Livingston Today

The Michigan Convention of States has issued the following press release.

Winston Churchill described socialism as “a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

The reality of what socialists and communists deliver is never close to the promises they make to the people.

Central planning was the hallmark of authoritarian regimes of the 20th and now 21st centuries, and those regimes killed hundreds of millions of people in the process and left millions more in misery.  

Convention of States volunteer John Poelstra remembers hearing of these horrors from his grandparents, who lived under the rule of Russian communists. Some of his relatives were executed merely for speaking favorably about another country. Others were banished to Siberia.

His grandparents immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s, built lives, and had children and grandchildren. John worked hard to honor the sacrifices made by his grandparents, graduating with a chemical engineering degree from the University of Michigan, had a good career and raised a family “in the traditional American way” as John likes to say.

And now, he sees frightening parallels between those authoritarian regimes and the rapid movement of our federal government toward the same kind of tyranny. You can see it daily, but he cites events such as the denial of free speech and attacks on Trump supporters in San Jose in 2016, and protests against speaker Milo Yiannopoulus as examples of our slide away from freedom. That was bad enough, but what concerns him is the selective enforcement of the rule of law. He sees a descent into a two-tier justice system; one for elites and one for the rest of us.

He sees our country heading toward the totalitarian systems that victimized his ancestors and wants no part of it.  

But he’s not walking away. He’s fighting for the country he loves that gave so much to his and millions of other families.

That’s why he supports the solution given to us by the Founders right there in Article V to save the Constitution and the republic.

And he will be talking about this “solution as big as the problem” at a Town Hall meeting later this month. The public is invited to this free event and encouraged to attend:

Date:          April 21, 2002

Time:          7 p.m.

Location:        St. Paul Lutheran Church

7701 E. M-36

Whitmore Lake, Michigan 48189  

Please join him. In the meantime, you can learn more about John’s story here.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention and state ratification conventions foresaw a time when the federal government might breach the Constitution’s limits and begin oppressing the people. 

Here’s what James Madison later said about the risk of concentrating too much power in the federal government. It is eerily similar to the state of things in America today:

"If Congress can employ money indefinitely, for the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, the establishing in like manner schools throughout the union; they may assume the provision of the poor.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America." -James Madison

The Framers provided a method in Article V for We the People to take back the power from Washington, and the Convention of States Project is putting their solution into action!  

As they often say at Convention of States: “A Solution as Big as The Problem.”

Congress will never make the hard decisions to keep from bankrupting our children and our grandchildren or stopping the ever-increasing and invasive executive orders and rulemaking from the administrative state in the DC Swamp. It is the responsibility of We The People to take charge.

James Madison was speaking to the John Poelstra’s of our time.     

Is he speaking to you?

If so, look at the Convention of States website, sign the Petition allowing us to go around Congress and the President to limit federal jurisdiction, spending, and the terms of all federal elected officials, bureaucrats and judges, and get active! 

You can also find a handy video explanation here, along with other resources.      

The Convention of States project needs patriots like John Poelstra to keep the country from becoming another communist nightmare.

Sign up here and do your part, then attend John’s Town Hall meeting on April 21, 2022 at 7 p.m at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 7701 E. M-36, Whitmore Lake, Michigan 48189.

About Convention of States Action—Boasting a grassroots network of over 5 million supporters and volunteers, Convention of States’ mission is to restore a culture of self-governance in America and to curtail federal overreach. Its primary focus in accomplishing this mission is using a limited Article V Convention to propose constitutional amendments that impose limitations on the size and scope of the federal government, including a balanced budget requirement and term limits for federal officials.

CLICK HERE TO GET INVOLVED!