'What have Americans to be thankful for? More than any other people on the earth, we enjoy complete religious freedom, political freedom, social freedom. Our liberties are sacredly safeguarded by the Constitution of the United States , 'the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man.' Yes, we Americans of today have been bequeathed a noble heritage. Let us pray that we may hand it down unsullied to our children and theirs.''
I suggest we sit back and count our blessings for all we have. If we don't, what we have will be taken away. Then we will have to explain to future generations why we squandered such blessing and abundance. If we are not careful this generation will be known as the ''greediest and most ungrateful generation.' ‘A far cry from the proud Americans of the ''greatest generation'' who left us an untarnished legacy.
Instead of "sitting back", I say we keep striving for more freedom!!!! Forbes never had to deal with Bush's policies to take freedom away!
I agree, but the current generation lets itself get caught up in a long series of non-issues while ignoring the real threats to our future. Those real threats are all right here within our borders. So be active, but don't waste time and energy on all of the red herrings offered up by the media.
We need an American public united in a fight to limit our government...
I agree, but the current generation lets itself get caught up in a long series of non-issues while ignoring the real threats to our future. Those real threats are all right here within our borders. So be active, but don't waste time and energy on all of the red herrings offered up by the media.
We need an American public united in a fight to limit our government...
To limit our government to what?
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"When you're dealing with ignorance-you've already lost"
I was tempted to jump in on this one NYBF, but you can say it much more eloquently than I.
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"I waxed the dude."
--Rory Turner, Alabama DB
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime torchlike with the smoking blueness of Pluto's
gloom,
ribbed and torchlike, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness
My friend, I strongly suggest that you read the Constitution. Virtually all political debate today centers around things that have happened because the government has interjected itself into our lives in ways that it is not supposed to be able to do.
Our federal government has a responsibility to protect it citizenry. Aside from a few other basic responsibilities, the rest is left up to the states - and even their authority has tight limits.
Somehow, we have stripped away the limits placed on the federal government. States are now treated much like counties. They have no individual authority. And where they still have some authority, the federal government uses funding to ensure that they follow federal "guidelines, withholding funding when the states don't want to play ball - even though the funding came from citizenry from that state.
This increased government comes at a cost that impacts your wallet and your personal freedom.
The Federal government is a delegated-power Republic which possesses only the comparatively few and limited powers granted to it by the people as enumerated in the United States Constitution, as amended--chiefly the powers concerned with "war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce" (quoting The Federalist, number 45 by Madison. It is in sharpest contrast that each State government is a full-power Republic which possesses the vast and varied powers needed to administer intra-State affairs--"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" (again quoting number 45). The full-power Republic of each State is subject to the State Constitution, as well as to the united States Constitution as the "supreme Law of the Land." Neither the Federal, nor any State, government therefore possesses legal sovereignty--the unlimited power of sovereignty--while the people's political sovereignty is limited in favor of preserving inviolate the God-given, unalienable rights of each Individual.
The Preamble of the United States Constitution specifies "the general Welfare" merely as one of the listed goals to be served by the Federal government in the exercise of the limited powers delegated to it, as enumerated in the body of that instrument. This mention of "the general Welfare" in the Preamble was intended, therefore, to serve in effect as a limit on the use of those delegated powers. The Preamble does not constitute a grant of any power whatever to the government. The only other mention of the words "general welfare" in the Constitution is in the Taxing Clause (Article I, Section 8) which authorizes Congress to collect taxes ". . . to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States . . ." Here, too, the words "general Welfare" were designed to serve as a limitation in effect--as a limit on the power granted under that clause. This excludes any power to tax and spend for all purposes which would not qualify as being for the "general Welfare of the United States" as a whole--for instance, it is excluded if for the benefit merely of a locality or some Individuals in the United States. The clause does not empower Congress to spend tax monies for any and every purpose it might select merely on the pretense, or even in the belief, that it is for the "general welfare." (Discussed also in Pars. 4 and 5 of Principle 11.) Congress possesses no "general legislative authority," as Hamilton stated in The Federalist number 83.
All of those who framed and ratified the Constitution were in agreement on this point of the limited and limiting meaning of the words "general Welfare" in the Taxing Clause. As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton contended for the first time in 1791 ("Opinion as to the Constitutionality of the Bank of the United States") in favor of a broader interpretation of this clause than he had formerly espoused and broader than that which Madison - with Hamilton's silent acquiescence--had presented in 1788 in The Federalist (especially number 41) as reflecting the controlling intent of the Framing Convention, which Madison and Jefferson consistently supported. Hamilton did not claim, however, that this clause gives to the Federal government any power, through taxing-spending, so as in effect to control directly or indirectly anything or anybody, or any activities of the people or of the State governments. Despite his assertion that this clause gives Congress a separate and substantive spending power, Hamilton cautioned expressly (Report on "Manufactures," 1791) that it only authorizes taxing and spending within the limits of what would serve the "general welfare" and does not imply a power to do whatever else should appear to Congress conducive to the "general welfare"--that it does "not carry a power to do any other thing not authorized in the Constitution, either expressly or by fair implication."
A major part of the American philosophy underlying the resistance to the tyranny of king and parliament prior to the Declaration of Independence, and in support of that Declaration in 1776, was as follows. Public officials who exceed the limits of the powers delegated to them by the people under their fundamental law and thus violate, or endanger, the people's God-given, unalienable rights thereby and to this extent make of themselves defaulting trustees, usurpers, oppressors and tyrants. They thereby act outside of this supreme law, which defines these limits and the scope of their authority and office, and therefore act without authority from the people. By thus seceding and violating the restrictions of this law, they act outside of Law: lawlessly, as "out-laws." As Samuel Adams stated: "Let us remember, that 'if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others [Posterity] in our doom'" (Emphasis added.)
My friend, I strongly suggest that you read the Constitution. Virtually all political debate today centers around things that have happened because the government has interjected itself into our lives in ways that it is not supposed to be able to do.
Our federal government has a responsibility to protect it citizenry. Aside from a few other basic responsibilities, the rest is left up to the states - and even their authority has tight limits.
Somehow, we have stripped away the limits placed on the federal government. States are now treated much like counties. They have no individual authority. And where they still have some authority, the federal government uses funding to ensure that they follow federal "guidelines, withholding funding when the states don't want to play ball - even though the funding came from citizenry from that state.
This increased government comes at a cost that impacts your wallet and your personal freedom.
You're starting to sound like a member of the Constitution Party!
You're starting to sound like a member of the Constitution Party!
I am torn between the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. If either put forward a real candidate, I would jump in with both feet. I had hoped that Fred Thompson might run for one of these parties...
I am torn between the Constitution and Libertarian Parties. If either put forward a real candidate, I would jump in with both feet. I had hoped that Fred Thompson might run for one of these parties...
I was hoping Tancredo and Paul would leave the GOP for the Constitution Party.
My friend, I strongly suggest that you read the Constitution. Virtually all political debate today centers around things that have happened because the government has interjected itself into our lives in ways that it is not supposed to be able to do.
Our federal government has a responsibility to protect it citizenry. Aside from a few other basic responsibilities, the rest is left up to the states - and even their authority has tight limits.
Somehow, we have stripped away the limits placed on the federal government. States are now treated much like counties. They have no individual authority. And where they still have some authority, the federal government uses funding to ensure that they follow federal "guidelines, withholding funding when the states don't want to play ball - even though the funding came from citizenry from that state.
This increased government comes at a cost that impacts your wallet and your personal freedom.
Isn't it a shame that this civics lesson is so novel to many people?
__________________
Bodhi
Bye bye, Daddy. Drive carefully. Watch out for monsters and roboks. - Lily (age 2)
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April 1st, 2007, 10:29 AM
