New Constitutional Convention?

Have you heard about this? The Koch brother is funding an effort to:

• eliminate federal income taxes
  
• remove the right of African Americans to vote
  
• remove the right of women to vote
  
• impose term limits on congressmen
  
• impose a mandatory balanced budget
  
• remove all social programs (Medicare, Medicaid, ADF, SS, Obamacare
  
• limiting the federal government's ability to spend money

Basically, they want a return to the Articles of Confederation, which collapsed most spectacularly after only 11 years. The other southern states, like Virginia, who have tried to maintain planks of the Confederacy, are all at the bottom of the list of states when it comes to literacy, health, life expectancy, man-made disasters, etc.

But they're at the TOP of the list on wealth inequality, and that's the point.

This is some scary shit.

What's astonishing about this movement is the proven wrong headedness of it.  "Government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires" has failed spectacularly everywhere it has been tried.  If you eliminate taxes on the wealthy and eliminate social services for the poor, you end up with a dysfunctional third-world society.  Without a middle class there is no purchasing power to keep an economy flowing.  Without roads and bridges there is no infrastructure to keep billionaires wealthy.  With a tiny ruling class of Uber-wealthy and a huge population of starving peasants, your society is unstable and prone to citizen revolts every year or so. With no fire department or police the rich are at the mercy of the poor. Slavery was successful for 100 years only because the justice system did not recognize any rights for escaped slaves.

The Confederacy (1861-1865) collapsed due to bankruptcy due to the lack of a tax base.  The Articles of Confederation (1776-1786) collapsed due to competition between the states and the lack of a unified foreign policy.

How many times does this experiment need to be run?

It's the former CSA states that want this.  I say, don't wait for them to secede.  Kick 'me all out of the Union right now.  Cut them off from federal aid, which is the only thing keeping them afloat now.  Give them ten years in the wilderness.

Only let them back in on three conditions:
1. Each southern state agrees to become a territory of, and be governed by, one of the northern states
2. The states pay relocation costs for any citizen who wants out
3. All politicians involved in the process are prosecuted for sedition

As David Brin frequently points out, this feudal system was the government over most of the world for 5,000 years (maybe more), and it never was any good. It never delivered a society that actually worked for the majority of the people (or for that matter even a sizable minority of the people).

I hardly think anyone could take this seriously considering most southern states get more from the feds than they turn in in taxes. I mean, it's messed up we're even having this conversation in 2021 but still- not a reachable goal imo.

An awful lot of Republican voters think that their states are so poor because they give too much money to the Feds to support the horribly mismanaged blue states. You and I know that it's actually the reverse situation, but we live in the real world.

The idea is being taken VERY SERIOUSLY by a large number of Republicans.  They did not like having their asses handed to them in 2020, they did not like having a Negro president 2008-16, they are well aware that they haven't represented a majority of US voters since 1987.  They see the handwriting on the wall.  The only way Republican/conservative agenda items will move forward if if they change the way votes are tallied and change who can vote.  "Majority rule" is not their friend.

Constitutional amendments require a 2/3 majority in Congress. Not much fucking chance of that.

A constitutional convention would require only 34 states to call for one (2/3 of the states).  With Republicans in control of 30 states (2 are split, 18 are Democratic), this avenue looks a lot more achievable to them.

I've been thinking about (and worrying about) this possibility since April 27, and I think I have an alternative.

Add the following to the Bill of Rights (first ten amendments to the Constitution); maybe some Republicans would vote for this:

1.  The right to universal healthcare for life

2.  The right to free pre-K-12 education

3.  The right to vote for everyone (over age 16, regardless of anything else)

4.  The right to equal dignity and worth (use some language from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights here)

If these were enshrined in the foundational documents no rogue political party could strip those rights.