[Blake]

Sorry I left everybody who responded to me hanging for over a week. I really appreciate your replies. I just fell apart a bit and am pulling myself back together.

Clutch--I think the trap of jingoism is a real worry. I think the strategy to succeed, should this unlikely event ever be precipitated, should include careful and thorough preparation to try to seize the initiative and control the tone of the convention. Since the people working for it should be the first to foresee if and when it would happen, they ought to be in a position to prepare.

I think the media would be somewhat thrown off balance by this sort of unique event. I also think they would be one more adversary to work against in order to get it done; if it can be done at all, one more phalanx of enemies won't make a difference. I'm not sure if I'm optimistic, but I do have a lot of hope.

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Hey lisa--thanks for the extended response!

I agree that it's much more likely for any given sensible single amendment to be passed rather than calling a convention to consider any and all sensible amendments. Having agreed, I'm simply back to pointing out that there are just too many such important, essential legal details, particularly relative to the glacial pace at which constitutional amendment has taken place to date.

You know they [the District of Columbia] have vanity license plates that read "Taxation without Representation" now?

Yes!--and they're actually standard issue.

Well, I'd have to disagree. There are plenty of people who take issue with the BofR these days. The real fetishization is in blind nationalism among the types of people who don't even know what's in the constitution. You know, those people who think it starts out with something about a spectre haunting Europe. And there's been almost too much discourse about even the most obvious and basic elements of the constitution these days.

Who do you mean and what sorts of issues are you thinking of regarding the Bill of Rights? I agree that there are more grievous offenders than others among the "fetishizers" , but I think that it's a factor with a majority of the public since I think most don't know what's in the constitution. What discourse about "obvious and basic elements" are you referring to?

I don't think we could just assume that the BofR would be automatically codified. There are too many people who would be absolutely thrilled to start out with a blank slate.

True; it's a mistake to make assumptions regarding any supposed likely outcomes. I still think that there would be a very strong impetus joining conservatism and liberty here, though.

I can't imagine how a constitutional convention would create such an enlightened atmosphere all of a sudden. I'd imagine, in fact, that it would look much like most lawmaking looks already--a bunch of jingoistic, grossly oversimplified justifications used to push various and sundry nefarious agendas.

I don't mean to oversimplify that much; no, a convention of itself wouldn't create a dominant enlightened atmosphere. I think it would be one of the strong factors toward it. Again, I think it should be part of the strategy for the people working toward it to work on widespread education to lay the grassroots groundwork for more intelligent participation and oversight.

But this time, without the basic protections afforded by the constitution.

Practically speaking, I think any convention would find it very hard to operate outside of the presumption that the current constitution continues to hold force until a new one might be passed. I believe that's actually how it transpired in the transition from the Articles of Confederation to the 1787 Constitution, except regarding the new provision that ratification by nine states rather than a unanimous thirteen would give legal birth to the new government.

However, the people still wield a great deal of power over the US. We just have to address the small issues, one by one, IMO, in order to affect change in the system. Eliminating corporate personhood, rolling back media ownership and equal access laws, etc., won't solve all our problems by any stretch. And of course such battles would be hard fought.

I disagree both that the people now wield a great deal of power or ever have wielded a great deal of power over the US. It seems to me that the technology of mass control of opinion has kept pace with the process of enfranchisement from adult male property owners to the present ninety-some percent of the population. I don't mean to say that mass groups of people haven't effected significant change, just that relatively speaking, I think their control of their affairs has been limited. To me, the issues aren't small, but large, and intricately connected, so that a chance to unravel many of them simultaneously looks very attractive.

But I still fail to see how such changes are less realistic than the idea of a constitutional convention.

I think they're more realistic. I think a convention is less likely, but needed, because (like I said) I don't think the pace is fast enough to meet our needs.

For the most part, over the past 200+ years, we have made progress in the pursuit of human rights, at least in terms of our codified recognition of such. We've made some steps back, too, but I'd rankle at the idea of just reinventing the wheel and starting from there. Really, if you look at it, most of the most egregious problems we have in terms of human rights in this country are in the form of things like unfunded mandates, hobbled regulations, and politically motivated court decisions.

We have made progress, but a lot of the new codes are still shaky; there's a lot of progress that could be made just by consolidating advances explicitly in constitutional language. The current document seems to me actually not to have very much in the way of rights compared, again, to our needs. I don't think it would be reinventing the wheel, but renovating what we have to bring it up to date.

If we were to decide to rewrite our constitution, the interests that put these things in place would be just as influential in the political process as they always have been, but to provide them with a blank slate, IMO, would just give more leeway to codify their interests, while taking the chance of eliminating the powerful protections still afforded us by the constitution.

It's a risk. Like I said, I think being strategically prepared to seize the process and keep overall control of it out of the hands of reactionaries is a crucial element; I don't think that is any less likely a possibility than the convention itself. And, like I've more or less said, I make a different value judgment; I think most of our powerful protections have already been eliminated, and that we need radical action to retake and extend those protections.

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Hallo, godfry--I guess my difference in value judgment I just mentioned addresses why I don't think incrementalism will do, as well as my point about the pace to date of amendment. I think my comments about planning strategy address the question of dominance by special interests, although I guess my response to that issue from the first post still applies as well. I don't think the comparison to state constitutions is quite appropriate; many issues are dealt with at the state constitutional level that have never met the level of importance of the federal constitution. I guess I've also already replied regarding the issue of the Bill of Rights and historical precedent to lisa.

What the U.S. government needs is a purging of both houses of Congress. One election could do that...there's your "revolution".

I think this is impossible without radical dismantling of the barriers to more candidates. Every two years, about twenty House seats see competitive races; in the Senate, about ten in a good year. Clearly, even an unpredictable sweep of all thirty races in a single election would be insufficient to purge anyone. We don't have two parties--more like one and a half. I think over half the races aren't even nominally contested: there's only one person to vote for. I know for a fact it's worse at the state level: in recent Georgia races, fully three-quarters of the seats of the legislature have seen only one candidate stand for them.

I don't, however, think multiple party politics is any improvement (look at Italy and Israel).

I agree with that. I think something different entirely is called for; what, I'm not entirely sure, but that's why I'm talking about it.

The current Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility. They sat on their hands while the Supreme Court did the job allotted to the House of Representatives when they selected the President in a close and clouded election. And did so in clear violation of the majority's judicial principles. In short, the U.S. is currently in a constitutional crisis because the House of Representatives has not impeached five Supreme Court justices and the Senate has not tried them. This is because the candidate selected was of the same political party of the majority of the House. We've had a judicial coup and no response from "the people".

I think this is very true, nor do I think it is the first time we've entered a state of constitutional crisis that has remained unresolved. Hence I think there being so many that we really ought to address them the only way possible, through amendment ....

Given how easily my fellow Americans are manipulated, I'm even less convinced I want to throw our governance open to complete revision (though I'll admit the 38 state supermajority is a nice brake, of sorts). I'm not optimistic and, in my opinion, those who think so are excessively optimistic.

Again, it seems to me to come down to my making different value judgments than you and lisa. I think the 38 state requirement is a sufficient brake, I think the freedom of complete revision is necessary to the goal, but that basic impulses of conservation and passion for liberty will prevent wholesale revision. And I think that enough of our protections are already gone, and that we're teetering close enough to making a transition to an actual authoritarian or fascist system, that the risks are worth it.

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There are other angles I haven't gone into, either. For instance, past campaigns to amend have sometimes succeeded as a practical tool, rather than fulfilling their full program, instead by pressuring Congress to pass its own version of the amendment or appropriate legislation; a movement to call a convention would be the most potent version of this weapon, and could for example pressure Congress to take steps to reform itself to make possible the kind of electoral purge godfry referred to.

I'm also really interested in pursuing this by seeing what protections we really still have under the Constitution. I'm under the impression that a lot of them have been eviscerated, enough to make it worth taking a shot at restoring them.