We have been taught our whole lives that the United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Lawmakers just need to follow it, and everything will fix itself.
That sounds good on paper, but in the real world, other factors are in play. To understand the problem, we must first understand how laws are created.
There are five main sources of laws that govern us.
Constitutional (Federal or State) - a charter on how a government is organized and operates; what it is permitted to do and what is expressly forbidden.
Statutory - written laws enacted by the legislature sometimes referred to as ordinances; these are declaratory statements that forbid certain acts, direct other acts, or set forth governmental mechanisms to aid the general welfare.
Regulatory - rules made by various government agencies, these form the basis of how citizens and businesses are to conduct their daily routine.
Case Law - rules created from court decisions; these interpret the meaning of the various statutory and regulatory laws and how authorities are to enforce them.
Common Practice - rules that evolve based on mutual acceptance by the citizens; many statutory and regulatory laws originated from citizens common practice.
Does this help bring the big picture into focus?
The main causes of the systemic difficulties we face are from the statutory, regulatory, and case law abuses inflicted on we the people by federal decision-makers.
Elected representatives are doing the bidding of special interests, unelected bureaucrats, and activist judges making one-size-fits-all mandates. The reasons are inconsequential, whether ideological or profit. These abuses must end before we are enslaved by the crushing fiscal burden or the stifling regulations.
As of this writing, the nation is 32 trillion dollars in debt, and no one knows how much more in unfunded liabilities are still due. Estimates range from 120 to 250 trillion dollars more, and Congress continues to spend more each year than the tax revenue generates. Fundamental principles of economics can be ignored for only so long before disaster strikes.
The federal bureaucracy has grown exponentially over the past 50 years. More and more bureaucrats writing more and more regulations to justify their own existence, or worse, to fulfill a personal agenda. The news is full of countless examples of the latter in recent years.
How many court decisions have been overturned or remanded back to the lower court because the presiding judge failed to follow the law? What do we do when the superior court gets it wrong? After all, judges are human and are just as fallible as the rest of us.
Even the United States Supreme Court gets the decision wrong from time to time. In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the court ruled Mr. Scott was not a person and had no rights under the Constitution.
The Founders set up our government with three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. They envisioned each branch would hold the other two accountable. The checks and balances put in place would ensure the people’s freedom would be protected from the government. That system also defines the limited power entrusted to the federal government and reserves all other powers to the states or the people.
Unfortunately, the powerful decision-makers entrenched in Washington, D.C., have been colluding for the past century to usurp those enumerated powers from the states, supported by judicial fiat. Today our government is as far from the founding vision as Pluto is from the Sun.
There is good news: our Founders were brilliant men. They understood human nature, and its insatiable thirst for power. They foresaw these events 232 years ago, and they wrote the solution right into the Constitution. They knew Washington, D.C., would never vote to limit their power, so they gave us another option: an Article V Convention of States.
For months during that long hot summer of 1787, the Founders debated every phrase in the document. None were approved unanimously, save one. The second paragraph of Article V passed without debate.
We the people are sovereign. We tell Washington what to do. Under Article V, we don’t even need to ask permission. If we stand united, we can restore the Founders' vision of how government should work.
Please educate yourself. Trust this vital task to no one. Your children’s and grandchildren’s future depends on you learning the truth.
