Timely Renewed: Amendments to Restore the American Constitution is available from Amazon and other online retailers.
In the more than 200 years since Americans set up a national government under their Constitution, that government has become a massive Leviathan which would be unrecognizable to the founders. Whether they consider themselves “liberal” or “conservative,” a progressive or a Tea Party supporter, most Americans now realize that this vast centralized bureaucratic police state, dominated by corporate and political elites of both major political parties, is not “of the people, by the people, [or] for the people.”
Timely Renewed: Amendments to Restore the American Constitution examines how this came about, not through the careful amendment process provided in the Constitution itself, but rather by the actions of a Supreme Court which has arrogated to itself the power to change the Constitution by a simple five vote majority. Speaking to both “liberal” and “conservative” viewpoints, it asks: Can the American people regain control over their national government?
Neither Supreme Courts nor Congresses have rolled back this unconstitutional centralization of power. Timely Renewed proposes another way to restore the power which has been taken from the American people. This is to return to our foundational document, the Constitution. To achieve this, Timely Renewed sets out a series of specific amendments to the Constitution restating the original understandings for our time. These proposed amendments recognize that we are not in the world of 1787. They take account of modern conditions, showing how the original constitutional understandings can not only function in our times, but reverse the centralization of power which is robbing us of our prosperity and freedom.
The first of these is an “amendment amendment” which restores to the States the ability to initiate constitutional amendments, thereby ending the congressional and judicial monopoly over our founding document. It opens the way for true grassroots participation in determining the meaning of our Constitution. Ten other proposed amendments then seek to restore the original constitutional meanings and allocations of power which have been most abused by our national government in all its branches. These include the interstate commerce clause, presidential war powers and the first, second and fourteenth amendments. (See the Table of Contents.)
Whether or not one agrees with all of the proposed amendments, or believes that other amendments are also urgent, Timely Renewed provides critical insight into how our Constitution became so misused, and offers a specific strategy for repairing and restoring it. The Constitution declares that it is by “We, the People.” Timely Renewed shows how we, the people, can take back our Constitution.
“All human constitutions are subject to corruption and must perish, unless they are timely renewed and reduced to their first principles.” ?? Algernon Sidney (English anti?monarchist martyr and hero of the American founders)
“If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” — George Washington
“There is no danger I apprehend so much as the consolidation of our government by the noiseless, and therefore unalarming instrumentality of the Supreme Court.” — Thomas Jefferson
“The Court, by some of its decisions, still more by extrajudicial reasonings & dicta, has manifested a propensity to enlarge the general authority in derogation of the local, and to amplify its own jurisdiction, which has justly incurred the public censure…. If no remedy of the abuse be practicable…I should prefer a resort to the Nation for an amendment of the Tribunal itself.” — James Madison
