Could We Agree On A New Constitution? - Republished 14 January 2020

This question has recently re-surfaced in the context of Democratic candidates' for 2020's evident desire to make serious changes to the US Constitution with regard to the electoral college, the supreme court and similar matters.

The US Constitution can legally be changed in two ways:

-By amendment.  We have done that throughout our history, choosing to change the document paragraph by paragraph after a deliberately difficult process of Congressional approval and state ratification.  (2/3 of each house of Congress agreeing and 3/4 of the states ratifying) Many, many amendments proceed only part way through the process and then fail, never becoming part of the constitution.  Think of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  Has it been 45 years that it has waited for state ratification?

-By Constitutional Convention, like the first time in 1789.  This will not happen.  Why?  The states would be free to ratify or not ratify the new document and those that did not would be out of the Union.  (If that is not true, tell me why.) Who will risk that?  Who will risk the possibility that the Red/Blue divide in this country is not so serious that it would produce such a result.  Already there is much talk of polarization to the point of alienation.  What would be the result if Red Staters could rid themselves of Blue Staters or vice versa without an overt penalty.

IMO, if a constitutional convention were convened it would effectively become the supreme law of the land.  That is what happened with the convention that created the USA as we know it.  The convention in Philadelphia was convened to "adjust" the Articles of Confederation.  Once convened, the delegates seized control and created a completely new system of government.  The states are the contracting parties to the constitution and so the new constitution had to be submitted to the states for ratification. Two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina voted to reject the new government before Virginia, by the slimmest of margins, voted yes to "close" the deal.  It took several years and the Federalist Papers to obtain that final ratification.  RI and NC then changed their minds rather than be left isolated with the Europeans still on their "doorsteps."

Would not the large states wish to end the "great compromise" that gives each state (however small) two seats in the senate?  To do that would require the acquiescence of the small states in a process of ratification.  Would Wyoming  or Vermont or any of the other "small" states do that for California or Florida?  If frustrated in this process would Texas or any of the other big states leave the new country by rejecting ratification?

How many other provisions of the present constitution would be challenged?  Name a few.  How about the Income Tax Amendment?  How about popular election of US Senators?

Spare me any cant about "economic viability."  All over the world we have examples of states which are anything but economically viable but which exist because people there just couldn't "stand" being bound to some other group of people within the loving embrace of a constitution.  In any event, trade is not limited to national territory.

The accepted wisdom in the USA has been that regional cultural differences are disappearing under the influence of migration and the universal prevalence of a "national" (read Northern) culture.  It is mostly Northerners who say this.  They have been saying it since the 1830s.  Places like Atlanta and northern Virginia seem to support this view, but if you ask you will find that most of the proponents of that view who live in the metropolitan areas rarely leave those areas except by air or rail.  They don't feel "comfortable" wandering around the countryside.  Why is that?

The contrarian view is that, in fact, the regions and their cultures are actually growing farther apart, and that the values of places like New York City and the Piedmont region of the Upper South are farther apart than ever before.  This time it is not just a question of the culture of the South being "different."  Look at the Red/Blue Map by counties all over the country for the last two elections.  Look at places like California and Oregon.  Look at New York State.  The rural areas are Red if the population there is not a minority or solidly "labor" like the Masabi Iron Range in the far north, while the cities are Blue just about everywhere.  These divisions are deepening, not disappearing.  It would seem that now the split is rural/urban, as well as regional.

Let's not have another constitutional convention, not ever.  We are not Canada.  The Canadian government said years ago that a Quebec decision for "sovereignty" would be accepted.  I can't imagine that happening here and I would fear the result if it were attempted.  pl 

Comments

[turcopolier]

Fred

Assuming that the country broke up into some single states and/or blocks of states, the question of what would happen to the armed force would be unpredictable. The National Guard and the Regular Forces would have some hard choices to make. pl

[Swami Bhut Jolokia]

Fred, since the British will not be involved I doubt there will be much purging.

[LeaNder]

There is something bigger going on up there. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across this, since it contains an article by a "lost spiritual friend", but it still sits in my Kindle as a preview file only.

Nevertheless that is enough to get a glimpse of the larger context.

http://tinyurl.com/Arctic-Front-Defending-Canada

[GulfCoastPirate]

Actually, I'm not. All you have to do is look at the economic statistics of each state. What do you think would happen if Congress passed a simple law that said no state could receive more in federal largess than it paid in taxes?

Your original question came from the idea that Republicans would control enough state legislatures to force a convention. How would these states then force the other states back into the Union? They couldn't. It would be the South all over again. The red states throwing their little convention party would have bigger, wealthier states on multiple sides of them who would have no incentive to allow themselves to be dictated to by smaller, more socially conservative states.

All of this started by a fight over a balanced budget amendment? We could go a long way towards a balanced budget if those in the red states who want such a thing would begin pulling their own weight and not take more from the federal government than they pay into it with their taxes. Besides, a convention called for any reason that was brought about ONLY by the votes of Republican state legislatures would quickly devolve into a continuation of the 'culture wars' by the convention method. What the right wing has lost in the courts/public opinion they would attempt to force on others through this convention. The blue states and blue staters in red states simply wouldn't go along. It would be better to break apart and let everyone take their own chances.

[turcopolier]

GCP

"It would be better to break apart and let everyone take their own chances." Interesting. pl

[GulfCoastPirate]

alba etie,

I've heard of Galveston. I was born and raised there. I now live on Galveston Bay. I've also heard of New Orleans. Try to go at least once a year. My point was that given the opportunity the port cities along the Gulf may well decide to secede on their own and join blue states. It is my understanding that Houston is now the most ethnically diverse city in the US and the University of Houston is second among universities trailing only UCLA. Not many cowboys left down here. There are plenty in the coastal areas (and likewise I'm sure in New Orleans) who wouldn't mind breaking away from the bible belters in the interior who govern these states given the opportunity. We have a lot more in common with New York or Los Angeles than Lubbock.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Fred,

That is what will be happening in the red states and exactly why there will be many who want no part of any new Republican Constitution. It's already happening today - it will only get worse.

[turcopolier]

GCP

And there is not, has not been, purging of Red people in Blue centers like New York, Washington media and the like? pl

[robt willmann]

I have read and heard the position that the constitutional convention that established the existing constitution of the U.S. was a counter-revolution to what was created after the Declaration of Independence as a country through the Articles of Confederation. I have come to agree with that position. The Articles of Confederation were not given a chance to work, even though apparently some disputes had been resolved between States under its mechanisms. Read that document for yourself and see how the severe problems affecting this country now would likely not exist, and how those who lust after centralized political authority would want the present constitution and not the Articles of Confederation--

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=3&page=transcript

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp

http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/articles.html

It is a fascinating document, and provides for a military that is for defense only, but also that there shall always be in every State a "well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accounted, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores [!], a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition, and camp equipage". No need to worry about a "threat" to "national security" and invasion by Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS, or the Hitler of the Month, such as Iran, because much of the population of each State would be ready to shoot them off their new Toyota pickup trucks before they got five miles in from the coast, kind of like Switzerland on steroids.

When there are disputes between States, a court is created just for that purpose (Article 9).

As you might expect, when it comes to taxes, the language gets a little slippery and vague in Article 8, but taxes are laid and levied by the States themselves in time frames agreed upon by congress. No IRS.

Reading the Articles of Confederation will get you plugged into the filters in the telephone switches and Internet hubs for the NSA to create an on-the-fly dossier on you and your social contacts and network, and an "alert" will be sent to the "Fusion Centers"; but to go whole hog and get on the unconstitutional No Fly List, read the Constitution of the Confederate States of America, as preserved at the University of Georgia--

http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/trans.html

http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/selections/confed/signers.html

The constitution of the CSA is mostly a copy of the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, with some intriguing differences. Yes, the terrible institution of slavery was legal, but the importation of slaves from any foreign country was prohibited and illegal, as a matter of constitutional law, and the congress was given the authority to prohibit the importation of slaves from any State not a member of the Confederacy, in section 9(1-2).

These documents, which did in reality create geographical areas with operating political structures, are important to read and study, and to compare with the existing U.S. Constitution and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal and state governments. The study of them should be mandatory in all high schools and colleges. But you can be sure that they will not be studied as part of the "Common Core", the diabolical attempt to centralize and control the curriculum of all public school education and further dumb down and indoctrinate the hopeful and beautiful children of this country.

[Fred]

GCP,

It's already happening? Point me to some evidence of that please. I'd like to know how many people are moving now. For example just how many Norther retirees are fleeing Florida, Texas or even North Carolina due to the animosity of other residents?

[Fred]

Col.,

I agree. I can only imagine the fight over the nuclear weaponry.

[fasteddiez]

Houston is the larger port, as Galveston Bay turns into Trinity Bay which turns into the ship channel, with the shores teeming with tens of chemical plants, refineries, etc.

[fasteddiez]

Yep, Houston/Galveston is blue on the Colonel,s map. When the doltish governor hinted he might entertain secession, the opinion in Austin (Austintatious) was that they would secede from Texas.

[russ]

Hi Pat,
We are enjoying the discussion of constitutional conventions, We live in Rhode Island which was the last state to approve the US constitution and then only by a margin of 2 votes in the convention. The final decision to join the union was made because RI was to be treated as a foreign country and its trade with the other states subject to tariffs and duties. These days it might be said to be in New England but not really of New England. Its population is very inwardly focused and its legendary level of corruption places it in the running for the most corrupt state in the country. Like several other states, RI’s constitution now mandates that every 10 years the issue of calling a constitutional convention be placed on the ballot. I think this amendment was added because the state’s elected officials could not be counted on to (surprise) fight corruption aggressively. The last convention took place about 30 years ago and reportedly did not accomplish much.
Russ

[ISL]

Jose,

I suppose you are familiar with regulatory capture? Crony Capitalism? The Italian disease?

Guess what happens to me if my business fails (five employees). Do the same rules apply to the 1% - I dont think so. I also do not see the Fed's printed trillions handed it to me. You call that pro-growth? Liberal? It was under Bush. I (and others) call it a recipe for oligarchy.

Do I wish the US will change? Yes. Will it? History suggests no. Hope I am wrong, but if not those with friends in the right places will survive and even prosper......

[GulfCoastPirate]

Colonel,

Please don't take my statement out of context. It was said in the context of a Constitutional Convention being called by Republican legislatures only and in your question as to whether or not states that didn't ratify the new Constitution could be forced back into the Union. My own opinion is they couldn't be forced back and such a union wouldn't be worth joining. Those who wouldn't want to live in the resulting christian taliban like state would be better off taking their chances elsewhere.

[GulfCoastPirate]

Colonel,

Is this a serious question? Are you talking about the same media full of neocons that led us into Iraq, etc.?

[turcopolier]

GCP

Yes, the same media, deeply under the influence of the Zionists in foreign affairs and quite left on domestic issues. pl

[turcopolier]

gcp

"the resulting christian taliban like state" As I said you are filled with contempt and condescension for those not like you. pl

[alba etie]

fasteddiez
DUH ... I grew up fishing West Bay, Christmas Bay , Bolivar Flats, Roll Over Pass, San Luis Pass - so yes your geography is correct . I daresay that the folks I know in La Porte , or Deer Park would not leave Texas if push came to shove. As for an earlier comment regarding Austin -( have lived in Central Texas/ Travis County since 1976) why yes Austin would secede should Texas secede - it could get real interesting real fast ..

[alba etie]

Gulf Coast Pirate.
Congratulations - you are BOI in Galveston . I was born in Nacadoghches myself . If and when secession comes to Texas it should make for some very interesting times.

[MRW]

"Balanced budgets may make sense at a State level, but make no economic sense whatsoever at a Federal level."

Absolutely correct. If the idiots sponsoring this would take 10 minutes to look at the Historical Tables on whitehouse.gov and check out those years (in the first table, I think: 1789-now) when we were either balanced or in surplus, they would realize:

* The Great Depression was preceded by 10 years of federal surplus

* Clinton's surplus created The Great Recession delayed by the dotcom and housing bubbles.

* Andrew Jackson balanced the budget in 1836, which precipitated the first US depression.

There are at least four more.

For those wondering why, it's because the federal government ISSUES the currency; it doesn't need income or revenue to survive. The state and local governments, businesses, and households, foreign governments and banks, everyone BUT the federal government, does need to earn the US dollars it uses. It needs revenue.

Every candidate should be asked one question: do you think the federal government has to tighten its belt like a household?

If the answer is yes--like President Obama believes--then throw the bum out. He doesn't know jack about what he's talking about, and would endanger the nation.

President Roosevelt turned the Great Depression around in two years. Obama has had six years and done zip. In 1937 the Republicans and that Democratic idiot Henry Morgenthau (the Jack Lew of his day) convinced Roosevelt to tighten the belt and drastically reduce spending. They wanted a balanced budget. Took 11 months and the US was back to the 1929 depression.

You'd think they would read history. The current crew have no idea how a fiat currency works and they seem intent on keeping that way.

I beg all of you here, if you want the USA to be in permanent depression, then support the federal balanced budget amendment (a good idea for states, btw). Otherwise, fight tooth and nail to make sure it dies. And don't vote for ANYONE who supports it.

[MRW]

To ex-PFC Chuck, at 06 April 2015 at 10:19 PM

Prop 13 was officially called, "People's Initiative to Limit Property Taxation." It was WAY MORE THAN "preventing property taxes from keeping pace with inflation."

No, no, no, this was a bank coup, and the beginning of the 1%.

The US had become 100% sovereign monetarily on August 15, 1971, when Nixon took us off the gold standard internationally. Our currency was now non-convertible. We had a floating exchange rate. 100% sovereign.

We could denominate our debt in our own currency, and because we were the reserve currency, a $100 bottle of French wine cost the government the price of printing the $100 bill: $0.07. A barrel of foreign oil at the highest 1970s price cost the US federal government $0.35 (the price of printing a $20, $10, and three $1.)

But, in fact, no one printed anything. It was keystrokes on the Fed's computer adding to Saudi Arabia’s checking account at the Fed (after being instructed to do so by the Bureau of the Fiscal Service at the US Treasury following congressional appropriation).

If anyone at the federal level had understood the amazing brilliance of what Nixon did, the US federal government could have produced unknown prosperity in the country. Certainly, the governor of California who became president didn’t. He ruled like the country was a US state.

But the bankers (and realtors) understood, especially in Southern California where all great banking crimes are hatched (S&L, CDOs, Sub-Prime Mortgages).

In the 1930s and 40s, the majority of income for a state like California was property taxes. The property taxes, coupled with federal transfers, gave every California kid a free university education until Reagan became Governor.

You can’t take anything off your property taxes. There are no deductions. Like it or not, you pay depending on how big your house and property is. So, if you owned a five-acre spread in the middle of San Francisco, your property taxes were through the roof. You would jump at the chance to free that money up for something else.

BUT. The high property taxes also kept the price of houses down. Therefore, less expensive mortgages, and fewer fees for bankers. The rich were paying their fair share and there was less extra money sloshing among them to invest in the stock market, or a new more expensive house.

In 1978, the same year that Drexel Burnham (Beverly Hills) created with the first CDO for a San Diego S&L, the bankers had managed to convince Californians that they were *all* paying too much in property taxes. Renters were told rents would come down. Ordinary middle class, who were neither thinking nor knowledgable about how state taxes work, happily voted for the death sentence of increased state income, gas, cigarette, alcohol, local govt, and sales taxes to make up the shortfall. So they voted in Prop 13 and celebrated like the drunk who married the waitress he just met in Vegas.

The bankers got higher price houses because they happily make the loans that promoted the price increases. Realtors were ecstatic. And the poor and middle-class got slugged with the taxes previously paid by the upper-class and uber-rich. Sales taxes soared. So did income tax. Gas. The works. I remember being told the price of a gallon of milk in the poorer neighborhoods doubled almost overnight (transportation costs and the oil shortage thing).

Because people realized they could buy ‘up' using their former considerable property taxes as a downpayment, they raised the price of a house in the Hollywood Hills that was worth 200Gs in the 70s to $2 million by 1990. I know. I looked at one.

One of the people pushing Prop 13 was a member of Reagan’s Kitchen Cabinet. Can’t remember who. The finance world pushed Reagan getting into the presidency and promoted his STATE of CA ideas; it didn’t matter a whit that the fourth item on his presidential platform was to return the US to the gold standard, which would return this country to penury. He who owns the gold owns us. Any new find devalues the price of gold. Or a country could do what France did during the 60s that precipitated Nixon’s move. Collect 35 USD and trade it in for an ounce of gold. France was depleting our supply.

The banking world, under the rubric of privatization and some indefinable but ostensibly 'necessary freedom', managed to convince the majority of Americans that states should handle what formerly was federal government domain. They sold privatization as a virtue, as if a for-profit company was going to do better than the full weight of government, public opprobrium for cheating people, and keeping costs down. Especially costs that can be subsidized BY THE ISSUER OF THE CURRENCY. fercrissake.

States need money to do these things (they need to earn it like businesses and households, or go into debt). Bankers hand out the loans and get the fees. Look what they’ve been doing with student loans since 2005 to our kids: destroying their futures, and those bank student loans are 100% guaranteed by the US government; absolutely NO RISK to bankers and just to make sure, they changed the bankruptcy laws so there was no doubt they could collect. None of this is necessary. The federal government could issue higher education transfers to each state and problem solved. There should be a 100% debt jubilee to these kids tomorrow. The govvie is going to give it to the banks. Why don’t they give the 100% guarantee to American students?

Outsourcing parts of the Pentagon and other government agencies bring banks enormous profits. Simply enormous, and because these orgs are private, we cannot hold them to account.

But Americans have got this “smaller government//government of the people, by the people, for the people” reactionary disease that does not recognize our population is 10X larger than 1863. Americans are historically stupid. Right now we’ve got the same number of federal employees as 1956, almost 60 years ago, when the population was 1/2 what it is now.

I think I better shutup.

[MRW]

"it is a question of whether the people of the United States are prepared to shoulder the costs of Fifty State Governments."

The people of the United States DO NOT SHOULDER THESE COSTS. Technically, they are called “transfers.” It is a compete misnomer to say that taxpayers pay for anything at the federal level. And the implication that only federal taxpayers have a say when so many are still out of work is repellent. We should be doing or not doing things at the federal level because it is the moral thing to do.

When you pay your taxes, assuming you do it by check or wire transfer—not cash—the money is REMOVED from *your* bank’s checking account at the Fed. It is *extinguished*. Gone from the planet. Oh, sure, they mark upon that you paid, and they publish the amount “collected,” but big whoop. It’s gone. When Congress appropriates, or “spends,” it creates new money. No one in Congress or the US Treasury calls up the IRS and asks how much there is in the kitty. *No one.* Does. Not. Happen.

You need to get clear in your head that federal taxes do not pay for anything. Federal taxes serve the purpose of controlling the value of the dollar and what it can buy.

So, when the economy is cold, cut taxes and increase spending.

When the economy is red hot (everyone has a job) then cut spending and increase taxes. Taxes are a barometer, or thermometer.

Taxes at the state and local level are another matter entirely. States and local govts need revenue. So do you and your family, and the business you work for. You’re revenue-constrained.

Doing this—managing the taxes vis-à-vis the willed economy--is called *fiscal policy,* something that Congress has failed to do for 30 years because the idiots do not understand accounting, and they specifically do not understand federal accounting. Nor do they even understand that they control it and that it is their constitutional job to do so. !.!.!

Case in point?

The Debt Limit.

The Debt Limit was created in 1917 following WWI to put a belt and set of suspenders on the US gold supply for international purposes/expenditures. It was a check and balance to make sure that too much gold wasn’t leaving the system. That’s why you couldn’t exchange treasury securities for gold until the maturity date. It became absolutely meaningless in 1971.

These fights about the debt limit are like saying if your car runs at 560 horsepower, then you have to have 560 horses on your property somewhere to back it up. Are you shaking your head? Same thing with the Debt Limit. Every dime of the National Debt or “Debt Held by the Public” is in the bank accounts of pensions funds, corporations, small businesses, household, foreign banks and governments. The National Debt is the country’s equity. It is what we OWN, not what we OWE.

[MRW]

I apologize for this disjointed post. I have the worse time with Mac's Autocorrect. It literally changes words I type to something meaningless.