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On calling a second Constitutional Convention
Here's an article I wrote on the subject, eons ago in 1986, when the bicentennial of the Constitution was approaching (a very big deal in Washington DC at the time). I later found it interesting that while the Constitution got a bicentennial committee headed by former Chief Justice Burger, and plenty of hoopla, the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights two years later got almost no play. I suppose in Washington, DC, a company town if ever there was one, the document that created the company/government was occasion for major celebrations, whereas the document which restrained that government was a mere inconvenience, a sop to Americans who had so unwisely distrusted the wonderful government that had been created.
UPDATE: Thanks, I corrected the pdf....
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Some points: The Bill of Rights really did not restrain the federal government. As Hamilton stated in Federalist 84, the Constitution did not grant the federal government any authority to legislate in the areas covered by the Bill of Rights so no BoR was needed. BUT inclusion of a Bill of Rights would make dumb folks think the federal government COULD legislate in those areas. And what has occurred? The government through judicial manipulations has legislated in the areas enumerated in the BoR without authority.
Adherence to the 10th would cover all the usurpations which IMO amount to 99% of what the federal government does. We the People have been failed by Congress through unconstitutional, undelegated exercises of power, by the President through unconstitutional, undelegated exercises of power, and by the Judiciary through unconstitutional, undelegated exercises of power. Claims of inherent or implied powers are all simple lies used to steal power from the States or from the People.
All this leads me to my main point: Who the heck thinks any new amendments will be followed by the federal government when the entire federal government is already so far out of control that it may be impossible to get it back on track? The problems of noncompliance by the feds is not new. As soon as the first Congress was assembled, being 2/3 Federalists, that Congress began violating the Constitution with its legislation. The anti-Federalist beat back the control freak Federalists in the Convention. Then the snake oil salesmen convinced the people otherwise in the Federalist papers. And Federalists did what the anti-Federalist warned by building a powerful centralized government outside Constitutional constraints.
The created/subordinate has no authority to define the Creator/superior. We the People through our States CREATED the Constitution and both We the People and the States are superior to the Constitution. The Constitution then created the federal government making the Constitution superior to that government. Thus the government, NONE OF IT, has any authority to define/interpret the Constitution. The power to decide the meaning of every part of the Constitution lies with the original sovereign, We the People. And that can ONLY be done by a properly educated people who have not been brain-washed through public education.
A few quotes:
John Locke asked: "For what is the point of drawing up dumb, silent statements of laws, if anybody may attach a new meaning to the words to suit his own taste, find some remote interpretation, and twist the words to fit the situation and his own opinion?"
Aristotle observes:
"Before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct."
For whenever a question arises between the society at large and any magistrate vested with powers originally delegated by that society, it must be decided by the voice of the society itself: there is not upon earth any other tribunal to resort to.
Sir William Blackstone, Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book I, Chp3, pg.205/6
The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false, for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence, as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to throw off its just authority.
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Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 (1866)
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C.S. Lewis
Your PDF is missing page 31.