Saturday, August 9, 2014

Email to two performers



Hello Rock Star, just heard the interview; you guys are both great and I'm sure like most you have concerns about how things are unfolding on Earth. As a social/political scientist I've been at the drawing board and have developed an idea aimed to alter things in a positive manner. In practice it's a peaceable reformation of the status quo, but the provision for it has had confusing names applied to it, and so it's misunderstood. If you are so moved please forward/discuss the following with star host:

Hello Star Host, I'm sure you've heard the term "constitutional convention," have had conversation about it, and thus have your own view on it. Most Americans understand it as an assembly of politicians/lawyers rewriting the Constitution. And how could anyone not have that view--the Constitution doesn't contain rules for a convention, so of course in this day and age of big political money such an affair is nothing but a giant risk. But in fact, because members of Congress and convention delegates form a political class, they must be treated equally under the law. Article V Delegates have no more/no less power than members of Congress (they can propose ideas for change and/or vote on others, nothing more). If a member of Congress suffers an election to attain this power of proposal/vote, so must the Article V Delegate. In short, the Article V Convention is nothing more than a special election for a unicameral, non-binding deliberative assembly. Whatever is proposed by that assembly must then be ratified by 3/4 super-majority of the states, a political principle making it mathematically impossible for partisan ideas to become law (a proposal must get all one side of the political spectrum signed on, plus at least half the other, or it fails). In the meantime, look at what this political process of election/proposal/ratification does: it educates an entire society in law/civics while offering solutions to problems faced (and because American culture dominates the globe [Clapton recently lamenting such], a change here means a change everywhere). Americans think we don't know what will happen if we call a convention, but indeed we do know: 75% of the states will agree to something or they won't. And of course because polls have been trending for over a decade, the American desire to remove private funds from public government, we can safely assume that any amendment with any hope of being ratified must be non-partisan and concerned with electoral reform.

In terms of political science, the Congressional Research Service issued, and has updated twice so far, a paper on the Article V Convention. The paper informs members of Congress that in this social media day and age, if the people want it, the Congress must call it. Congressional Records show that over seven hundred applications from forty-nine states have been cast and Congress has never counted them. Political action entered into the Congressional Record last year made the request that Judiciary Committees of both houses determine an official count. Once they begin to count they're going to realize the states have satisfied the legal requirement for a convention long ago. The request for Congress to count existing state applications has not yet been acknowledged, which means we could hear about it any time now, or the Congress will continue to do what it's always done: pretend the applications don't exist.

In fact there is only one reason American society has never gone through the constitutional process of a federal convention as provided by the Constitution, because the people don't know what it is, and if they don't want it, the Congress can ignore it. That's where you and [Rock Star] come in: in this day and age of rock and roll and celebrity, rock and roll and celebrity is all we need to create a tipping-point of consensus; and if celebrities came together for a music tour of the states (based on the notion it's time to find common ground, and until we do we're all stuck), it would create the political awareness necessary for the Congress to finally issue the call. From there, in a natural progression of events, all else will take care of itself.

Congressional Research Service: http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42592.pdf

It appears daunting, but actually, it would just be a bunch of fun raising awareness, this right of the people to find common ground.

Sincerely,

John

805.708.1965

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