When government gets too powerful and oversteps its bounds of authority, the Constitution give us all a way to fight back.

As President Obama has said, and said again, and then said some more, everything has already been said about the issue of what has been euphemistically called "National Health Care Reform" that needs to be said.

Surprisingly, I agree with him. From a substantive standpoint, those of us who know this whole thing is an agenda-driven farce have come to our conclusions. Nothing the Big O or anyone else says about it is going to change our grip on reality. Those who are in favor of bankrupting and ruining the US Health Care system to "improve" it aren't going to change their minds either. They are no more likely to concede that ObamaCare is designed to augment federal government power instead of improve the quality and level of healthcare services than they are to refute the notion that the US government is hiding aliens in Area 51 when it isn't blowing up the levees in New Orleans or perpetrating 9-11 as an inside job.

So, what exactly is there new to write about this issue? Since facts and figures don't matter (ten years of taxes and six years of spending do not equal a "deficit neutral" program; Medicare cuts cannot be "savings" if the money is immediately spent on other programs; you can't instantly add millions of new people to a system that cannot expand its specialized personnel and equipment overnight and expect that health care won't be rationed — you know, little things like this), all that is left is to appeal to common sense.

But even here this approach is flawed, because an appeal to common sense requires that the other individuals have some common sense in the first place, and if that was the case, we wouldn't be having this national conversation in the first place.

So let me take a different approach, and toss in something new to consider should the Dems succeed in rewriting, redefining, or ignoring enough rules and basic Constitutional provisions to ram "health care reform" down our collective throats. Right now a sufficient number of states have passed laws objecting to aspects of the socialization of 1/6^th of our economy and/or the unconstitutional provision that the Federal government can require individual citizens to buy specific products or services, that we have reached a "constitutional threshold."

In other words, if the inevitable lawsuits that arise from the passage of ObamaCare are stuck down by the lower courts or upheld by the Supreme Court as "Constitutional," then an interesting option remains: change the Constitution.

"But," you say, "there aren't enough congressmen sympathetic to a constitutional amendment prohibiting such actions by the Federal government to get this ball rolling." That's true. But it's equally true that the Constitution can be changed even if every member of the Legislative (not to mention Executive and Judicial) Branch is opposed to this action. We do this not by originating a Constitutional Amendment in Congress, but by calling a Constitutional Convention of the 50 states.

I first wrote about this four years ago when discussing some of the, let us say, more "curious" Supreme Court decisions regarding our First Amendment and other rights. If what I wrote then made sense, it should hold up equally today as it pertains to the present issue under discussion. The only difference now is that enough states have already begun to act so that this is no longer a purely academic argument, but one that could very well signal a way to return the American system of government to its proper foundational roots.

So here it is, from November 29, 2006: "What We Need is a Constitutional Convention." As you read it now, think of how this might play out over the next 12-18 months should the Federal Government finally overreach and trigger a nation-wide, grassroots backlash.

* * *

Few people know this, but there are actually two ways to amend the United States Constitution.

The first is the only one we have ever used. Congress puts an issue to a vote, and if it passes muster at the Federal level, it's off to the states for ratification or rejection.

The second way is summarized nicely by Wikipedia:  

Besides the more common method, there is an option to assemble a national convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution. Article V of the Constitution requires the Congress to "call a convention for proposing amendments" . . . "on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states." With 50 states presently in the Union, there must be applications made by lawmakers in at least 34 states in order to trigger this alternative procedure. The convention to propose an amendment (or amendments) has no ratification powers; it may only draft and propose the amendment(s), which must then be ratified by either the state legislatures or smaller conventions conducted within the individual states.

For years this second option was avoided like the plague for fear of ruining the very document it proposed to strengthen and protect, namely the United States Constitution.  Unlike "Option One," which puts forth a single amendment for consideration, there is nothing to prevent a national convention from looking at every paragraph, clause and semicolon in the U.S. Constitution.  In other words, the impetus could be, say, to further refine and/or define the succession to the U.S. presidency, but it could end up modifying or eliminating all together each one of the Bill of Rights, every other previous amendment to the Constitution, and any/all provisions within the main body of that document itself.

As a wet-behind-the-ears poli sci major in college, I was horrified at the thought that based on the whims of the times we might end up tinkering with the right to free speech.  That right is sacrosanct in American political history, and more than any other provision embodies the essence and distinctiveness of the U.S. Constitution.  If not free speech, then a Constitutional Convention run-amok could trash the right to a fair trial, restrict the right to vote, place undue restraints on the exercise of commerce and free trade, and harm the country in a number of other ways.

But then Congress decided a couple of years ago that it didn't like being criticized and passed something called "Campaign Finance Reform."  [Note to file: The more egalitarian and uplifting the name of a particular piece of legislation, the more insidious and venal its intentions usually are.  That's one way to know what to support and what not to support based on a cursory review of a typical hundred-plus page bill - loaded with earmarks and special provisions masquerading as high-minded principles.  But I digress.]

Anyway, like most reasonable people who looked at the First Amendment and understood not only what it said, but what it meant,¹ I was sure that the Supreme Court would strike this bill down as patently unconstitutional.  But they didn't, and now George Soros can spend millions of dollars trashing what I believe, but I'll go to jail if I give too much support to a political candidate or political party that represents my views.

Then of course there was the case that made it all the way to SCOTUS (which, by the way, kind of decided a couple hundred years ago that it was the final word on all subjects constitutional, even though the Constitution itself didn't exactly give them this specific authority) where some homeowner objected to having his land taken from him by the state to give to a private developer.  The Kelo decision tossed that one out the door, using the precedent where states can deny personal property rights for the common economic good.  Yeah, sure, a new shopping mall will probably result in more local tax revenue than Joe Schmo's three bedroom split-level, but that's not the point.  Thanks to Kelo, there's virtually nothing a State can't do to you, or your property, if some bureaucrat thinks the net effect will be better for his paycheck and pension plan.

Add to this the "right to privacy" that can't be found anywhere in the Constitution but exists anyway in the mind of the Court, and the right to abortion that flows from this hypothetical right to privacy, and a few dozen other diminutions of what it means to act as the Commander-in-Chief independent of Congressional permission (the War Powers act), conduct interstate commerce (if you assemble and sell your product entirely in Kansas, but breathe air from neighboring Missouri, you've just engaged in "interstate commerce" and are thus subject to Federal regulation), and so on, and so on. 

Add it all up, and then ask yourself the Big Question:  Exactly what is it we're protecting by not having a Constitutional Convention and revamping the whole ball of wax?  Sure, the nuts on the Left will try to toss out the Second Amendment, and in light of the shoddy education most people receive today about politics, economics, and other formerly-important issues (see my Looney Liberal Chronicles, Chapter 1), they might just succeed.

But then again, despite what Chuck Schumer and the national media tells us, the majority of people in this country are opposed to abortion, and don't want to see their taxes constantly raised by Congress to pay for social spending experiments, and would probably support a fairer system of free speech and religious expression than we have at the present (including placing restrictions on media attempts to influence national elections by deliberately misreporting or ignoring crucial facts).

So in the end, we'd probably come out ahead on most of the issues that are important to the future of the country.  Sure, the resulting Constitution wouldn't have the hallowed history that the document created in 1787 can lay claim to.  But to cite one of my favorite lines from My Cousin Vinny, "so I ax you, what difference does it make what kind of clothes the sonofabitch was wearing" when he shot Bambi's mother? Bambi is still dead, regardless.

The hallowed history of today's Constitution counts for virtually nothing in protecting the rights we all thought were perfectly clear when we read the original document.  In the blink of a political eye 5 members of the Supreme Court can invent a new hypothetical "Right" that supersedes the old written-down Right, or define any term so broadly that it has literally no meaning at all.   

Thomas Jefferson is rumored to have said that a good fire every 10 years is a great way to keep democracy alive.  It clears out the deadwood and thins out the underbrush, and in so doing lets the world renew itself.  We clearly don't need to put a match to the Constitution, for even with its flaws there is nothing to equal it in human history.  But we can put a match, metaphorically speaking, to the deadwood of thoughts that has plagued this nation the past forty years and turned many of these hallowed principles on their head. 

It's time to renew faith in the Constitution by renewing the Constitution itself.  Rather than bleed it to death slowly as a "living document" that succumbs to every whim and fancy of the 9 Supreme Court Justices and their political followers, let's make it completely relevant again and have it reflect, once more, the true thoughts and aspirations of the people of this country.

Endnotes

1.  Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.