It is one thing to rise up in arms (or to foment such uprising) against our government. That is clearly attacking it. It’s another to critically examine our system and suggest changes.

Our government contradicts the Catechism’s requirements for governments in a number of grave matters. Aside from abortion, there is also the matter of easy divorce, subsidizing illegitemate children and joblessness, the coerced redistribution of wealth, both the minor amounts from wealthy to poor and the huge amounts from poor to wealthy, and the rather broad defense of pornography.

Mr. Stroble sees these as grave problems, that our current system does nothing to mitigate. He proposes structural changes that he thinks will do so, and asks for our input.

SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS ON ILLEGAL REGIMES

“A tyrannical regime is not just because it is not directed to the common good…. Consequently there is no sedition in disconcerting such a regime, unless … (the cure should be worse than the malady). Indeed it is the tyrant rather that is guilty of sedition, since he provokes discord and sedition among his subjects even as he seeks to assure his dominance.” (Summa Theologica, II 42)

So, when a government acts unjustly, and not toward the common good, it is tyrannical and should be disconcerted. I think I’ve listed enough of our government’s sins of omission and commission to suggest that its members are not acting toward the common good. Of course, Mr. Struble has gone much further than I.

Acting within the bounds of the Constitution to modify our system of governance certainly fits under disconcerting, rather than insurrection. I’m not entirely sure I share all of Mr. Struble’s alarmism, or his faith in the efficacy of his solutions. But many of his suggestions do appear likely to mitigate the grave evils our government either tolerates or even actively promotes.

Well done Mr Struble!

Ok, by way of reassurance about the Constitution: Maybe a couple of historical analogies will help. From 1918-1920 a civil war raged in Russia between the Whites and the Reds, the latter having perpetrated the Bolshevik Revolution of October, 1917. Alexander Kerensky, the prime minister of the Duma deposed by Lenin and Trotsky ended up in the safety of exile in Europe, and eventually in the United States where Kerensky got tenure as a college professor. But the democratic constitution of the February revolution was surely not safe, and the Whites fought a risky (and eventually losing war) to recover the constitution and restore Kerensky. Wasn’t it worth the risk (successful or not) to avert decades of Soviet dictatorship?

Similarly the semi-deposed condition of the written U.S. Constitution is not safe at present. With a constitutional convention, or an even riskier plan B, there is no guarantee of our success. But at least there is hope, whereas “playing it safe” is a sure formula for assuring that our written Constitution will go into permanent exile and never return. In other words the written constitution is not safe now, and inaction will guarantee its demise.

In the case of America in 1775, our rights as Englishmen were not safe with Boston occupied and the Intolerable Acts imposed. However, many Americans considered the minutemen at Lexington and Concord to be provocateurs. They preferred the “moderate” course, which was not, in reality, safe at all in terms of our liberties. There was no safe course for them at that point in time, except to fight and hope that victory would secure their liberties at some point in the future. Or as John-Paul Jones put it then, “he who will not risk, cannot win.”

I for one would be willing to take a risk, even a high risk, in order to win back America the Beautiful and restore the scepter to the written Constitution.

Brian, yes, the federal government seems to be headed for illegitimacy, though I think it will collapse monetarily first… or concurrently.

As for safety features built into the Article V Convention, see the section on safeguards in the fourth chapter of my online book, Treatise on Twelve Lights:
http://tell-usa.org/totl/04-Insurrection%20of%20Suede.htm#Seven_safeguards