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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