Since the right to vote is set forth in the Constitution, how do see it as an earned right?

I concur with you 100% about a balanced budget amendment.

And frankly, I think the one proposal of Levin to have a balanced budget amendment with real teeth is the most likely to be adopted. In Levin's proposed amendment, for example, if Congress doesn't pass a budget on time, there are automatic spending CUTS. That would instantly nullify statists like Harry Reid!

I am a huge fan of mark Levin, and I believe that his proposed Liberty Amendments would do a world of good. If it were up to me, I would adopt them all, as proposed.

That said, I think there is one thing that could be added to the US Constitution that would act as a silver bullet to solve most all of the federal overreach coming from DC today. That silver bullet would be a Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA). If you buy into the notion that money is power, and politicians wield power through their access to the public purse, then limiting that access to a finite number with no additional borrowing/debt would bring the real spending priorities to a head in a hurry while eliminating the billions upon billions in waste, fraud and abuse.

I would prefer to see a world without the Federal Reserve and our money backed by (redeemable for) silver and gold, but in lieu of that, a BBA would hamstring our pols to the funds on hand. If taxes needed to be raised for some spending boondoggle or another, then there would be hell to pay come election time.

The average person has no concept of what $17.3 Triilion is. They have no idea that equates out to $55K worth of debt for every man, woman and child currently exchanging O2 for CO2 in the United States right now. They wouldn't even begin to be able to conceptualize that every taxpayer is on the hook for $150K right now.

When some socialist politician would suggest a raise in welfare payments to deadbeats who refuse to pay their own freight, it would be a helluva lot more meaningful to the taxpaying voter if he/she has to personally feel that sting.

When Obama wants a $1 Trillion stimulus, how much would people (man, woman and child) howl when/if each and every single one of them would have to chip in $3200 personally. I dunno about you guys, but I'm guessing the typical family of 4 would have no interest in seeing their savings raided to the tune of $13K +/- for some supposed "shovel ready" stimulus jobs.

Right now, the spending in DC is far and away the most destructive thing they are doing, in my book. A BBA with teeth would clamp that down in a big way, in my opinion.

Thoughts?

It's odd that no one has mentioned Mark Levin's "Liberty Amendments." Levin discusses the fact that the states have the constitutional authority (Article V) to call a Constitutional Amendment Convention to propose amendments. Each state has one vote in the convention. All of the small states in "flyover country" have the same vote as socialist California and New York. Levin proposes amendments that would limit the power of Washington, which is the real problem. Who would want to bribe or bankroll a politician with very limited economic power?

Article V was inserted by America's Founding Fathers to stop a tyrannical government, which anti-federalists feared would happen. As we all know, their fears were well founded.

Right now, 20 states are at various stages of getting a vote through their legislatures to call such a convention. Georgia is closest to being first. Check out the web site http://conventionofstates.com/progress-r....

The Constitution was written in 1787. Check your dates. The Declaration of Independence was written in 1776.

this is exactly why we are still fighting in Afganistan and Iraq, r

Hi Robert. Nice to see you here too.

Hi Larry! Welcome to the Gulch! Glad your here.
I'll try not to fat-finger the keyboard here :-)

FreedomWorks/Connector another place where great minds meet.

Treason? No. It's not treason. They'll still hang, but it's not treason.

Until there is wide acceptance of an objectivist philosophy there is little chanced of success for obtaining a constitution based on objectivism. The work to be done is to recruit converts through education and persuasion. The enemies are all states, churches, intellectual institutions and the leaches of the world. Yaron Brook and Don Watkins outline an approach in their book Free Market Revolution that is very logical but it is a huge task to overcome thousands of years of history. I can' t see how any one living today will be around to see a significant conversion to their thoughts.

Sadly Americans have become way to complacent...I heard a story that in the early 1800's Congress voted to spend $100,000 on replacing an orphanage that had burned down in DC. Voters in Tennessee where so outraged that Congress would spend tax dollars on the orphanage that it caused riots... ah the good old days.

"Committees of Safety" were known during the American War for Independence. They had nothing in common with the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution.

The biggest problem with the Constitution is that it didn't clearly say that a Government Official violating the US Constitution is a Capital Offense.

There is a document (ok, website :-) http://www.TheSocietyProject.org It defines our government as it is supposed to be and the Foundational values that are necessary to judge our actions and laws against.

It also contains the CARR - Constitutional Amendment Repeal and Repair

You can also join us on Freedom Connector to help with the wording of the Amendments that we will be proposing. http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/392...

Remember the last scene in AS? Judge Narragansett marking and crossing out contradictions in the Constitution that, said Rand, had destroyed it? Remember also he added a new clause: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of production and trade."

Of course, the Gulch was a voluntary association of homesteaders. Furthermore, residency in the Gulch was by invitation only. Rand did not even sketch out what government the Gulch had, except to say Midas owned the valley and granted temporary or permanent leaseholds, and that the domestic and foreign policies of the Gulch, such as they were, came from the Triumvirs: John Galt, Francisco d'Anconia, and Ragnar Danneskjöld.

My guess always was that those three constituted the Committee of Safety: Francisco as the holder of the richest leasehold, Ragnar as the captain of the "privateer" and the commander of the spy network, and John as the proxy for Midas. I would further guess that Hank Rearden joined the Committee of Safety shortly after his arrival, and Dagny was recruited on-the-fly after Francisco picked her up in New York.

Still, we're not talking about a Committee of Safety. We are talking about a Constitution. I assume the subject is not so much the structure of the government as what sort of powers shall the government have, and not have.

I woiuld start with a strict definition of what the taxing and borrowing powers are intended to support. I would revoke the power "to establish post offices and post roads." And naturally I would not have half the powers one sees in many State constitutions--such as "providing for and maintaining a thorough and efficient system of free public schools."