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Some Ideas Are Just Plain Wrong

For centuries, people clung to beliefs that made things worse. Here’s the latest: that calling an Article V Convention would trigger a constitutional free fall & destroy everything our founders built.
Ken Whaley Aug 06, 2025

Bloodletting. Yup, cutting people open to drain “bad blood.” For over two thousand years, that passed for medical wisdom. They did it to George Washington on his deathbed, for crying out loud. We’re not talking witch doctors in the Amazon jungle; we’re talking the best minds of the time in Western civilization. Hippocrates, Galen, and the whole crew said it worked. Turns out, they were flat out wrong. But because everyone believed it and respectable people endorsed it, the practice went on and on… and on.

You know what else used to be “just fine”? Smoking. In the 1950s, the American Medical Association (yes, the AMA) gave a thumbs up to cigarettes. Ads claimed they soothed your throat. Your doctor might’ve lit one up during your checkup. Looking back, it’s easy to scoff, how could people be that blind? But they weren’t crazy. They trusted experts. They trusted institutions. They trusted what “everyone just knew.”

Which brings me to the “runaway Article V Convention” myth.

If you’ve ever dared mention Article V—the Founders’ own tool for restoring federal sanity—you’ve probably been slapped with the warning: “But what if it turns into a runaway convention like 1787?” Ah yes, that dusty tale rolled out like gospel at every statehouse hearing. But here's the truth: it’s based on old-school misunderstandings and 20th-century fear tactics, not fact. None, nyet, nada, zilch!

Modern constitutional scholars—serious, credentialed folks, not talk-radio ranters—have taken a many a long fresh look at what really happened in Philadelphia. And the runaway narrative? It doesn’t hold water. The delegates were sent to fix a broken system. They did exactly that. Congress knew it, the states knew it, and most Colonial Americans were begging for it. The real outliers? Massachusetts and New York. Those two liked the Articles of Confederation just fine because they benefited most. They didn’t want big changes because they had the upper hand.

So of course, when Congress issued its “opinion” about what the convention was for, it was shaped by those who were already winning the game. That wasn’t consensus, it was self-preservation disguised as caution.

Sound familiar?

Because today, it’s the same game, just with shinier tools and better lighting. D.C. insiders, entrenched bureaucrats, and career politicians all scream “runaway!” while clinging to a system that keeps them powerful and you and I powerless. They dress up their fear in concern for the Constitution, but what they really fear is you having a seat at the table. And of course, we can’t forget the John Birch Society (JBS) who once was very supportive of an Article V Convention. Go ahead, look it up! I’ll wait!

OK, let’s be real here. The federal government today is like a malfunctioning machine running hot and fast with no kill switch. Spending out of control. Power centralized in agencies no one voted for. Executive orders flying like confetti. And Congress? They're tweeting, vacationing, and occasionally “investigating” each other in a loop of useless theater.

My friends, the Founders knew this moment would come. They weren’t psychics, they were exceptional students of history, and they knew that Tyranny grows in the silence of good people. That’s why they put the second half of Article V in the Constitution—not as a relic or a joke—but as a pressure valve for exactly this kind of political meltdown. They gave us the power to fix what they knew would eventually break. And yet here we are… talking about the dangers of fixing it.

This all just makes me want to scream from my rooftop. Because it’s bloodletting all over again. We’re trusting the “experts” who keep bleeding liberty from our veins and telling us it’s for our health. We’re trusting the very institutions that built the dysfunction to somehow restrain themselves. That’s not just naive, it’s suicidal for a Constitutional Republic such as ours.

Convention of States Action isn’t proposing anything radical. They’re using the exact language of the Constitution to call for a limited convention to “propose amendments”. Not a rewrite. Not a coup. Just proposals, every one of which would still have to be ratified by 38 states to become law. You want checks and balances? That’s the Mount Everest of checks and balances.

But even knowing all that, many people still whisper the myth of the “runaway.” Because myths are cozy. They’re easy to believe when the alternative is facing a hard truth and taking bold action. Well, it’s time to grow the hades up my friends!

The truth is, we’ve outgrown the myth. Just like we outgrew leeches and Lucky Strikes. The idea that we can't trust ourselves—the states, the people, the process—to use the tools the Founders gave us? That’s the most dangerous lie of all. And it’s a lie that serves only one master: those already in power.

We’re not asking for a revolution. We’re demanding a reunion, with the principles our nation was founded on. With the rule of law. With the idea that government should fear the people, not the other way around.

The Founders weren’t reckless when they met in Philadelphia. They were brave, focused and precise. And now, it's our turn. Because if we don’t use Article V soon, we may never get another chance.

This isn’t that complicated my friends.

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Created:	2025-08-08 19:14 GMT
Updated:	2025-10-19 13:16 GMT
Published:	2025-08-08 19:43 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:06 GMT
Change Author:	Ken Whaley
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