{"id":232,"date":"2009-09-24T22:37:39","date_gmt":"2009-09-25T04:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/?p=232"},"modified":"2009-09-24T22:52:18","modified_gmt":"2009-09-25T04:52:18","slug":"letter-to-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/?p=232","title":{"rendered":"Letter to Friend .."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Friend:<\/p>\n<p>In a way you are like Don Quixote,  brave, ethical and steadfast, tilting with a formidable enemy, indistinctly  seen, who every time you thrust at him, boots you in the backside.<\/p>\n<p>The idea of getting leadership from  the Congress from either of or both of the parties to help stop the madness is laudable, but involves going to the  enemy for relief from his aggressiveness.\u00a0 Your tactic, if this is it, is doomed  to failure, because the people in Congress ultimately will not act against their  self-interest.\u00a0 You must attack them with something they fear.<\/p>\n<p>Truthfully, the Congress fears the  people, but they can control the people by mechanisms such as chumming their  troughs as had been done so successfully for the last 100 years or by other  equally effective means like Senator Pat Moynahan\u2019s &#8220;benign neglect&#8221;, that is  giving lip service and then not acting.<\/p>\n<p>Congress and its Congressmen are  totally unaware of the weapon that can bring them to heal.\u00a0 The Preamble of the United States  Constitution should read \u201cWe the States \u2026\u201d, because from that point on the  document makes it perfectly clear that the Federal Government is a creation of  the States and derives powers limited to the will of the States that the States  considered necessary to promote a harmonious Union and a national government  capable of protecting their interests from outside intrusion.\u00a0 The only way for a national government to be  possible was to institute a republic that respected not only the citizens, but  also the diverse interests of the many areas represented.\u00a0 Special weight was given to checks and  balances, but we moderns only dimly understand that the state legislatures with  their democratically elected representatives are, or could be, the real power in  the American Federal Government.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the \u201cBlue\u201d verses the \u201cRed\u201d  States.\u00a0 They are the Constitutional  power to amend.\u00a0 Although it has never  been done, the States can call a Constitutional Convention to redress the excesses  of the Congress.\u00a0 We would suggest  revisiting the 16<sup>th<\/sup> and 17<sup>th<\/sup> Amendments.\u00a0 Maybe clarifying what is meant by \u201cpromote  the general welfare\u201d and what is meant by \u201cinterstate commerce\u201d.\u00a0 Did the States ratifying the 14<sup>th<\/sup> Amendment really mean that they wanted to abandon republican government in their  respective realms?<\/p>\n<p>We think that there are certainly  enough \u201cred\u201d states to call the convention and probably enough to ratify their  changes.<\/p>\n<p>The point being that the Congress  will not help you, the people can\u2019t, but there are a lot of Legislators who are  Patriots who could, probably want to and who are angry enough to do it.<\/p>\n<p>We would like to stir the pot to  motivate them and with your help we might just do it.<\/p>\n<p>Lee, OE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear Friend: In a way you are like Don Quixote, brave, ethical and steadfast, tilting with a formidable enemy, indistinctly seen, who every time you thrust at him, boots you in the backside. The idea of getting leadership from the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/?p=232\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orderofephors.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}