Having watched the federal government’s behavior for the last several years, one cannot help but remember The Declaration of Independence was created and acted upon in response to abuses by a remote and unaccountable government.
The parallels with our situation are not exact, but they suggest the need for immediate and long-term organized protest. Convention of States proposes a means to this and would make amendments to The Constitution that would curtail the abuses of power damaging our country.
The list of congressional, bureaucratic, and executive abuses we have witnessed is long, alarming, and suggestive of a government bent on damaging the country it is charged to protect.
Here are some of the abuses that come to mind:
- Outrageous charges of gang rape and sexual violence during the confirmation hearing of an appointee to the US Supreme Court. In the climate of the “Me Too” movement, the allegation speciously carried the weight of self-evident truth. The allegation was perfectly timed to make serious and constitutionally protected forms of scrutiny impossible.
- An investigation of private US citizens predicated upon fraudulently obtained FISA warrants.
- Abuse of power by the FBI, specifically entrapment and prosecution of minor process violations of a national security advisor (charges ultimately rescinded).
- Charging sedition and espionage against a president based upon evidence known to be fraudulent, irrelevant, or inadequate (e.g., the Steele Dossier, the rally on January 6th).
- Investigation by Special Counsel sought evidence for charges in which the accusers turned the tables on the Bill of Rights: the accused was tasked with proving his innocence. Accusers assumed guilt then went on a fishing expedition for evidence. The investigation found no actionable causes for prosecution or impeachment yet impeachment followed.
- Impeachment of the President on the pretext of a phone call about legitimate matters of state, with scant mention of the President’s due regard for investigation of fraud implicating unqualified American citizens in Ukraine.
- Shutdown of the XL Pipeline and the consequent loss of energy independence by executive action. Subsequently, the President approved the Nordstream Energy Pipeline from Russia to Europe. His actions weaken the United States and strengthens our foe. Both actions pose national security risks.
- Mandating broad brush action during a pandemic that, without consistent regard for scientific evidence, led to the destruction of 40% of America’s small businesses, closed schools while evidence mounted that children were infected less frequently than adults and with less serious damage to their health, and led to the closure or self-destruction of the central districts of major cities. The bureaucrat/medical expert who advanced these actions is now implicated in funding the gain-of-function research in China which caused the pandemic. The politicizing of the pandemic by federal leadership and medical bureaucracies has led to confusing and conflicting directives.
- A failure to prosecute rioting by Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters leading to billions of dollars of property damage, some of it to federal, municipal, or law enforcement buildings. These riots passed with impunity while political persecution of protesters associated with the January 6th entry of the Capitol proceeds without due process and without regard for habeas corpus. They are currently being unlawfully detained in a prison facility not open to congressional oversight.
- The Centers for Disease Control colluded with teachers' unions in school lockdowns without due regard for scientific evidence.
- More recently, the CDC has extended a rent moratorium after the Supreme Court found such a move illegal. Put bluntly, a federal agency without law-making power made law against the law. The act is a blow to private property rights.
- The current administration exited from a twenty-year war without any regard for the protection of American citizens and our now endangered allies. The President’s orders overrode advice from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs not to depart and not to abandon a key military airbase. This was all done without regard for the likelihood that Afghanistan would become a haven for terrorists.
- Presently, the United States, as the result of presidential fiat, is in a position of weakness globally, having alienated allies and emboldened a terrorist regime.
- State bureaucrats and judges made efforts during the pandemic to change electoral practices, encouraging abuses and fraud. These changes break with constitutional protections of state authority over elections.
- Presently, Congress is taking steps to extend these practices with legislation that will federalize elections, usurping authority and control away from states.
- Such changes tend to make one-party government more likely, thus potentially disenfranchising approximately one half of the electorate.
- The current administration works in league with monopolistic big-tech to censor speech by its opponents. With irony that reveals intent to damage the country and to disregard The Constitution, big-tech permits speech by terrorist regimes and other nations that desire “Death to “America” while censoring speech by U.S. citizens.
- In addition to funds amounting to $6.6 trillion already spent or “created” by fiat during the pandemic, Congress now seeks up to $4.7 trillion to advance progressive social programs (“human infrastructure” linked to “hard infrastructure"). Such spending causes inflation, weakens the dollar domestically and internationally, and tends to the general weakness of economic conditions.
- Likewise, the open southwest border has led to approximately $250 billion this year in spending and exerts additional burdens on education, healthcare and welfare spending in the states. According to the Cloward-Piven theory of domestic revolution, when such burdens overwhelm the economy conditions are ripe for revolution, that is, the government takeover of the economy, cultural institutions, and potentially the dissolution of individual liberties and self-reliance of the citizenry at large.
- In a collateral move, the federal government advances Critical Race Theory in public institutions, federal and state bureaucracies, universities, schools, and the military. CRT tends to vilify one race and demoralize the other. This oversimplification of the US populace notwithstanding, the goal of fomenting class and racial hatred succeeds apace.
- Critical Race Theory is based on Marxism and the postmodern view of language, that is, the view that words lack reference to the world of fact and are used as instruments of power by large, influential segments of a society. Such power advances “narratives” without regard for facts, truth, or law. In other words, it advances falsehoods opportunistically and with impunity.
- In these abuses and others the federal bureaucracy, elected and unelected, imposes authority without constitutional grounds and in opposition to the will of at least half the citizenry.
Some of these actions recall language from The Declaration of Independence. “The King,” in The Declaration’s long list, has done the following:
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good . . . . (e.g., refusal to enforce immigration law);
He has forbidden . . . governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance . . . . (usurping state control of elections);
He has obstructed the administration of justice . . . . (failure to prosecute BLM and Antifa rioters);
He has made judges dependent on his will . . . (appointment of partisan judges)
He has erected a multitude of new offices. . . . (expansion of federal bureaucracies);
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws . . . . (e.g., global minimum tax; negotiating with a terrorist regime);
For imposing taxes on us without our consent . . . . (wholly partisan legislation advancing “human infrastructure” and taxes in support of it; inflationary pressure on the energy sector and excessive spending during the pandemic, a figurative tax);
For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury . . . .
Examine The Declaration and The Constitution carefully, and it is clear that our situation is not as dire as that of the colonies. Yet parallels can be drawn showing action is necessary now to curb the abuses we have experienced, those I’ve listed and many others. (Ted Cruz listed 76 such abuses during the Obama administration.)
We must not lower the flag but raise it high in protest. The Convention of States offers two avenues for action: The organization’s immediate aim is to inspire a “large engaged grassroots army of self-governing activists” to organize and to make their voices known in peaceful resistance. Letters to legislators and editors, peaceful protests at school boards, marches showing concern for election abuses at local election commissions—and many more efforts can help bring change. Large numbers of active and vocal citizens bringing concerns before legislators can move them in directions that restore effective representative government.
The COS website offers extensive opportunities for action. Sign the petition at ConventionofStates.com and the website will open rich possibilities for the exercise of your talents. You are needed.
The long-term goal invokes Article V of The Constitution. The Framers, but most notably George Mason and Charles Pinckney, had the foresight to know that future abuses of power would occur. Article V empowers the states to address them by bringing amendments to The Constitution.
Convention of States proposes and would advance amendments that reduce the size and jurisdiction of the federal government in order to break its intrusions upon the authority of states. It sets specific limits to federal spending to ensure responsible use of resources and imposes terms limits on all elected and unelected federal officials. The latter alone would prevent or curb many of the abuses we've seen.
As any observer of the actions of government today realizes, the need for these amendments is real and increasing in urgency.
Join us and make them a reality.
Coda: Yesterday, as I was drafting this post, the President mandated COVID vaccines through the regulatory powers of the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Department of Labor. The action affects approximately 100 million citizens and all employers of one hundred or more employees. It flies in the face of necessary exemptions for the health and personal safety of those likely to have life-threatening reactions and those for whom vaccines are unnecessary because they've suffered through the infection and have highly-effective natural immunity. It ignores HIIPA protections and imposes extra burdens on both labor and management.
In addition, I learned that, in the President's budget proposal, statutory protections against admitting human traffickers, drug traffickers, and sex traffickers into the country are removed. The dangers are self-evident. These reasons, as well as those cited above, are not the actions of a well-intentioned bumbler. A reasonable person can easily draw the conclusion that they are intentionally destructive.
