#157:

Constitutional convention? Are you mad? As the other responders to your post have weighed in, that is a suicidal idea. Forget it.

Such a notion plays up to the most glaring weakness of modern American governance: an obstinate unwillingness to enforce existing laws and abide by long-standing legal and governing conventions. Can you say “McCain/Feingold?” Mechanisms for dealing with election finance violations already existed when the 96/97 scandals erupted, and people went to jail under the old laws (but not Al Gore, who should have — see what I mean?). The principals in the Enron and Worldcom scandals went to jail as a result of those debacles, so there was no need for Sarbanes/Oxley. Hate crime statutes are a testament to the glaring failure to take unprovoked physical assaults and major vandalism seriously even though laws existed on the books to deal with such things, and so on, ad nauseam. Re-doing the Constitution to “make things better” would immediately be seized upon by America’s worst elements — remember that a couple years ago Obama lamented that the Constitution as it stands is not a redistributionist document — do you want America’s internal enemies to make it one by handing them a “convention?” Have you ever seen Obama’s people take over a primary caucus?