It's Time to Call for a Constitutional Convention in 2011!
We've all heard many times that amending the US Constitution in these highly partisan days is next to impossible, but have you ever stopped to wonder if that "conventional wisdom" was anything more than a smoke screen meant to deceive Americans into a position of helplessness? It's time to read for ourselves that grand old document, the US Constitution:
Article 5: On the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which ...shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States.
What that means is, to amend the US Constitution all you need is to win the popular vote in 34 states to call a constitutional convention and more than half the voters in only 38 states have to agree with the proposed amendments to ratify them.
Take a look at this state population chart. 1/4 of the US population lives in only 3 states (California, Texas, and New York). 50% live in the most populous 8 states (add Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan). Every citizen of those 8 states could be against an amendment and it could still pass at a constitutional convention with 4 states to spare. How many US states do the Washington elite consider to be part of "fly-over country"? I'll bet it's more than 38!
When it comes to amending the US Constitution South Dakota's vote is equal to that of California. Do you understand what this means? You could theoretically pass an amendment with less than 1/4 of American voters supporting it. This has got to scare the hell out of the DC "elites".
Do you seriously want the government in Washington DC to look out for our interests? Do you want them to do their constitutional duties of protecting our borders and trade interests? Do you want them to stop taxing us into the poor house and even then they spend a trillion or so more than they take in? The answer is obvious, work with your state legislature to pass a call for a constitutional convention. In fact, in many states, you don't even need to do that. In some, you can put the convention up to a popular vote via a referendum on next year's ballot with a few signatures on a petition.
Let's take back control of the federal government! Let's call for a constitutional convention in 2011! My choice for the first new amendment to the US Constitution is an amendment to repeal the 16th amendment.
For 125 years the federal government ran with a balanced budget while collecting no direct taxes from the people. They got their money from tariffs, primarily. Even today, income tax provides only 50% of federal money. Anything the federal government can do better than the state governments it can do with that half of its budget.
Our time has come. Let's call for a constitutional convention in 2011! It is time for Washington DC to answer to us again.
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Comments
16h amendment?
You mean birthright citizenship? I don't think of all of the problems for labor right now, that's at the top of the list. Try changing the definition of corporate personhood, giving these empty artificial entities the rights of people.
It's not one or the other
It is not a one or the other proposition. A constitutional convention can fix the birthright citizenship issue and I'd recommend some other changes like words making it impossible for everything the federal government does to hinge on the commerce clause too.
As for the 16th amendment, perhaps you'll miss the IRS, but I'm sure you'll find yourself in the minority. Beyond that, howver, the only practical way I see to forcing the federal government to do its job of protecting our markets from foreign domination is by making them dependant on tariffs as their sole source of funding as was the original intent of the constitution.
I think it would be quite easy to get 34 states to call for a constitutional convention. Montana, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentuky, West Virginia, Virginia, Indiana, Iowa, and Alaska would probably be pretty easy states to get to vote for the convention. That's 30 states right there. I think you could certainly get 4 states to join in from Washington, Oregon, Minnisota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. It would take a majority approval in 38 states to ratify any amendments to come out of the convention.
this site is a tech labor blog
This site is for U.S. techies, dealing with labor issues which affect U.S. STEM, technical labor.
Firstly the commerce clause has nothing to do with rulings on the 16th amendment but more to the point, illegal alien babies are not taking engineering jobs away from U.S. workers.
There are plenty of issues right now in tech labor, first the Wall Street Journal tries to claim software engineering is the best job in the U.S., secondly the unemployment statistics hid the fact we have so many pushed out of their career field entirely.
Then, something like 2.7 at least jobs were offshore outsourced since 2008 and you do not see any politician talking about that one.
So, please stay on topic, this issue just doesn't affect U.S. technical labor at all.
I mean are you aware that India is trying to get a ruling that somehow people are something to trade, that would completely blast any quotas on guest worker Visas and put them under the control of the WTO if they get away with this. They are on a campaign to claim this! Way more important to U.S. tech workers and relevant.
Narrow View
That is an incredibly narrow view of the job situation you have. The fact of the matter is, if there are no factories in the US and we no longer produce any goods domestically, there is no need for technical people of any sort. The reality is, we are all in this together, and narrowing the scope of the problem only narrows the political base to which this subject has any appeal.
Do you somehow think it makes this site more effective if you appeal only to software coders? Obviously it does not! Nor does it help software coders at all if we no longer allow any foreign citizens to come to this country and take jobs that have all been outsourced to the f'ing Communist Chinese.
You had all better open your eyes to the real scope of this issue, because out-of-a-job is out-of-a-job, it doesn't much matter if you lost it to some dude from India on an H-1B visa making 10 bucks an hour working in this country or some Chinese dude working for $8/hr working in China. The food stamps you'll get if the government hasn't gone broke yet are the same color either way.
the site is a tech labor blog
says so right at the top. illegal immigrant babies are not taking tech jobs but more to the point, those affected by offshore outsourcing and use of guest worker Visas in professional, tech labor clearly do need to focus on just these issues. The reason is they have gotten nowhere politically and have gotten no legislation helping U.S. technical workers. Instead they are under constant attack.
So, the point of this site is to write about these issues to get them out into the public.
There are a lot of technical people who have no opinion on birthright citizenship or would find it offensive. Bottom line, illegal immigrant babies are simply not taking jobs away, especially from technical skilled Americans.
The point again, is to amplify what's going on for tech labor. There are two stories, most notably the Obama administration is putting into place the very architects of H-1B and has an offshore outsourcer promoter in his executive team.
That's not good news for tech labor and most don't even realize Obama is front loaded with a host of people who think it's just a great idea to offshore outsource your job.
Learn to Read
My apologies to those who can read, but since what is written at the top of this blog is in question, I guess I'll have to reprint it here:
And if you didn't have the money on hand to send President Obama a "3′ x 6′ wooden framed watercolor on paper depicting a landscape with limestone cliffs." with an estimated value of $3,000.00 like "His Excellency Wu Banggou, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China" does, then perhaps you understand my argument for why the federal government should go back to subsisting on tariffs only. Shockingly, they were able to do just that for the first 125 years of our nation's history back when we had balanced budgets and no Internal Revenue Service, the existence of which has to this day never been explicitly or otherwise authorized in the US Constitution.
As it turns out, "65% see China as either an "adversary" or a "serious problem," but there are always a few traitors who cannot sell out our nation fast enough if it involves some way for they themselves to profit. I mean, hell, who wouldn't want to sell out our nation to get a cheap Chinese made TV at Walmart? There can't possibly be any technical jobs at stake when it comes to TV's, right? Who would have guessed less than 35% go along with that even in a survey cited by the Wall Street Journal?
cool it
please do not write insults, such as "learn to read". I think U.S. techies can read just fine, thanks so much.
Wrong is Wrong
Did I tell US techies to "learn to read" or just one person who clearly read some thing that was not there? Can someone tell me where in the statement I cited it mentions "tech labor" at all? Obviously I didn't miss anything. I could draw other conclusions about a person who couldn't gather what was obvious to anyone from that statement. I thought I was quite generous. It sucks to be wrong. Shooting the messenger only institutionalizes the problem, as many of us who work in engineering know very well.
26 States Say 'No' to Federal Health Care Rules
Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Washington - 26 states in all, have joined a lawsuit saying it is unconstitutional for the federal government to make regulations regarding health care. With 12 more, a total of 38 states, none of them having to cough up any money to pay lawyers to litigate through all the hoops required to bring this lawsuit to the federal supreme court, they could tell the supreme court to strike this law down as unconstitutional instead of asking them. What I want to know is why does it make more sense to Americans to ask Washington DC to fix itself instead of telling them what we want their role to be?
excuse me?
what does health care have to do with tech worker jobs. Look, this is a techie labor issue blog and this is getting old. If you're a techie wanting to do something about H-1B, offshore outsourcing of American jobs, get better labor conditions, job stability and security for U.S. technical labor, great. Let's do that please.
You've Got to be Kidding Me
You think the subject of my post was "health care"? Maybe you should learn to read as well. While you're at it, maybe you should re-read your statement at the beginning of this blog.
account suspended
rules violation. Off topic posts and personal attacks are not allowed.
Why would China want to be Like Us?
Some would have us believe it would be the end of our nation if our government looked out for our trade interests like China's goverment looks out for the interests of their nation. That is obviously false, as China's double digit economic growth over the last 2 decades shows quite clearly. China managed to grow 10% last year while our free trade agreements and tariff reductions left us hoping for a positive number.