Author: Fritz Pettyjohn

In his 2015 book “The Evolution of Everything” Matt Ridley makes a compelling case that evolution is now and always has been the key to all real progress in the world.  It’s a little dense, not a beach book, and demands some concentration to appreciate, but it’s well worth it.

Evolution explains everything.   Ridley starts with the General Theory of Evolution, and in 16 chapters applies evolutionary principles to the universe, morality, life, genes, culture, the economy, technology, the mind, personality, education, population, leadership, government, religion, money, and the internet.  This guy is smart, and all of these subjects are explored using the theory of evolution.

He says, “Evolution is a story, a narrative of how things change.  It implies the emergence of something from something else.  It has come to carry a connotation of incremental and gradual change, the opposite of a sudden revolution.  It brings the implication of change that comes from within, rather from being directed from without.  It also usually implies change that has no goal, but is open minded about where it ends up.”

Applied to politics, evolution sounds to me like conservatism, even libertarianism.  The absolute antithesis of evolution is modern totalitarianism, fascist or communist.  Because evolution is freedom, and to evolve you must be free to do so.

You don’t need to be a visionary to see the long arc of history.  It’s where we’ve been headed for the last 500 years.  More wealth, more health, more freedom, less violence and war, more personal autonomy.  This is where the natural force of evolution is taking us.

And who hates evolutionary change, and demands instead immediate solutions cooked up in some faculty lounge?  The primitive left, of course.  Use the brute force of the state to impose the desired outcome.  This is 20th century thinking, obsolete, and destined, like communism, for the ash heap of history.

Obamacare wasn’t an evolution in the provision of health care.  It was a top down revolution from above.  When it began to implode in October of 2013 the whole leftist agenda went down with it.  That was a turning point in American political history, and Trump came to power in reaction to it and to all the many excesses of Obama and the left in general.  It was a reaction election, a rejection election.

Trump is a symptom, not a cause.  He didn’t create the conditions for his political rise.  He was simply shrewd enough to see what was happening in this country, and smart enough to take political advantage.

If Trump fails, it won’t mean the rise of the new left.  Someone else will take his place, perhaps someone with superior political skills.

I believe evolution, as it’s taking place today, is away from the center, and back to the people.  Evolution is a bottoms up phenomenon, not a top down.  For evolution to work its many magics requires freedom, and that is where the long arc of history, and evolution, bend.

 

None other than Adolf Hitler, in Mein Kampf, came up with the concept of “the big lie.”  The idea is that if you’re going to lie, make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually people will believe it.  The big lie about the United States Constitution is that it is the result of a “runaway convention” in 1787.

This lie has been embraced by the opponents of Article V, as they argue that an Amendment Convention called under Article V could “run away” and destroy the Constitution.  For over 30 years this lie has been used by the right wing John Birch Society, along with the Eagle Forum.  The irony is that these people claim to revere the Constitution, some believing it to be divinely inspired.  But how can you revere, and honor, a document you believe was the result of a flagrant and deceitful violation of existing law?

In any event, this lie has been effectively exposed by two leading constitutional scholars, Rob Natelson of the Independence Institute, and Mike Farris, who recently withdrew from the Convention of States Project.  In an article in The Hill, Natelson makes short work of the big lie.  Please click on his piece if you want a concise and definitive rebuke of the runaway nonsense.

At WND.com Rita Dunaway reviews a more substantial work by Mike Farris in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, titled Defying Conventional Wisdom: The Constitution Was Not the Product of a Runaway Convention.  This is an in depth, authoritative analysis of all the original historical documents from all thirteen States.  Farris proves his point beyond a reasonable doubt.  He’s done the entire Article V movement a great favor.  This is legal and historical scholarship of the highest order, and we are all in Mike’s debt.

The principal previous authors of a scholarly work on the subject, Ackerman and Katyal, in the 1995 University of Chicago Law Review, are destroyed by Farris.  Unlike the Birchers, the reason they want to call the Constitution the product of a runaway is in order to disparage it.  If it’s somehow illegitimate, it can be more easily ignored.

Fred Lucas in the Daily Signal  has done a little work on Article V, and written it up.  If Lucas wants to write about Article V, he should acquire more than a superficial knowledge.

Eventually, a serious reporter for a serious publication is going to look into all this, it seems to me.  That’s the way it’s seemed to me for three years.  But that was before we were having a Convention of States.

The Phoenix Convention of States is, among other things, a political pageant, a physical manifestation of federalism, and a reminder that, when they act in concert, the States are the sovereigns in this country.  They created the federal government, and retained for themselves authority over it.  While this Convention will have no legal authority, and can do no more than make recommendations, the very fact that it meets sends a powerful message.

It’s a message the left won’t like.  They’re great believers in direct democracy, and think it’s absurd that Wyoming and Alaska have as many United States Senators as California and New York.  And, of course, they want to abolish the electoral college, since it skews Presidential elections in favor of small States.  But a Convention of States will really annoy them.

The Arizona Legislature called this Convention, and they will plan it and organize it, in consultation with Bill Fruth of the BBA Task Force.  That process will begin after they adjourn in a week or so.  So we don’t yet know the venue, and how much room there will be for the public.  But the floor of the Convention will resemble that of a national political party Convention, with the 50 State delegations each seated together.  Some sort of sign may be used to identify the location of each State, as at a political convention.  But there will be one noticeable difference.  Each delegation will be the same size.   California’s delegates will not outnumber South Dakota’s.  In fact, South Dakota, led by Hal Wicks, may well send one of the larger delegations.  I think that makes a great, and telling, visual picture.

We expect delegations of five or seven, though each State decides that for itself.  Whether they send three or thirteen won’t matter.  It’s one State, one vote.  So there should be three hundred or more delegates.  Each delegation will select a spokesperson, though that task could be rotated.  The delegates won’t dress, or act, like delegates to a political convention.  Everyone will be in suits, the women in business attire.  While there will be a certain number of citizen delegates, most of the delegates  will be State Legislative leaders, Speakers of the House, and Senate Presidents.   They are accustomed to operating in this type of environment.  The proceedings themselves will resemble those of a chamber of a State Legislature, operating under Mason’s Manual of Legislative Procedure.  Regular order will be followed.  This is what all these men and women are used to.  It will all be very professional and dignified.

All of this will be available for viewing by the public, hopefully on C-Span.  It will be such an extraordinary contrast with what’s happening in Washington.  It will be a wonderful way to introduce Article V to the public.

Politically, it was a no brainer.  It wags the dog, in the sense that it forces the media to cover an actual event, as opposed to their incessant back biting rumor mongering.  It shows not only strength, in stark contrast to Obama, it shows decisiveness.  It separates him from Putin.  It earns praise from overseas, and from all Americans who love seeing the bad guys blown up.  It distances him from his alt-right support, and makes him appear compassionate.  It sends a clear message to ruthless killers all over the world, including, especially, the Norks, to wit:  there are very few places in the world where you can hide from American power.  Cruise missiles are only one asset available to a President.  From B-1’s to drones to stealth bombers to Navy Seals, with more on the way.   If we know where you are, we can kill you.`

In poker, it pays to be unpredictable, and, as Nixon knew quite well, it works for a President as well.  Who knows what Trump is capable of?  Chinese President Xi must be rethinking his position.  China is in no way a match for the United States Navy, as he well knows.  And after witnessing, up close and personal, what Trump is capable of, maybe he’ll think twice about a confrontation in the South China Sea.  And he may want to think hard about the Norks as well.

We’ll figure out a way to deal with the Norks soon enough.  What really matters is avoiding military conflict with China.  If that was going to happen, it was going to be over navigation around the Spratly “Islands”.  If Trump had timed this whole thing to impress the Chinese, it couldn’t have gone any better.

It turns out The Resistance is futile, and the Gorsuch win removes a grave threat to our basic liberties as Americans.  Federalists and conservatives will continue to control the Court.  The rule of law is upheld.  The Roberts Court won’t go on offense, as the Obamacare decision showed.  But they will defend our constitutional rights.

This has got to be the proudest moment of Mitch McConnell’s political career.  It makes up for a lot.  And Trump did as he promised.  A big one.

Tomahawk is a bad ass sounding name, but I suppose it’s racist.  Although it wouldn’t be to the Aniak Halfbreeds of the Kuskokwim River.  Most of the kids are part white, so in the 1970’s they decided to adopt Halfbreed as their mascot.  They’re actually proud of their mixed race heritage, and are unapologetic about their name.  They fly to Anchorage every winter for the big Division IV Basketball championships, and proudly take the court wearing Aniak on the front and Halfbreeds on the back.  I always rooted for them.

 

Cenk Uygar is the founder of the progressive political organization “The Young Turks” (TYT) and a founder of Wolf-PAC, which seeks to end corporate personhood and publicly finance all elections in the United States.   You may call him a dreamer, or something else, but for me, for the moment at least, he is my ally.  Our common enemy is George Soros, who is attempting to destroy Wolf-PAC.  The details are in this link.

TYT believes in Article V, and for that reason alone I ally with them.  And it is for that reason alone that Soros wants to kill us both.  TYT has five blue States, including Vermont, where the State Senate, acting like Soros lapdogs, recently voted to rescind its Article V Wolf-PAC Resolution.  We need to kill this Rescission bill in the Vermont House.

Here’s the math.  150 members, 55 Republicans.  75 needed to kill a bill.  If you get all 55 Republican votes, you only need 20 of the 95 Democrats to vote “nay”.  I’m volunteering for this project this evening, via text.  I’d like to start making phone calls on Monday.

If we can unite the Vermont Republicans against rescission, we will have made a deposit in the favor bank for TYT.  This would make us even, since they tried to help us in Montana.

It would also encourage them to get the five States they have  — California, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont —  to send delegations to the Phoenix Convention of States.  These States understood Article V when they passed the Wolf-PAC Resolution.  They have demonstrated, by their votes, that they know all this “runaway convention” talk is hokum.  Article V is good for all States, period.  Let’s see them in Phoenix.