Joel Hirschhorn Interview on the Mike Church Show

Listen to the 22 minute Audio  (DATE:  25-NOV-2009) . . .

http://www.mikechurch.com/joomla/daily-tao-of-dude-transcripts/friends-of-article-v-convention.html  (for subscribers to the Mike Church Show)
 

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript:

Mike Church:  Let’s put that in pill form. Take the red pill – take the blue pill or the founders’ red pill. Joel, I think you’ll find that many in this audience are ready to take the founders’ red pill. The first question and the first – or the first, it’s not a question, the first concern that comes up every single time, if I open the phone lines up right now, we’re going to get 5,000 people are going to call and say the exact same thing: “Oh, Mr. Hirschhorn, Nancy Pelosi’s going to take over the convention and turn us all into socialists, Mr. Hirschhorn.” You would say what?

Joel Hirschhorn:  I would say that’s just a fantasy. And people who feel that way have already fallen victim to a lot of propaganda. We have to understand that all the powerful organized forces in our society have vehemently been against having an Article V Convention. And so we have to ask ourselves, if all the powerful people, on the left and the right, for that matter, are against an Article V Convention, then we the people ought to recognize that we desperately need it. And we ought to understand why the founders and the framers put the Article V Convention option in the Constitution. Because when they wrote the Constitution, most of them had a lot of skepticism, a lot of fear actually, about whether the federal government would actually survive. They put the convention option in to give us a way out, if in fact we lost trust and confidence in the federal government.

And I would say, wow, the time surely has arrived. We have lost trust and confidence in the federal government. So we desperately need an Article V Convention. Not to worry about Nancy Pelosi controlling it. The people on the left won’t have that ability. In fact, you have to understand, you know, the mechanism of the convention. It’s going to be run by the states. It’s going to be state delegates. And the convention itself can only propose constitutional amendments. They still have to be ratified by three quarters of the states. So the convention itself, you know, can’t unilaterally do terrible things. And I don’t believe people on the left would ever control the convention.

Mike:   Well, [sputtering] there’s not enough of them. There’s only 21 percent of the population that will confess to being a communist. 21 percent, Mr. Hirschhorn.

Joel:  Yeah, I think right now the sentiment in the country is against both major parties.

Mike:   Yes.

Joel:  And I’m fully with that. I’ve been a third-party advocate for decades. And I wrote a book...

Mike:   Well, you can count me in, brother.

Joel:  Yeah, and I wrote a book, Delusional Democracy: Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government you know, strongly supporting the need for a third party, especially at the presidential level and at the congressional level. So all I’m saying is if we want to fix our country, if we want to fix the government, we ought to respect the option in the Constitution which is the Article V Convention. So let’s, you know, our organization is nonpartisan, absolutely nonpartisan. And we don’t advocate for any specific amendments. We just want Congress to obey the Constitution.

Mike:  So, and as Dr. Gutzman told you when he was on this show last week, and we talked about this, ladies and gentlemen, Congress has no say-so in this. Unless your state is foolhardy enough to send Patrick Leahy to this convention, he won’t be there...

Joel:  Absolutely.

Mike:  ...to hold his hand up and say, [grunting] “The law, we must obey the law,” when he in fact is a supreme violator of it. The other part of this that ought to inspire patriots everywhere, instead of striking fear into their hearts, it should swell their hearts with pride. You’re doing what the founders did if you call for the Article V.

Joel:  Yep.

Mike:  I mean, all this – and believe me, I’m going to get an email box filled with hate mail, filled with “Mike, Mike, you and Hirschhorn and Gutzman are crazy. Pelosi will take over. Blah, blah, the liberals will do this, blah blah blah blah.” And as I pointed out last week, Joel, they’ve already done it. 13 of the 14 propositions in the party platform for the American Socialist Party for President in 1928 have been ratified.

Joel:  Yeah, I heard that, yeah.

Mike: They’re already in there. Now, you wrote a book, too. Joel Hirschhorn, from the Article V Convention organization is on the phone. Here’s their website, folks. It’s really easy to remember: FOAVC.org. That stands for Friends of Article V, as in 5, VC.org. You know what? I’m just looking at this and saying, I know my listeners, Joel. You need to go and buy FOA5C.org, just for argument’s sake, and forward it to the FOAVC.org.

Joel: Yeah, if you put “Article 5 Convention” in any search engine, you usually come up to our website.

Mike:  You’re number one. I tried it this morning. It comes up number one.

Joel:  Yeah. Because, by the way, I want to emphasize, we’ve done something, and I think, Mike, you would appreciate this. The government, our government, for all these decades since the country was created, never publicly made available all of the state applications for an Article V convention.

Mike:  And how many are there?

Joel:  Over 750 from all 50 states. And that’s the big point. We have put all of these applications up on our website. This is the only place where Americans can actually read all of these state applications. And the bigger point is Article V has very clear language. There’s only one requirement that Congress is supposed to honor and respect and obey. And that is, when a sufficient number of states ask for a convention. And believe me, we’ve had a sufficient number of states ask for a convention. That’s why we say Congress has flagrantly disobeyed the Constitution. So again, either you believe in the Constitution, or you’re a constitutional hypocrite. And support our group. You can read the applications and be upset. By the way, if Nancy Pelosi thought she could control an Article V Convention, she’d be asking for one. She’d be honoring the Constitution.

Mike:  [Laughing] Yeah, that’s right. She’d make...

Joel:  None of these people ever want – by the way, if you write a letter to your member of Senate or House, they won’t even answer your letters if you question them about what’s going on. You know, we tried this many times. The members of Congress don’t want to touch this issue because in their hearts they know, not only have they disobeyed the Constitution, they haven’t followed their oath of office.

Mike: Now, Article V says – and Joel Hirschhorn from the Friends of Article V Convention, we’re continuing our discussion here, the only radio show out there that has national reach that is advocating for the convention. The time is now, ladies and gentlemen, the time is now or there won’t be another time. The only part of the Article V that I think throws the proverbial monkey wrench into this is that after the applications are submitted – and as you have so diligently pointed out, 750 of them already have been submitted. But after there are three quarters of the states, meaning 38 applications, it is Congress’s duty to go ahead and call and say, yeah, there needs to be this Convention. Now, they’re not going to do this. So then what must be done? You’re not going to get a federal judge to do this.

Joel: No. We’ve already tried that, by the way.

Mike:  So my suggestion, let me just give you my suggestion. Then I’ll be happy to hear yours. Here’s what I think you should do. I think that you guys should get in touch with the state legislators that you know are amenable to this, and we should just do an end-around. The states call it. Now, if you’re a student of the Constitution, and if you’ve listened to my documentary, “The Fame of Our Fathers,” we went through this whole thing here. Remember, Mr. Hirschhorn, that in 1786 people were terrified of central government. Madison and Hamilton and a couple other guys were running around saying, “We’ve got to have a strong central government. We need to have a stronger central government.” It was mostly northerners, but they were running around saying this. And they could not get Congress to sign off on it.

So instead they did an end-around, and they submitted letters. Governor, I think it was, I guess it was Governor Randolph at the time, submitted solicitations to the states to attend a convention at Annapolis; right? And only seven states showed up. Now, it was agreed at the Annapolis convention, which was held at Mann’s Tavern – you people that live in Annapolis, go visit Mann’s Tavern. There’s a plaque there about this. At that convention they came to the conclusion, and they said, look, we’ve got to go back, get new instructions from our states to hold a convention, and we’ve got to get the Confederation Congress to call for it. If they issue, if the quasi central government issues the call, then the states might heed it, and they might actually show up.

History tells us that in February of 1787 that’s exactly what happened. And it was Hamilton’s buddy Egbert Benson that was actually instrumental in doing this. So my question, or my suggestion to you is, is you’ve got to get a member, or your group has got to get a member of Congress, perhaps Congressman Paul, to at least put this in resolution form so that it is out there. Maybe this has already been done. If that doesn’t work, then we’re going to have to go the Annapolis route and convene the damn thing ourselves.

End Mike Church Show Transcript.

Mr. Joel Hirschhorn's Website is called:  Friends of Article Five Convention (http://FOAVC.ORG)

Mr. Hirschhorn's book:
   http://www.amazon.com/dp/1567513808?tag=mikechurchdot-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1567513808&adid=1YJA7R6D4ZHB3TRY6WYK& 

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 November 2009 )