I suppose so if that were necessary, but nature already sets labor as a precondition to producing food. People work without the government explicitly telling them to do it. I know you want to make some kind of sharp distinction between the government forcing people TO do something as opposed to it forcing people NOT to do something, but there are plenty of examples of the government forcing people to do things already. You have to pay your taxes, put on clothes before you go out in public, drive on the right-hand side of the street, signal before turning, fasten your seat belt, register for the draft (if you're male and of draft age), get your kids vaccinated against certain diseases, etc.

Not insanity, just an unrealistic sweet dream. It's the desire in our blood and bones to return to the precivilized state, the mode of social organization we evolved for. We didn't evolve for civilization. Our genes tell us we should be living in a small group of people that all know each other well, without formal government or organized religion, sharing everything. Why do you think Marx's vision of true communism after the state "withers away" had so much appeal? It was totally unrealistic, but it sings to the genes and a lot of people fell for it.

I think this is a true statement about everything, and about the legitimate functions of government generally.

Perhaps you understand it that way, but even perfunctory research on the term would conclude the authors of the Constitution didn't understand the term in this way.
But would be prevented by the 9th and 10th amendments.
Both views are wrong. The Constitution was set up to create a stronger federal government with limited powers.

Just the opposite, I would say govt has demonstrated that they cant manage education or health care. The best quality health care in the US is private. They best quality education is private.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Advantageous to whom?

Nature sets the precondition only that I must labor in order for me to have food. It does not set the precondition that I must labor in order for you to have food. In order to effect that, someone would have to force me to produce food for you.
Of course. But that doesn't speak to my question. I simply want to know if you believe in the principle that government is justified in forcing some of its citizens to act.
No, it's insanity - unreasonable, without basis in reality.

Do you have any studies which show we're genetically predisposed to living in small groups?
Wow. Uhhh, where to begin?

Okay, we didn't evolve for civilization - yet we live in civilizations, which we evolved into. Our genes tell us we should be living without structure (organized governments and religions), yet should be "sharing everything" - which requires structure in order to effect.

Interesting.
It had so much appeal because those for whom it had appeal liked hearing someone else would be taking care of their cares and worries. They wanted their mommies.

Simple. We don't.

Asking me for a solution as to how it's done, when I don't think it should be done in the first place, is fucking stupid.

You're the one who thinks it's a dandy idea. Great. Tell us how to do it. It's simple to say something should be done, and then offer no manner in which to do it.

I don't think we should let sick and poor people die in the streets. But I also don't think we should keep them alive and give them everything they need in life, and a college degree, to boot.

But, again, since you seem to think we should do it, tell us how. Sure, it would be nice if everyone had those things, but it's not incumbent on the government to provide them. People need to provide for themselves sometimes...

Except you are advocating providing for the Specific welfare. If the govt builds a road, all may walk on it, or otherwise use it. If the govt maintains armed forces, all may rest easy knowing no invasion is imminent. If the govt coins money, all may enjoy the efficiencies of commerce that result. If the govt gives me a house, all may stay the f* out. If the govt provides me with health care, all may chip in to get me a new liver while I drink myself into oblivion. If the govt feeds me dinner, all may kiss my *.

Further, you are quoting the Constitution out of context. If you cite the entire sentence, it becomes quite obvious that the 'general welfare' clause is a modifier to the power to tax, not its own enumerated power. In that context, it is still a sensible inclusion, as it allows things such as protectionist or punative tariffs, 'sin taxes', and a general revenue fund rather than dozens of single-tax-single-use funding buckets.

It's amazing to me that some people think that allowing a guard dog to wander the premises at night after realizing the error of keeping it muzzled in a cage implies approval of letting the dog tear out the throats of the neighbor's children.

The Constitution was indeed set up to limit government powers, just not limit them to the point of useless impotence like the Articles of Confederation did.


I agree with TSG on this one - It's great in theory. But at least we're all sensible enough to agree it's terrible in real-life application.

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Today's forecast: Government corruption.

Tomorrow's forecast: 100% chance of more 'politics as usual'

Maybe it's finally time to vote Libertarian

Its been perverted to mean what you suggest.

THey did realize they needed a slightly stronger federal govt that the original pieced together one but they did NOT ratify one that was as strong as what has emerged.

Nature doesn't draw those neat dividing lines, especially in a social species such as ours. We don't produce wealth (including food) individually; we produce it as a group. Many people have to work together to grow food, harvest it, get it to market, sell it, and cook it. Since I do not, myself, work in food production in any way, there are many people who must work in order for me to eat. And in return, I work in other ways so that those same people may have other benefits of the economy. There are complexities to the system that arise because we live in a civilization, but the same was generally true for our precivilized ancestors, except that since they did not have a money economy and lived in the closest thing to true communism we have ever known, it was more obvious to them that they were all in this together.

Oh, well, in that case, yes, I do.

Not per se, but it's a general principle of biology that animals are genetically fitted to the environment for which they evolved over time. Our ancestors, both human and pre-human, lived in that sort of social setting all the way back to the most primitive monkeys. Humans beings properly so called lived that way for over 100,000 years.

Evolved socially, yes; not biologically. Genetically, we are the same animal that lived in in small forager-hunter bands for over a hundred thousand years and is descended from others that lived the same way for millions of years before that.

"Without structure" is your phrase, not mine. Just as one may have government (a means of collective decision-making) without formal government, so one may have social structures without them being those of civilization. Every social species which isn't driven purely by instinct creates artificial social structures; however, formal government and organized religion, along with a money economy and one based on trade rather than sharing, are innovations of civilization, and are not the type of society for which we evolved biologically.

There is a great deal of appeal in the blood to life in a society where there is no formal government and all wealth is shared. This looks like utopia. The same thing is reflected in the Bible story of the fall of man, in which gaining the knowledge of good and evil thrust man from the paradisal garden and forced him to work hard for his food. (Farming being much harder work than foraging and hunting.) All the "evils" of civilization (and all its good as well) arise from this departure from our genetic programming. (Which we are a flexible enough and intelligent enough species to accomplish.)

Marx started with a critique of the evils of capitalism, then went on to predict a worker revolt and called for the creation of a socialist economy. But if he'd stopped there, I doubt his philosophy would have had the same appeal. Instead, on the very dubious assertion that all conflict was class conflict, he predicted that in a socialist, classless society, all conflict would cease, and so the state, having lost its raison d'être, would wither away, leaving true communism and a stateless utopia.

He was wrong, of course. All conflict is not class conflict, and a state is a requirement of civilized life. The only way to return to the precivilized utopia is to return to the precivilized material conditions, and we are neither able nor willing to do that. But we want to live without a state; our genes tell us that we should live without one, and that is why anarchism has adherents, despite all logic and observation that tells us it won't work. It is also why libertarianism, which amounts to "getting as close to anarchy as we think we can, even though we're not stupid enough to think we can get there all the way," has adherents.

Diminishing marginal returns, from a realpolitik standpoint. The overwhelming majority of the nation is already educated, fed, and sheltered, if not medicated. Spending a lot of extra money so that the few that slip through the cracks have no way to slip through the cracks, however hard they might try, would not be considered a worthwhile goal by most of the populace when push came to shove.

As for why it's not a good idea in general, I'm leery of the idea that the main directive of government is to "provide" anything for the citizens as opposed to ensuring their rights our protecting their sovereignty. "Providing" naturally comes with "obligating". I think the quote in my signature addresses this idea fairly well.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

Exactly. As James Madison once said:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part; be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people; and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.

The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger, those of the State governments in times of peace and security."

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Serious Quotes:


Funny But True Quotes
Those who argue for complete secularism are funny. They see what government does and then argue that we don't need it to start with prayer.

Nor is what has emerged as strong as the Constitution would allow. And the Constitution, even in the beginning, wasn't "slightly" stronger than the Articles of Confederation, it was MUCH stronger. The U.S. under the Articles is considered a "confederation," while the U.S. under the Constitution was and remains a "federation," a completely different class of government. It was not a slight change. It was a radical change.

There were two competing political currents in the creation of the Constitution, which we might call Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian. James Madison, a protege of Jefferson who in creating the Constitution worked closely with Hamilton, was somewhat of a bridge between the two. People who talk of the Constitution as creating "limited government" generally are of the Jeffersonian persuasion, and I think seldom see just how strong the Hamiltonian influence was and is. There is language in the document which empowers the federal government, potentially, to do almost anything which is not explicitly forbidden to it. It is restrained, not by lack of empowering language, but by internal checks and balances, by public accountability, and by explicit statements of what the government can't do.

Everything that the government does today which it did not do at the time the Constitution was ratified, except for a few things which required amendments, was all there in potential from the beginning. I'm convinced Hamilton designed it that way on purpose. And if you look at the things that did require amendment, usually they were things the government was explicitly forbidden to do beforehand, such as impose an income tax, rather than things that lacked authorization.

Hamilton and Jefferson also had competing visions of the type of America they wanted. Hamilton wanted an advanced industrial power. Jefferson wanted an agrarian nation of small free farmers. Hamilton's desire for a strong central government and a national bank, and Jefferson's for a weak central government and much decentralization, were each appropriate to the visions of each man. Over time, Hamilton's vision has won out in terms of the economy, and that is why Hamilton's vision has also won out in terms of the government. The potential empowering language was always there, but it was not put into play until material circumstances made it necessary.

Yet it is also true that any such spending will benefit people unevenly, and that everyone has an interest in not seeing people starving on the streets, or suffering public unrest from the existence of a destitute class. If I am poor, I benefit more from such spending than if I am not poor; if I live on the frontier with a hostile nation, I benefit more from the maintenance of a strong military than if I live in the comparably safe interior. Yet we still see these things as providing for the "common defense" and "general welfare."

Also -- speaking of taking things out of context -- the phrase "general welfare" is followed by "of the United States," meaning that it is meant to distinguish, not between the general welfare of all citizens and the specific good of individuals, but between the general welfare of the whole country and the specific good of one state or another. Providing aid to the poor has always been, in our system, considered primarily the responsibility of the states. The federal government first took a hand in it (as far as I know) during the Great Depression, when the problem was so massive that the state governments were overwhelmed. Arguably it should still be primarily a state responsibility; however that it is a responsibility of government (on some level) should also be obvious.

Of course, and no, I didn't quote it out of context because I did include that language in what I pasted. But the power to tax implies the power to spend. You are right that this clause doesn't empower the federal government to do absolutely everything in service to the general welfare; rather, it empowers the federal government to spend money any way it sees fit (except in ways that are prohibited).

The Constitution made the government much, much stronger. One might, with better logic than your sentence, say: "The Constitution was indeed set up to create a stronger central government, just not one strengthened to the point of unlimited tyranny."

Edit: Eagle, what is the source of your Madison quote? Is that from the Federalist papers?

I agree, if the states want to provide those things to their citizens, let them try. Its not the federal govts job, and when they do it, they arent spending time on providing security and freedom. 80% of our budget is spent on things other than national security.

__________________
http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.