The only quotes from the founding fathers that matter in support of a claim that welfare is unconstitutional, may be found on this website:

The United States Constitution - The U.S. Constitution Online - USConstitution.net

What language in that document -- the Constitution, you know, the law of the land -- shows welfare to be unconstitutional in your opinion?

That some of the founders may have opposed the concept philosophically is quite irrelevant.

How do you justify having a computer? And how do you justify wasting your time with it posting on here?

However, the many cannot dictate what the few can and can't have.

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There can be no bystanders in the battle for survival. Anyone who will not fight by your side is an enemy you must crush.

We are at war with forces too terrible to comprehend. We cannot afford mercy for any of its victims too weak to take the correct course. Mercy destroys us; it weakens us and saps our resolve. Put aside all such thoughts. They are not worthy of those in the service of country.

The first sentence of Article I, Section 8

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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

Greetings and Felicitations,

I justify having a computer because without doing remote tech support for non-profits is kind of difficult without it. The computer I use is a 10 year old laptop with Ubuntu installed. I received the laptop for some web design I did for another non-profit.

As for posting on here. I post here in between doing other work. I justify it because voices for peace and rationality must be maintained. If those of us who have the talent don't expend that talent in opposing the forces of chaos and war then those forces will overwhelm all others. I consider it a part of my social work.

In other words, my work benefits others directly and indirectly. My skills are with science and technology. To ignore those skills would be unethical.

Sincerely yours,
C. David Neely

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But how did you get those skills in the first place? Surely you were trained on something? How was it justified, what made it necessary?

Oh, and what do any of us really, truly, actually need, beyond a bearskin, cave and haunch of meat?

Funny, that strikes me as exactly what says it's NOT unconstitutional:

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"

I would think that this amounted to empowering language for purposes of financial relief spending (among many other things). Certainly it doesn't say the government CAN'T spend money for that purpose. Does something else? What I mean is, by analogy: the above might conceivably empower Congress to spend money for promotion of religion, serving the spiritual general welfare of the United States, except that the First Amendment explicitly states that's not allowed. Is there something comparable that explicitly disallows welfare?

Just because you say it is irrelevant, doesn't make it so.

If I wrote a book and you claimed that one of the chapters meant one thing and I say that it meant something else, who's opinion has more weight?

While no one man wrote the constitution, Madison was the main architect of that document, yet people like you, think you know better than the father of the constitution as to what the Constitution means all because you have been brainwashed by the establishment.

Wake up.

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but
an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison, 1792

And to think they gave Al Gore the nobel peace prize.

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It was as clear cut as you wish to make it, then there wouldn't have been a debate about it. Congressman Davey Crocket and others would have never questioned the constitutionality of welfare.

I have many other quotes from founding fathers, as well as few presidents on this topic.

Many of them I posted here.........

Is Welfare Constitutional?

lol

Thanks for the chuckle.

We are not speaking of different chapters of the same book, but of different books. When you say something is unconstitutional, you mean that it goes against the Constitution, not something else that was written by one of the men who contributed to the Constitution. Moreover, you are making a legal statement, not a philosophical one.

The only sense in which something can be "unconstitutional" is if it is forbidden by the legal language of the Constitution itself.

And that -- not merely "because I say so" -- is why other writings of the founders are irrelevant.

I might add that the only opinions that really matter here are not those of the long-dead framers, but those of the living Supreme Court justices. And I don't think they would agree with you.

And, as I anticipate you may say something about the invalidity of "activist judges" or some such -- the Constitution gives the Supreme Court the authority to interpret what it means. To go against that on any basis is most certainly and unequivocally unconstitutional -- more so than whatever provision provokes your disagreement with the Court.

Oh TSGracchus,

It must be tough on you when everything you believe is wrong.

Before we continue this conversation............

.... let me ask you, when the Supreme Court makes a ruling and the vote is 5-4, are the 5 judges always right and the 4 judges always wrong?

Do you believe there are any laws in the US which are unconstitutional?

Can you give me one example of a law that in YOUR OPINION, is unconstitutional?

Are you able to think for yourself, or do you believe the constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means?

Greetings and Felicitations,

Actually, I am a criminal mastermind. I live deep in a fortress buried in the mountains of East Tennessee. I only come on here to talk in order to see how many weak minds I can convince to give up violence in preparation for global domination.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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I wouldn't know. I've never been in that position. In fact, neither have you. Only MOST of what you believe is wrong.

When the Court makes a ruling and it is 5-4, the majority is always right and the minority always wrong. If the Court later reverses that ruling, it's right again and the previous Court that ruled differently is wrong. Insofar as "right" and "wrong" even have any meaning here, which really they don't.

That's because we are not talking about questions of fact. There is no objective truth to what the Constitution means. It's very much a matter of opinion and interpretation.

Naturally I'm able to think for myself, and certainly I'm entitled to opinions on the subject, but my opinion is no better or worse than anyone else's, and it's less authoritative than the Court's. When I disagree with the Court, the Court wins. Likewise, when you disagree with the Court, the Court wins.

There are a number of rulings that I consider bad law and would like to see reversed, but until they are, they remain the law of the land. That's reality. At any given moment, the Constitution says whatever the Justices say it says. And the Justices do not consider welfare to be unconstitutional. As it happens, I agree with them. The language is there, and the interpretation is a valid one.

I'm familiar with the texts you would present to say otherwise. However, I'm also familiar with their context. Madison, Jay, and Hamilton were presenting these arguments to persuade the people of New York to ratify the Constitution. The arguments addressed fears of anti-federalists that the proposed Constitution gave too much power to the federal government. The three men were not necessarily being honest (Hamilton in particular), and their arguments are not necessarily valid. In some ways that they would have denied, the anti-federalists were right.

Hamilton (I think) also argued that a Bill of Rights wasn't necessary because the Constitution gave only limited powers to the federal government anyway, and that by spelling out the rights of the people against the government a Bill of Rights implied that no other rights existed. Do you think that argument was valid as well?