Giving people enormous freedom to acquire property and fend for themselves reflected the physical reality at the time. Taking possession of something didn’t necessarily mean that you had to take it away from someone — at least once the natives were declared eminent domain on.

But the more the continent fills up, the more resources are depleted, and the more population levels are reached resembling those of fertile areas of other parts of the world, the more the people who used to be pioneers in the olden days become thieves in today’s conditions.

So whatever the Founding Fathers may or may not have intended, you can’t seriously expect them to have foreseen what their country would look like over 200 years in the future, in which someone down on his luck can’t just move to another plot of land and start over. Heck, even the Industrial Revolution of a hundred years later changed conditions dramatically.

There is a reason why Europe and other developed countries, while adopting many American principles of freedom and democracy, never abandoned responsibility for people’s welfare completely. And there’s a reason why, now that the US has become a net importer of many vital resources, they’re doing better today.

Ideological purity may have great power of persuasion, but ultimately it is fitness that determines survival, and it isn’t just many American individuals who choose to live unhealthy and wasteful out of a feeling of exceptionalist entitlement. It’s also the nation as a whole not taking care of itself by not taking care of its people.

You’re no longer a young nation, and you can’t just shrug off as trivial those economic heart attacks that you’re getting by trying to live the same way that you did in your country’s youth…

Our forefathers didn’t want the United States to become a Nanny state, which it now is and may become even more entrenched if this healthcare bill passes.

Our forefathers referred to the “general welfare” of the United States as a nation, not for individuals.

That is why they changed the “Life, liberty and happiness” clause to “Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.” They felt they cannot nor would they guarantee happiness, only that America provided the opportunity to pursue happiness. It was left up to the individual to obtain happiness.

This nation is the land of opportunity to people of ambition and industriousness.

Americans are a charitable people and have always privately taken care of those in need.

It’s the same kind of blog entry that would have found a way of explaining how equality under the law does not apply to slaves, back in the day, and accusing Abolitionists as being horribly misguided forces of evil.

Did you read the post, before accusing the author of having not read the Constitution?

“We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that ALL POWER IS INHERENT IN THE PEOPLE; THAT THEY MAY EXERCISE IT BY THEMSELVES, IN ALL CASES to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; THAT IT IS THEIR RIGHT AND DUTY TO BE AT ALL TIMES ARMED.” –Thomas Jefferson

Those liberals will never understand this truth by Thomas Jefferson:

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
– By Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

You might be interested in my recent post, “The Folly of Political Myopia,” which appears on my blog, and which you can access by clicking on my name.

I wish they would still teach Constitutional history in high school. As a society, we have forgotten the our nation’s founding document and the provisions (and founders’ intents) thereof. This blind spot in our national education has led us into many of the problems we face today, including the harm to individual rights and freedoms. We have naively watched as government continues to stray further and further from constitutional constraints.

Isn’t that a bit “the collective is everything, the individual is nothing” communist-like? By which standards would you gauge whether the nation is faring well even though its individual citizens may suffer?

But be that as it may, I think you can make an argument for healthcare and social programs even if you take only the general state of the union into account. All the other developed countries have better systems of providing for their citizens in that manner, and they’re not ailing because of it but prosper rather well, actually, and have done so for decades.

I mean, I’m German and we have a trade surplus over here, meaning me make more stuff than we consume, even though we have insanely generous labor laws, social laws, and healthcare provisions by your standards. We haven’t been going bankrupt because of them yet and we certainly wouldn’t want to switch with you.

So even from the “general welfare is for the faceless, abstract nation as a whole only” point of view it would make sense for the government to become more empathetic and giving. It seems to pay off. I mean, the New Deal resulted in decades of unprecedented prosperity for you. Then you got Reaganomics and Bushonomics and conservatism light under Clinton and Neoconservatism, and look where you are today…!

Try reading the post again; general welfare is only general in the sense that the actions must to go benefit the country at large, and not individual citizens within that country. Also, it is bound down by the enumerated powers.

It would have been pointless to even enumerate and identify specific powers, if the Founders had instead intended to give a blank check for anything and everything that could be branded as being for the “general welfare”. Under this loose definition, everything would apply, thus invalidating any type of restraint, which is exactly what the Constitution was created for.

Read the quotes by Madison and Jefferson in the post again — they address this exact issue. (Did you even read the post..?)

You talk about the general welfare of specific individuals, but I challenge you to find any (any) quote from an individual involved in creating the Constitution that argued that the federal government was being created to benefit people’s individual lives through monetary redistribution and government intervention. Good luck.

Also if “general welfare” applies only to the government, not to the people, as per your interpretation, does that go for the common defense as well, mentioned in the same article?

General welfare applies not to the government, but to the nation it governs. It would help to get your terms straight before accusing others of misrepresentation. Just as general welfare (bound down by the enumerated items) was inserted to imply having the federal government pass laws that treated all states equally (i.e. they wouldn’t favor one state, or one company, etc.), so too does the common defense imply protecting the nation as a whole, and not specific or limited parts of it.

From what went before what is clear to me that he meant when he said “the Tenth is a bunch of baloney” is that the “Tenthers’” interpretation of it to justify making the government go social Darwinist on people’s butts and ignore their general welfare is baloney.

Actually that was very considerate to provide the context in which it was said, because on its own and misinterpreted it could have been a rather disagreeable statement…

Also if “general welfare” applies only to the government, not to the people, as per your interpretation, does that go for the common defense as well, mentioned in the same article? Would it not matter if individual Americans were killed, and enslaved by invaders if only the government itself is safe and sound…?

Sounds very Vichy France to me, if you ask me…

Now the general welfare clause is being used to completely emasculate (or, well, nullify) the tenth amendment? MSNBC is the new Fox News, people (and has been for a long time, of course).

That’s a stretch. The Constitution is based on principles, not specific practicalities that only existed at the time it was signed. For example, the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations includes all nations, not just those that existed in 1789.

…they didn’t intend that everyone carry a gun with them everywhere they went and that they were referring to muskets.

They were referring to the weapons they had at that time. Muskets was one such option. However, the reference to arms was not further restricted by any other clause as was the general welfare clause, which is constrained by Article I Section 8.

And yes, people could carry their guns where they pleased; after all, the militia was not an organized force of well-trained soldiers, but a ragtag group of citizens banded together (with their personal weapons as arms) under a common cause.

Also, they clearly state that it is for the forming of a militia as a necessity for the security of a free state.

The militia at the time was every able-bodied man, not a government-regulated military force.

I mean, come on. I may not remember every chapter & verse (excuse me, Article & Section) but at least I remember the words of the Preamble.

I find it disappointing, absurd, & downright (let me check my thesaurus) perverse that those who have taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution should have this much difficulty with what should be known to grammar school children.

And we’re supposed to accept that not only do they represent us, but the intent of the Constitution?

AP story here, and personal account of the question here.

Absolutely ridiculous (though not a surprise).