Page 1 of 2
Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 8:42 am
by kalm
I knew the word "welfare" was in the preamble but coming from a directional university and only semi-literate I didn't realize that it appeared a second time:
Article 1, Section 8
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
Clause 1. 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;
Turns out the founders were fairly progressive as well.
Discuss.
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 8:55 am
by death dealer
kalm wrote:I knew the word "welfare" was in the preamble but coming from a directional university and only semi-literate I didn't realize that it appeared a second time:
Article 1, Section 8
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
Clause 1. 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;
Turns out the founders were fairly progressive as well.
Discuss.
I'll give you the welfare if you give me the uniform (i.e. flat) tax.

hey, if you get to "interpret" so do I.

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 10:08 am
by Ibanez
Welfare in 1776 probably didn't mean unemployment benefits, EBT cards and Medicare. I would take a guess that the founders meant that for the general safety and well being of its citizens but we can argue about to the extent.
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 10:46 am
by DSUrocks07
death dealer wrote:kalm wrote:I knew the word "welfare" was in the preamble but coming from a directional university and only semi-literate I didn't realize that it appeared a second time:
Turns out the founders were fairly progressive as well.
Discuss.
I'll give you the welfare if you give me the uniform (i.e. flat) tax.

hey, if you get to "interpret" so do I.


Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:06 pm
by Col Hogan
Words are important, and to read a present day meaning into words written in the past is intellectually dishonest...
"The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence."
http://www.lawandliberty.org/genwel.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Yo...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:36 pm
by Chizzang
Col Hogan wrote:Words are important, and to read a present day meaning into words written in the past is intellectually dishonest...
"The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence."
http://www.lawandliberty.org/genwel.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A Republic... ^
The day we bailed our the Banks was the official END of the Republic

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 12:51 pm
by Col Hogan
Chizzang wrote:Col Hogan wrote:Words are important, and to read a present day meaning into words written in the past is intellectually dishonest...
"The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence."
http://www.lawandliberty.org/genwel.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A Republic... ^
The day we bailed our the Banks was the official END of the Republic

The end of the Republic came long before that...the bailout of GM and Chrysler and the banks just marked the end of the end...

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:47 pm
by Ivytalk
kalm wrote:I knew the word "welfare" was in the preamble but coming from a directional university and only semi-literate I didn't realize that it appeared a second time:
Article 1, Section 8
Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.
Clause 1. 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;
Turns out the founders were fairly progressive as well.
Discuss.
The founders didn't have welfare queens.

Re: Yo...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 2:00 pm
by Chizzang
Col Hogan wrote:Chizzang wrote:
A Republic... ^
The day we bailed out the Banks was the official END of the Republic

The end of the Republic came long before that...the bailout of GM and Chrysler and the banks just marked the end of the end...

Agreed...
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 5:15 pm
by CID1990
Chizzang wrote:Col Hogan wrote:Words are important, and to read a present day meaning into words written in the past is intellectually dishonest...
"The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to “promote the general welfare.” What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the “general welfare” by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals - rich and poor, bankers and shopkeepers, employers and employees, farmers and blacksmiths - would enjoy “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence."
http://www.lawandliberty.org/genwel.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A Republic... ^
The day we bailed our the Banks was the official END of the Republic

"A republic, if you can keep it."
I think we lost it right around 1905, and the coup de grace was about 1933.
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 9:49 pm
by Skjellyfetti
That's why welfare is called welfare.
And the debates Republicans and Democrats have about the meaning of that phrase go back to the founding of the country.
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 6:08 pm
by JohnStOnge
Very simple:
Providing for the "general welfare" is not the same as providing for the well being of every individual.
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 6:22 pm
by Skjellyfetti
Alexander Hamilton wrote: The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues shou'd have been restricted within narrower limits than the "General Welfare" and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.
It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper.
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders ... _1s21.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 7:25 pm
by kalm
Here's what the constitution says regarding guns and freedom OF religion...
Here's what the constitution says regarding general welfare...
"Yeah, but that's not what they really meant!"
Conks...

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 7:50 pm
by OL FU
If you want to know what they meant, then all you have to do is look at what they did shortly after the constitution was approved. I am quite certain promoting the general welfare was meant to make sure already rich white guys could make a lot of money
Didn't have a damn thing to do with handing out anything to anybody that wasn't a rich white guy.
Now I am always amazed that someone would even mention that part of the constitution with modern day progressivism in mind.
Did I spell that right. I gotta quit drinking.

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Sun Dec 02, 2012 8:25 pm
by Skjellyfetti
OL FU wrote:I am quite certain promoting the general welfare was meant to make sure already rich white guys could make a lot of money
Didn't have a damn thing to do with handing out anything to anybody that wasn't a rich white guy.
Not all of them.
Thomas Paine, 1795:
Poverty, therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the natural state.
Civilization, therefore, or that which is so-called, has operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural state.
It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural, cultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the common property of the human race. In that state every man would have been born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable and animal.
Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes to the community ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund prod in this plan is to issue.
The property owners owe rent to those who do not own property for the privilege of cultivating the land, and taking away the natural ownership that all people have.
In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right, and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwords till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of government. Let us then do honor to revolutions by justice, and give currency to their principles by blessings
To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:
And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall arrive at that age.
t is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor? This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with.
http://www.constitution.org/tp/agjustice.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:15 am
by death dealer
Thomas Paine signed the constitution? Wow, I didn't know that.

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:35 am
by YoUDeeMan
death dealer wrote:Thomas Paine signed the constitution? Wow, I didn't know that.

I think Egypt is having him sign their new one, too.
It's good when people vote for the right thing...except when they don't vote the right thing in the eyes of someone else.
All we need is people like TP and Mohammad telling us what to think and how to spend our money.

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:52 am
by Ibanez
Skjellyfetti wrote:That's why welfare is called welfare.
And the debates Republicans and Democrats have about the meaning of that phrase go back to the founding of the country.
Welfare in 1776 didn't mean pay people to not farm or unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Words today do hAve different meanings and uses than the same word did 100+ years ago. Huge difference.
Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:53 am
by Ibanez
Cluck U wrote:death dealer wrote:Thomas Paine signed the constitution? Wow, I didn't know that.

I think Egypt is having him sign their new one, too.
It's good when people vote for the right thing...except when they don't vote the right thing in the eyes of someone else.
All we need is people like TP and Mohammad telling us what to think and how to spend our money.

Have you ever read the bio in Paine? He was a slouch his entire life!
Re: Yo...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 10:54 am
by DSUrocks07
Ibanez wrote:Skjellyfetti wrote:That's why welfare is called welfare.
And the debates Republicans and Democrats have about the meaning of that phrase go back to the founding of the country.
Welfare in 1776 didn't mean
pay people to not farm or unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Words today do hAve different meanings and uses than the same word did 100+ years ago. Huge difference.
Why this is considered to be okay escapes me...
Re: Yo...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:51 am
by Skjellyfetti
Ibanez wrote:
Welfare in 1776 didn't mean pay people to not farm or unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Words today do hAve different meanings and uses than the same word did 100+ years ago. Huge difference.
It was intentionally left vague to apply to unforeseen needs in the future according to Hamilton.
It should only be applied strictly ad only according to powers specifically enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution according to Madison.
As I said, the argument about this goes back to the founding of the country.
You take Madison's side. I take Hamilton's side. Neither one of us is wrong... but, Hamilton's argument is the one currently accepted.

Re: Yo..."Constitutionalists"...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:58 am
by Skjellyfetti
death dealer wrote:Thomas Paine signed the constitution? Wow, I didn't know that.

He would still be considered a founding father according to just about everyone.
Thomas Jefferson and John Adams didn't sign it either.

Re: Yo...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 11:58 am
by Ibanez
Skjellyfetti wrote:Ibanez wrote:
Welfare in 1776 didn't mean pay people to not farm or unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Words today do hAve different meanings and uses than the same word did 100+ years ago. Huge difference.
It was intentionally left vague to apply to unforeseen needs in the future according to Hamilton.
It should only be applied strictly ad only according to powers specifically enumerated elsewhere in the Constitution according to Madison.
As I said, the argument about this goes back to the founding of the country.
You take Madison's side. I take Hamilton's side. Neither one of us is wrong... but, Hamilton's argument is the one currently accepted.

I'm well aware of the intent.

Re: Yo...
Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2012 12:11 pm
by AZGrizFan
DSUrocks07 wrote:Ibanez wrote:
Welfare in 1776 didn't mean pay people to not farm or unemployment benefits for 99 weeks. Words today do hAve different meanings and uses than the same word did 100+ years ago. Huge difference.
Why this is considered to be okay escapes me...
Because the top 5% do 50% of the heavy lifting in this country.
