“Yet even in countries where the highest liberty is allowed, and the greatest light shines, you generally find certain men, and bodies of men, set apart to mislead the multitude; who are ever abused with words, ever fond of the worst of things recommended by good names, and ever abhor the best things, and the most virtuous actions, disfigured by ill names. One of the great arts, therefore, of cheating men, is, to study the application and misapplication of sounds — a few loud words rule the majority, I had almost said, the whole world.” — Cato Number 13 (21 January 1721)
Keeping up its two-theater war on reason and history, the Convention of States (COS) group is now not only warning supporters that they might be looking at 25 years before their plan comes to fruition, but in one of their latest blog posts they report that the results of a recent survey reveal that “the resounding majority believe that the key to achieving a balanced budget and reining in the $33 trillion national debt is through an Article V convention — not Congress.”
Some of you reading this might be surprised to learn that “the resounding majority” — 52 percent, according to the COS article — of Americans support calling a Constitutional Convention to restore balance to this union of republics. You should be surprised for two reasons: first, that such a percentage of Americans would support such a radical response; and second, that the survey was conducted and funded by COS itself.
Not surprisingly, COS, while admitting to having conducted the survey itself, reveals no details about the poll other than to call it “informal,” and that they received “over 6,000 responses.” The 52 percent of respondents that reportedly “believe” that a Constitutional Convention is the only way to reign in a federal government that is addicted to taxing, spending, and accumulating power.
As with so many COS claims, this “survey” is not only informal, but inarguably embarrassing. Anyone can conduct a survey to support any position. Take, for example, this report of a recent Gallup Poll that claims that 47 percent of Americans “desire government to do more to solve country’s problems.”
If pressed, which result would the average American be more inclined to trust: that of a self-serving poll conducted by a group that has spent millions in pushing to see a Constitutional Convention called, or that of an organization that has been conducting opinion polls since 1935 and whose very name is synonymous with surveys?
Obviously, the Gallup group is the more respected of the two and, in fact, even COS recognizes that fact. In the article written in support of its claim of overwhelming support for an Article V Convention, COS cites two separate Gallup polls, neither of which is any meaningful way supportive of the COS claim that a majority of Americans support their scheme to use a Constitutional Convention to fix problems that are in no way related to the Constitution.
There is no need to rehearse here the all the errors in COS claims that an Article V Convention is the only way to eliminate the federal debt or to keep politicians from making federal office a decades-long career. Those errors have been exposed again and again in the pages of The New American and, in fact, are likely the reason that Mark Meckler admits that his group’s goal of seeing a Constitutional Convention held is one that could take 25 years to come to pass.
What does need to be repeated here, however, is that there is no reason for any organization to cook the books if its aims are as safe, secure, and stable as they claim. How good can an idea be if the only way you can support it is by conducting your own informal poll as evidence?
Unlike COS, The New American and The John Birch Society do not rely on ploys and propped-up polls to support their position that an Article V Convention is a dangerous, untested, and unsafe approach to a problem that could be solved by seeing states step up and play the role the Founders intended them to play: that of sovereign republics who would refuse to cooperate with any unconstitutional order, opinion, program, plan, or act of the federal government.
Admittedly, for decades states have refused to play their role as principals, creators of the federal government, choosing rather to act as subordinates to the plutocrats on the Potomac. They have traded their sovereign birthright for a mess of political pottage in the form of billions of dollars in federal grants and other funding schemes.
That course can be corrected, however. Americans who would see their lives, liberty, and property protected from tyrannical acts of the federal leviathan need only elect state legislators who will stand as sentinels between the people and those in D.C. who would refuse to remain safely within boundaries of their constitutional authority.
State legislators and governors committed to faithfully adhering to the oath required of them by Article VI of the U.S. Constitution — an oath to “support this Constitution” — could safely, surely, and swiftly stop all unconstitutional demands made by the feds at the sovereign borders of the states. States whose lawmakers and executives refused to comply with that commitment would see citizens devoted to liberty emigrating to those states where the Constitution was truly the supreme law of the land.
To right the ship of state and to see us sailing once again toward the port of liberty and prosperity, we needn’t rely on vaguely described, self-serving polls for support. We need only the wisdom of the Founders, the lessons of history, and an understanding of the correct constitutional relationship between the states and the federal government they created to serve their purposes.
