{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "Yo people talk about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment more and more these days but the real sleeping time bomb in the U.S....", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/169099543623/", "html": "
Yo people talk about the Twenty-Fifth Amendment more and more these days but the real sleeping time bomb in the U.S. Constitution is Amendment 14 Section 3
\n
like, it allows a bare congressional majority (or perhaps just the absence of a bicameral vetoproof majority against, that doesn\u2019t trigger Section 5) to purge the entire federal government
\n
\n
I don\u2019t think it does, at all. A bare vote is allowed to let an oathbreaker in, but to keep people out it\u2019s just \u201cThe Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.\u201d
Which does not imply they could kick out everyone by declaring them oathbreakers spuriously.
\n
\n\n
I don\u2019t get it at all. Here\u2019s the text of Amendment XIV Section 3 as given on Wikipedia:
\n
Section 3.\u00a0No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
\n
It seems to require a two-thirds vote to do anything under this section. Maybe the claim is it only takes a bare majority to declare the rest of the government to be providing aid and comfort to the enemy? But I don\u2019t see that here.
\n
\n\n
\n
Aren\u2019t we much closer to an Article V amendment or constitutional convention?
\n
\n
Is North Korea our enemy? We\u2019ve been giving them foreign aid, does that make the state department traitors?\u00a0
\n
\n
No that\u2019s the thing, there\u2019s any number of ways a purge could go. Two mutually exclusive groups could just as well claim each other to have given aid or comfort to the enemy, and in the absence of a 67-seat Senate AND 290-seat House majority for either could claim to be the legitimate and exclusive government, in accordance with the Constitution. And then other bodies like the military that operate on a \u201cfollow instructions from the legitimate government\u201d couldn\u2019t turn to \u201cwell, which one of these groups is in accordance with the Constitution?\u201d to break the deadlock on which to follow.
![](\"/media/tumblr_inline_p1raxnPHwB1qdlop9_540_5e566675e604.png\")
![](\"/media/tumblr_inline_p1raxyQpcz1qdlop9_540_364079884191.png\")