What Would a Constitutional Convention in 2016 Look Like?

Almost half of registered Democrats think the Constitution needs to be updated, according to the results of a new poll.

A YouGov survey about the Constitution included a question of whether there should be another Constitutional convention to update the document that was created Sept. 17, 1787 and ratified the following year.

Forty-one percent of Democrats said the Constitution “should be updated,” while 43 percent said it has “held up well.”

Imagine what a Constitution rewritten by these 41 percent of Democratic voters would look like. It would be a horror show, from the perspective of freedom, individual rights and individual liberty.

The Second Amendment would be gone. The First Amendment would outlaw “hate speech, “ to be defined by the government, of course. State governments would become, for all practical purposes, nonexistent and the federal government — populated by socialist-progressive judges and career bureaucrats — would rule everything and everyone.

Elections would still be permitted, but they’d either be funded totally by the government or funding would be severely restricted to groups the government considers favorable. More and more people, including illegal immigrants, would be put on welfare and made so dependent on the government that continued electoral victories by Democrats, and compliant “opposition” by nominal opponents (Republicans), would be assured.

Wait a minute. We’re already getting most of this.

Actually, why do these 41 percent of Democrats want to rewrite the Constitution? They’re already getting everything they want. Maybe not as fast as they wish, but progressively and decisively so. They brag that they’re “progressives.” We’re supposed to assume that everything they want automatically and always refers to “progress.” But disease, like heart disease and cancer, is progressive too. The question they’ll always have us evade is, “Progress – towards what?”

Only 20 percent of Republicans said they would like to see the Constitution updated, compared to the 68 percent who thought the opposite. Overall, 28 percent of those surveyed called for a new Constitutional convention to update the Constitution. Fifty-seven percent said the document is fine the way it is. Fifty-three percent of blacks want the Constitution updated, while 23 percent of whites had the same response.

The Constitution is fine as is, with one tragic omission: We need an amendment to wipe out government interference in the economy. This includes health care and education. Absent prosecution of force or fraud, government should get out of the economy, and the Constitution must more explicitly require it.

Ayn Rand got it right when she said we must separate economy and state, in the same way and for the same reasons, as we presently attempt to separate church and state, and media and state. It makes sense. Why should our minds be free to think, while our bodies are not free to act? Why do we criminalize all kinds of economic activity merely because the government does not approve of it, while we don’t (yet at least) criminalize all kinds of speech activity, or personal activity such as sex, merely because the government does not approve? Why do we have the right to inhale marijuana, but not to choose the pressure of our water, the content of our retirement accounts, and the nature of our medical care, all on an open market?

The right to bear arms and the right to free speech should be left intact. These did not used to be controversial, but today they are. The right to freedom of commerce should be just as strong. It makes no sense to say we’re each sovereign over our personal lives — sex with consenting adults, reproductive choices — while we’re subject to government control when it comes to just about everything else such as education, medical care, which drugs we’re allowed to purchase, the kind of transportation we’re allowed to utilize, the amount of our income we’re allowed to keep, how much we must save for retirement, the units of energy we’re allowed to use, on and on and on. Today’s government is a frenzy of micromanagement, and all we’re fighting over is who’s most equipped to manage us. Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton? Neither one! Nobody should be managing us; just protecting us from criminals and violent people. That’s all we need.

I recognize that having a Constitution say the right things and finding people willing to uphold the right ideas are two different matters. But the quest to find reasonable, pro-liberty, pro-individual rights candidates is futile until or unless we get the Constitution (a) enforced and (b) improved in the only area where it needs improvement. The spectacle of the 2016 presidential race, particularly on the Republican side, makes this all too clear.

A battle for a Constitutional amendment to separate economy and state would give those on the “right” something to fight for, for a change; win or lose, it would be a battle worth fighting. The only alternative is to keep doing what we’re doing, which is paving the way of “progress” towards a socialist non-utopia and, at the end of that road, a totalitarian state ruled by command-and-control, central planning progressives. It’s time to figure out what’s really worth fighting for, and to start fighting for it.