The informative video that I wrote and hosted as a member of the Convention of States Project Alabama a year ago has finally received criticism that I anticipated at the beginning. Specifically, I am referring to criticism of the brief political cartoon segment that satirizes the robotic, knee-jerk term used to oppose an Article V Convention of States: CON-CON.

The video was excellently filmed and edited by Matthew Perdie, with some camera assistance from Abigail Read.

The moment at which the image of John Birch Society CEO Art Thompson pops up on the screen like a puppet and mechanically interjects (in his own voice) “CON-CON” satirizes the absurd “Con-Con” (Constitutional Convention) label that opponents copy and paste onto the COS Project’s reputation.

It is not a personal attack or slanderous attack. It is multimedia political cartooning. (See Mean or Meaningful: Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke, and the Use of Satire)

Those who question the tastefulness of my (not COS Project’s) creative license ought to consider the fact that JBS opponents of the Convention of States Project regularly make baseless claims that Mark Meckler and Michael Farris receive the shady financial backing of globalist billionaire George Soros.

Never mind the fact that utilizing Article V for exercising state sovereignty is completely antithetical to everything Soros represents.

That, my friends, is slander.

Conservatives and liberals alike have the right to run in and vote in elections; conservatives and liberals alike have the right to exercise the first and second amendments; conservatives and liberals alike have the right to utilize Article V for whatever purpose they choose. The completely Constitutional option of a Convention of States is not inherently corrupt just because somebody we disagree with might try to use it.

If one truly wants to know the difference between a Constitutional Convention and an Article V Convention of the States, James Madison’s letter to G.L. Turberville, Esq. and Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 85 are a good place to start. A Constitutional Convention would be, as Madison defines it, a convention in which “first principles are to be recurred to,” whereas a Convention of the States is when the already established “forms of the Constitution are to be pursued” – that is, amending it while keeping “valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution,” as the Constitution says so itself. Hamilton confirms this, asserting that while rewriting the Constitution as completed requires infeasible unanimous action, anytime the States decide an amendment to the Constitution as it stands would be beneficial, only 2/3 of them are needed to call a convention on the subject.

To summarize it in one sentence, a Constitutional Convention requires a unanimous summons and ratification by all 50 of the United States, whereas a Convention of States requires a call from only two-thirds of the States, and ratification by three-fourths of them.

If you have any further questions, feel free to comment.

Special thanks to State Director Ken Quinn of Convention of States Project Maine for bringing my attention to James Madison’s letter to G.L. Turberville.