L3 @ 17: the state legislatures, working together, can get the Federal Government to do anything they want.”
No doubt. The difficulty with the State-based approach is that it will necessarily be very slow; the Political Class will have lots of time to see it coming and react; and they have lots of levers to pull to divert that train onto a siding.
There are many Political-Class-In-Waiting Quislings in State governments and local politics, most of whom would jump at the chance to earn merit in Federal Political Class eyes by selling out their fellow State residents. Most State govts depend on handouts from the Feds, and could easily be manipulated by threats of withheld funds. The Political Class is only a heartbeat away from having outright ownership of the Supreme Court, which would certainly rule that an Article V Convention can constitutionally only be summoned on February 30th.
I like your idea about independents in gerrymandered districts registering with the ruling party and voting incumbents out in the Primaries. We definitely should do that. But it is a Pearl Harbor move — the first impact will be dramatic, and then the Leviathan will change the rules on Primary elections and entrench itself even more deeply.
Sorry for being a downer, but we need to be realistic. The Political Class will react strongly — and maybe even effectively — to any perceived challenge. But there are a few other options out there.
One would be to pull a Br’er Rabbit and get the Political Class to throw us into the briar patch. Maybe like the Sandinista Ruling Class were bluffed into calling elections in 1990 — which they lost. But devising a workable briar patch strategy needs a more creative brain than mine.
Another option would be frontal assault — a modified tax strike. This basically supports your plan to get power back to the States, but accelerates the time line.
Suppose lots of us started cutting our Federal tax payments to zero, or only to the percentage which goes to the military. And sent those avoided Federal taxes to our State Govts instead. Suddenly, California’s financial woes would be over, and the Federal Political Class would have lost the mother’s milk of politics.
If I implement a tax strike on my own, I go to jail and no-one ever hears about it. If even 1-10% of taxpayers do this — between one & ten million people — then the Federal Govt will be unable to resist. Look at how even wimpy English tax-payers defeated their Ruling Class’s Poll Tax in 1990 through widespread refusal to comply. State Govts can then step forward and reassert a more equitable balance. (If California just blows the extra tax revenue, as history suggests is likely, then voting with our feet can resume within this readjusted federal structure).
But the simplest option is simply to sit and wait. We are at Peak Government. The Political Class has run out of money. They can’t keep on borrowing much longer; tax rate increases will simply reduce revenues and increase the pool of restive unemployed; spending cuts will be political suicide. Maybe we should be focusing on post-collapse actions?
