Column for Dec. 18, 2008

The end of days for America if we have a new Constitutional Convention

I have heard for years about signs of the end of time, and that we are living in "the end times". People have thought that same thing in every generation since the first century A.D. I do believe, however, that we are living in the end times of the United States of America. America as we know it will cease to exist.

For those who do not know, I regularly teach along with two cohorts in a project called The Patriots Pub. In The Pub (as I call it), we have taught about American history and what led to the writing of our Constitution. Currently, we have been teaching through the day by day account of The Constitutional Convention of 1787. There are some 50+ hours of narrative and commentary available on the internet thus far. www.patriotspub.us

There has been a call for another Constitutional Convention. That is nothing new. What is new is that we may actually get one this time. At the time of publication, 32 states have already signed on to the idea. Only two more states need to agree to the concept before Congress has to call for a convention. Once 2/3 of the states agree to call for a convention, it is required under the existing constitution to have one (Article V).

Make no mistake that if there is a new convention, our existing constitution will be tossed out the window. Congress gets to decide how delegates to the convention would be chosen. We currently have liberals in charge of Congress. We are going to have a flaming liberal (rated as the most liberal Senator in the entire Senate) as our president.
I have had the discussion lately with those who support the automobile industry bail out about its merits. My repeated question was to show me where in the Constitution that the government was allowed to make any sort of loan to the automobile industry, much less the financial system bail out that is 57 times larger. Alas, there was no answer found. Such an idea may end up in a new constitution.

In a constitutional convention, there is no limitation on the scope of the convention. In the 1787 convention, the Articles of Confederation were to be revised for better efficiency in government. Instead, the convention eventually scrapped them in favor of an entirely new constitution. We could see the same thing happen in our day.

If this were to happen, know that your First Amendment rights could be curtailed if the amendment is either stricken or amended. The same goes for the Second Amendment. Our gun rights, freedom of speech, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom of press, and reservation of rights to the states, to name a few, could all be wiped out. We could easily lose the requirement of natural born citizenship for eligibility to be president. We could have someone from nations in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, or any other place in the world run for and be elected as the chief executive in this nation. The wisdom of the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 was to ensure a nationalistic tendency and loyalty.

When corrupt men write documents to justify or further their corrupt ways, it can only harm a nation. I have read extensively through the notes of James Madison about the first convention and the fears of government getting into the hands of corrupt men. Thus, we have some of the provisions and methods of government we have today and have had for well over 200 years. I can foresee the Constitution being rewritten or replaced to adapt to the whims of the ethically challenged.
President-elect Barack Hussein Obama has himself criticized the Constitution "because it fails to address wealth redistribution". Wealth redistribution? Folks, did you get that? He believes that the Constitution should allow for the government to forcibly take away your money at gunpoint and give it to those who have less of it than you do. Does this give you just a hint of what his supporters in Congress (who are in the majority) are going to do when appointing convention delegates?

I guarantee that we are going to have written into a new constitution provisions for homosexual marriage, abortion rights, gun control, a provision for the currently absent "separation of church and state" (only in the Supreme Court's opinion does this separation exist. It is not in the present constitution, just as with abortion rights), and a host of other liberal twaddle. Obama has said that the Constitution "needs to be interpreted through the lens of current events". That is indeed liberal twaddle.

Our own state, North Carolina, has already voted in the call for a new convention. If just two more states call for the same, then America may very well cease to exist as we know it.