In a sign that the pro-con-con claque is losing the battle to “fix” the Constitution, one of its leaders has sunk to deplorable depths of blaming The John Birch Society and Eagle Forum for the national debt and the death of millions of aborted babies.
You read that right: “Constitutional scholar” Michael Farris is pulling out all the stops in his quest to be at the table when the Constitution is rewritten. Farris published the following screed as part of a guest post on a political blog owned by a self-described “good friend” of Farris: “Do you want to know who is responsible for millions of babies being killed in the womb? Do you want to know who is responsible for at least $16 trillion in the national debt? It is conservatives (particularly Eagle Forum and the John Birch Society) spreading a message of fear.”
Farris’s farcical, fantastical freestyle maligning could be considered legally actionable were it not so laughable.
Later in the post, Farris puts a finer point on the efforts by The John Birch Society to “help evil triumph,” accusing the parent of The New American of “spreading a message of fear” that has “killed 21 million babies” and “increased our debt $16.6 trillion.”
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How has The John Birch Society wreaked such horrendous havoc? Farris claims it all happened because the educational organization — committed to “less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles” — has successfully convinced state legislatures to rescind their previous resolutions calling for an Article V constitutional convention.
Farris and his increasingly belligerent band of followers (including Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and other “conservative” celebrities) insist that all the political and social usurpations and perversions could have been avoided if the states had come together and added amendments to the Constitution requiring Congress to restrain itself and not to act outside its constitutionally granted authority.
The words “parchment barriers” come to mind.
After all, considering the penchant of all three branches of the federal government — congressional, executive, and judicial — for routinely disregarding existing constitutional restraints on their power, why should we expect that they would suddenly faithfully obey an amended Constitution?
In fact, why would we even assume that an amended Constitution would be an improvement? The Constitution has been amended 27 times in the past, but not all of those amendments improved that document, despite claims made by proponents at the time.
For instance, in 1913 two damaging amendments were added to the Constitution: the 16th Amendment authorizing the federal government to impose an income tax and the 17th Amendment calling for the direct popular election of U.S. Senators. Those amendments — and all others to date — were proposed by Congress and ratified by the states.
Would a constitutional convention propose beneficial or harmful changes to the Constitution? And if the latter proves to be the case, would the states — caught up in the political passions of the moment — still ratify these changes as they did the 16th and 17th Amendments? There is no way of knowing for sure.
What is known for sure — and what The John Birch Society understands very well — is that calling a constitutional convention would be very risky. It would, in fact, be gambling with the Constitution.
This is true not only because of the nature of conventions — which may go off in unpredictable directions when called — but also because not everyone who supports a constitutional convention supports the same goals.
Make no mistake: There would be plenty of wolves howling outside the doors of a constitutional convention, and, more importantly, there would be packs of them inside the convention, as well.
It’s not just self-professed conservatives who are paying millions to see an Article V convention come to pass. They have numerous socialist and progressive collaborators, who are pushing for an Article V convention as a means of finally changing all the things they believe are wrong about our form of government.
Would anyone paying attention to the news doubt that the roster of amendments that would make it out of that motley meeting of the minds would include an expansion of “transgender rights”? Or a spate of “reasonable restrictions” on the right to keep and bear arms? Or similar reductions to the free exercise of religion? Or federally mandated accommodation of “LGBT rights”?
If we sow this suggested “amendments convention” we will surely reap the destruction that will forever follow such codified depravity.
Right-minded Americans must remember that at any Article V convention, there would be other delegates present who are committed to these once-marginal social engineering causes who will bend and shape any proposal into something that likely will bear as little resemblance to the conservative draft amendments (such as that calling for a balanced budget) as our current Constitution does to James Madison’s Virginia Plan.
Finally, regardless of the many rational and historically well-founded reasons to oppose the Article V convention proposal, in light of Michael Farris’s unhinged, undeserved, unfounded, and unbecoming defamation of The John Birch Society and Eagle Forum, perhaps the many well-intentioned and conscientious conservatives who formerly followed his lead should now demand that he issue a retraction.
