It's never really been a question of whether they are good things. It's whether they're properly supplied by the federal government.


*sigh*

I know it's easy to do, but there's not much to be gained from personalizing it (Norrin).

Anyway, everybody changes. It's inevitable.

Interesting conversation.
Good posts all around.

If I understand the conversation, while there are essentially no limits specifically stated as to what the federal government can do, the federal government is generally limits by the retained rights of the people, and through them what the states are implicitly and explicitily authorized to do.

In other words, the federal government may not infringe upon what it explictly authorized to the states and the people.

But clearly we have a problem, because firearms was one of the areas clearly delegated explicitly to the states and the people; so why do we have an F in BATF?
That is wrong.
The feds have no authority over firearms, by Constitutional mandate.

Yes, of course I admit it. Just like Madison agreed that canals were important and a good thing, right before he vetoed the canal bill. You see, Madison understood that if you allow the FEDGOV to do ANYTHING that is a good, then you open up Pandora's box, as almost anything can be made to look like a "good thing." Even something as INSANE AS FORCED SCHOOL BUSING, can be sold to the people as a "good thing."



lol

And this is why I like you, even though I disagree with you on many issues. You are a class act and once in a while you even make me laugh.

If you have not already done so, please read Madison's opinion on the Canal Bill........

James Madison: Veto of federal public works bill, March 3, 1817

(EXCERPT)

To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust. It would have the effect of subjecting both the Constitution and laws of the several States in all cases not specifically exempted to be superseded by laws of Congress, it being expressly declared "that the Constitution of the United States and laws made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges of every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." Such a view of the Constitution, finally, would have the effect of excluding the judicial authority of the United States from its participation in guarding the boundary between the legislative powers of the General and the State Governments, inasmuch as questions relating to the general welfare, being questions of policy and expediency, are unsusceptible of judicial cognizance and decision.

He didn't think of farmers as "backward hillbillies." But he was anti-industrial. No question about that.

I refer you to a letter from Jefferson to John Jay written in 1785, which expresses his opinion on the subject well. (Admittedly, this is fairly early Jefferson, before he became Secretary of State under Washington, let alone president.)

Here is another example, a letter from Jefferson to my own collateral ancestor, Dr. Benjamin Rush, in 1800 (shortly before Jefferson was elected president) -- this was during or shortly after an outbreak of yellow fever:

Jefferson often expressed such sentiments, and although he was somewhat more moderate, Madison generally shared them. The Democratic-Republican/Democratic party of the pre-Civil War era was the party of the agrarian interests and the south, while the Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans were the party of the mercantile and manufacturing interests and the northeast. This was the main reason why they took the stances they did on almost all issues in which they disagreed, from strength of the central government, to tariffs, to slavery. In fact, the Democratic Party continued along these lines after the Civil War until the time of FDR. Even Roosevelt shared the focus on agriculture that began with the party's founder.

This is basically a debate on the General Welfare clause, which has been going on since Hamilton and Jefferson debated it over 200 years ago.

The firearms issue I consider separate, but that's just my opinion.

Those excerpts you posted show just how much vision Jefferson had. All of his fears have been proven true. Cities and manufacturing have led the US down an immoral path, one where sex and materialism dominates our media, our culture, our entire lives. When we were a nation of farmers, we were as independent as is possible. Now, we have become dependent on corporations for our bread.

Norrin:

I'm already familiar with Madison's statement on that occasion. I believe his argument to have been in service to his own anti-industrial bias, and to be incorrect as a matter of interpretation of the Constitution's clear language. I understand why he asserted what he did, but as I disagree with his agrarian-focused motivation, I also disagree with him here.

Edit: Oh, yeah, we'd be SO much better off if we had never industrialized . . . well, I'll let your statement stand by itself, and invite everyone else to consider whether they share your views on this. If they don't, then they should consider carefully how much that opinion drives others regarding interpretation of the Constitution.

I figured you already read that, just wanted to be sure.

So, we are once again at a stalemate. You agree with Hamilton and I agree with Jefferson and Madison.

I suppose 200 years from now the same discussion might be going on, but it is more likely the US will then be part of a world government and "general welfare" will be even more abused than it is today.

So, you snuck an edit in their on me. Sneaky little devil. Just kiddin.

Anyways, obviously we had to industrialize, or we would have been conquered by others at so me point. Even Jefferson realized we would not stay a farming nation forever, but he knew that manufacturing led to greed and that led to an immoral society.

Have you ever looked into the oligopoly of ADM, CARGILL, Monsanto and the handful of corporations that dominate global food production?

Have you seen what their profits have done since NAFTA? Sick and gross profits, all because of federal policies which are unethical, unfair, unjust and unconstitutional.

its enumerated under the powers ans limitations. totally igored of course but its pretty clear.

__________________
Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

Not entirely true. The standard rules of legal construction, as well as set theory, dictate that when a specific set is defined, anything not contained within that set is assumed to be outside of it.

It is physically impossible to list all potential exceptions, hence, the set is constrained by its contents.

So, if it is not defined as a power granted to government, then government has no authority in that area. This is reiterated in the 9th and 10th amendments.

To answer why we have an F in the BATFE, one must look to the 1934 National Firearms Act. The BATFE was originally ATF and came under the Treasury department as a revenue collecting agency. Their sole purpose regarding firearms was, until 1968, to collect the taxes due upon NFA items. With the 1968 Gun Control Act, their job expanded to include dealer licensing, etc.

They are a tax agency which has had its authority expanded FAR beyond the scope of their original charter in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the United States.

__________________
In case you were wondering, yes, there really ARE more idiots these days....technology has made natural selection obsolete.

Silence is golden...Duct tape is silver.

So, let's look at some of the problems welfare has created, shall we?

This is just one example of why there should be NO WELFARE, unless you think it's a good idea to pay people US TAX DOLLARS so they can spend it on drugs and alcohol which leads to child abuse.

Most abused children live with a parent on welfare who is abusing
alcohol or drugs. In a study of 9,168 parents reported for child abuse
in our county between Jan. 1, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2006, 5,840 of
parents, or 63.7 percent, were estimated to have substance abuse
problems.

I volunteer at the Sacramento Children's Home. "A," a 7-year old child
I knew there, was placed in protective custody after being left
repeatedly at home with no supervision and molested. While she and her
siblings lived in a home with no food or clean clothes, the child's
mother used her Supplemental Security Income and food stamp money to
buy illicit drugs.

The link between welfare and substance abuse has been known for years.
A study by the New England Journal of Medicine a decade ago revealed
that nationwide there were more than 4,000 additional drug-related
deaths during the first week of each month, when welfare checks came
in. A 2007 study by researchers at the University of California, Santa
Cruz, and Texas A&M University found that in California, the overall
rate of drug-related hospital admissions increased abruptly, up 23
percent, at the beginning of the month, driven largely by recipients
of SSI – a significant number of whom died in drug-related deaths
after receiving their checks.

"Welfare systems are overburdened with drug- and alcohol-abusing
mothers and their children," the National Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported in 2001. "Parents
addicted to drugs and alcohol," it continued, "are clever at hiding
their addiction and often are more concerned about losing their access
to drugs and being punished than losing custody of their children."
Unless we address alcohol and drug abuse, that report warns, our
efforts to stop child abuse "are doomed."

Margaret A. Bengs: Drug abuse, alcohol add to child neglect - Sacramento Opinion - Sacramento Editorial | Sacramento Bee

Isn't that great? We give people welfare to promote the "general
welfare" and many of these people spend our tax dollars on drugs and
alcohol which leads to child abuse. What a great system.


Women receiving AFDC are nearly twice as likely to abuse or be addicted to
alcohol and illicit drugs than women not receiving AFDC (27 percent compared
to 14 percent).***
*
37 percent of AFDC women 18 to 24 years of age abuse or are addicted to
alcohol and drugs

14 percent of the pregnant women on public assistance in the California study,
and 11 percent of pregnant women on Medicaid in the South Carolina study,
would test positive for cocaine use

More than 16 percent in South Carolina would test positive for one or more
illegal drugs.
o
Nationwide, 200,000 drug-exposed babies would be born annually to mothers on
AFDC

Mothers receiving AFDC are three times more likely to abuse or be addicted to
alcohol and drugs than mothers not receiving AFDC (27 percent compared to 9
percent)

Substance Abuse and Women on Welfare

ISN'T WELFARE GREAT?

Maybe I should get on welfare so I could let working Americans support my
drug habit and pay for my health care. Fucking lovely.

You sound like someone arguing for continuing the war on drugs by pointing out the dangers of marijuana. As with that example, you have to look at the costs and benefits on both sides. Eliminate welfare, and the (relatively rare) incidents of abuse such as you described will be no more, but the rate of children going hungry will increase dramatically. I don't call that an improvement, frankly. Every society in human history has made it the norm to provide some sort of assistance for the poor, usually at some level of government; in this country, welfare, before the creation of the federal programs, was a state responsibility (as it still is mostly), but there was never a time in the history of the U.S. when it didn't exist. And only a society devoid of all decency would leave the poor, and especially the children of the poor, to fend for themselves.

In any case, it's off-topic. Whether federal welfare programs are a good or bad idea has nothing to do with whether or not they are constitutional.

Well, what if we had never started welfare? What would the current situation be like? Of course, we can never answer that question, but it all boils down to why did Congressman Davey Crockett vote against the bill to help the widow of a Naval Officer? At that time there was a surplus in the nation's vaults and we could easily afford to help the widow out who lost her husband, but why did Crockett sway the Congress to vote down the measure?

/////////

"Mr. Speaker – I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him. This government can owe no debts but for services rendered, and at a stipulated price. If it is a debt, how much is it? Has it been audited, and the amount due ascertained? If it is a debt, this is not the place to present it for payment, or to have its merits examined. If it is a debt, we owe more than we can ever hope to pay, for we owe the widow of every soldier who fought in the War of 1812 precisely the same amount. There is a woman in my neighborhood, the widow of as gallant a man as ever shouldered a musket. He fell in battle. She is as good in every respect as this lady, and is as poor. She is earning her daily bread by her daily labor; but if I were to introduce a bill to appropriate five or ten thousand dollars for her benefit, I should be laughed at, and my bill would not get five votes in this House. There are thousands of widows in the country just such as the one I have spoken of, but we never hear of any of these large debts to them. Sir, this is no debt. The government did not owe it to the deceased when he was alive; it could not contract it after he died. I do not wish to be rude, but I must be plain. Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much of our own money as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week's pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks."

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Like many other young men, and old ones, too, for that matter, who had not thought upon the subject, I desired the passage of the bill, and felt outraged at its defeat. I determined that I would persuade my friend Crockett to move a reconsideration the next day.

Previous engagements preventing me from seeing Crockett that night, I went early to his room the next morning and found him engaged in addressing and franking letters, a large pile of which lay upon his table.

I broke in upon him rather abruptly, by asking him what devil had possessed him to make that speech and defeat that bill yesterday. Without turning his head or looking up from his work, he replied:

"You see that I am very busy now; take a seat and cool yourself. I will be through in a few minutes, and then I will tell you all about it."

He continued his employment for about ten minutes, and when he had finished he turned to me and said:

"Now, sir, I will answer your question. But thereby hangs a tale, and one of considerable length, to which you will have to listen."

I listened, and this is the tale which I heard:

Davy Crockett vs. Welfare

I urge anyone who has not read this story to read it. Whether the story is accurate, or not, is not as important as the morals to the story.

Once you start giving public monies to charity, where does it end? Right now we have families losing their homes by the thousands. We have an estimated 744,000 homeless people in the US. How is welfare helping these people?

Right now we have people who are working for a living, paying taxes, but who are worse off than some Americans who are not working, yet getting government assistance. This is wrong. It is unethical, unfair, unjust and unconstitutional.

Who decides who deserves public monies and who does not?

What is the criteria for judging?

We have gone through all of this before, but I can only assume I am so deficient in my communication skills that I am unable to convey the reasons why welfare is unconstitutional.

Madison, as the father of the constitution, understood the limits of that document better than anyone else. We should consider his words on the subject and comapre them to those of Hamilton. Which person's views better represent the ideals this country was founded upon?

In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees who fled from insurrection in San Domingo to Baltimore and Philadelphia, James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
-James Madison, 4 Annals of congress 179 (1794)

“…[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
-James Madison

Oh, yes, we can. Although the question is absurd, because helping the poor has been the responsibility of government, at some level, since the dawn of civilization, since there have even BEEN governments.

For an absolutely idiotic reason that deserves no respect whatsoever.

Now, at that time, there were decent reasons not to have welfare at the federal level. (Although I have to point out that this was more in the way of veterans' benefits, and to suggest we shouldn't have those is beyond asinine.) But not the reason he gave. That's just nonsense. The real reason is that there was no need. The problem of poverty wasn't as acute when most of the population was rural; poor people in the country seldom go hungry. In the city, it's a different story, but with a smaller urban population, the problem that existed could be met with private charity, with the state governments as backup. What we don't need the federal government to do, it shouldn't.

That changed in the late 19th century, as the population became increasingly urban, and the economy increasingly industrial. During the 60-plus years from the end of the Civil War until the onset of the Great Depression, the U.S. economy suffered periodic massive panics that created widespread suffering and hunger. The combination of private charity and state government aid that suffices for bad times in an agrarian economy became overwhelmed in industrialized America, and during the Depression it was supplemented by a federal layer of aid. The potential was always there in the Constitution to do this, but it wasn't done until there was an actual need.

There is no argument based on principle that can be given to say that we should allow people, especially children, to go hungry. And that's essentially what Crocker was saying. He was a jackass. Santa Ana's army did the world a favor by killing him in battle at the Alamo.