By DOUG SHAVER
July 10, 2019
If a war of some sort is practically inevitable in the current situation, then we need to change the situation. And if, given the situation, we apparently have nothing to lose, then it’s probably time for a political Hail Mary pass. Also known as an Article V convention. The thugs are ahead as usual, time is running out, and the thinkers have nothing to lose.
For the past few years I have suspected that it was time for a new constitutional convention. A few days ago I discovered that, as usual, others have been thinking the same thing. And predictably, the establishments on both left and right are scared stiff that it might actually happen. And it isn’t like I’m not worried, too. The folks who want it to happen are mostly thugs. But so are those who don’t want it to happen -- which is reassuring in a perverse kind of way.
It’s easy to doubt that there are 55 people as enlightened as those who attended the first constitutional convention, and the number attending the next one will likely be at least 10 times as many. We can’t have much hope for a repeat of the performance at Philadelphia. The point, though, is that there is practically no hope for any business-as-usual alternative. A meager hope is surely better than no hope.
Every objection reduces to “There is no telling what they might do.” There is nothing they could do without approval of 38 states, which means any proposed amendment can be vetoed by just 13 states. And those 13 do not have to explicitly reject anything. It will suffice if they just fail to vote yes. In this situation, an abstention is in effect a vote against the motion. If we have gotten to a point where we no longer have 13 states with legislatures sufficiently enlightened to avert disaster, then nothing can save us and nothing will save us.
Here is a typical comment, by David A. Super in The Hill:
The product that emerges from an Article V convention could be radically different from what those asking it to be called may have envisioned, just as the Philadelphia convention of 1787 departed sharply from its mandate to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation. (https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/380467-a-convention-of-states-is-the-last-thing-america-needs-right-now)
That is exactly right, but the states were under no compulsion to do anything in response to the convention’s proposal. They could have said, “You didn’t do what we sent you to do, so just forget about it.” Nothing was stopping them -- except the blindingly obvious fact that lots of people, maybe a majority, thought the proposal was a really good idea.
The Philadelphia convention was called because everyone knew that the government established by the Articles of Confederation was not working. The delegates were instructed, in effect, “Find a way to make it work.” The delegates responded, “There is no way to fix the Articles of Confederation. We should try this Constitution instead.” The states could then have ignored that recommendation. The states chose not to ignore it. That was their decision. Had they decided differently, there was nothing the delegates could have done about it beyond saying, after the inevitable happened, “We told you so.”
Here is Common Causes’s warning from the political left, by Jay Riestenberg:
The unknowns surrounding a constitutional convention pose an unacceptable risk, particularly in the current polarized political climate. Given how close calling a new convention is, it’s time to spotlight that risk and sound an alarm for the preservation of our Constitution. (https://www.commoncause.org/resource/u-s-constitution-threatened-as-article-v-convention-movement-nears-success/)
I don’t believe that the left is all that concerned about preserving the Constitution itself. What leftists want to preserve is their interpretation of the Constitution, an interpretation that many of us think is contrary to both humanism and the proper exercise of reason. (To be fair, we would say the same about many on the right.) That interpretation depends on certain ambiguities in the Constitution’s language that an Article V convention could attempt to clarify in order to make it consistent with what most Americans of the 21st century want from their government. No political faction, though, is going to leave its agenda hostage to popular sentiment, and so the last thing they will want is to encode that sentiment into the nation’s supreme law.
Reistenberg also remarks:
Due to the threat of a runaway convention and the lack of rules to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, more than 230 public interest, civil rights, government reform, labor, environmental, immigration, and constitutional rights organizations released a statement in April 2017 opposing calls for an Article V constitutional convention.
So, without enforceable rules on their conduct, those delegates would constitute a threat to our constitutional rights. But they would be nothing more than a group of American citizens peacefully assembling to exercise their own rights of free speech and free press, in order to draft a petition for redress of grievances. Exactly what rights do we even have, that such a gathering can threaten them?
Not that I believe an Article V convention is likely to do any actual good. The naysayers have a point about the current political climate. The delegates will be selected by people who have used the current system to get where they are. They are the establishment, and the delegates will be their representatives. Of course the same was true in Philadelphia, but the establishment in those days was a little more enlightened. As a fraction of its membership, it had a few more thinkers.
(This page last updated on July 10, 2019.)