“Convention of States” (COS) constitutional lawyer and National Legislative Strategist Rita Dunaway continues to traffic in imaginary, and potentially dishonest, references that serve her purpose of selling the deceptive movement to roll our Constitution into the operating room so the wealthy taskmasters can have their way with it. While purporting to celebrate Independence Day by invoking the Founders and even bringing God into her narrative, Ms. Dunaway uses a rather interesting quote that is known for being unable to be sourced.
In the sixth paragraph of the linked propaganda piece, “Needed: Americans with the Courage of the Founders”, she writes, “Scottish history professor Alexander Tyler once observed that “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.”
While the message of this passage describing principles that many believe are true is quite powerful, it is universally acknowledged that a credible reference supporting this quotation do not exist. Many of you will recall Ms. Dunaway’s role in emailing 137 state legislators that were handpicked pretend delegates to the Convention of States” fake convention (and issuing same in a press release). Ms. Dunaway, along with COS Public Relations cheerleader Tamara Colbert and Utah Representative Ken Ivory, pushed the misleading narrative that Thomas Jefferson’s advice actually supported the deceptive (COS) doctrine of amending the Constitution to cause adherence to it. The irony is stark that such behaviors in Washington D.C. are arguably the type of behaviors causing problems that COS claims to want to end.
In the article’s second-to-last paragraph, Ms. Dunaway goes on to write, “And that very same courage-producing faith exists in countless Americans today.” This is just absurd. The gods Americans worship today are the “gods” on the Supreme Court, or the Facebook, Twitter, and Hollywood “gods.” Some even worship the “gods” at CNN. We must all remain aware that these are the thoughts of someone looked to as a key “intellectual leader” of the movement to roll our Constitution into the operating room just to “fix it.” I’m curious how she managed to graduate law school by failing to perform even the most basic, cursory reviews of her own writings?
Article V was designed to repair defects, not make adherence to the Constitution compulsory. George Mason, who COS rightly claims raised the question of needing a second method to amend the Constitution, plainly stated his purpose for a second option to amend the Constitution. On June 11, 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, Col. Mason said, “The plan now to be formed will certainly be defective…Amendments therefore will be necessary….”.
In the real world, attorneys that publish references, positions, and arguments haphazardly, some that are eventually proven not credible, would likely be sanctioned by judges and potentially have their law license revoked. At what point is an attorney punished for putting themselves out to the world as an attorney (the assumed default position being that attorneys are highly credible) while failing to perform the most basic due diligence of a high school freshman in writing class, suffer the wrath which such behavior invites? The moral of the story remains the same in America. The Constitution isn’t the problem, so changing it isn’t the solution. The solution, as counseled by the Founders, is Article 6, not Article 5.
Shawn Meehan
Shawn founded Guard The Constitution to prosecute the important effort of preventing the deceptive Article V convention effort to re-write our Constitution. Over time, it became obvious that coordinating patriots in efforts to take our government back were possible, important, and a priority.