Why I support a new Constitutional Convention

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of Constitutional power.” - Thomas Jefferson

I recently finished reading Mark Levin's book The Liberty Amendments which details several proposed amendments the talk show host and attorney advocates.  In addition, Levin advocates for a new constitutional convention in order to consider these amendments. I must admit, I have always been skeptical about the notion of another convention. I traditionally viewed such a process as threatening some of the fundamental principles of government that are established in our Constitution. I have viewed a second convention as a  means those who are less enamored with limited government would use to restrict individual liberty and enlarge the government's control over our lives.

However, after not only reading The Liberty Amendments, but reviewing much of what the Framers of our Constitution said at the time of and following its creation, I've realized something. My reverence for the document created in 1787 (which I still believe to be the best construction of government created by human beings) has undermined something even more important to the Framers - the notion of self-government. As Professor Peter Mancall from the University of Southern California has pointed out, the Constitution is the result of nearly a century of political experience and thought that focused on the principle of self-government - the right of a people to choose how their institutions would function and determine the limits of the power of those institutions.

Thomas Jefferson was just one of the Founders who articulated the primacy of
self-government over allegiance to the Constitution, stating:

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions...But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times."

But Jefferson wasn't the only one viewing the Constitution as a result of self-government, which was the real principle to be upheld. John Marshall, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, noted:

"The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is a creature of their will, and lives only by their will."

John Adams also concurred, stating:

"...these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses...Thirteen governments thus founded on the authority of the people alone, without a pretense of miracle or mystery..."

And while those at the convention in 1787 wisely built in a provision for amending the Constitution without having to call for another convention, they clearly anticipated the need or desire for future conventions by building a mechanism to call one into Article V of the Constitution.

However, over time, fealty to the principle self-government gradually become synonymous with fealty to the Constitution itself. Something completely foreign to the notion of the Framers. Today, we live in a surreal political universe in which conservatives resist allowing the people to practice self-government by stridently opposing another convention, while liberals consistently attempt to break free of many of the Constitution's restraints on government power while claiming loyalty to the document, and a public who is woefully ignorant of what the Constitution actually says, and even less knowledgeable of why the Constitution arranges our political institutions as it does.

This only comes about by denying the people the right to practice true self-government, in essence, to revisit

the fundamental law of the nation and make those changes that seem necessary. The process of a convention, whether it produced any amendments that could achieve the necessary vote of three-fourths of the states or not, would be very beneficial to our political society. If changes were made, they would have the legitimacy of the people behind them, which would serve as a greater check on the willingness of public officials to ignore or violate them. If no changes were made, then the Constitution, as currently exists, would have been reaffirmed and granted a new legitimacy by a new generation of Americans. Again, the effect would be for elected officials to be much more hesitant to be seen as violating the principles within the Constitution.

Either way, the legitimacy of the people expressing their will through this process will give greater legitimacy to whatever emerges from the process, and politicians will have less room to negotiate around whatever limits are placed on them and the institutions in which they serve. More importantly, self-government will become a practical exercise rather than a historical event. It will be real to the current generation of Americans in a way it has not been since the Founding generation. A greater knowledge of what the Constitution would say, a greater understanding of why it would say it, and a greater fealty to it from all would emerge, as it became, once again, a  creation of "We the People."

Opposition to this process maintains a schizophrenic political reality in which we claim adherence to the Constitution, while becoming ever more ignorant of the document itself, and while our political figures (on both the left and the right) seek ways around its more restrictive elements. In effect, we are valuing the creation (the Constitution) more highly than the creators (the people).  This is not a situation that can exist indefinitely. Equally important, it is a rejection of what the Founders of this country truly believed about the importance of self-government.

Why Americans really don't value liberty

Liberty is an American ideal. It motivated the move towards independence from Great Britain. It also animated the thrust to win the Civil War and extend its benefits to others who had been denied them. Even in political and social discussions today, we hear the word used to justify all sorts of actions, behaviors, or political positions.

But the reality is that we have long abandoned any real allegiance to the notion of real, genuine, personal liberty. The start of this movement away from liberty began in earnest in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries with the rise of the progressive movement. This political ideology began to reject the notion that allowing individuals the ability to make their own choices in every area of their lives led to a better society.

Indeed, progressives were advocates of extensive social planning (it's intellectual elite favored eugenics among other activities to create the "perfect" human society). It's primary tenet was the primacy of "society" over the individual. Leaders of progressive thought openly supported communist ideology in Russia as well as the National Socialists (Nazis) in Germany. In their opinion, society could no longer be entrusted to the individual decisions made by it's individual members. Planning, form "enlightened" central planners, was needed to curb the "excesses" of liberty.

While the extremes of progressive thought could not be achieved in the U.S. to the extent it was in Russia or

Germany, much of it certainly took root in the U.S. over the course of the 20th Century. At the local, state, and national levels, bureaucratic agencies of all sorts sprung up to manage liberty's extremes.

Where this notion particularly gained traction was in those areas of decision making that were perceived to be (and in many cases genuinely were) born out of ignorance, hatred, or separatism. In short, our perception changed from allowing individuals to make any decision they chose and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of those decisions, to using the law to ensure people only made whatever "society" believed were good decisions.

This coercive approach to try to guarantee good decisions has continued to spread from what some would consider the most baneful of decisions (refusing service someone of another race, religion, or sex) in the mid-20th Century, to now attempting to prevent even some of the most mundane and personal decisions (whether to purchase soft drinks or health insurance). These sort of regulations are, of course, always artfully presented as ways to improve some aspect of "society."

Quite frankly, this is not a totally new phenomenon within the United States. Whether it was slavery or the subjugation of women, the Alien & Sedition Acts, the Japanese interment camps of World War II, or current debates over the ability of people to freely choose who they will choose as a spouse, another American tradition has been to attempt to deny the very liberty those in control want for themselves to others in society - always in the name of "protecting society."

The fundamental problem with liberty is that is is messy. True liberty allows people to make all sorts of decisions, even bad decisions, that others don't necessarily agree with. Yet, the enduring legacy of the progressive movement is that we have all, at some level, bought into the notion that "planned" arrangements are always better than spontaneously generating ones. At the beginning of the 21st Century, Americans simply are intolerant of "messiness" - i.e., liberty.

We see this play out in all areas of life in modern America. Home education scares those in public schools

because "who is in control?" We have planning commissions in all major cities to make sure that growth is "sustainable" and according to the best interests of the community. We pass laws mandating how much employers must pay their employees, as well as laws that tell employees the minimum they are allowed to work for. And we mandate individuals engage in commerce for governmental purposes or to ensure some sense of social values.  We even have governments at all levels attempting to control how much of which types of foods or drinks individuals can choose to consume.

What we don't realize is that as we attempt to legislate away the ability to make bad decisions, we eventually get to the point that we also legislate away to make good decisions as well. Taking away someone's ability to be a complete jerk leads to taking away someone's ability to be a complete saint. There simply is no getting around this trade-off.

The ability to make good decisions and bad decisions is a necessary prerequisite for liberty to exist. But we are quickly rejecting the notion that people should be allowed to make their own decisions, especially if we believe those decisions to be wrong. Hence the use of the law to force "good" decisions. Liberty is messy and we live in a world that no longer tolerates messiness.

I don't know that this course can be altered. But I do know it will have consequences beyond what most of us can foresee or understand. True liberty simply doesn't seem to be a genuine American value any longer.