. But Toyota, in a recent series of commercials, is making up for that deficiency with a commercial that makes the modern-day equivalent statement. Here’s the commercial-
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8iFqz1Ogig[/youtube]
Did you catch that last bit? “Who knows? We might be able to create the world’s first self-sustaining amusement park.” Now if we could just get Congress or the UN or somebody to just repeal those pesky laws of physics- you know, especially those stupid and wasteful laws of thermodynamics.
Now does anybody reading this really think that one can create more energy through the use of a magical Star Trek-like “Hybrid Synergy Drive” by merely stepping on the brakes than gets used to run the car? Or an amusement park? But Toyota unabashedly implies that it is a possibility. Well, maybe if we all close our eyes and wish REALLY hard and make a wish and just BELIEVE, everything we wish will come true! The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is usually pretty hard on companies that make wildly exaggerated claims in advertising. Apparently Toyota gets a pass on this one.
This is, of course, the basis of much of the argumentation driving so-called “green energy” schemes- wishful thinking and, physical impossibilities like wind farms and giant banks of solar cells in the southwestern desert, etc. that take the place of fossil fuels. And all driven by “government- business “partnership,” meaning corporate welfare where the corporations demand the money and the politicians dutifully provide it- in return for contributions to re-election campaigns. Meanwhile, one technological box canyon after another is proposed, carried out to the point of failure, abandoned and replaced with a new cockamamie project. All with accomplished with bond issues, tax-abatements and taxpayer-supplied subsidies (often mis-labeled “investments”- mislabeled because with an investment a return is usually expected).
Perhaps it’s time to stop stop dreaming of perpetual motion devices, laughably mis-named “smart meters” (really just glorified government-controlled on-off switches that will be used to create rolling blackouts during peak-use periods and shortages created by government bureaucrats who refuse to approve the construction of additional power generating plants, as they have been in Colorado and California already) and develop REAL replacements for fossil fuels, like nuclear, perhaps.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
There is currently a movement in the United States that is gaining a disturbing momentum. The leaders of the movement are agitating state governments to petition Congress to call a new constitutional convention. While groups on the left have been demanding a new convention for the purpose of re-writing the existing Constitution for decades the current calls are coming from groups that most would place in the “conservative” category. The liberal groups are calling straightforwardly for a convention with plenipotentiary constitution making authority while the conservative elements are calling for a convention limited by charter for the purpose of amending the existing Constitution. While the latter sounds reasonable it is the opinion of the Institute For Principled Policy, not on our own authority but based on extensive research on the legal, historical, and procedural precedents set by conventions of the United States, colonial America, and Great Britain, that the chartering of a so-called controlled or “shackled” constitutional convention will have the same result as the calling of a convention with plenipotentiary authority. That predicted result in either case is a new constitution. Based on further research into existing constitutional models, parts which are already being implemented, we believe that the government created by any new constitution will be divorced from both the bedrock philosophical moorings laid out in the Declaration of Independence and from the shackles imposed by the current constitution. In this light the Hegelian Dialectical nature of the debate over a new constitutional convention is exposed.
In this series we will present the case and documentation that are the foundation our positions.
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“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ †Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ â€
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,†Alice objected.
“When I use a word,†Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.â€
“The question is,†said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.â€
“The question is,†said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master that’s all.â€
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!†–Humpty Dumpty in Alice Through The Looking Glass
Why all the questions?
In the previous section we posited that there are important questions that must be answered and the answers confirmed. All of the questions pivot around the necessity of a new convention, the historical and procedural precedents set during previous conventions, and parliamentary rules and procedures. You will find that some of the questions asked here have purportedly been answered by one or another of the pro-convention advocacy groups and think tanks. Our contention is that the answers to the questions do not hold up to close examination and must be rejected. And this is where much of the problem discussed earlier lies. The answers given have been taken at face value because the people asking the question have trusted the organizations supplying the answers. And in some cases that trust has been misplaced, with the result being the magnification and propagation of spurious information about the controllability of certain types of conventions.
In researching the answers to these questions we have encountered much scholarship both American and European and spanning the period from the 17th century to the present. Some of the scholarship we examined, especially from the 20th century, contains subtle arguments based on claims of special knowledge of the meaning of key words and phrases from 18th century documents. Much of the argumentation that grows out of the historical evidence is therefore subject to interpretation. And because the interpretation can be based on specialized knowledge, it is also subject to equivocation regarding the meanings of words and phrases to support the case that the writer is working to build.
Words have meaning- and why that matters.
For an illustration of this principle the reader is invited to read and compare Joseph Story’s Commentaries On The Constitution of The United States with Abel P. Upshur’s A Brief Enquiry Into The True Nature And Character Of Our Federal Government, John Taylor of Caroline’s New Views of the Constitution of the United States, and St. George Tucker’s View of the Constitution of the United States. In these 4 volumes, all based on the same basic set of documents and historical facts, the authors draw very different conclusions regarding the original intent of the framers of the Constitution on the subject of the nature of the government created by it. Story (and to a lesser extent commentators like William Rawle in his View of the Constitution of the United States) take a position that the Constitution created a sovereign national government, in effect arguing that not only did the states not retain sovereignty but that they never actually had it, sovereignty having passed from the British Crown directly onto a single united entity in the body of “the people,†the states being mere organizational and administrative entities. Upshur, Taylor, and Tucker all argue that under the polity created by the Constitution the states retain full sovereignty except that which they have voluntarily ceded to a federal government limited by charter for the purpose of presenting a united defense, diplomacy and trade posture to a hostile world. Upshur and Taylor’s works were actually written as direct refutations of the basic premises contained in Story’s Commentaries. In the first position the union created the states; in the second the separate states united to create the union.
These very different arguments grew out of the views of the two major parties at the Constitutional Convention regarding the nature of the new Constitution. The federal position (ironically championed by men labeled “Anti-federalist†by the more propaganda savvy opposition who fought for a national government but labeled themselves “Federalist,†a label which stuck) is the position that eventually prevailed at the Constitutional Convention. Nationalists, deeply disappointed at their failure to eliminate the state governments began to work on strategies for shifting sovereignty from the states. The method they chose was to use the federal judiciary to, in the words of Thomas Jefferson referenced previously, “…make it [the Constitution] a blank paper by construction.†Jefferson meant by construction what we today refer to as deconstruction or the equivocation of key words and phrases in order to create confusion in the reader about what the writer meant. The writer then capitalizes on the confusion to build an argument reconstructing the meanings of the words in support of his position on the issue.
Nowhere is this use of equivocation to steer the course of debate more evident than in Joseph Story’s Commentaries. Story spills much ink in attempting to explain that the colonies and the states that replaced them as they declared independence from the British Crown were not ever sovereign political entities. He does so by positing an advantageous definition of the word sovereignty then working to demonstrate that the states never comported with his definition.4 He then cherry-picks quotes from state ratification debates to support his main premise that sovereignty passed not to state governments but directly to Congress.5 Story also supports his argument with this whopper-
In the next place, the colonies did not severally act for themselves, and proclaim their own independence. It is true that some of the states had formed incipient governments.6
Abel Upshur deftly dismantles Story’s argument of this specific point as part of a broader dismantling of his deconstruction of the word sovereignty. He demonstrates that several states, including Virginia, declared independence unilaterally prior to the July 4, 1776 declaration by Congress7 and further refutes the argument that sovereignty passed directly from the King to Congress.8 John Taylor anticipates Story’s attempts to redefine the meaning of sovereignty (the argument was not original to Story but can be traced back to nationalists at the Constitutional Convention) in a chapter that specifically examines the definitions of words being used in the argumentation. Taylor knew that in order to truly evaluate the arguments from the various positions on constitutional interpretation there must be a clear understanding of the definition of the key words being used.9 It is interesting to note that despite the superiority of the argumentation from Upshur and Taylor, Story’s Commentaries remain the standard reference on the structure of the federal government as created by the Constitution. That can be seen in congressional debates like the so-called Webster-Hayne debate of 1830 in Congress over the creation of a protectionist tariff. Though Daniel Webster gets most of the attention of modern historians it was Robert Hayne who was considered the winner of the debates at the time. Webster relied on the groundwork laid by Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, and Joseph Story in redefining the meaning of sovereignty in order to argue that states didn’t have it. Hayne argued Taylor, Upsher, and, Tucker’s position based on the unequivocal meaning of the word as it was clearly understood at the time of the establishment of the republic.
Redefining key words remains the technique of choice in modern debates over constitutional issues when obfuscation of one fact or another is necessary to swing opinion on the debate. Therefore, we have laid out a list of questions that must be answered and answered in a manner consistent with established definitions of key words and phrases. We will endeavor to uncover equivocation of key words and phrases when we find them.
Question 1) What crisis is the new constitutional convention call to address?
There are MANY groups agitating for what they call “single issue†convention calls (more on this further down the question list)- balanced budgets, illegal immigration, the so-called “Fair Tax,†an end to abortion, etc. One proposal calls for an amendment to the Constitution that would allow the legislatures of 2/3 of the states to negate federal legislation. We would ask what these advocates think the 9th and 10th amendment do, exactly (not to mention why they’re not working to repeal the 17th amendment instead of asking for a new constitutional convention)? Apparently, they believe that the 9th and 10th amendments are mere philosophical statements and not organic law of the republic reiterating the clear principle that the enumerated powers are the limits of federal authority and that the checks and balances mechanism extends to the external authority of the states, rather than allowing the federal government to be the final judge of the extent of its own powers. It is precisely this paradigm which has allowed federal power to slip the leash and become a rogue.
The hot topics during the current “constitutional crises†that supposedly require a convention to fix are 1) a federal balanced budget amendment and 2) the aforementioned amendment that would create a constitutional provision for the states to negate federal laws with the concurrence of 2/3 of their legislatures, the so-called Repeal Amendment. Many groups including those with a great deal of influence on conservative state legislators like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and those who have influence at the grass roots level like 10 Amendments for Freedom and Citizen’s Initiative are very active in applying pressure to call a convention for these specific purposes. It appears though that neither the legislative lobbying groups nor the grass roots have put much time or effort into looking into the Constitution to determine if there is any existing solution to these “crises.â€
This question is first on the list because it is by far the most important. If there is an existing constitutional remedy or if the problem can be fixed by some remedy already existing in law then it is obvious that a constitutional convention is a completely unwarranted gamble. What’s worse is that it also means that there are those actively calling for constitutional conventions who know they are not necessary. Why? The only reason to agitate for an unnecessary thing in the realm of government policy is that there is political gain to be had from it. The agitating groups know that there is a strong probability that a new convention means a new constitution.
This leads us to the next question, really a sub-question since the first leads directly to the second.
Question 2) Does this crisis have an existing constitutional solution?
This author was recently interviewed on this topic by Steve Deace on WHO radio in Iowa prior to the election in which 3 Iowa Supreme court justices were removed from office in what is called in Iowa a retention vote, a process in which judges appointed by committees can be removed by voters after a term in office. The question was regarding the calling of a state constitutional convention to handle what many in Iowa (a substantial majority it turns out) viewed as judicial abuse of authority. I argued that if there was an existing constitutional remedy then the calling of a convention was a dangerous gamble. You can access this interview HERE. My portion begins about 20 minutes into the segment.
In every case of the previously cited “crises†purported to require a new convention as “the only answer†close analysis demonstrates that there is an existing constitutional remedy to the “crisis.†Besides the 9th and 10th amendment powers solution to the Repeal Amendment “crisis†mentioned earlier there are also existing solutions to the so-called “Balanced Budget†crisis. The “balanced budget†problem is not constitutional. The problem is with politicians who buy re-election with expensive programs that are already unconstitutional, and therefore forbidden. What is actually occurring in many of these cases is that someone with a limited understanding of the inner workings of a constitutional convention call and even less understanding of the consequences involved has determined that the threat of a new constitutional convention is a wise tactic that will move his organizations “ball†towards the goal. In effect, these groups are engaging in what Russell Caplan, who was at the time he was writing his book an attorney with the US Justice Department, called “constitutional brinksmanship.â€10
Constitutional Brinksmanship
Constitutional brinksmanship is characterized by the use or creation of a “constitutional crisis†to create a sense that “something must be done, immediately.†Once the sense of crisis is established, one side of the issue or another (or several) puts pressure on Congress to remedy the situation. If the crisis is serious enough to require that Congress actually do something about the problem (real or created), but it is clear to Congressmen and Senators that doing something about the problem might lead to one segment or another of the electorate becoming disaffected enough to actively campaign to remove that member of Congress, they will attempt to put off any real solution with some meaningless or temporary legislative patch to appease voter segments. Realizing that this is being done, the activists behind the pressure then step it up in the form of petitioning state legislatures for passage of resolutions petitioning Congress to call an Article V “amendment convention.â€
This has been an effective tactic when there is sufficient emotional capital behind the issue to create enough grassroots pressure accompanying special interest group pressure on both Congress and state legislatures to move them. Under these conditions all sides inexorably move toward the precipice of a constitutional convention. The people knowledgeable of the potential consequences on either side of the drive know that a constitutional convention is a vast unknown quantity but they work to keep the parties applying the pressure and the legislatures assured that everything can be controlled knowing full well that the delegates alone control any constitutional convention and therefore is a gamble. The brinksmanship game then becomes really interesting because what is supposed to happen is that all sides reach the edge of the precipice, peer into its murky depths and decide that some compromise short of a convention is necessary. Hence it is a Hegalian dialectical exercise of thesis-antithesis-synthesis. In nearly every case the result is a re-interpretation (meaning elimination or reduction) of one or several Constitutional liberties by the use of, in Jefferson’s words, construction. But what if neither of the sides blinks? Those pushing for a new constitutional convention have adopted the attitude of the smoker working in a fireworks factory that decides to sneak a smoke at his workstation and thinks to himself “how bad could it be?†The answer is much, much worse than you know.
Next we deal with the question “can a convention be controlled at all?”
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4 Story, Joseph, LLD, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2010, Lonang Institute, www.lonang.com (Kindle Version), Book 2, §200-210
5 Story, Joseph, LLD, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2010, Lonang Institute, www.lonang.com (Kindle Version), Book 2, §212
6 Story, Joseph, LLD, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 2010, Lonang Institute, www.lonang.com (Kindle Version), Book 2, §211
7 Upshur, Abel P., A Brief Enquiry Into The True Nature And Character Of Our Federal Government: Being A Review Of Judge Story’s Commentaries On The Constitution Of The United States, 1868, Van Evrie, Horton & Co., New York, NY, pp. 53-56, A facsimile document which is an HTML Conversion of the original is available from the Constitution Society http://www.constitution.org/ups/upshur.html. The authors of this paper use a comb bound, paginated version of this HTML document separated into chapters. Page references are from this document. Contact [email protected] for inquiries on this version.
8 Upshur, Abel P., A Brief Enquiry Into The True Nature And Character Of Our Federal Government: Being A Review Of Judge Story’s Commentaries On The Constitution Of The United States, 1868, Van Evrie, Horton & Co., New York, NY, PP. 17-92 (chaps. II-VII)
9 Taylor, John of Caroline Virginia, New Views of the Constitution of the United States, 2000, Regnery Publishing, Washington DC 20001, pp. 1-11
10 Caplan, Russell L., Constitutional Brinksmanship- Amending the Constitution by National Convention, 1988, Oxford University Press, New York, NY 10016
Institute on the Constitution is a 12-week training course on how to understand and utilize the Constitution of the United States to protect and promote our fundamental liberties under law. Students will be challenged to look at current events through the lens of the organic law of the land, not through the gimlet eye of the news media or even of many of our elected officials. Students will learn the history behind our founding documents, and the legitimate involvement citizens must engage in our constitutional representative Republic.
Your paid course registration includes 12 weekly 90-minute training classes, a student handbook, and supplemental materials valued at over $75. The course will be taught by Chuck Michaelis, executive director of Camp American, and Barry Sheets, executive director of the Institute for Principled Policy. We are also being sponsored by Oath-Keepers.
The cost for this course is $60 per student if registration is made online before March 5th. After this, or at the door, registration will be $75 per student. Students who complete the coursework will be eligible to be part of a graduation ceremony to be held on the last week of classes. Classes will begin on March 7, 2011 at the Grace Bible Church 424 Gender Rd. Canal Winchester OH 43110. They will run from 6:30-8:00 p.m. Course materials will be given to paid students on the first evening of classes.
Oath Keepers is sponsoring limited scholarships available for active duty police officers or sheriff’s deputies.
Pre-registration is STRONGLY encouraged. We need to know you’re coming so that we can have enough books. Pre-registration can be done online, by telephone or by email. Contact Chuck Michaelis at 614-893-5986, Barry Sheets at 614-989-5293 or email [email protected]
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On Tuesday January 18,2011 Barry Sheets, the director of the Institute For Principled Policy, was the guest host on Linda Harvey’s Mission America program on WRFD radio. His guest was Chuck Michaelis, the Vice-chairman of the Institute and Executive Director of Camp American. The subject was efforts by a number of nominally “conservative” groups to call a new “single issue” or “shackled” constitutional convention.
The Institute For Principled Policy has done extensive research on the issue of “single issue” or “shackled” federal conventions and has drawn the conclusion, based on the evidence presented by proponents of such a convention, that the result of such a call would be a disastrous discarding of the current constitution and the creation of a new constitution.
You can hear the half-hour interview here.
Chuck Michaelis and Tom DeWeese have done several classes on the history and consequences of constitutional conventions at Camp America in 2009 and 2010. Videos of these talks are available at a nominal cost from Camp American- click here.
Progressives are getting desperate. They cannot deal with the absolutes of the Constitution, so they first resort to criticizing it. Barack Obama did this in 2001, saying the Constitution was fundamentally flawed because of its restraints on government.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11OhmY1obS4&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/youtube]
After the 112th Congress opened its session with a historical reading of the Constitution on the House floor in January 2011, this really set the progressives over the edge. First, Marxist propagandist and former Howard Dean campaigner Ezra Klein claimed that the Constitution was irrelevant and has no binding power!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjHFiLdpwOQ[/youtube]
(Does the First Amendment have any binding power on Klein’s right to write and speak lunacy?)
The third step was for several liberal legislators and the lamestream media accusing republicans and TEA partiers of having a “constitution fetish“.  The word “fetish†has a couple of definitions.
1. An object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency.
2. Any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.
While the technical context of the criticism was the first, the obvious connotation was the second. Much like the tea partiers were labeled as “teabaggers†by the progressives (a repulsive act of homosexuals), now the Constitution itself has been derided and sexualized as pornography – an addictive vice that is worshiped, idolized, and causes arousal.
At the same time, progressives will defend real pornography as a sacred right protected by the very document they lampoon!
This is what happens when absolutes are thrown out the window – reality is subjective to the whims of those in power. The Constitution, much like the Bible, is chock-full of didactic and absolute language – “shall†and “shall not†– referring to the powers and limitations of the federal government. However, progressives and tyrants prefer feel-good dialectic and flexible language that appeals to our flesh and humanistic sinful nature. This how government health care becomes a “rightâ€, homosexuals are allowed to serve in the military, and illegal immigrants become righteous victims deserving of mercy instead of law-breakers.
If anybody has a fetish, it is the progressives with their obsession of “salvation by the stateâ€.  So-called democracy is their church, the media is the choir, and the IRS passes the collection plates (at the point of a gun). Some even get a thrill up their leg at the mere thought of a savior-President. Who has the fetish now?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no9fpKVXxCc&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/youtube]
With this crowd, every problem has a big-government solution, and anyone who dares to appeal to a higher authority to argue otherwise is dismissed with sophomoric insults. Yet the book of Ecclesiastes tells us that what is crooked cannot be made straight. (Eccl. 1:15). This fallen and sinful world cannot be “fixed†by the power of the state. The founders of America knew this, and crafted our brilliant Constitution because they understood human nature.
It’s not about fetishes, it’s about world view. It’s not about worshiping or deifying the Constitution, it’s about respect for absolutes and God’s authority over His creation. The only question is, are there enough Americans remaining that have a Biblical and Constitutional world view of absolutes to preserve this nation for future generations? Or will we allow those with big-government fetishes to trash our Constitution and turn us into a European-style secular and socialist state?
Reprinted by permission of Liberty Nation
Bret McAtee has written a rebuttal to an abysmally reasoned op-ed article on what the author, a certain Lincoln Caplan, calls “Constitutional Conservatism.” McAtee hits the nail on the head regarding Caplan’s equivocation and the supposed “irrationality” of believing that words have meaning and that the meaning of the words, especially of documents which have such a profound effect on our lives, should be discerned and not merely reinterpreted at the whim of the current governing entity.
Somewhat less well done, but still excellent is the analysis of W. James Antle III in an article run in the American Spectator online. Be certain to read the commentary thread, especially the contributions of one Tom Anderson whose reasoning is, to say the least, interesting not to mention a microcosm of the caliber of thought that comprises modern “conservatism” as opposed to constitutionalism.
We couldn’t have done it any better.
There is currently a movement in the United States that is gaining a disturbing momentum. The leaders of the movement are agitating state governments to petition Congress to call a new constitutional convention. While groups on the left have been demanding a new convention for the purpose of re-writing the existing Constitution for decades the current calls are coming from groups that most would place in the “conservative” category. The liberal groups are calling straightforwardly for a convention with plenipotentiary constitution making authority while the conservative elements are calling for a convention limited by charter for the purpose of amending the existing Constitution. While the latter sounds reasonable it is the opinion of the Institute For Principled Policy, not on our own authority but based on extensive research on the legal, historical, and procedural precedents set by conventions of the United States, colonial America, and Great Britain, that the chartering of a so-called controlled or “shackled” constitutional convention will have the same result as the calling of a convention with plenipotentiary authority. That predicted result in either case is a new constitution. Based on further research into existing constitutional models, parts which are already being implemented, we believe that the government created by any new constitution will be divorced from both the bedrock philosophical moorings laid out in the Declaration of Independence and from the shackles imposed by the current constitution. In this light the Hegelian Dialectical nature of the debate over a new constitutional convention is exposed.
In this series we will present the case and documentation that are the foundation our positions.
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About once a decade or so, over the last 40 years, a group of social activists decides that a new constitutional convention would be a good idea for one reason or another. The 2010’s have proven to be no exception. What is exceptional about the early 2010’s is that there is a looming governmental and economic crisis that could conceivably provide the “tipping point” necessary for a new convention. In the past, issues like the so-called “Fair Tax,” immigration reform, a balanced budget amendment, state sovereignty (already covered in the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution) and a host of others, one group has a list of 10 proposed amendments, have been used as motivating issues. Up to this point, none of these issues, taken singly, have had the horsepower necessary to create the political pressure necessary to trigger a serious call for a constitutional convention.
The concept of the “tipping point,” a rapid and pivotal change in public opinion or the opinion of key players at critical points of history that occur prior to and which drive key historical events1, is a crucial concept in the history of the Constitution. The number of constitutional conventions held in the United States is small, only one so far, but the histories of the convention are voluminous. And, sadly, much of what is written in these histories is wrong, based on the writings of those who were diligently working to create a shift in public opinion and were not above a healthy dose of propaganda to create a “tipping point” in favor of replacing the confederated government of the Articles of Confederation with a new, “national” government which would eliminate the states as sovereign entities. After working for years to undermine the authority and effectiveness of the Articles of Confederation, nationalists (those in favor of a new national government) in Massachusetts, found their state embroiled in a crisis, which if sold properly, could be used to mold public opinion and the opinions of key players like George Washington into demanding a new constitutional convention. Men like Henry Knox, Benjamin Lincoln and other former members of Washington’s Continental Army staff, many of them members of the society of the Cincinnati, began writing exaggerated and inflammatory accounts of the events of Shays’ rebellion to key players in Congress, the press and George Washington. Thus Shays’ Rebellion, a local crisis based on a failure of the Massachusetts state government to redress the grievances of its citizens, was turned into an embryonic popular revolt that “threatened to spread across state lines” using carefully constructed accounts of the events that created something of a panic. These were all but a complete fiction. And yet the evidence of this has only been chronicled in any detail in the early 21st century by a scholar who discovered that his university was in possession of the official archives of the rebellion and decided it was time for a fresh look at the data. What he discovered was that the generally accepted accounts of the rebellion don’t match the events painted by the official records. History truly is in the hands of the victors.
The question we must ask in light of this information is, can something similar happen in our time? Are there individual or groups who want a fundamental change in our form of government and are they willing to exploit a crisis or create one to achieve the goal? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a progressive product of 1960’s radicalism, demonstrated that her training was not wasted. “Never waste a crisis” she told the European Union when speaking on global climate change and the global economic meltdowns (speaking of created crises). [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B62igfNu-T0[/youtube]Clinton knows history. She knows that no radical change to government is possible except as a reaction to some crisis that is perceived as having no existing remedy that  requires quick and decisive action. Thus the quote attributed to James Madison- “Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant”- is demonstrated to be an important insight, whether or not Madison actually said or wrote it.
What if a “perfect storm” of concern and outrage over a combination of two or more of the “hot button” issues from the list above or some other societal problems begins to gain momentum? What about a complete economic collapse? What about more “Obamacare” or bank/financial bailout type situations? Do people really understand that the problem with our current government lies not in its structure but in the fact that its limits as outlined in the Constitution, the highest law of the land, are repeatedly ignored or directly flouted by the very people they return to office election cycle after election cycle? Do people who should, really understand the ins and outs of a new constitutional convention or have the waters regarding the first convention, what happened there and what those precedents mean for a new convention been too muddied by historical revisionism and malignant neglect? Or have those events been clouded by a fog of general ignorance of the history and causes of the first convention in combination with deliberate efforts to obfuscate them?
In that vein, are you able to spot both the drum beat of crisis and the fatal problems with this “model resolution” calling for a “shackled” constitutional convention for one purpose and one alone?
Federal Relations Working Group Resolution on Article V of the U.S. Constitution2
Whereas the growth of federal government power at the expense of states has accelerated in recent years; and Whereas limiting the continued unchecked growth of federal power may require Constitutional reform; and
Whereas Congress is unlikely, without outside encouragement to propose any Constitutional Amendment that limits its own power; and
Whereas two-thirds of the states should have the same power to propose individual amendments to the Constitution for ratification as does two-thirds of Congress; and
Whereas when state legislators understand that legal and political procedures could limit an Article V Convention to the consideration of just one amendment, the balance of power between the federal and state governments would be fundamentally altered;
Therefore be it resolved that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) support and facilitate the education of state legislators about how an Article V Convention called by state legislatures could be reliably limited to an up or down vote on the text of a single amendment to the U.S. Constitution, including the possibility of an amendment that would give two-thirds of the states the explicit right to propose amendments without having to obtain the consent of Congress;
Therefore be it further resolved that ALEC facilitate times for legislators interested in working on this issue in more detail to meet during future ALEC meetings and events.
The drumbeat of the crisis is readily evident . But did you find the far more subtle problem in the “Whereas’s?” It’s there and it’s big. But don’t feel bad if you can’t find it. Most can’t. That’s because there has been so little effort put into teaching the Constitution, how it works and it’s history in primary and secondary education. Colleges, aside from a few isolated outposts of original intent thought teach a dreadfully deconstructed version of the events surrounding its development, how it’s supposed to function and the document itself. That’s why this series is being written.
Since many don’t know the history leading up to and during the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 we’re going to walk through some of the high points (and some of the low) and point out where there has been unintentional and where there has been deliberate blurring of those events. Some of the history isn’t pretty and some readers will find that founders they had looked at almost as demi-gods will emerge as men of much lower stature, men of great ability who sometimes used their God-given talent to further their own, sometimes less than lofty goals and ends. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Deification of men, no matter their historical importance and personal abilities is a dangerous matter. We will also expose some rather gaping flaws in the Constitution. This will challenge the beliefs of some who believe the Constitution is a Divinely inspired document handed down in revelatory style, on par with the Bible. It will also challenge those adherents to the American civil religion, the First Church of the United States, wherein American citizenship somehow automatically rates a free trip through the Pearly Gates as long as the holy sacraments are received by the congregants.
Don’t misunderstand; the Constitution is a brilliantly written document and is unequaled in history. It has some glaring mistakes, something that is to be expected of a document written by men with different backgrounds, motivations and viewpoints. It is marvelous, eloquent, flawed and in modern political discourse bantered about for public consumption but mostly ignored by the men and women we have charged with a solemn oath to uphold and defend it.
And most of all, it needs to be preserved, defended and protected from those who would like nothing better than to replace it with governing documents that will disconnect our government from its Christian philosophical foundation and radically redistribute power and wealth and alter American society.
This series will be comprised of 3 parts. Part I is a historical examination of the series of crises that resulted in the Philadelphia convention in 1787. Part II will be an examination of what is happening today to create or use existing crises to gin up a public cry for a new convention. In the final section we will expose existing plans, already partially implemented as part of the existing system of government, much of it in violation of the current Constitution, just waiting for the exploitation or creation of the level of crisis necessary to create the “tipping point” for a new constitutional convention.
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1 Gladwell, Malcolm The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference; Little, Brown, and Co., Boston, 2002, rear cover, “The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire”
2 American Legislative Exchange Council Resolution Passed by the International Relations Task Force and Federal Relations Working Group on December 4, 2009. Approved by the ALEC Board of Directors on January 8, 2010
Out of European Enlightenment thought came German Higher Criticism. Ferdinand Bauer and Adolph von Harnack are two of its major proponents.
The essence of their theory? That the early Church Fathers were influenced by Greek and pagan philosophy, and therefore Christian doctrine, for example, the Trinity, is based on Greek philosophy not the Bible.
Logical argument, right? Sure it is.
So you apply the test. Which part of Greek or pagan philosophy required the Trinity: one God, three Persons? No cheating now. You can’t use the Greek call for three gods – polytheism – as the foundation, for that is only a foundation for three gods, not the Trinity.
You get the idea. All of Christianity apparently can be summed up in these words written recently: “So what are we longing to go back to? A system based on a spiritualized, allegorized, synthesized, version of the word of God from a Greek world view? Babylon? Egypt?” There is no good in Christianity, it seems, in the eyes of some people.  You ask yourself questions. Is it true that Church Fathers were influenced by Greek philosophy? The answer is ‘yes’.
Is it true that the modern world, including most graduates from public schools in the past century, have also been influenced by Greek philosophy? The answer is ‘yes’.
Then isn’t it quite possible that those who were influenced by Greek Philosophy in the past could find their way out of the maze with the light of Scripture just as well as those today who have been influenced by that system of thought?
The argument is a false one. The conclusion is not warranted from the premise. This is why the Tübingen School, as German Higher Criticism was known, became a largely discredited movement.
There is always a challenge to discard non-biblical influences and listen to the Word of God loud and clear. And it is certainly easy to see Greek influences in contemporary Christianity.
But those Greek influences are just as strong in the general culture. Our education system, its methods and philosophy, are closer to Greek culture than they are to Biblical culture.  So this question arises: How is it that those born in the 20th century, educated in the schools of Humanistic (Greek) thought, can see the errors of Greek ideas in Christianity while those born in the first three centuries after Christ appear unable to to do this?
What makes us so arrogant that we cannot accept our Church Fathers were as able — perhaps even more able — to overcome Greek philosophy as we who live in the 21st century?
God bless you this week.
Ian Hodge, Ph.D.
For more see- Biblical Landmarks