The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

I’m In Favor Of A Constitutional Convention, In A Few Years

Posted on | April 8, 2011 | 5 Comments

by Smitty (via Insty)

The talk of a Convention is tempting. We had 126 years prior to Woodrow Wilson, who set us on course to become the Progressive State of America in 1913. Completely unfair to credit him with so many of the misdeeds, foreign and domestic, that occurred in the last century, and culminated in the current crisis administration, but there it is.
Where we’re at is that power is over-centralized. Local and state governments have been failing upward for decades. And, if Wisconsin teaches us anything, it is the the Iron Law is real, and the protectors of the Iron Law prefer it above life itself. The Irony Corollary.
What isn’t clear is that the American People have made it past the primal scream stage, and are serious about improvement. As a military member, I adhere to the Code of Conduct, which is intended to offer guidance in the event of enemy capture. Note Article I:

I am an American fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. 

Now, it’s interesting, as you read the various Medal of Honor write-ups, the general lack of time available to decide to do the honorable thing under fire.

  1. Deadly situation.
  2. Do I have almost 0 time to think about it?
  3. Do something immortal.

The bulk of the people involved are self-effacing, and claim they didn’t do anything more that the obvious. Those that survive, that is. I will now do something unfair and map the concept of the Code of Conduct to non-military members of society. Now, let there be an entitlement involved. “I am prepared to give my life in their defense” becomes untenable. Again, Wisconsin.
I submit that there really isn’t a need to talk about a Constitutional Convention until we’re all ready to take a major haircut. It won’t be the last, permanent haircut of the Code of Conduct variety, but We, as The People, need to bring that level of seriousness to the discussion, or it will just be “relief in the round”. If anything is off the table, then everything is off the table.
The bulk of what needs to occur, really, is reducing the federal scope to the enumerated powers of the Constitution, de-centralizing the federal government, and re-invigorating the states. We do not require the kind of centralization currently seen in an Information Age.
Not everyone is likely to agree with me here, but that Information Age flattens the hierarchy and renders moot the economies of scale which used to make failing upward attractive. The vast hordes of Iron Law bureaucrats dragging their knuckles from meeting to meeting in a PowerPoint stupor Are Not Helping You.
As a blogger, my mission is to repeat this theme with enough variations to keep it interesting until the political will to Fix This Noise has been attained. Then we can have a Constitutional Convention with some likelihood of success.

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