http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2014/08/06/article_v_an_alternative_to_impeachmentArticle V: An Alternative to Impeachment
August 06, 2014
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RUSH: So there is impeachment to deal with a lawless president, a lawless executive. But there is another way, and it is right in the Constitution. It's right there in Article V of the Constitution. Mark Levin has written a book about it called The Liberty Amendments, and essentially, you should read the book. The book explains the entire constitutional process and also contains some new amendments to the Constitution, the purpose of which is to simply affirm the Constitution as it was.
It's a shame that we're at this point, but the Liberty Amendments are simply amendments to restate the original purpose of the constitution and just pound it into everybody's head what the Constitution is. Article V allows for the states to establish a constitutional convention for the purposes of dealing with circumstances such as we are experiencing today. If the Congress will not impeach, it's right in Article V: The states have the power, if they want to do it.
I forget off the top my head, but it takes two-thirds or three-fourths. It's a big task, but the states have the power. (interruption) Well, no, no, no, no. This is not Al Sharpton calling a constitutional convention and rewriting it. That's not what this is. That was an original fear, by the way, that even Levin admits he had when looking into this. But an Article V convention, which is state-sponsored for specific purposes -- controlled by the states by virtue of the number of states required to put this ball in motion -- gives them control over the process.
I cannot possibly explain a full book to you here in a small monologue. The point is, there is another way of going about this. It's not as direct as impeachment would be, but the Republicans have taken that off the table (which is crazy). It's three-fourths of the states that would be required to establish a constitutional convention set up and run by the states, for the express purpose of amending the Constitution or enforcing it or dealing with circumstances such as that we're faced with today.
If Congress won't do it, the point is, the Founders established a way. The Founders... I don't want to get too esoteric here. The people that founded this country, by virtue of what they were doing, believed that corruption of people in powerful places was going to happen. They wrote of the importance of character and honor in powerful executives and elected officials, but they knew what human nature was.
They know the seductiveness of power and how easily powerful people could be corrupted. So they set various things up to counter this process. One of them was the three branches and the separation of powers, commonly called "checks and balances" in Civics 101 in the sixth grade. Well, the checks and balances have gone by the wayside right now. The Supreme Court doesn't check anything. The Congress isn't checking anything.
The Congress has given up its power to Obama. The Democrats in Congress particularly, for the moment, couldn't care less, because Obama's advancing their agenda. Their agenda matters more than the Constitution. So whatever Obama's doing and however he's doing it, fine and dandy. That leaves it to the Republicans. The Republicans aren't doing it for the whole host of reasons that we've been through over and over and over again.
So if Washington will not reform itself, if Washington will not employ the techniques built into the Constitution to preserve the Constitution, Article V provides a mechanism for the states to do it. It is a... I'm getting confused on two-thirds and three-fourths because I got people shouting in my ear here over what it is. I think it's three-fourths to ratify changes, two-thirds to get it going. Whatever. For the purpose of the discussion, that's incidental.
The fact of the matter is, it's still tough to do. You have to get two-thirds of the states, I believe, on board for one of these conventions, and then whatever they come up with requires three-fourths to ratify. But the point is, there is a mechanism. The Founders anticipated this kind of thing. They expected it, human nature being what it is. That's why this note that my brother got, I found so profound.
This woman didn't say this, but this is what she means: "For two hundred thirty eight years, how have we lucked out -- or have we lucked out? What is it that has kept us from becoming Venezuela? What is it that has prevented Idi Amin Dada or Hugo Chavez," as she cites, "from becoming president here? Is it the honor system? Is it that why people have respected the Constitution and voluntarily obeyed it, voluntarily stayed within its limits, or have there been enforcement mechanisms? Are there consequences?"
She doesn't know. She hasn't been alive for the whole time the country has been, so she wants to know: How has this happened? How have we stayed the way we are? That's the eternal question. It's where American exceptionalism comes into play in terms of explaining what it is. This is... Look, folks, this means so much to me. This is why I have endeavored to write children's books, to try to explain -- on a foundational level, at their level of understanding -- the miracle of this country.
'Cause it really is! The history of human life on this planet is bondage and tyranny. There wasn't rampant, abundant freedom. There wasn't rampant abundance of standards of living for "the masses." That was reserved for the despots and the tyrants and leaders of either populations or countries. This country was the first EVER to enshrine in its founding documents that the people are who make it happen.
The people are for whom the country was founded, rooted in individual liberty and freedom -- and that all of that freedom and all that liberty did not come and does not come from other people. It does not come from presidents or Congresses. It's not granted; it's not legislation. We're created that way. And all of this is just a smidgen of many of the reasons why we were able to become and remain a superpower in fewer years than European nations have existed.
It is really profound, the history of this country and how this country came to be. But more importantly: How did it sustain? Okay, we were founded in a certain way. There were people who opposed the founding from the get-go. But the people who opposed it and attempted to undermine it, were always defeated. They had little victories here and there, but in the end, America remained America.
But it was always under attack. It always has been under assault. It's always been under assault by people who don't believe in the founding, who believe the founding is unjust and immoral. That isn't anything new. What's new is that the people of this country elected someone who believes that for the first time ever. Well, maybe you gotta throw Woodrow Wilson in there. But even at that, we survived Woodrow Wilson, and we survived FDR.
Although some people would argue that, no, we haven't; we're where we are because of FDR's profound success. A case could certainly be made for that. But the point is the country has always been under assault, from within, from people who do not believe in it, who do not think that this country is fair, for example, or just, "Because not everybody has a house on the beach. Not everybody has a second home in the Hamptons. Not everybody," and for a host of other reasons, too.
When I stop to think about it, I'm amazed, actually, that this country has survived as it was founded for as long as it has, because there is this honor system, essentially. We have pretty much, throughout our history, had people who were deferential to the Constitution, that were deferential to the rule of law. Look at Nixon. People talk about Richard Nixon, and they seethe when they talk about Nixon.
They speak of Nixon with vile disgust and hatred.
Richard Nixon didn't have to resign.
Richard Nixon could have hung in and he could have caused hell and problems. He could have put the country through all kinds of trouble. If it ever had gotten to the impeachment of Richard Nixon... I mean, folks, back then we'd just come out of the Vietnam War. The Democrats were fit to be tied. Nothing they were doing was working. They'd had landslide losses and Democrats back then were like the Democrats today. Who knows what would have happened during impeachment!
It could have been forever change. Who knows what they would have done. The point I'm making is that Nixon, for the betterment of the country, threw himself on the sword. I know a lot of you people are gonna say, "What do you mean? He quit because he knew he didn't have a chance. He quit because he was gonna be found guilty and he was gonna be living in exile." Maybe, but Richard Nixon nevertheless is an example of somebody who deferred ultimately to the Constitution rather than put the country through the kind of chaos that would have ensued.
It's a small example, but it's one of the first that comes to mind. (interruption) Well, you could argue he did it again by stepping aside in 1960, because in 1960 the case could have been made at the time that that election was fraudulent in both West Virginia and Chicago, Cook County. Nixon could have fought it and probably could have won it. He decided to defer to the election process in order to not put the country through something like that. We don't have people like that right now.
The people right now in charge want to put the country through that crap. They delight in doing it. They delight in all this chaos because of where they think it's gonna end up. That's why I think there's a -- sorry to overdo the phrase. Maybe I should come up with a new word, but "futility" pretty much explains it. Exasperation, hopelessness, whatever. So many people instinctively know that what's going on is not how this country's always been. It's not how things happen. This is not what's supposed to happen.
This is not how a bad economy, for example, is dealt with.
This is not how immigration is dealt with. This is not how superpower status, foreign policy, is dealt with. They instinctively know this is not right. And they're beginning to ask themselves, like this woman, how in the world have we stayed America all these years when there have been all of these efforts, powerful forces to undermine this country? And there have been. Is it really the honor system? Is it really human beings in the past totally deferential or afraid of consequences or whatever?
You could argue that there were a lot of people who were not deferential. They took it as far as they could, attempting to undermine. It's a constant fight. I'll tell you, I keep coming back to one thing, 'cause even though what's happening today may be an extreme example, these kind of things have been going on since the founding. It's just we've never elected one of those people, but this time we did, twice. What's missing is the push-back. What's missing is political opposition to it at the highest levels, and that feeds into the futility.
We have a Republican Party afraid to stand up for itself and do the right thing because they think the American people are gonna hold it against them. I mean, when I hear this, "We can't impeach Obama. Look what happened after we did it to Clinton." What a sorry ass excuse. What a sorry ass excuse. In the first place, it wasn't that bad for the Republican Party after the Clinton impeachment.
Bush won the White House, for crying out loud. We won the House and the Senate afterwards. This is asinine, that impeachment doomed the Republican Party after Clinton. It's as silly as this stupid notion that the only way the Republicans can ever win the White House now and ever again is to support amnesty? It's silly.
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