So we know the Republicans have mostly sold us out after we delivered the House and almost the Senate in 2010. We should know that whatever we deliver to the Republican leadership; be it a bigger House, a Senate majority, the White House in 2012, they will do nothing of consequence. Taxes won’t be cut or simplified; spending will hardly slow and given our last experience under total Republican government it may well accelerate.

The establishment, left or right, considers us (Tea Party supporters) to be naïve.

Every two years we play this game where, if only we can win, then our side can claim #victory and government will return, at least a little to its rightful place. We’re #winning!!! We believe them. But when we do manage to deliver #victory, government never gets smaller. We are naïve. #Sucker is a more accurate term.

I have kicked this around a lot.

I heard this first from one of the Ryun brothers of American Majority fame,

Structure Demands Behavior

They in turn got it from some business guru.

I think it is absolutely true.

At no time in the last hundred years have Americans wanted bigger government yet it is what we always get.

I firmly believe the changes made with the 16th, 17th and the Federal Reserve DEMAND the behavior that leads us to where we are.

If left unchanged, there is no possibility mere voting will make any difference. 100 years of voting through no less than 50 congressional elections and 25 Presidential elections proves this is true. CW recently sent me some passages from a book by Rose Wilder Lane, Discovery of Freedom. In the 40′s she was pointing out the crooked bastards can always round up enough votes with celebrity endorsements, picnics and vote buying. It is not better today.

(And thanks CW. I liked the excerpts so much I bought the book.)

The federal government has too much money with absolutely no accountability. As we see in the most conservative parts of Iowa, talk about killing a corn subsidy and they will kill your chances of winning. Talk about killing off shore drilling in Louisiana and it will kill you. Refuse to protect maple syrup in Vermont and the green mountain boys will lynch your campaign. Talk about cutting defense spending in CA and you’re dead. Means testing Social Security in FL? uh huh.

Congress is obviously NOT going to stop their gravy train any more than GE or Lars in Iowa is going to kill his. I do think Lars might be convinced to do the right thing if he knew GE would also be on the chopping block but GE will never concede.

That means that Republicans may even push for a BBA or Term Limits but “oh, so sad,” they always come up one or two votes short.

We are supposed to remain a bunch of naïve suckers never learning from the last cycle. We are supposed to believe they really are trying so hard to do the right thing and just can’t swing it.

I don’t believe them anymore. And while I have been a Republican since the age of 5 (literally and maybe earlier) I don’t trust any part of our party leadership. We can play this game ad infinitum. We will always lose.

I am done playing it. While I will continue to try to elect Republicans, with a few exceptions, I am only doing so because there are a relative few left in that party that get it. The Democrat Party has long since sold out the nation completely.

Instead I intend to focus on goals that can make a difference. Yes, we CAN elect Republican majorities. But to what purpose?  I am tired of being sold out.

It’s why I have arrived at the Article V Convention as the only possible solution. And it is a long shot on the order of We Pledge Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor. Not to change the constitution, but to change it BACK to what it was meant to be.

Structure Demands Behavior.

We are getting exactly the behavior our current structure demands. If we don’t change the Structure we will never change the Behavior.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I had some offline questions related to this post so I thought I would add the questions and my responses.

Q: Do you just want 16th and 17th abolished, or what else? I have lots of questions –
A: While I would take 16 and 17 gone as a start I don’t think it is enough. Here is why… The legal structure in terms of laws as well as the case law that has been generated would take as long to undo as they have taken to build. The stretching of the commerce clause for example. Making the federal government poor without restraining it would probably not get rid of the massive over regulation. In fact it might cause the federal government to turn to fines and fees for revenue. The federal courts would take generations to undo their endorsement of all of the federal overreach. They might not undo it ever. So I think something needs to be included to clarify the limited scope of the commerce clause.
On the subject of taxes, congress passed income taxes before the 16th was introduced. During the Civil War for example. So repealing 16 is good but clarifying particular restrictions would be much better. Some would say the courts had previously found against a federal income tax but they flip-flopped all over the place during the 30’s with FDR’s policies so I wouldn’t trust them to guard us if we repealed 16, we must also say emphatically NO INCOME TAX.
17 is an easier case. Repeal it and we go back to what was before. But, there were a few legitimate complaints that led to the 17th to begin with, one was having states fight over the appointment for extended periods of time so that a state was un or under represented in the senate. This can be cured by allowing governors to make temporary appointments while the legislatures fight it out. But it would need to be detailed in the repeal amendment.
You’ll hear me complain a lot about the Federal Reserve. But the biggest problem I have with it is that it is an unaccountable monopoly on the price of money. By mandating free use of gold and silver in private transactions the Federal Reserve will die on its own perhaps. It should also be barred from making loans to other central banks or foreign entities. If we leave it, and it continues in its current mission, the government will still have a tremendous advantage in terms of taxing us through inflation. It is part of the Federal Reserve’s mission to provide a constant devaluation of the dollar. This isn’t conspiracy theory it is called the target inflation rate. They usually shoot for 2%.
On the same subject is the balanced budget amendment. We don’t want them borrowing what they can’t tax after we repeal the 16th. They are many variations on this but I think we should keep it simple.
I would also like to see the number of House members tied to a hard number so congress can’t prevent the natural growth of House members. Say 50K per district.

Things that may not be crucial but awfully nice?
Immigration reform that stops birthright citizenship and outlaws amnesty. And this may be crucial actually.
Regulatory reform. I am sick of congresscritters pointing the finger at the EPA or OSHA and trying to shift the blame. If regulations are going to have the force of law they should be approved by congress after they are written. Congress makes the laws not half-witted unelected bureaucrats.
The right of repeal by states. If a supermajority of states vote to invalidate a federal law then it is gone.
There is a parental rights initiative going around. ParentalRights.org. It makes it clear parents choose education of their children as well as killing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Treaty for internal purposes.
Treaty reform just to make it clear the senate can’t ratify our rights away.

And finally two that would be the most difficult, Right to Work and Social Security Reform that puts it into the hands of the states.

A lot of my thoughts are at americanamendment.com

Q: If the Democrats/Leftists can take over Republican primaries and caucuses, why couldn’t they hijack an Art 5 Convention?
A: It would be nice to be able to offer some guarantee here but there isn’t any. And that is part of the reason for my saying it is a long shot on the order of sacred honor and fortunes. It will be difficult to get a convention. And it will be difficult to be sure we control it. And it will be difficult to get it ratified.
Having said that lets look at the situation on the ground. Congress has terrible approval ratings. The country hates the president’s policies. 70% recently polled (Drudge Headline a month or two ago) as believing the federal government is the biggest threat to liberty.
The environment doesn’t seem to indicate lefties will win as lefties for sure.
No sitting congressman or senator can serve at the convention.
It seems unlikely anybody could get elected or appointed on a grow Washington platform.
The majority of the Freshman class in congress came from Tea Party roots. There won’t be an existing bunch of corrupt individuals ready to co-opt or compromise convention delegates, they will all be freshman class. Boehner won’t be waiting for them with a check in one hand and a stick in the other.
They also will not be standing for re-election and so will have less reason to play those kinds of games.
So assuming some lefties do win elections to the convention, I think it is highly unlikely they will have a majority. Probably a small minority at most.

Q: Given all of that, assume it is still hijacked, then what?A: Assume I am wrong and they take a majority.
Whatever might pass out of the convention still has to be ratified by ¾ of the state legislatures. We might not get them to repeal the 16th or the 17th but do you think it is likely 38 states would agree to transfer more power to Washington? Almost certainly, any oddball amendments or as EBL asked, “something that could have been written by Marx or Stalin” would be a dead letter. States have proven they are capable of rejecting amendments. For example, most recently the ERA amendment failed.

Except it didn’t fail. Because congress has implemented most of it through legislation. And that is really the point.
Another failed amendment from the 30’s was the child labor amendment. Congress just ignored the fact that the amendment failed and legislated it all anyway.

The final reason these fears are unfounded. Congress just does it anyway.

We have a Marxist Socialist takeover of our government already well underway. The ArtV is probably the only way to stop it at this point.

So really it comes down to this, congress recognizes no power higher than itself. It already implements one socialist policy after another. On any given day we are one justice away from having no gun rights. On any given day Kagan’s belief that government CAN order you to eat your vegetables is one justice from being the law of the land.
We just passed legislation authorizing the president to detain without trial, indefinitely, American citizens on American soil. No review, no nothing.

Given the far-fetched idea that the convention and then the state legislatures are hijacked by leftists, what are they going to do that they aren’t already doing? What new power would they give themselves that they don’t already pretend they have?

Q: If ratification requires 3/4 of legislatures, do you forsee 3/4 legislatures being conservative anytime soon?
A: I believe the answer to the question is better postulated, can we put together amendments that states, right or left, will selfishly want to pass to get Washington off their back. To take power back for themselves. To open up new avenues of taxation and to take control of spending prerogatives and get their people working and investing. A good example is right here in WV. Now that coal miners have been attacked for 3 years by the dirtbag in chief I think it is very likely we could see ending the EPA bring strong support in the people and the legislature. Well cleaning up the commerce clause does that.
But even given good amendments it will still be an uphill battle. The difference between this and voting Republican is simple, we give the Republicans victory and we are still losing. We pass a few good amendments and Structure Demands Behavior. The wind is at our back and the left is slogging it like we have been.

Q: If you are dis-enamored with the r Party, as are many, do you not agree that its faults appear at the state level, as well as the national?
A: True states aren’t perfect. The best way to win is to appeal to their selfish side. Convince them they can take their state straight to progressive \hell/utopia faster without federal oversight.
Also, in WV for example, each delegate represents about 20,000 people. A quick math problem later and we see that about 5000-6000 voters per delegate are actively voting. I know both my delegate and my state senator passingly. I am simply going to have a lot more pull with them than I will with Shelley Moore. Not every state has WV’s ratios but most have ratios closer to WV than congressional districts which have about 600,000 constituents and perhaps 200K or 250K voters.

Q: The Congress has all the power it needs right now to corral the executive and the judiciary.
A: And they have had 100 years to do it. They aren’t going to.
The only years the federal budget has shrunk at all in the last 100 are the 2 years immediately following WWII.
If they were men of honor and decency they could do lots of things. They are not going to.

Q: All it has to do is ….do it. Abolish by Congressional act executive departments and entire judicial districts. But I don’t think it will until it has a mandate. I don’t think you can do it by Congressional action and I don’t think you can do it by Article V until you have a mandate.
But, if you have a chief executive who works with the Tea Partiers in Congressional leadership positions, publicly and privately, maybe the structure could be altered enough in the short term to reverse the trend without arousing the sleeping public from their video games. Who would miss 500 federal judges? Who would miss the Department of Energy? A slick PR campaign might even make people not miss Education – “Return local control to schools.”

A: Same answer as above. We have had control of one or both houses at least 6 times. Both houses at least 3. Republicans have not produced a smaller budget or shrunk government during any of these periods except a couple of years following WWII. They aren’t going to do it.
Getting a mandate will be hard, no question. This will not be an easy fight. But if a mandate could be had and we go the legislative route instead of the constitutional route then any changes we make will be undone the next time a leftist majority is in place. It would be shortsighted to think they won’t be in power every 4-12 years. At least constitutional hurdles would set a higher bar for future protection. Let’s not build a house of straw.

Q: But let’s not forget the Malignant Statist Media. What do you see them feeding the American People during an Art5?

A: They will do their level best to lie and deceive, no question about it. When I said it was a long shot I wasn’t kidding. But put yourself in the shoes of Samuel Adams picking a fight with the most powerful nation in the world. Or Washington at Valley Forge, having been whipped by that nation across lower NY and all of NJ. We may not win. But we are surely losing now and if we don’t change our approach we will definitely lose as a function of course and time.
As to the press we will have to do our best to counter them and control the delegations. Almost like divine providence the internet today makes that possible like no time since 1776 when printing presses were scattered across the countryside and there was no effective control over them.

Take look at the original soviet constitution. I think you are going to find gulags and murder aren’t in there. Same with Cuba. It is the concentration of power combined with a lack of an effective accountability mechanism that produces the horrific result.

We have the same concentration of power and lack of accountability here today. Only the inertia of a people used to freedom has slowed them down. But with control of our educational system they have spent many years redefining freedom to mean licentiousness and egalitarianism.
In short, Americans had better defenses than Russian peasants so they have had to spend a century softening us up, like shelling the beach before landing.

Only the introduction of true accountability can save us now.

///////////////////////////////////////////////

AmericanAmendment.com