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Guest Post: The Case For A Constitutional Convention In 2016
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
The Case For A Constitutional Convention In 2016
That which is unsustainable will go away, and the Status Quo is unsustainable on multiple levels.
Now that the billion-dollar theatrics between various vested interests have finally concluded, it's time to ask if there is an end-game to Imperial over-reach and corporatocracy.
The Status Quo won--no surprise there, as there was no other choice offered.
The Imperial Presidency won, too, of course; anyone anywhere can still be assassinated by order of the Imperial President, regardless of their citizenship. Anyone can be labeled "an enemy of the State" and either liquidated (high fives all around!) or crushed by the Espionage Act (transparency is a crime), Patriot Act (dissent is also criminal), the NDAA, or maybe another Executive Order.
The neofeudal Aristocracy also won, as vested interests were free to buy "free speech" in unlimited quantities.
Everyone at the trough of the Central State won, as the welfare state--personal transfers and corporate welfare, there's something for everyone--has created its own Id Monster, the tyranny of the majority: Tyranny of the Majority, Corporate Welfare and Complicity (April 9, 2010).
This pursuit of self-interest guarantees that the Savior State will lurch off the fiscal cliff at some point, much to the dismay of everyone feeding off it; it was supposed to be permanent, right? Alas, as the Buddha taught, permanence is illusory, even for global Empires.
Unfortunately for the Status Quo, this is the apogee of "extend and pretend." When the wheels finally come off the global economy in 2013, the Status Quo will not be able to "save the day" by lowering interest rates to zero--interest rates have already been zero for four years.
The Powers That Be will not be able to "save the day" by borrowing and blowing $1.3 trillion a year in "free money," because we've already been borrowing and blowing $1+ trillion every year for four years.
The Federal Reserve won't be able to "save the day" by buying $80 billion in Treasuries and mortgages every month--the infamous QE--it's already buying $80 billion a month, and has been doing so for four years.
That means the bag of tricks to "save us from recession" is finally empty. The next recession will sink its teeth into the Savior State and all the protected fiefdoms and cartels with a vengeance built up by four years of "extend and pretend."
The failure of "extend and pretend" and the Status Quo that sold it as the "fix" opens up the possibility that crisis will lead to real reform, the kind that requires a Constitutional Convention.
The Constitution allows for Constitutional Conventions, though one has never been called. In effect, every major 80-year crisis (the Civil War and World War II) was resolved with borrowed money, abundant cheap energy and an expansion of presidential powers.
Now that we're in a debt hole that deepens every day, and the Imperial Presidency already has virtually unlimited power, these are no longer solutions, they have become the problem.
A Constitutional Convention might focus on the four primary threats to democracy:
1. The corruption of elections. Perhaps corporations should not be considered people, regardless of what our intellectually bankrupt Supreme Court thinks. Perhaps publicly funded elections that cannot be corrupted with unlimited cash are an essential feature of authentic democracy.
2. The unlimited ability to borrow and monetize. No doubt the nation needs the flexibility to borrow money in times of crisis and war, but it is wise to enable unlimited borrowing and monetization via the Federal Reserve? The ability to borrow is a form of self-destruction which we will experience soon enough. Perhaps the Federal Reserve and the State's ability to borrow should be eliminated and we should start over with a system that isn't based on artifice and perception management.
3. The Imperial Presidency was not what the Founding Fathers had in mind--it was precisely what they feared. Perhaps it is time to revisit limitations on Presidential powers.
4. Post-Imperial America. Empire is affordable as long as the Empire can scoop up enough wealth via expansion to fund its ever-higher overhead. Once the inflow of wealth falls behind the rising costs of Empire, the Empire collapses. The Constitution doesn't preclude global Empire, but perhaps it should. Is Empire and the Imperial Presidency what America is about, or should be about?
2015 sounds like a decent year for crisis that cannot be wished away with perception management and "extend and pretend" financial slight-of-hand. That which is unsustainable will go away, and the Status Quo is unsustainable on multiple levels.
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Yes, lets just kill the people that don't agree with you. That will solve all of the problems, after all that worked in the Middle East right?
Money will still buy power, power will still seek money. Legislators will still be bought, so will the voters. Provisions of your new constitution will be reinterpreted or ignored as needed. The Constitution is a fetish, no more real than the pagan gods of old.
The bed wetters would destroy the Constituion.
The bed wetters are the Legislative Branch
....and They Live.... in a Democracy
When all money is debt, it's hard to see how another constitution would make things any better without an overhaul of the world's economies and monetary systems. It's easy to say things "can't go on this way", but frankly they were also saying this 40 years ago.
Really wish people would get over this idea that they need pieces of paper and guys in costumes to tell them how to behave.
Constitutional convention would result in legalizing all the crap the executive orders foist on us now.
And legalize weed, so people won't care. Oh yeah, I forgot - this would require an expansion of Medicare/caid to include Lucky Charms for all.
Constitution was dead after Lincoln.
And in that constitutional convention, they'll get rid of the first amendment, second amendment, fourth amendment, tenth amendment... since they are all already dead.
There are too few Americans left, who are thoughtful and educated enough to consider the ramifications of ANY Constitutional ammendment. Nope. Not a good idea, at all.
I am quite sure the statists will be fair to us the little people during the convention. Keep those great ideas coming
It was closer than anyone could have guessed. The next lock of the century is Clinton 2016. Prepare to meet thy doom.
Obama has complained about the Constitution as being " a charter of negative liberties."He would like to add some "positive liberties" such as guaranteed jobs and housing like the old Soviet constitution offered. A Constitutional Convention run by Obamaphone recipients, who won the election, would guarantee the inclusion of such positive liberties as least until the printing press melted.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2012/09/23/why-the-fuss-...
Can you imagine if it was open season on creating a new Constitution circa 2013? They could erase the Bill of Rights (not that they basically haven't already). The amount of meddling by the power elite would give them everything they ever wanted and then some. Our system of laws has failed to prevent catastrophe and there is no way out now. There simply are not enough clear-headed, un-corruptable statesmen and too many meddlers and special interests. We might as well just ride it in now, which is exactly what we're going to do, regardless.
Nope, there's no case for a constitutional convention. Nothing wrong with the constitution we have now. It's just been tossed out, ignored, like any other laws limiting expansion of federal govt power.
State govts are at fault. State govts haven't challenged federal usurpation of power. They bitch about it but that's it, just bitch.
It's not the people's job to rein in the federal govt. It's the states' job, state legislatures.
The endless expansion of federal power and debt continues and now lurches forward. At some point the risks posed by a Convention will be outweighed by the inccreasingly probable dangers the federal government poses to liberty.
There are alternatives. For example a modified form of the Kentucky and Virginia Resllutions that allow for a state to ignore a federal law (or regulation having the weight of law) that it finds sufficiently objectionable. That may be too cumbersome given that we just recently passed the one million mark in the number of federal prohibitions in regulations having the weight of law.
We must act soon. The Leviathan State now can print its own money so it doesn't have to ask the voters for permission to spend on the welfare-warfare State.
Problem with the above article is the false assumption/argument that all the government-controlled levers have already been pushed up to their stops. That would imply they wouldn't DARE to go further than this. I think that's a bad assumption. Negative Treasuries and $200B/mo. in QE seems unthinkable right now. But how "unthinkable" was ZIRP and QE 1 until it happened.
They're just clearing their throats right now. Full-song is yet to come.
per usual... an excellent read and thought provoking!
thankyou again C H-S
Concentrate on the commerce clause revision. Needs to be limited so feds don't get their nose involved in all this regulation.
If corporations do not have a say in politics, fine. But don't tax corporations. It is just another tier in the exchange of money that Congress loves to tax. Money either goes to stock holders, employees, R&D, purchasing, etc.