After some understandable doubts, the Cradle of Secession gets into the game.

South Carolina joins call for convention of states
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina on Wednesday joined a growing number of states calling for a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Gov. Henry McMaster signed into law the bill seeking changes to the Constitution after state lawmakers tailored the call for a convention to putting spending checks on the federal government, curbing the federal government’s jurisdiction and power, and setting term limits for Congress.

About 18 other states, mostly Republican-led and concentrated in the South, have passed similar proposals. Congress needs requests from 34 states to convene a convention of the states.

“Some leaders foresee a ‘runaway’ convention which could propose amendments beyond the scope of the call,” McMaster wrote in his signing statement. “Others prefer that we depend on enlightened future electorates. I see it a little differently. I see the ever-increasing size and scope of the federal government as the larger threat.”

In South Carolina, opponents of the legislation, including Democrats and some Republicans, have argued a convention would mean existing amendments, from those protecting free speech and gun rights to those that prohibited slavery, could be at risk.

Yeah, well, that ain’t necessarily wrong; their concern is legit, nor is it spun from whole cloth. There’s precedent for it, I’m afraid.

The only convention called in nearly 250 years of the nation so far, the one that wrote the current Constitution from scratch, was initially proposed just to make changes to the original government charter of the U.S., the Articles of Confederation.

It all worked out pretty well for us last time, we have to admit. Then again, though, I’m pretty sure Leftards were pretty scarce on the ground here 250 years ago. The pestilential scourges have overrun almost the whole blasted country by now, which ramps up any worries about a runaway Convention exceeding its remit from “Niggling, minor, let’s do this thing” to “Positively terrifying, no way in hell we should even think about doing this thing.” That said, I can’t disagree with McMaster when he says he sees “the ever-increasing size and scope of the federal government as the larger threat.” If it isn’t just yet—to me, it’s abundantly clear that it IS—then it’s going to be very, very soon.

The US government is indeed the gravest, most deadly threat the distinctly American ideals of individual liberty, autonomy, and natural rights have ever faced. The scuttling minions of FederalGovCo long since stopped even pretending they considered themselves in any way bound, limited, or restrained by those concepts or by the Constitution itself. Oh, they’ll don the mask of solemnity and abiding reverence for the governmental framework engineered by our Founders as and when they find it politically helpful, but it’s never more than a pose, a facade, all too obviously so for those who know where and how to look.

Outdated, clapped-out concerns such as Constitutions and Founding Fathers and principles and the like hold no sway over such duplicitous frauds, being no more meaningful to them than the oaths they dishonestly swear when they take office—oaths they never had the slightest intention of even attempting to honor, not a one of them. Both the oath of office and the obscene charade of selfless fealty to the Constitution are only ritual now; mere bagatelles, empty words recited because hey, that’s just the way these things are done. Our antiquated ceremonies have no more relevance to the modern Washington professional politician than the knee breeches, silk stockings, and powdered wigs worn by our forgotten predecessors do. They’re historical artifacts, occasionally amusing, occasionally cumbersome and dull, occasionally of some small interest to more bookish types. In the end, though, they count for nothing.

I don’t expect to see another Constitutional Convention of any kind take place in my lifetime, or at all, actually. I’d love to, but I won’t. What we have here is just another attempt at finding some non-violent way to reconcile differences which can’t BE reconciled, to bridge what was at one time a small and shallow gap, now broadened and deepened to such astounding proportions it has become a yawning chasm far too vast to be spanned by mortal men. None but the hand of the Almighty Himself could hope to accomplish a task so great now, and even He might break a sweat in the doing of it. Frankly, our system is now too creaky, too arthritic, too fundamentally dysfunctional to pass any more Constitutional amendments via any method, or so I suspect. Which might be for the best, considering some of the folderol we’ve had foisted on us by our political “leaders” over the years.

I do love that tidbit about how the Con-Con movement is “concentrated in the South,” which is exactly as it should be. A feisty, rebellious sense of independence has always been a defining characteristic cherished by all us Sons of the Southland, a chord that rings even more strongly in the Palmetto State than most places. Damned Yankees; riders of the west-central Plains; hard-working denizens of the Midwestern Farm Belt; West Coast fruits, flakes, and nuts—long after these other American breeds have put thoughts of their American birthright of freedom out of their minds and hearts to embrace whatever godawful cradle-to-grave thugocracy or touchy-feely, faddish New Age Superstate they wind up cursing themselves with, Southerners will still be sitting around the campfire passing a Mason jar of corn squeezin’s or some good 100-proof peach brandy around, discussing the meaning of our Constitution, its protections, demands, and strictures, and our own noble history until way late into the night.

To us, that stuff DOES still matter—a great deal it does, and always will far as we’re concerned, and just right straight to Hell with what others think. However malnourished and sickly a state the signifiers of our American heritage have been allowed to lapse into, we fully intend to have ’em all back too, if’n the good Lord’s willin’ and the crick don’t rise. So if the meddlers, sob-sisters, bluenoses, and kleptocrats of FederalGovCo really think they want a fight, Southerners will be perfectly happy to give ’em one—another one, that is. We’ll all just see who comes out on top this time around. Or, in the unforgettable words of the great sci-fi author and Artistic Progeny of Heinlein H Beam Piper: You know, Yves, he’ll do it. He doesn’t know how impossible this is, and when we try to tell him, he won’t believe us. There’s no stopping a guy like that.

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