In case you missed it, there is a rather large and dedicated group of people in the US who so despise our Constitution that they are trying diligently to “change” it by means of a “Convention of States” (COS) that would allow the US Congress to select a number of delegates to attend a new Constitutional Convention for that purpose. They say this Convention is needed to add much needed amendments to the current constitution. But, wait a minute, don’t we already have a number of amendments which were added to the Constitution using the normal procedure in the US Congress following the process written into the current Constitution?
And, by change, what does this large and dedicated group mean? Well, they say there is a need for a “balanced budget” amendment which would force the Congress to run the US government like a successful business, you know, where revenues and expenditures sort of end up, like, equal, maybe even a little surplus for a rainy day? Like as in, you do not incur more debt than you can possibly repay when running a business? My, what a novel concept. Why didn’t someone think of that a few hundred years ago?
They also say there is a need for a “term limit” amendment which would force all the senators and congress people to actually go out and get, like, you know, regular jobs after they finish service to their fellow citizens, spending years writing useless laws and other such neat stuff, or actually ‘retire’ like many ‘regular’ people do when they have accumulated just enough money to retire and live in abject poverty.
But wait, all the senators and congress people who have served even one term usually end up with so much ‘accumulated money’ they do not NEED to live in abject poverty. They, of course, will oppose the much touted term limits because they want to remain in Congress for 40-50 years so they can accumulate enough money to buy their own country and do their part to control the world.
I have a suggestion: Cut all the 535 congressional representatives salaries by at least 75%. You would not need a term limit to get them out of office, they would trample each other trying to squeeze through the exit doors.
The Big Brouhaha
The back and forth word-war over the COS has occupied the minds of many normal critical-thinking Americans who see the move as a means to eliminate our current Constitution or replace it with one of several that are already “pre-written” and waiting for the Congressional roll call vote on its adoption.
Those who oppose the COS obviously see the move as a hostile takeover of the nation, eventually turning it over to an even worse “large and dedicated group” of people who envision communism as our “New World Order” with the majority of us “owning nothing and being happy”. Yeah, good luck with that one.
I have been trying to follow the many nuances of the arguments for and against the COS, and will admit I am somewhat confused about the whole thing.
The much-touted need for a “balanced budget” amendment sounds sort of like an oxymoron. The very idea of a budget is a series of calculations estimating revenues versus expenses so that a “balance” can be struck between the two. The very idea that the US Congress needs the term written into the Constitution is like a business owner needing a document instructing him or her that, in order to run a successful business, revenues and expenses “should” match, at least somewhat. If anyone who starts a business actually needs such a document, he or she has ABSOLUTELY no business starting a business. You would think that all those pointy-toed shoe-wearing lawyers who occupy nearly all the 535 seats in the US Congress would know and understand such a basic concept of a successful business.
I would bet that all those 535 lawyers do NOT run their ‘household budgets’ the way they run the United States government, so what is the difference? Oh yeah, the money they so freely throw around the world is not THEIR money, so they do not feel the pain of being $32 trillion in debt. Hey, their $174,000 salaries are not endangered by their excessive and uncontrolled spending. Kinda makes you think, if they can maintain a balanced household budget, they should be able to use the same common sense running the US budget, eh?
Now if there was a ‘large and dedicated group’ of Americans who would pump ‘em up and actually demand that the elected (really?) congressional representatives do what they are (over)paid to do, which is follow the Constitution to the letter and run the US government as though it was a money-making enterprise, there would be no need to even consider another amendment to it and there would especially be NO need to replace it.
The Perfect Law
The US Constitution is called “The Law of the Land”, and was the foundation of ultimate liberty for many years in America. For much of the past two hundred years, many nations and their peoples have marveled at our Constitution and desired to have it as a model to establish their own foundation of liberty in their nations.
“But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25). James said that God’s word is the “Perfect Law of Liberty” and that sounds a great deal like our beloved Constitution; however, the key to that verse in James having any value for us is in the command to “look into” it and continue to look therein and then become a doer of it and not just a hearer. That entails a diligent study of the information “being looked into”.
But how many Americans, especially those of the newer generations, even know what our Constitution says, and understand what it means to them and their liberty?
The hullabaloo over the COS may be much ado about nothing, and should be totally unnecessary. True, The COS, if initiated, would allow certain groups of people to determine the validity of the current US Constitution and decide whether to add certain amendments to the current one or replace it with an entirely new one.
In either case, the result of a COS, if initiated, would likely be seen as a ‘confirmation’ to the large and dedicated group of people that their current handling (think totally disregarding) of the Constitution, justifies their current behavior (acting as though it did not exist). Such ‘confirmation’ would never be needed if those who were supposed to represent their constituents would simply adhere to the tenets of the current Constitution, you know, the one they swore to ‘uphold and defend’, so help them God?
But wait, isn’t that what, from their standpoint, it’s all about, getting that confirmation ‘from the people’ of the validity of their actions? I seriously doubt that, since they have not actually cared what the common folk of this nation have thought for many decades. If they did, they would hang their heads in shame and repent for breaking their ‘uphold and defend’ oaths, year after year after year, term after term after term.
We still have the original Constitution in place and of course, our government and all its bloated bureaucracies pay close attention to it and adhere to it completely, right? Hah! Our government leaders have acted for years as though the Constitution never existed, even though it was covered, under glass, in the National Archives and protected from ambient air, excess humidity, direct light and anything else that might “degrade its physical condition”. Our current crop of politicians behave as though the Constitution is a mere annoyance, something they would like to see done away with.
The only protection our Constitution lacked was from the threat posed by evil, greedy and lawless people who never cared one whit for the document that was written to tell the world what this new nation of individual states truly was.
What we currently have is a bunch of politicians whose sole purpose for “being in politics’ is the monetary gain they can realize by conducting our government as though the Constitution never existed. Unless the Constitution exists in the hearts and minds of the majority of “true Americans”, it matters not whether it still hides in the national Archives.
Power of the Constitution
The document itself has absolutely NO power to dictate how the government is run, how politicians conduct the business of our nation, nor the moral behavior of our citizens. That power still resides with those for whom the Constitution was written, the ones who now suffer from the Unconstitutional decisions being constantly made in Congress and the actions of the ones demanding it be changed or discarded.
But one thing is clear, and is likely believed, albeit secretly, by almost everyone in this country, and that is: JUSTICE MATTERS. No, it even goes far beyond that; without justice, there can be no civilization, no peace, and not much of a future.
Kathleen Marquardt, in her recent article titled, “A German Tells It Like It Is, Listen!”, quotes Hans-Jurgen Geese, the author of a brilliant message, which clearly presents undeniable ‘simple truths that have been known for hundreds of years’. Geese said: “Freedom and ignorance are incompatible. Therefore, our schools and universities are becoming idiotic institutions. There cannot be a liberal constitution with immoral people. If justice is lost, then nothing in the Constitution matters. Then all is lost. Even human rights are no longer worth anything”.
That last sentence echoes these words, penned more than two hundred years ago by the second President of the United States, John Adams: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
At this moment, we are at a critical place in the history of the United States of America, where the Department of Justice (DOJ), led by the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the US, Attorney General Merrick Garland, chooses to allow the federal agencies under his direction to weaponize their agencies and agents in order to punish anyone they deem to have violated “their rules”, regardless of whether the US Constitution supports their weaponized actions. This begs the question whether anyone in the DOJ, or any of the weaponized agencies under the umbrella of the DOJ, has actually read the Constitution, or having read it simply decided it is no longer relevant, and so they ignore it.
The drivel that emanates from the US DOJ is thinly veiled political warfare, conducted by those in the power seats against those with NO seat and NO power. The morality of the people for whom our Constitution was written now seems to have taken a very long vacation; and when morality leaves, justice soon follows. At this moment, real justice seems to have taken a long holiday, possibly a permanent one.
No Constitution Without Justice
At this point in time, there is NO system of justice operating effectively for the people in the United States.
Will true justice ever return to, or reside in, the United States of America? It appears doubtful.
Until it does, it matters little whether the Constitution is amended or terminated by those large and dedicated groups who so feverishly desire it. After all, why SHOULD it matter? Nearly all the 535 Congress people do not adhere to it as the “Law of the Land” anyway.
With the current political and cultural chaos in the US, the current status of the Constitution is simply that of an old piece of paper or parchment carefully stored in the National Archives. Beyond that, and until there is justice for all in the United States, it has little power or authority.
Conclusion
As Hans-Jurgen Geese so eloquently stated: “If justice is lost, then nothing in the Constitution matters. Then all is lost. Even human rights are no longer worth anything”.
I certainly do not wish to denigrate the valiant efforts of all those who oppose a COS, I admire their tenacity and longing for justice and a strict adherence to the Constitution and wish them great success, but until we truly see a renewal of, and return to, Godly morality among the citizenry that forces a semblance of adherence to the Law of the land on the part of all those who we supposedly elected to their offices, I have serious doubts that anything positive will result. The words of Hans-Jurgen Geese resonate in my ears and my spirit: “If justice is lost, then nothing in the Constitution matters.
We can only pray that reason and common sense eventually prevail over the political madness now so prevalent in our nation. If God deems to hear our prayers and answer them in our favor, we may still have a country with a Constitution that means something.
Maranatha
©2023. Bud Hancock. All rights reserved.
