WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? Who wrote the Federalist papers?

Who wrote the anti-federalist papers?

Madison was a Federalist, believing in a strong federal government, but with limits. He later shifted more towards an anti-federalist, but the shift was a slow one.

Hamilton stands alone as a supporter of a strong federal government with few limits. Most of the other founders, at least the ones who wrote on important subjects, all agreed on strict limits to the Federal government.

You really have a slanted view of the constitution and it's debates.

The use of the term "general Welfare" in the Preamble and later in Article I, Section 8 has been a source of contention since the Constitution was first proposed. There was a significant body of citizens who strongly opposed ratification of the new compact. Known as the Anti-federalists, they included such undisputed patriots as Patrick Henry. Among other things, the Anti- federalists objected to the inclusion of such a vague term on the grounds that it could be used by unscrupulous politicians to justify any national government actions.

Supporters of the move to ratify the Constitution ridiculed these concerns. The Federalist Papers were articles published by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to explain and defend the design for the new government. In Federalist Paper No. 41, Madison called the objections "stooping to such a misconstruction." He argued at length that the general welfare clause was merely a "general phrase" which was explained in detail by the sentences following it, enumerating the specific powers granted to Congress. The idea that the term "general welfare" would take precedence over the specific limitations he described as "an absurdity."

Exploring the Constitution Part 6: The Preamble

Yes, Madison explains it all in Federalist no. 41, for those who are capable of simple comprehension........

Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction.

Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. A power to destroy the freedom of the press, the trial by jury, or even to regulate the course of descents, or the forms of conveyances, must be very singularly expressed by the terms "to raise money for the general welfare."

But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.

The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation. The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare." The terms of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury," etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution, and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever. But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation!

The Federalist #41

Your arguments are weak. Everything you believe rests on the opinions of a single man. While I believe Hamilton was an honest man, he just didn't seem to get the fact that the General Welfare clause was not a blank check for the FEDGOV to spend tax dollars on anything they deemed would promote the general welfare.

Why did Congress defeat the bill to award money to the Navy widow, after Congressman Crockett spoke out? Everyone expected the measure to pass, until Crockett spoke. So, what happened? Could it be that Congress actually understood the limits of the "General Welfare" clause, but just needed to be reminded what those limits were?

Sure seems that way to anyone is capable of logical thought and reason.

I have enjoyed this debate, but you are so set in your beliefs that you are not going to allow any amount of evidence change your view. You accept unfair, unjust and unethical government powers as being constitutional, when they are clearly not constitutional. You have allowed yourself to be hoodwinked.

You're aware, surely, of the names of the two earliest political parties in U.S. politics? Madison was a Democratic-Republican, not a Federalist. During the Constitution debate, the term "anti-federalist" refers to those who were opposed to the Constitution, but this creates a skewed view of what the issues really were; Madison's views did not change as you're suggesting, he was simply enough of a realist to understand that the government needed strengthening. He and Hamilton were temporary allies for that reason. In terms of the root issues in American politics they were adversaries.

After ratification, most of the a-fs became D-Rs, joining Madison's party. With the Constitution a done deal, the dispute migrated to other issues, but did not disappear. At root, it was a dispute between agrarians and industrialists, and between the rural and the urban. The nation's commercial and industrial interests wanted a strong central government. The rural dwellers and those who made a living from agriculture wanted a weak one. That's what it comes down to in the final analysis, lofty-sounding rhetoric on both sides notwithstanding.

Hamilton did not stand alone. He was the main founder and architect of the Federalist party, but if he had been as alone as you're suggesting, that party could never have existed. The most prominent member of the party was of course John Adams, who was their only elected president. George Washington was never a member of the party, but should be considered sympathetic to their aims and politics. So the Federalists -- Hamilton's side of the argument -- dominated American politics from the ratification of the Constitution until the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800. Surely you're politically realistic enough to know that would have been impossible if Hamilton had stood alone?

Even after the party disappeared, the same agrarian-industrial split continued for a long time. The Whigs, and then the Republicans, took the place of the Federalists. Democratic-Republicans and later Democrats dominated the government from 1800 until 1860. Despite overall Democratic domination of the government, however, industrialization continued, adding economic power to the Federalist/Whig/Republican side of the argument. The shift point was the Civil War. That broke the power of the planter elite and led to decades of Republican domination of Congress and the White House. With the nation fully industrialized and increasingly urban, the defining political issues of pre-Civil War America became dead issues. The new split became one between labor and capital, between the haves and have-nots. Neither side of that dispute favors small, limited government, and that's why we no longer have one. The Democrats, over time, redefined themselves as the party of labor rather than of rural-dwellers.

Small, weak government of the pre-Civil War sort is now advocated only by romantic idealists. It has no real-world constituency any more.

I have an unromantic one. That's why it seems slanted to you. I view the Constitution debate in the context of the defining political issues of the time, not as an isolated incident. The conflict between rural/agrarian small-government advocates and urban/industrial big-government advocates drove everything in politics. The urban/industrial side had a temporary advantage during that brief period because of obvious need for a stronger government, so that even a small-government man like Madison took the stronger-government side of the argument, but once the nation was established and the new government secure, the advantage switched to the other side. Again, though, that was temporary. It was undermined by the process of industrialization, which could be slowed somewhat, but not stopped.

I have, of course, read the Federalist papers. The thing is, the idea that the general welfare clause is a stand-alone power, or that it authorizes "unscrupulous politicians to justify any national government actions," is a straw-man. Of course there are limits on it; of course it does not authorize ALL possible acts of government, because the power to tax and spend is not a universal power. It does not encompass the power to pass laws with penalties attached, for example, or to coin money, or to negotiate treaties with foreign powers, or, really, to do any of the other things authorized in Article I Section 8. If it did, we wouldn't need a government; there are private citizens in this country which are wealthy enough.

So Madison was raising a straw-man argument in no. 41 for the most part. There is a real and valid objection to this clause from the anti-federalist side that doesn't depend on this straw-man, because, although it is NOT a universal power, it IS very broad in scope, and it DOES allow the creation of a very powerful central government indeed. Thus, I believe Madison was being somewhat disingenuous here.

Again, I refer to what I said earlier: If Madison was correct that the first enumerated power was entirely contained by the rest of them, then the "common defense and general welfare" language was superfluous, and should have been removed in order to avoid this issue, replaced by language stating clearly and unambiguously that the power to tax existed only to put into practice the other enumerated powers. That this was not done, tells me that the broad tax and spend powers were granted deliberately. That he, as president, refused to authorize use of those broad powers, tells me that they were included against his wishes, and he agreed to them as a compromise with Hamilton's side.

Hamilton was quite good at engineering compromises. Witness the way he got his national bank, by agreeing to support moving the capital to Washington DC.

No, it couldn't. The logic that applies in politics is the logic of interest, not of law or principle. The bill was defeated because those who didn't want to spend the money prevailed over those who did. It's that simple and that cynical. It always is.

Disingenuous, really?

Well, here we go again. I do enjoy these debates, as you are intelligent, well read and courteous, but we are simply at opposite ends of the political spectrum, much like Jefferson and Hamilton were.

I agree with Jefferson when he said.......

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." --Thomas Jefferson: Opinion on National Bank, 1791. ME 3:148

You obviously disagree and here we are.

Because of the abuse of the General Welfare clause we have the war on drugs, we have pork, we have fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement on levels never seen before. Some examples of overlapping and duplicate progrmas.........

342 economic development programs;
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130 programs serving the disabled;
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130 programs serving at-risk youth;
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90 early childhood development programs;
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75 programs funding international education, cultural, and training exchange activities;
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72 federal programs dedicated to assuring safe water;
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50 homeless assistance programs;
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45 federal agencies conducting federal criminal investigations;
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40 separate employment and training pro grams;
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28 rural development programs;
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27 teen pregnancy programs;
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26 small, extraneous K–12 school grant pro grams;
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23 agencies providing aid to the former Soviet republics;
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19 programs fighting substance abuse;
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17 rural water and waste-water programs in eight agencies;
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17 trade agencies monitoring 400 international trade agreements;
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12 food safety agencies;
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11 principal statistics agencies; and
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Four overlapping land management agencies

LHI - The Top 10 Examples of Government Waste

BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF DOLLARS WASTED EVERY YEAR BY THE US GOVERNMENT, all because of people like you who believe that the general welfare means whatever the government says it means.

You should feel proud.

Gee, I wonder why you won't tell me how many hours you have spent researching government waste?

Yes, really. He was a politican, after all. Hence, not perfectly honest.

Oh, no. Jefferson and Hamilton both occupied the real-world political spectrum of their time, and were, as you say, on opposite ends. You're off the spectrum altogether, Norrin, living in a time and place not your own.

But I DON'T disagree. That's what I meant by calling this whole business a straw man. The "general welfare" clause is, as Jefferson said, not a universal power. It's not a power at all, but a modification, again as Jefferson said, of the power to tax. But the power to tax implies the power to spend, else, why tax at all? And so the power to lay taxes for that purpose is the power to spend money for that purpose; it is not, however, the power to do anything else BUT lay taxes and spend money.

I believe that comes from the interstate commerce clause, not the tax clause.

I told you why. It's none of your business and would contribute nothing to this discussion. Defend your positions on their own merits, not with ad homs.

None of my business? Fine. The reason we have so much government waste at the Federal level is because we have too many programs and not enough oversight. The number of programs alone is staggering, but the amount of waste is truly disgusting.

Much of the waste in Washington is a direct result of abuse of the general welfare clause and would have never been possible if we had listened to Jefferson and Madison and ignored Hamilton, but alas, you are right about one thing, I do live in a time and place that is not my own. The time and place I live in is one in which the American people were allowed to keep the fruits of their own labor and not forced to finance deadbeats who are too lazy to work, mothers who would rather do drugs, then try to support their children, billion dollar federal buildings, court houses that are like palaces, and all the following.............

The U.S. government is spending $2.6 million to make sure prostitutes in China consume less alcohol while working. As part of the five-year study that the National Institutes of Health bankrolled, researchers are visiting more than 100 houses of prostitution to monitor their employees, designated as FSWs, or female sex workers.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is funding a study on the use of ecstasy, LSD and other “party drugs” in Porto Alegre, Brazil. To do this, U.S. taxpayers will invest $117,876 for the three-year study, conducted by researchers from the University of Delaware, who will work in collaboration with researchers from Brazil's Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Federal employees wasted at least $146 million over a one-year period in business- or first-class airline tickets bought in violation of travel policies, congressional investigators say.

It looks like Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is going to get his wish – $2 million in taxpayer funding for a library commemorating his 37 years in the House of Representatives. The Charles B. Rangel Center for Public service will serve as a repository for his "papers," and the congressman will have his own office in the Harlem complex.

The earned income tax credit (EITC) provides $31 billion in refundable tax credits to 19 million low-income families. The IRS estimates that $8.5 billion to $9.9 billion of this amount—nearly one-third—is wasted in overpayments.

A recent audit revealed that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department purchased and then left unused approximately 270,000 commercial airline tickets at a total cost of $100 million.

Since World War II, the U.S. has spent $1.2 trillion on foreign aid to 70 countries – and all are worse off than they were in 1980, according to the U.N.

For the Department of Commerce for giving the City and County of Honolulu $28,600 in 1981 to study how they could spend another $250,000 for a good surfing beach.

For the Health Care Financing Administration for Medicaid payments to psychiatrists for unscheduled, coincidental meetings with patients who were attending basketball games, sitting on stoops, etc. -- the cost of which was between $40 and $80 million from 1981 to 1984.

The National Endowment for the Humanities for a $25,000 grant in 1977 to study why people cheat, lie and act rudely on local Virginia tennis courts.

The Office of Education for spending $219,592 in 1978 to develop a curriculum to teach college students how to watch television.

The Environmental Protection Agency for spending an extra $1 million to $1.2 million in 1980 to preserve a Trenton, NJ sewer as a historical monument.

In 2005 - $469,000 for the National Wildlife Turkey Federation in South Carolina

In 2005 - $100,000 for the Punxsatawny Weather Discovery Center Museum

In 2005 - $350,000 for the Inner Harmony Foundation and Wellness Center in Scranton, Penn.

In 2005 - $1,430,000 for various Halls of Fame, including $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn., and $70,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis.;

Medicare, the U.S. health-insurance program for the elderly and disabled, erroneously paid out $19.9 billion during fiscal 2004, up from $19.6 billion a year earlier, because of mistakes, waste and fraud, a government report said. In most cases, hospitals and doctors billed for medically unnecessary services or didn't provide proper documentation to support the fees for services.

The GAO estimated that between 1997 and 2003, the Defense Department spent an estimated $100 million for airline tickets that were not used over a six-year period and failed to seek refunds even though the tickets were reimbursable.

While Andrew Cuomo was HUD Secretary under Bill Clinton, the agency set up a "Creative Wellness" program that spent $1,100,000 million taxpayer dollars on “gem” bags and taught public tenants to burn incense.

The study, titled "Status/Dominance and Motivational Effects on Nonverbal Sensitivity and Smiling," attempts to find out if it's really true that women smile more than men, and if people of higher status smile less. Judith Hall, a highly respected researcher at Northeastern University in Boston, is conducting the smile study — and it is not her first. Since 1993, she has been awarded more than $500,000.

A National Science Foundation study looking at whether White House reporters have become more adversarial sounds a bit strange to reporters and critics. Even more surprising: the study cost taxpayers $180,000.

In 2001 more than $600,000 in tax money was spent on researching the sex lives of South African ground squirrels.

The head of the IRS sent out a notice to every person advising them that they would be receiving a tax refund in 2001 - the estimated cost $30,000,000.

In 1998 more than $800,000 was approved for a coal library in Pennsylvania. Defenders staed that it would provide historical insight into a very important part of Pennsylvania and history.

In 2001 the U.S.. Government gave $5,000,000 to the University of Alaska, North Pacific University, and the Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation to fund the "stellar sea lion recovery plan."

In the year 2001, Congress appropriated $340,000,000 in federal tax dollars to PBS (Public Broadcasting Services).

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for a Mississippi research project on "manure handling and disposal".

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1,500,000 million to promote silk production in Laos

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1 ,000,000 for the "eradication of Brown Tree Snakes" (Hawaii).

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $1,000,000 to "develop and train Alaska natives for employment in the petroleum industry."

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for water taxis in Savannah (Georgia)

In 1999 the U.S. government spent $200,000 for a transit center for the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball team.

In 1999 $1,200,000 million to subsidize a park on the Galapagos Islands.

In 2000 the U.S. government spent $100,000 to study the causes of sediment buildup at a Santa Cruz, New Mexico dam.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $50,000 for a tattoo removal program in San Luis Obispo, California.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $400,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute to improve the profitability of the state's sheep industry.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $273,000 for the Blue Springs (Missouri) Youth Orchestra Outreach Unit for educational training to combat Goth culture

In 2003 the U.S. government spent $1,000,000 appropriation for the Center for Public Service and the Common Good (a think tank) at the University of San Francisco.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $400,000 for manure management research at the National Swine Research Center.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,100,000 for the MountainMade Foundation in Thomas, West Virginia for business development and the education of artists and craftspeople.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $4,000,000 to implement the forest and fish report of the Washington State.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $500,000 for exhibits on the Sullivan brothers at the Grout Museum in Waterloo, Iowa.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $61,000 for the State Historical Society to archive the history of Iowa workers.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,200,000 for the Ohio Arts Council to expand international programs.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,900,000 for the Mountaineer Doctor Television program at West Virginia University;

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,000,000 for an educational mall at the Raleigh County Commission in Beckley.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $2,000,000 for West Virginia University to establish a Center on Obesity.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $260,000 for asparagus technology in the stae of Washington.

In 2002 the U.S. government spent $1,200,000 for music education at the GRAMMY Foundation

In 2000 the U.S. government spent $50,000 for the development of a Welcome Center Facility City for Enumclaw, Washington.

In 1997 - $4,000,000 for the Gambling Impact Study Commission.

In 1997 - $330,000 for Stellar Sea Lion research of the North Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Consortium.

In 1997 - $785,000 for bluefish/striped bass research by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In 1997 - $2,700,000 added by the Senate for the Animal Resource Wing at South Dakota State University

In 1997 - $4,000,000 added in conference for the Discovery Center of Science and Technology.

In 1997 - $19,600,000 added by the House for the International Fund for Ireland, a program that tries to aid the peace process in Ireland by paying for golf videos, pony trekking centers, and sweater exports.

In 1997 - $16,369,000 added by the Senate for public library construction.

In 1997 - $9,469,000 added in conference for Migrant Education programs including: $7,441,000 for the High School Equivalency Program; and $2,028,000 for the College Assistance Migrant Program

In 1997 - $3,100,000 added by the Senate for the National Writing Project.

In 1997 - $8,200,000 for a new classroom building at the Rowley Secret Service Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, which is the district of House Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations subcommittee member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the state of Senate appropriator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.).

In 1998 - $220,000 added by the Senate for lowbush blueberry research in Maine.

In 1994 - $221,000 for lowbush blueberry research at the University of Maine in the state of Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME).

In 1998 - $150,000 added by the House for the National Center for Peanut Competitiveness.

In 1998 - $127,000 added by the Senate for global marketing support services in the state of Senate appropriator Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.). According to testimony, the goal of this research is to identify “potential foreign markets for Arkansas products….”

In 1998 - $32,000 added by the Senate for the Center for Rural Studies in the state of Senate appropriator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). A portion of this grant money is used for analytical reports to guide the development of Vermont retail shopping areas

In 1998 - $500,000 added by the House in the district of House appropriator Richard Durbin (D-IL) for the construction at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site, Illinois, of Chalres Corneau’s house, a neighbor and friend of Abraham Lincoln.

In 1998 - $10,912,000 added by the Senate for foreign language assistance.

In 1994 - $200,000 for locoweed research at New Mexico State University in the state of House appropriator Joe Skeen (R-NM). Since 1992, $716,000 has been appropriated, and there is no expected completion date for this research.

In 1994 - $1,000,000 added in the Senate for the Multispecies Aquaculture Center in the state of Senate appropriator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ)

In 1994 - $19,600,000 added in the House for the International Fund for Ireland. The conference report “restores language stricken by the Senate and appropriates up to $19,600,000 for the International Fund for Ireland.” In the past, this program has used American taxpayer dollars for a golf video and pony trekking centers.

In 1993 - $19,704,000 for the International Fund for Ireland requested, according to committee sources, by House Speaker Thomas Foley (D-WA).

In 1993 - $9,170,000 added in conference for the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission in the district of House appropriator John Murtha (D-PA)

In 1992 - $2,000,000 added in conference by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) for a New York Bight Center for undersea research.

I don't know whether to think this statement is sad or scary. I sure thought I lived in the country established by men like Madison. If the country that they represented "no longer exists" than that to me is evidence that we are off course and in dangerous waters.

As far as your other arguments go, I feel that Norrin Radd and jviehe have pretty well said what I would have so I will simply leave it at that to avoid being redundant.

__________________
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, ... That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men,"
-Declaration of Independence

Two truths that many Americans seem to have forgotten:
1. Men are endowed by God with inalienable rights.
2. Government's purpose is to secure man's God-given rights.

Well, that's an opinion to which you are entitled. What I meant, though, is that we no longer live in a country with little or no industrial capacity, most of whose people live in rural areas and make a living by farming. We also no longer live in a country most of whose citizens are white and Protestant. Every other change we have experienced follows pretty inevitably from those two. Including, for example, the fact that followers of your religion are no longer subjected to the kind of discrimination and intolerance that they suffered in Joseph Smith's day.

I don't happen to share your opinion that these changes are a bad thing, but to each his own.

I think I want to clarify something. Since English settlers first arrived on these shores there have been five distinct Americas, and we are now in the early stages of crafting a sixth. The Constitution was one of the last steps in moving from the second America to the third.

The first America was a set of raw, barely-settled colonies laregly isolated from each other, founded either for religious reasons (e.g. New England) or for profit (e.g. the southern colonies) but with no real sense of nationhood. This America ended with a combination of internal rebellion and bloody Indian war, which forced the colonies to cooperate and work together more than previously, around the turn of the 18th century.

The second America was a much more settled, civilized, prosperous, and worldly group of colonies, building their own economic and political institutions and national consciousness. The second America ended with the Revolutionary War and the postwar upheavals that led to the Constitution.

The third America was an industrializing, but still mostly rural, republic expanding westward across the continent, governed by a federal government kept deliberately weak and state governments kept deliberately strong, and increasingly torn by conflicts related to industrialization, especially the issue of slavery. This third America ended with the Civil War and Reconstruction.

The fourth America was an industrialized capitalist republic with a strong central government and powerful corporations, undergoing internal conflicts over labor rights and women's rights, and putting its first tentative toe in the water of the great-power game. This fourth America ended with the Great Depression and World War II.

The fifth America, in whose last stages we live, is a global superpower with a mixed socialist-capitalist economy, undergoing internal conflicts between nationalists and internationalists and over racial and religious identity. We have entered a transition period which will lead to a sixth America whose defining characteristics can't be predicted yet with any certainty, although the internal struggles can give us some clues.

It makes absolutely no sense to try to recreate the third America, which is what some of you seem to want, when the material conditions which allowed that America to exist are long gone.

WHAT I WANT IS A SMALL, LIMITED, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, THE KIND THE FOUNDING FATHERS GAVE US.

What I DON'T WANT, is seeing tax dollars go to studying Goth culture, to gambling studies, to studies on Chinese prostitutes, to art, or to weapons sales to 3rd world countries. We have spent over a trillion dollars in foreign aid since WWII. Much of this aid has been given in arms deals and/or used to prop up tyrannical governments. The US has led the world in arms sales for decades, selling more arms to 3rd world countries than almost all of our competitors combined. You claim to care about people, yet US foreign aid has contributed to the deaths of millions.

"Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries." -- Douglas Casey

"If concern for human poverty and suffering were one's primary motive, one would seek to discover their cause. One would not fail to ask : Why did some nations develop, while others did not? Why have some nations achieved material abundance, while others have remained stagnant in sub-human misery? History and specifically the unprecedented prosperity-explosion of the 19th century would give an immediate answer : capitalism is the only system that enables men to produce abundance - and the key to capitalism is individual freedom." -- Ayn Rand, "Requiem for Man", Chapter 24 of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal

"When will the world wake up and realize that most politicians, especially in the poorest countries of the world, are nothing more than glorified gangsters who view government as simply a fiercely-guarded monopoly on every form of compulsion and extortion to be perpetrated in a specific geographical area? Why do you think the largest amounts of 'foreign aid' extracted from the gullible diplomats of wealthier countries wind up in those politicians' pockets or Swiss bank accounts, despite all the virtuous-sounding rhetoric?" -- Bert Rand
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"How a peaceful, uncrowded place with ample wherewithal stays poor is hard to explain. How a conflict-ridden, grossly over-populated place with no resources whatsoever gets rich is simple. The British colonial government turned Hong Kong into an economic miracle by doing nothing."-- P.J. O'Rourke in Eat the Rich

The Gap Between Rich and Poor

WHY AFRICA DOESN'T WANT FOREIGN AID

Why Africa Doesn't Want Foreign Aid

INSPECTOR GENERAL FINDS
FRAUD AND WASTE AT AID (1995)

INSPECTOR GENERAL FINDS FRAUD AND WASTE AT AID

FOREIGN AID FRAUD

Morning Star - Google News Archive Search

UN turns a blind eye to reports of million-dollar aid fraud
October 6, 2007

UN turns a blind eye to reports of million-dollar aid fraud - World - smh.com.au

MAYBE SOMEDAY YOU WILL "GET IT."

so you don't want a modern capitalist america capable of waging modern war?

you didn't want america to fight the cold war, and contain communism?

interesting.

__________________

you think it is scary that america is no longer a pre industrial cashless society made up of farmers?

you technically live in the country established by men like madison, you just don't live in a society or a socio economic system established by men like madison.

__________________

That isn't possible, outside the context of material circumstances in which they did: an agrarian economy, a rural population, an open frontier. That last may not be essential. The first two are.

We have not had that government since the Civil War. It will never come back. It can't.

Edit: However, that doesn't mean that we're going to emerge from the current Crisis with an even-more strengthened federal government. There's a limit to that process and I believe we've reached it, at least in some areas of governance. In fact, if things go more or less the way I think they will, at the end of this upheaval we will have ceased to be a superpower, and that means that the federal government will be able to shrink in some ways -- especially those ways that are most dangerous to liberty: the military, and the national security apparatus.

The point being that at all times we have had the government that was appropriate for our material circumstances. When that ceased to be the case, a huge upheaval and crisis -- war of independence, civil war, economic meltdown -- forced us to change. It's happening again. The sixth America will be as different from the fifth as the fifth was from the fourth or the fourth from the third. But the third will not return. Ever.

this is liberal propaganda designed to destroy the vision of america that our most blessed and intelligent fathers gave to us. we have crashed our parents car.

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Do we still live in a country of individual freedom, free markets, and limited govt. That was the country Madison designed.

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"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father 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, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

-Thomas Jefferson

This Madison fellow, is it his country?

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Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Guess who?