WATCH: COS Goes Undercover

Convention of States supporter Kristen Stanciu recently captured undercover footage of a John Birch Society staffer at the Texas GOP convention promoting myths and fallacies about the Article V convention process.

“I was really just there to have a conversation,” Kristen told COS Senior Vice President for Legislative Affairs Rita Peters. “I was playing the part of a curious, unsuspecting observer who just wants to learn more about Article V… and I wanted to hear first-hand what they would tell people who are just looking for the truth and facts.”

SEE ALSO: Why William F. Buckley, Barry Goldwater, and Russell Kirk exorcised the John Birch Society

Throughout the conversation, which lasted 30 minutes, the JBS representative parroted stereotyped myths about Article V, including that a convention could “propose an entirely new Constitution” and that the convention would be sovereign over the supreme law of the land. He also introduced more unusual arguments, suggesting that the term “convention of states” was coined by modern-day Article V scholar Robert Natelson despite overwhelming historical evidence showing it was widely used during the Founding Era.

Together on the latest installment of COS Live, Kristen and Rita unraveled the misinformed spokesman’s “tangled web of confusion,” rebutting his baseless assertions with factual insights into Article V. In the end, however, he seemed motivated more by fear than by the substantial evidence supporting its efficacy.

“I heard myths, I heard lies,” Kristen recounted. “But what I really heard was fear—fear at the very idea of using the Constitution to save the Constitution, fear at using this emergency tool the Founders gave us to save the Republic…. As an organization that claims to respect and defend the Constitution and the principles established by the Founding Fathers,” she continued, “they seem to have forgotten that we are not descended from fearful men. Instead of looking at the facts and the history and summoning that same fortitude and courage exemplified by our Founders to save our country, they weave this intricate, elaborate web of confusion laced with fear. But that’s not who we are. We are in a critical time as a nation. We don’t need summertime soldiers or sunshine patriots; we need to embody the stalwart resolve of men like Thomas Paine, who said, ‘Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.’”

SEE ALSO: Premier Article V scholar uncovers new Founding-Era evidence for convention

“We need solutions,” she added, “and men and women who are steadfast enough to carry them out.”

To delve deeper into the fallacies underlying the opposition to Convention of States, don’t miss this enlightening episode of COS Live below!