Of Course Term Limits Matter...How Could They Not?
I was killing time surfing through some social media feeds when I came across a comment to a post on term limits that was jadedly negative. “Term limits will solve almost nothing. Prove me wrong,” the comment read. Needless to say, I disagree with that statement.
As I contemplated how to respond (or even if to respond), I was overcome by melancholy in the realization that good people – people who believe in the American dream, freedom, liberty, and opportunity – have become so exasperated with being abused by the hand of overreaching government that they would be channeling Glum from Gulliver’s Travels where hope for instituting reforms is concerned.
The Two-Term Presidency
Back in the days when there was a modicum of honor in the politically elected class (and that feels like a lifetime ago), those elected to office moralistically followed the lead of President Washington in understanding when the end of national service was upon them. Washington, as we all know, instituted the tradition of the two-term presidency.
Washington knew full well that if our nascent nation – newly freed from the yoke of totalitarian rule at the hand of a despotic monarch – was to survive we needed the stewardship of public servants, not a reconstitution of an authoritarian state.
In his farewell address, Washington was purposeful to point out that politics and the narcissism of political parties would threaten the nation’s future:
“Let me now take a more comprehensive view and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.
“The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.
“Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and the duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it...”
‘A Frightful Despotism’
Today, we have a federal government that is rife with predominantly unethical careerist politicians. These politicians routinely – and almost without fail – put the interests and well-being of their political parties ahead of the concerns and needs of their constituencies. So too do they put their addictions to power above their duty to serve.
This has led to politicians who have existed in office for well over the average 20-year career rubric, common everywhere else in our society:
Chuck Schumer has served in elected federal office for 42 years
Nancy Pelosi has served in elected federal office for 36 years
Mitch McConnell has served in elected federal office for 38 years
Steny Hoyer has served in elected federal office for 42 years
Chuck Grassley has served in elected federal office for 42 years
Patrick Leahy has served in elected federal office for 48 years
Ed Markey has served in elected federal office for 46 years
Ron Wyden has served in elected federal office for 42 years
Dick Durbin has served in elected federal office for 40 years
Marcy Kaptur has served in elected federal office for 40 years
The list goes on and on.
And when you examine these names you see that every one of them is a political animal; a politician beholden first to their parties, then to the narratives their parties mandate, then to the special interests that fund and fill the coffers of both their campaigns and parties, then to their re-elections, and then maybe – just maybe – they take the time to direct staff to send out a form letter responses to their constituents letters and emails and that’s only if there’s time between the $1000-a-plate fundraisers and unnecessary taxpayer-funded political junkets.
How Has It Come To This
Starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had the narcissistic audacity to thumb his nose at Washington’s precedent – all the while facilitating and strong-arming a monumental political shift to centralized government started under Woodrow Wilson, the idea of political power as an industry began to take shape.
Today, the inside-the-beltway elected class has tantamount to perfected the industrialization of the US federal government, and to such an extent that the administrative state (read: unelected bureaucracy) acts as a fail-safe redundancy that prohibits any reformative changes threatened by national elections.
Further, the very same transformative fascist public-private relationships (read government-private) used as vehicles of radical change during the Wilson and Roosevelt administrations are once again the transformative vehicles being used by our federal government (and some state governments) to inflict special interest ideologies onto the American people.
Additionally, ideologically jaded, special interest toadies, existing as career politicians, are using the coercive power of fascism to cede our sovereignty to the global elite. A cursory understanding of the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset illustrates this to even the most intellectually challenged among us.
Put succinctly, career politicians are literally selling out the American people to the global elite and doing so under the guise of having fidelity to the Charters of Freedom; under the false-flag narrative of serving the people.
The Mandate Exists
Ballotpedia, a non-profit that declares itself politically neutral, publishes polling numbers by one of the most accurate names in polling, Scott Rasmussen. Examining the results of Rasmussen’s polling on how the American people feel about overreaching government is not only telling but declarative.
In March of 2022, polling indicated that an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans supported instituting term limits on members of Congress. The polling results indicated that:
“...a majority of every measured demographic group shares this view.
“The survey found that 59% strongly agree term limits would be a good idea, while six 6% strongly disagree.
“Sixty-one percent (61%) of suburban voters strongly agree. Fifty-five percent (55%) of urban voters strongly agree. Sixty percent (60%) of rural voters strongly agree.”
Additionally, a similarly conducted poll, published again in March of 2022, determined:
“Sixty-five percent (65%) of voters agree that America would be better off if we had more freedom and less government...[and] that 26% of voters disagree, and 9% of voters are not sure.”
So, there is a clear mandate, declared by the American people, that directs our federally elected representatives in Congress to both limit their interference in our lives and to also codify term limits into law via the creation of a constitutional amendment to that specific effect.
So, why haven’t term limits been codified into the US Constitution? Why does the federal government continue to find new ways to tax us; new ways to encroach into our private lives, our businesses, our education system, and our healthcare, to name just a few avenues in which they have over-stepped their authority?
The answer is obvious and maddeningly evident. They refuse to – and, in fact, are incapable of – relinquishing power. They are addicted to power the way heroin addicts are addicted to their debilitating poison. And where drug dealers are the facilitators and enablers of the drug addict, special interest groups, big bankers, and the global elite are the pushers of the political poison to which our federally elected are addicted.
The Choice Is Clear
If the elected-class, political power addicts don’t have the will to do what needs to be done at the mandate of the people, then the people must execute an intervention; the people should – and have every right to – force them into submission. Thank God above that the Framers were brilliant enough to include a pathway for the people to affect this submission in the US Constitution.
Article V of the US Constitution clearly lays out two avenues to amend the Constitution. The first has its genesis vested in Congress. But the second avenue entrusts the American people, via the individual states, with the power to rein in an out-of-control federal government.
Article V states, in part:
“The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof...”
Currently, the organization Convention of States Action (CoSA)*, is spearheading an effort to convene a Convention of States. It is an impressive grassroots initiative and one that everyone should engage with and understand. It is a pure movement emanating from the people with the goal of taking back control of our Constitutional Republic through the authority vested in the people in the US Constitution.
Since its launch in 2013, CoSA has succeeded in facilitating the passage of Convention of States applications in 19 states. Fifteen states have active legislation in front of their legislatures this year. And an additional six states have passed a resolution to adopt the application in one chamber of their legislative branches.
Doing the math, if the fifteen states with legislation before their legislatures achieve the passage of the applications the Convention of States would become a reality for the first time in American history.
Additionally, should just four of the states with measures through one legislative chamber codify their applications, We the People have a great chance at bringing about the reformative change that the elected class will not enact on its own.
The CoSA website states:
“Article V of the US Constitution gives states the power to call a Convention of States to propose amendments. It takes 34 states to call the convention and 38 to ratify any amendments that are proposed. Our convention would only allow the states to discuss amendments that, “limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, impose fiscal restraints, and place term limits on federal officials.”
Denoted by the emphasized verbiage in the quote above, there is absolutely no chance of a runaway convention; no chance that the US Constitution can be “re-written.” This is not a Constitutional Convention. It is a Convention of States meant to introduce amendments to the Constitution and those amendments can only be derived from the aforementioned three categories: limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government; imposing mandated fiscal restraints; placing term limits on federal officials.
Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus
So, to finally respond to the social media poster who was so jaded about term limits. I disagree. In fact, I vehemently disagree.
Forcing the retirement of career politicians who are not only beholden to special interests and the global elite but who routinely abuse the trust of their constituencies and the whole of the American people is not only something that needs to be done, it is something that should be done. It must be done if the Republic is to survive.
I urge everyone to go to Convention of States Action and read about the initiative. I have every confidence that once you read about the initiative all of your reservations will fall by the wayside. In fact, I suspect you will be moved to sign the petition and volunteer to move the effort across the finish line.
After all, how often do you get the chance to make history and save the Republic at the same time?
* – For the sake of transparency, it needs to be noted here that I have recently taken on the role of State Communications Coordinator for Convention of States - Florida. Further, the opinions expressed in this article – and in all articles that are published under my name here at UndergroundUSA.com – are expressly my own and are not the positions of Convention of States Action. It’s sad that I have to include this disclaimer but the bureaucracy in Washington is not a fan of this effort and we must protect the effort from political persecution.
