The price tag and our state's failed politics appear to be the two biggest arguments against holding a constitutional convention.

Every 20 years, Illinois voters are given the right to call a constitutional convention. I want you to vote "yes," but various interest groups are spending millions to convince you to vote "no."

The "vote no" ads claim the projected cost of holding a convention is too high, especially considering that the state is running a horrific budget deficit.

They aren't telling you something.

Reader issue #707 (Author's note: River Cities' Reader Publisher Todd McGreevy is a volunteer for and donor to the campaign of Michael D. Elliott.)

 

Michael D. Elliott was asked a question about closed sessions of the Scott County Board of Supervisors, and it didn't take long for the conversation to go in another direction. While Elliott speaks eloquently about his plans for the Scott County auditor's office, many discussions come back to the U.S. Constitution.

The crushing lack of leadership, underscored by the absence of even a rudimentary understanding of the factors that contributed to the current economic crisis, begins to unfold in the wake of a demoralizing vote by the U.S. legislature for a $700-billion bailout. The House of Representatives originally voted it down, obviously holding out for earmarks from the Senate. Incredibly, the Senate obliged, attaching an additional $125 billion worth of such bribes to ensure the House majority vote in favor of bailing out Wall Street, and indefinitely indenturing future generations with impossible debt.

As the 2008 presidential election approaches, it is both interesting and illuminating to observe the trends of our political discourse: factions, groups, special-interest lobbies, and coalitions rule the day, and all thought of Joe and Jane American Citizen as individuals has fled our minds completely.

Fifteen years later, the Reader is still afflicting the comforted and comforting the afflicted. This is true, thanks in no small part to you, the loyal reader. The Reader began its independent publishing career in October 1993 and was a monthly publication for 20 months before converting to a weekly edition in the summer of 1995. The Reader is picked up at more than 700 distribution locations every week throughout the entire Illinois and Iowa Quad Cities region and enjoys a printed circulation between 17,500 and 20,000 each week.

There are many arguments against voting for an Illinois constitutional convention next month. I thought I'd try to address some of those arguments today.

One of the most devastating indictments of the manner in which political "science" courses are taught in our colleges and universities today is the muck of contradictions that passes for the notion of a "political spectrum."

A "spectrum," according to Webster's, is defined as "a continuous range or entire extent." Observe that this definition does not designate the identity of the phenomenon, but only the manner in which it makes its nature manifest: a varying characteristic that forms a sequence of intermediate values between two opposing extremes.

Without those two opposing extremes the concept of a "spectrum" collapses into insensibility: one would never speak, for instance, of a rainbow with two red edges, or of a thermometer with a boiling point at each end.

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson


As I detailed in part one of this article, the next president will inherit more than a financial catastrophe when he assumes office. He will also inherit a shadow government - an authoritarian regime that is fully staffed by unelected officials, fully operational, and ready to take over the running of the country at a moment's notice.

This is all part of the government's Continuity of Government (COG) plan, which was laid out in two May 2007 directives issued by President Bush. These directives, which do not need congressional approval, provide that the president (or his appointees) will take control of the government in the event of a "national emergency" - loosely defined to mean "any incident" that disrupts governmental functions or "severely affects the U.S. population." This could mean anything from a terrorist attack to a hurricane. Particularly significant is the absence of a plan to repopulate or reconvene Congress or the Supreme Court, which would give unchecked executive, legislative and judicial power to the executive branch.

I'm a member of a union. My father was a proud union member. His father was a union member and, for a time, a union organizer. I own a business. My maternal grandparents, whom I cherished more than anyone else when I was a kid, were farmers. My mother was a public-school teacher for several years. Both of my parents are now retired and rely heavily on their government pensions.

What the heck does any of that have to do with anything?

Now that the $700 billion bailout is a fait accompli, it has never been more important to keep vigilant, and to vote in November. It is difficult not to become utterly discouraged knowing that the huge majority of our legislators approved a $700-billion bailout, ignoring unprecedented opposition to the bill, HR 3997, by the huge majority of Americans. But crumbling into a feeling of helpless apathy in the face of this civic betrayal is precisely what we cannot allow ourselves to do, because this is just the beginning of a terrible tide of usurpation of power, assets, and ultimately liberties in this country.

Pages