Convention of States Collectivist Trojan Horse by Dr. Dan Eichenbaum
As our nation continues to depart from its founding principles, conservatives are desperately searching for strategies to re-establish the checks and balances designed to prevent government tyranny. As specific problems are identified, solutions are proposed. If professional politicians are the problem, term limits will get rid of them. If government spending is the problem, a balanced budget is the answer. If government overreach is the problem, defund and close government agencies. If moral decay is the issue, legislate against it.
The Convention of States (COS) agenda promises to resolve all these problems. Their plan is to invoke Article V of the Constitution in which thirty-four states can petition Congress to call a “convention of states” to propose constitutional amendments. They contend that each state delegation is restricted to proposing only amendments specified in the state’s petition. Common suggested amendments are Congressional Term Limits and a Balanced Budget Amendment. COS proponents claim that the states will control all aspects of the convention and any amendments proposed would still have to be ratified by ¾ of the states to become part of the Constitution. They claim the process is legal, constitutional, and a perfectly foolproof and safe way to reestablish constitutional rule.
I vehemently disagree. The Article V Convention of States is a Trojan Horse.
Article V of the Constitution is a 143-word run-on sentence that should make English teachers gasp and cringe. An English teacher so appalled, however, would probably have taught the class how to parse a sentence to understand who does what to whom. To parse a sentence one must find the subject, verb, and object of the sentence and temporarily put all the rest aside.
Here is the full text of Article V of the US Constitution with highlights for further discussion:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or,on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, 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, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
The simple declarative sentence reads as follows:
The Congress shall propose amendments to this Constitution or shall call a convention for proposing amendments.
Congress, it appears, can take one of two actions with certain triggers:
- Congress Shall Propose Amendments itself
Trigger: 2/3 of both houses deem it necessary - Congress shall call a convention for proposing amendments
Trigger: Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several states; i.e. 34 states
Option 2 is what the COS folks are talking about. Based just on this part of Article V, here are the obvious sources of risk:
“Congress shall call a convention”
- call a Convention – not call a Convention of States
- “Congress shall call a convention” means that congress calls the convention, determines the agenda, chooses the delegates, and defines the rules of the convention
Article V also specifies the ratification process which contains additional obvious risks. Amendments become part of the constitution “when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress”. Once again, Congress controls the ratification process.
The COS promoters claim that the process is safe as the states would control the entire process including making the rules, choosing delegates, and creating the convention agenda. They also claim that the rules could not be changed by the convention itself once it is underway. History proves them wrong.
Contrary to the COS narrative, our Constitution was written by a “runaway” convention, even though it turned out well. After the War of Independence, our country was governed by the Articles of Confederation, which created a central government that was too weak to enforce unified action even when essential. To remedy those deficiencies, a convention was called with only one specific purpose – to amend the Articles of Confederation. According to rules, amending the Articles required ratification of any changes by all thirteen states.
The convention convened in Philadelphia, but delegations from only twelve states were present. Rhode Island refused to attend. Disregarding the rules, the delegates decided to discard the Articles of Confederation entirely and write a new Constitution. Instead of requiring agreement by all thirteen states, the new Constitution became law of the land when ratified by only nine of the thirteen states.
The convention that created our Constitution defied and broke every rule under which it was called. It discarded the Articles of Confederation entirely instead of just amending it and changed the ratification requirements from all thirteen states to just nine. By definition, that was a runaway convention.
Commentary by Phyllis Schlafly on the Article V ConCon
Whether you call it a “Convention of States,” a “Constitutional Convention,” or a “ConCon,” the outcome is the same. It would open up our beloved founding document to attack from all kinds of special interest groups with intentions far less noble than the Founding Fathers.
Here are three concrete reasons Phyllis Schlafly opposed an Article V convention:
- Congress has ultimate control over the process. The Congressional Research Service confirms that Congress will call the convention, determine the agenda, choose the delegates, and define the rules of the convention.
- Activist judges will control the outcome of a convention. The American Bar Association acknowledged that a convention under Article V, like every other part of our Constitution, will be subject to judicial review. With just one lawsuit filed by either liberals or conservatives, this would give unelected judges the chance to control the actual wording of the Constitution through judicial fiat.
- The Constitution is not the problem. Everyone acknowledges that the real problem with our federal government is not the powers given to it by the Constitution, but the powers the government has usurped outside the bounds placed on it by the Constitution. Why would anyone think that the federal government will suddenly start obeying the rules when we write more of them?
Many other notable constitutional scholars agreed with her. Chief Justice Warren Burger said, “A Constitutional Convention today would be a free-for-all for special interest groups, television coverage, and press speculation.”
Justice Antonin Scalia avidly opposed an Article V convention. He called it a “horrible idea.”
Even current proponents of an Article V ConCon like Mark Meckler admit that having one convention will open the door to many more. “There is no way to prevent the cycle [of multiple conventions] from happening because the cycle of it is the cycle of human nature.”
The Convention of States agenda is an organized attack on the Constitution. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, enlisting the support of conservatives by promising that a Convention of States will give us the tools we need to re-establish our constitutional republic.
In reality, the Constitution of States program is a dangerous tool that uses our patriotic hearts and desires to bring the fox into the henhouse.
Suddenly, this has become a critically important issue for citizens of North Carolina. In our state, the Republicans in the state House of Representatives voted to call for a Convention of States. The Senate has not voted yet, but they could in the short session that starts after the primary on May 17.
It is time to actively call your senators in Raleigh and urge them to vote against the COS resolution and explain why that is so important.
Resist Tyranny and Trust in Freedom!
The Weekly Sam: Why Children Are At Risk in Public Schools
Author and homeschool pioneer Sam Blumenfeld warns parents back in 1996 to get their children out of government schools:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2022-04-07T13_10_28-07_00
Sam was a generation ahead of his time.
Sam’s work has been archived by Camp Constitution can be found here https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
Education and the U.S. Constitution
A few years ago, I visited the Millis, MA public library, and perused their book sale table where a purchased for $1.00 a gem entitled History of The Formation of the Union under the Constitution: With Liberty Documents and the Report of the Commission. It was published by the U.S Government Printing Office in 1941 on behalf of the United States Constitution Sesquicentennial Commission whose members included President Franklin Roosevelt. The book contains a chapter entitled “Questions and Answers Pertaining to the Constitution.” On page 128, we read:
- The United States government is frequently described as one of limited powers. Is this true?
- Yes. The United States government possesses only such powers as are specifically granted to it.
And:
- Where in the Constitution is there mention of education?
- There is none; education is a matter reserved for the states.
This was published by New Deal Democrats who signed off on the publishing of the book. What happened since 1941? The only way for the U.S. government to have any legitimate or legal involvement in education is to add an amendment to the Constitution to make involvement in education constitutional, but such an amendment was never added. So, why is there a Department of Education and why does the U.S. government spend billions of taxpayer dollars- $79 billion in 2020-funding education?
The Morrell Land Grant College Act of 1862 may have been the first time the U.S. government got involved with education. Named after U.S. Representative and later U.S. Senator Justin Morrill from Vermont, it set aside federal land to build agricultural and mechanical schools.
In 1867, under the Andrew Johnson Administration, the Office of Education was created for the “purpose of collecting information on schools and teaching that would help the States establish effective school systems.” Politicians violated the U.S. Constitution back then as well. And like all government entities, its power and influence grew incrementally.
Senator Justin Morrell
Senator Morrill was at it again when the “Second Morrill Act” was passed in 1890 giving the Office of Education the job of administering support of the land-grant schools. Vocational education became the next major area of Federal aid to schools, with the 1917 Smith-Hughes Act, and the 1946 George-Barden Act focusing on agricultural, industrial, and home economics training for high school students.
The same year that the federal government published the above-mentioned book stating that the federal government has no role in education, the New Deal Democrat controlled Congress passed the Lanham Act which, among other things, granted money to public schools around the U.S. The federal unconstitutional floodgate opened wide in 1958 when Congress passed the National Defense Education Act. This act was justified by its supporters due to the launching of Sputnik by the Soviets even though we already had the technology to launch our own satellites. In 1965, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Higher Education Act, the latter funded college tuitions, and gave the U.S. government a near monopoly of college loans while drastically increasing the cost of a college education. These grants are now known as Pell Grants named after Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island. In 1980, President Carter with the full support of the National Education Association, made the Department of Education a cabinet level entity.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, under George H.W. Bush, the “Education President,” Bill Clinton, and George W Bush, the federal government gave us Outcome Based Education, Goals 2000.No Child Left Behind, and School to Work. During the Obama Administration, we got the disaster called Common Core. My mentor, the late Sam Blumenfeld, a pioneer of the modern homeschool movement documented what he called “the deliberately dumbing down of America.” His last book co-written by Alex Newman entitled Crimes of the Educators explains how it happened.
A book published by the federal government with the blessing of Franklin Roosevelt righty reads that our federal government was a government of specified powers, and that education was not one of these powers. But, over the past one hundred years, members of Congress from both major parties violated their oaths of office and voted for these programs.
A correlation can be made between the unconstitutional involvement of the federal government and the decline of academic standards. In 1983, the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a report entitled A Nation at Risk. The commission concluded that if a foreign power did to our schools what we did, we would consider it an act of war. The commission made recommendations, but it did not address federal involvement in government schools, nor did it advocate reintroducing intensive phonics. As an aside, around the same time that this report came out, the Reagan Administration came under fire when it cut funds to school lunch programs and classified ketchup as a vegetable. The correct answer of the Reagan Administration should have been said that it has no authority to fund school lunch programs.
While we have much to do to unravel one hundred years of federal government overreach, which should include supporting and voting for constitutionalists, I recommend reading Crimes of the Educators by Sam Blumenfeld and Alex Newman. This book should prove to be an eye-opener and will give people a clear understating of the problem. Sam was a pioneer in the homeschool movement who spent most of his adult life warning parents about the plans of the so-called progressives to deliberately dumb down America. Camp Constitution inherited most of Sam’s books, papers and recording and with it, we created the Blumenfeld Archives-a free on-line resource: https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/ Another excellent resource is Freedom Project Academy https://fpeusa.org/-a fully accredited classical education on-line K-12 school.
Readers who would like a PDF version of History of The Formation of the Union Under the Constitution, and.or Crimes of the Educators may E-mail me at campconstitution1@gmail.com
EIGHTY PRO-LIFERS PICKET CATHOLIC AWARD TO MARTY WALSH by Willam Cotter
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Eighty supporters of the Right To Life gathered on the sidewalk of U.S. Route One, in the Town of Norwood this evening, to protest Catholic Memorial School giving an award, named after a Catholic saint, to U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Inside the Four Points Sheraton Norwood, Walsh was awarded the Blessed Edmund Rice Medal—named after the Founder of the Irish Christian Brothers—by Catholic Memorial during the school’s Spring Gala
fundraiser.A longtime proponent of legal, unrestricted and publicly funded abortion, Walsh once said he hoped to make Boston a “safe city” for abortions, should Roe v. Wade be overturned. A NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts award recipient, Walsh was the first Bay State mayor to be endorsed by the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts.
The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council said “abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes.”
I n a demonstration organized by the Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition—an alliance of nine pro-life organizations—more than 80 supporters of the Right To Life protested peacefully, prayerfully and legally on the sidewalk outside the hotel. The picket lasted from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm.
The Coalition characterized the demonstration as “a tremendous success, far exceeding the expected turn-out, which indicates growing indignation in the Catholic community over the sycophancy of corrupt Catholic institutions towards pro-abortion political figures.”
Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition spokesman William Cotter, the President of Operation Rescue Boston, made the following comment: “Faithful Catholics have lost patience with elite Catholic institutions who prize power, money and celebrity over fidelity to Catholic principles. Catholic Memorial has signaled, clearly, that Christian morality will not stand in the way of the school’s fundraising priorities.”
“Catholic Memorial has betrayed the Faith which the school professes in its very name. The leadership of CM ought to be ashamed about this scandalous award, but that would require, at least, the vestigial remains of a Catholic conscience.”
The Massachusetts Pro-Life Coalition, founded in 2017, brings together Operation Rescue Boston; Mass Resistance; the Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortions; the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund; the Boston Church Militant Resistance Chapter; the Boston Chapter of Helpers of God’s Precious Infants; American University Women for Life; the Massachusetts Family Institute; and the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts.
Contact: William Cotter
(774) 287-0751
editor@orboston.org
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The Weekly Sam: Why 19th Century America Abandoned Christian Schools For Public Education.
Homeschool pioneer and author Sam Blumenfeld explains how Christians were deceived by the Unitarians to support government schools.
A link to an audio version: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2022-04-01T13_17_54-07_00
This and hundreds of other items from the writings and lectures of Sam Blumenfeld can be found here:
https://campconstitution.net/sam-blumenfeld-archive/
The ‘Gay Manifesto” Outre or Prophecy?
I first became aware of “The Gay Manifesto” in 1987 when a friend showed me his copy of The Moral Majority’s newsletter which reprinted it with commentary from the “Gay Community News”- a now-defunct that was located in Boston. I doubted its authenticity so I called the paper to investigate. The man answering the phone confirmed that his paper published it. He told me that Michael Swift, the author, was a poet from Connecticut. What seemed outrageous in 1987 has, to an extent, become a reality and public policy. It was entered into the Congressional Record by Congressman William Dannemeyer.
“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools, in your dormitories, in your gymnasiums, in your locker rooms, in your sports arenas, in your seminaries, in your male clubs, in your houses of Congress, wherever men are with men together. Your sons shall become our minions and do our bidding. They will be recast in our image. They will come to crave and adore us. “Women, you cry for freedom. You say you are no longer satisfied with men; they make you unhappy. We, connoisseurs of the masculine face, the masculine physique, shall take your men from you then. We will amuse them; we will instruct them; we will embrace them when they weep. Women, you say you wish to live with each other instead of with men. Then go and be with each other. We shall give your men pleasures they have never known because we are foremost men too, and only one man knows how to truly please another man; only one man can understand the depth and feeling, the mind and body of another man.
“All laws banning homosexual activity will be revoked. Instead, legislation shall be passed which engenders love between men. All homosexuals must stand together as brothers; we must be united artistically, philosophically, socially, politically and financially. We will triumph only when we present a common face to the vicious heterosexual enemy. “If you dare to cry faggot, fairy, queer, at us, we will stab you in your cowardly hearts and defile your dead, puny bodies. “We shall write poems of the love between men; we shall stage plays in which man openly caresses man; we shall make films about the love between heroic men which will replace the cheap, superficial, sentimental, insipid, juvenile, heterosexual infatuations presently dominating your cinema screens.
We shall sculpt statues of beautiful young men, of bold athletes which will be placed in your parks, your squares, your plazas. The museums of the world will be filled only with paintings of graceful, naked lads. “Our writers and artists make love between men fashionable and de rigueur, and we will succeed because we are adept at setting styles. We will eliminate heterosexual liaisons through usage of the Redeeming the Rainbow 203 devices of wit and ridicule, devices which we are skilled in employing. “We will unmask the powerful homosexuals who masquerade as heterosexuals.
You will be shocked and frightened when you find that your presidents and their sons, your industrialists, your senators, your mayors, your generals, your athletes, your film stars, your television personalities, your civic leaders, your priests are not the safe, familiar, bourgeois, heterosexual figures you assumed them to be. We are everywhere; we have infiltrated your ranks. Be careful when you speak of homosexuals because we are always among you; we may be sitting across the desk from you; we may be sleeping in the same bed with you. “There will be no compromises. We are not middle-class weaklings. Highly intelligent, we are the natural aristocrats of the human race, and steely-minded aristocrats never settle for less.
Those who oppose us will be exiled. We shall raise vast private armies, as Mishima did, to defeat you. We shall conquer the world because warriors inspired by and banded together by homosexual love and honor are invincible as were the ancient Greek soldiers. “The family unit-spawning ground of lies, betrayals, mediocrity, hypocrisy and violence–will be abolished. The family unit, which only dampens imagination and curbs free will, must be eliminated. Perfect boys will be conceived and grown in the genetic laboratory. They will be bonded together in communal setting, under the control and instruction of homosexual savants. “All churches who condemn us will be closed. Our only gods are handsome young men.
We adhere to a cult of beauty, moral and esthetic. All that is ugly and vulgar and banal will be annihilated. Since we are alienated from middle-class heterosexual conventions, we are free to live our lives according to the dictates of the pure imagination. For us too much is not enough. “The exquisite society to emerge will be governed by an elite comprised of gay poets. One of the major requirements for a position of power in the new society of homoeroticism will be indulgence in the Greek passion. Any man contaminated with heterosexual lust will be automatically barred from a position of influence. All males who insist on remaining stupidly heterosexual will be tried in homosexual courts of justice and will become invisible men.
“We shall rewrite history, history filled and debased with your heterosexual lies and distortions. We shall portray the homosexuality of the great leaders and thinkers who have shaped the world. We will demonstrate that homosexuality and intelligence and imagination are inextricably linked, and that homosexuality is a requirement for true nobility, true beauty in a man. “We shall be victorious because we are fueled with the ferocious bitterness of the oppressed who have been forced to play seemingly bit parts in your dumb, heterosexual shows throughout the ages. We too are capable of firing guns and manning the barricades of the ultimate revolution. “Tremble, hetero swine, when we appear before you without our masks.”
Saving America from Planet-Threatening Fossil Fuels– By sacrificing our economy, environment, living standards, freedoms and security
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Catching Fire News: A New Online Video News Outlet
(Editor’s Note: One of the shows is “The Camp Constitution Report.”)
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After the Steal, It’s Crazy for Trump Supporters to Support an Article V Constitutional Convention by Janine Hansen
After the Steal,
It’s Crazy for Trump Supporters to Support an Article V
Constitutional Convention
By Janine Hansen, Eagle Forum National Constitutional Issues Chairman, director@nevadafamilies.org, 775-397-6859
Because of the 2020 election Trump supporters have lost faith in the operation of our Constitutional Republic. Understandably, we saw massive election fraud, corrupt judges, and a crooked Congress confirming the steal.
Our Constitutional Republic stands at a crossroads. Now more than ever our activism is critical. BUT, we cannot allow ourselves to be used to further undermine and destroy our U.S. Constitution.
For decades before her passing, Phyllis Schlafly valiantly fought a dangerous threat to our Constitution, an Article V “convention for proposing amendments” or as we would call it a Constitutional Convention. There are almost no rules for the convention in Article V of the Constitution. Exceptions are: that after 34 states have made application for a Convention that Congress “shall call a Convention” and that the amendments passed by the Constitutional Convention become part of the Constitution when ratified by three fourths of the several states or by Conventions in those states.
This ratification by the states seems like a safeguard to a run-away Constitutional Convention, but is it? In the original Constitutional Convention, the only national precedent we have, the ratification process was changed from a unanimous requirement in the Articles of Confederation to only nine states required in the New Constitution. In other words, they changed the ratification process in the original Constitutional Convention before they sent it out to the states to be ratified. The Constitution itself in Article V does not prohibit changing the ratification process. Could that happen now? In the political environment in which we find ourselves with no regard for truth or the sacredness of our fundamental constitutional processes like elections, what might we expect?
If the delegates at the Constitutional Convention felt that they could not get their many new amendments passed by enough states, they could change the number of states required to ratify their multiple amendments. Consider how many Red states there are and how many blue states there are. Are there enough states, either red or blue to equal three fourths of the states that could agree on any amendments? So it is logical in order to achieve the ratification of all the new amendments that the ratification process would have to be changed, lowered as to the number of states required.
Another important question is: who sets the rules for the Convention? Pro-convention groups like Convention of States claim that “the states would set the rules”. How? Congress calls the Convention sets the time and location and then Congress would set the rules. Does that give you comfort knowing the Pelosi and Schumer would be deciding the rules for a Constitutional Convention and who controlled the gavel?
Numerous times while in the U.S. Senate, former Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah had a set of rules for a Constitutional Convention passed by the U.S. Senate. These rules always contained a provision that the votes accorded to the states would be according to the Electoral College. In other words, if your state has 8 Congressmen and 2 Senators then your state would have 10 votes out of 538 at the Constitutional Convention. Radical California would have 55 and New York would have 29. Most conservative Red states have much smaller populations and therefore much smaller representation.
How would the delegates to the Constitutional Convention be chosen? Well there is no guidance in Article V and we don’t really know. Under the “necessary and proper clause” of the U.S. Constitution, it would appear as if Congress would determine how to select delegates. Proponents of the Convention of States claim that the State Legislatures will choose the delegates as in the original Constitutional Convention. Do you have full confidence in your State Legislature to choose delegates who would represent you and stand solidly behind our Constitutional Republic? Having worked in my own Nevada Legislature for decades I would say, they have about as much integrity as the U.S. Congress. That’s downright scary to consider putting our sacred Constitution in the hands of compromised and corrupt politicians who are supposed to fix it. You can bet that the first thing to go would be our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, next our Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech and Assembly.
Critical Race Theory or Crazy Racist Trash: A Presentation by Rev. Steve Craft
Camp Constitution Speaker’s Bureau recently sponsored a presentation by Rev. Steve Craft entitled “Critical Race Theory or Crazy Racist Trash.” It was hosted by the Community Church of Alton, NH. Rev. Craft said that Critical Race Theory (CRT) is little more than a plan to cause hate, and division, and if it is not stopped, will lead to a race war-a goal that the enemies of the United States have been promoting for many years. Rev. Craft referenced a book entitled Color, Communism, and Common Sense written by Manning Johnson in 1959. Rev. Craft explained that Johnson, who was raised in the Christian Church, was recruited into the Communist Party believing that the only white people who cared about black Americans were communists. He was so highly regarded by communist leaders, that he was sent to Moscow for training. He soon realized that the communists were using black Americans as cannon fodder for a revolution. He left the party and spent the rest of his life exposing communism. A link to a PDF version of the book: https://campconstitution.net/files/2020/Color,%20Communism,%20and%20Common%20Sense.PDF And a link to where a hard copy can be purchased: https://campconstitution.net/shop/
Rev. Craft explained that while racism did, and still exists, the United States is not a systemically racist county. He said America has a “sin problem not a skin problem.” Craft refuted the CRT doctrine that all whites are oppressors, and all blacks are the oppressed. He called it is nonsense to suggest that a homeless white man who eats his meals at the Salvation Army is oppressing the likes of Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire and LeBron James, a multi-millionaire. “If Oprah is oppressed, give me some of that oppression, baby” he said. The presentation is available on Camp Constitution’s YouTube and Rumble pages as well as Wolfeboro Community TV: http://www.wctv25.com/watch-wctv-online.html