An Open Letter to Ron Paul

Why does Ron Paul not speak of Article V?

Open Letter to Congressman Ron Paul

Joel S. Hirschhorn

There are numerous reasons to admire you, as I have for many years. Clearly you are running for president as a Republican, rather than a third party candidate, for the purpose of getting richly deserved media and public attention not available to those outside the two-party duopoly. In last night’s debate among Republican presidential candidates you proudly described yourself as a "champion of the Constitution." However, you are missing a major opportunity to demonstrate your courage and allegiance to our constitutional republic.

You have acknowledged the appropriateness of amending the Constitution. In fact, you introduced legislation for an amendment that would stop giving automatic citizenship to babies born in the U.S. to non-citizen parents. You said: "Our founders knew that unforeseen problems with our system of government would arise, and that’s precisely why they gave us a method for amending the Constitution. It’s time to rethink birthright citizenship by amending the 14th amendment."

Personally, I endorse this particular amendment. More important, however, I am disappointed that you have never latched on to the long history of Congress’ failure to honor and obey the part of Article V of the Constitution that gives Americans the right to a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution – an alternative to Congress proposing amendments. Interestingly, the particular amendment that you favor will probably never emerge from Congress, but might have a better chance through an Article V convention.

Why have you failed to acknowledge that Congress has ignored over 500 applications from state legislatures from all 50 states for an Article V convention? As a champion of the Constitution, surely you know that the one and only requirement explicitly stated in Article V is that two-thirds of state legislatures ask for one. And surely you know that Congress has never passed any law that expands or modifies this single explicit constitutional requirement. So, I ask you Congressman Paul: Why have you remained silent on the Article V issue?

If you do not believe that Congress should honor Article V’s provision for a convention, why not say so publicly? If you believe that it should never be used, then why not call for an amendment to delete it from our Constitution?

Please Congressman Paul, as a champion of the Constitution, do not behave like other members of Congress and silently veto a crucial part of the Constitution that the Framers wisely gave us. They anticipated that eventually Americans could lose confidence in the federal government. You clearly have earned the respect and support of millions of Americans because you object to so many policies and actions of the federal government. Thus, you, more than virtually any other member of Congress, should appreciate the wisdom of the Framers in giving us the Article V convention option.

I beg you to speak up and demonstrate just how much of a champion of the Constitution you really are by bringing national attention to the Article V convention issue and supporting its use. As a founder of Friends of the Article V Convention I invite you to play a leading role in giving the United States of America its first Article V convention.

[The author had the pleasure of a private meeting with Congressman Paul about a year ago to discuss his book Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government: www.delusionaldemocracy.com. He serves as National Press Secretary of Friends of the Article V Convention: www.foavc.org.]

Joel S. Hirschhorn

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The Biggest Threat to Our Freedom

One million American servicemen and women have paid for the freedoms all Americans enjoy, and indeed have a right to, with their lives. Countless thousands have paid with their blood, and tens of millions of Americans have sacrificed in every way imaginable to protect and defend these freedoms.

I for one am unwilling to, in the name of fighting terrorists to give up the freedoms that tens of millions, including myself, have fought, died, and sacrificed for.

Trampling the right of all Americans to due process of law, court protection from unreasonable search and seizure, denial of habeas corpus, long term detention without charge or counsel violate the fundamental elements of American freedom.

I can say without reservation that the biggest threat to the freedom of all Americans does not come from al Qaeda. It comes from a government cloaked in secrecy, one which seeks to hide its actions from view, one that claims for itself the power to spy, detain, detain without charges, torture, cause Americans to Disappear via Rendition to states which not only support, but openly practice torture of prisoners.

No declaration of war exists. Congress did not authorize anything except the ability of the president to use military force necessary to punish and prevent future terrorist attacks on our soil and interests abroad. This in no way gives the president or those in his administration the statutory or constitutional authority to restrict the freedom of Americans to be Americans, and to waive the rights so many have died for.

I will NEVER give up my freedom in the sheep's clothing of protecting me. To give up our rights in the name of a false safety is a far greater risk to America than any terrorist can bring. Our government must never become our enemy. We will not let it.

One more thing. Each year 3 million Americans die of all causes, old age, cancer, auto accidents, heart disease and so on. 3 million. It has been 6 years since 9/11 and 18,000,000 Americans have died of all causes, and not one of them was killed by a terrorist. I am willing to take my chances on getting killed by a terrorist, if the tradeoff is America's freedom, if it means losing our rights and constitution. This is not to say that we should not be concerned, and that reasonable measures should not be taken to prevent attacks, but again, an objective look at the facts would indicate that a national obsession with terrorism serves only the politicians who use the fear of terrorism to get elected.

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"Let's Do the Time Warp Again"

I awakened in a time warp this morning.

The president has warned Iran to quit doing stuff or that there would be "serious consequences". Cheney wants to bomb "limited targets", terrorist training camps.

Then I read that the president says that the reason there are so many bad mortgages is that the contracts signed by economically illiterate people are too complicated and that people should know what they are signing, i.e., blame the victim for the predatory lender's irresponsibility in lending sub-prime mortgages to people they knew could not afford the financial instruments being sold. He then said that the federal government should not intervene to provide liquidity to this market, i.e., provide easier credit to lenders so that they could reflect this in lower interest rates to people being forced into default.

See how this works. Corporate predators should be free to offer loans that are sure to fail at 20% of all originations, with contract language that is incomprehensible to the borrower. The disclosure at the closing barely meets legal muster, and the lender says, "well they knew what they were getting into, the signatures on the disclosure prove it". Then the bankruptcy laws were changed making it more difficult for a family in trouble to go to chapter 7, leaving foreclosure as the only pathway for the consumer and banks to work things out. Finally the president says it is the fault of the borrower, many of whom can't read beyond 8th grade level to try to figure out contract language that would be a challenge for a Philadelphia Lawyer.

Next the president says that a gas tax to fix infrastructure is off the table despite the fact that there are 27,000 bridges rated as structurally deficient in America, despite the fact that the total bill to fix all deficient and obsolete infrastructure in America is estimated to be $180 B (equal to 4 months bill for the war in Iraq). Of course if the Highway Trust Fund was actually used to build and maintain our highway infrastructure, which it is not, were to be used for its intended purpose, maybe the existing gas tax would have been sufficient to have fixed the bridges and roads anyway.

Then the president says that the way to fix America and make our businesses competitive in the global marketplace is to, ta ta, reduce American corporate tax rates!

So I awoke this morning to read my local paper, and I find that the problems with mortgages is that the victims are to blame.

Then I read that Iran is really the reason there is an insurgency in Iraq, and that if Iran would only quit being the bad guy, Iraq would be free to become a democratic oasis in the desert, a beacon of hope to the entire middle East. And we need only throw a few bombs at Iran to solve that problem.

Then we would not turn to the logical source of funding to fix our functionally obsolete infrastructure, fees on the users of that infrastructure to keep it safe and in good repair.

Then we find out that the way to fix America is to give big corporate more tax breaks, which then shifts a measurably larger share of the tax burden to the middle class or since pay go is not in order in America, to our children and grandchildren, in effect, a generation skipping tax burden on your progeny and the middle wage earner.

For 7 long years, this has been the Bush mantra. We really are in a time warp.

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