A Convention of States - Part 1 Answering the "They're not following it now" Argument

The following is often heard as a reason to oppose the Convention of States Project: "They are not following the Constitution today, so what makes you think they will follow any amendments?"

While this sounds good on the surface, and the questioner often has an arrogant look of "gotcha" on his/her face....(trust me on this one, I've been out speaking and presenting the COS Project for almost three years...and this never fails to occur just as I have described it). However, this question fails the test of honest intellectual scrutiny. As a matter of fact, that statement/argument fails that test miserably.

(1) It is simply not true that ALL of the Constitution is being ignored...that simply is a falsehood perpetrated by people that either will not think for themselves or people that are disingenuous. I ask those people one simple question: "Why have we not had a President since FDR serve more than two terms"? This usually leaves a puzzled look on their faces.....but the answer is simple....because the Congress and the Courts ARE following the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution....they are following that amendment to the letter today. I could also ask why women still get to vote every election? Again this would draw a puzzled look....the answer is that Congress and the Courts ARE following the 19th Amendment to the Constitution to the letter today. I could do this over and over again with ALL of the modern amendments (Post 14th)....ALL of those amendments are followed to the letter. The reason is that there has not been enough time to twist and pervert many of those (or the will to do so).

(2) Although no one would agree with the crux of that statement more than I would (I teach Constitutional Law and Original Intent), the question betrays a deep ignorance of HOW and WHY much of the Constitution is ignored today. The courts are operating off of the decades of twisted and perverted interpretations of the original text of the body of the Constitution. If you were to ask any of the 535 members of the United States Congress why they ignore the Constitution, none are going to agree with you that they ignore it, they are going to point across the street to the United States Supreme Court and tell you that the SCOTUS tells them that what they are doing is Constitutional. Hence we have a problem with the current interpretation of what they are using. They are following the modern interpretation (albeit twisted) of the Constitution. There is no question that new amendments today can be used to "re-calibrate" the interpretation of areas that are the most abused due to twisted interpretations.