re: #98 Sir John Barron

He sounds like a great hire, then, for this convention of the states outfit.

It’s interesting to hear alleged conservatives calling for a constitutional convention to “fix” the constitution… especially since the plan in 1789 was to “fix” the Articles of Confederation. Even slightly opening the door to the potential of a new constitution would be crazy and have a billion billion unintended consequences.

In the last 220 years, despite the repeated refrain that “there’s no such thing as federal common law”, we’ve crafted quite a bit of federal common law, particularly in the context of individual rights. How many of those get codified, how many get stricken from the list? What happens if a sufficient number of states vote to ratify the new constitution and other states vote not to (and try to choose to leave the union)? That’s just the very beginning… Then again:

Brexit II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
(start at about 5:10 for the joke)