IMHO, there are no better explanations and clarifications on this question from the men who framed our documents of liberty than this from Madison and those provided by MosesKnows in Post #11 from Thomas Jefferson.
Blackbart.223 also has made an apt observation: "You don't throw off one yoke to assume another."
The Founders' 'world view' included an honest assessment of human nature, especially the human tendency to abuse power, delegated or assumed. They recognized their own imperfection, as well as that of those they would elect to represent them under the new Constitution's provisions. For that reason, they explicitly wrote a "people's" Constitution limiting, dividing, separating, checking and balancing those powers. As an added protection, they made "the People's" Constitution amendable only by the Constitution's own provision in Article V--requiring "the People's" participation in any changes to be made. No Constitutional Amendment, authorized under Article V, has been passed to expand the definition of "general welfare."
Was the Founders' understanding of human nature correct? Over time, have those entrusted with power abused that power?
Given Madison's and Jefferson's explanation, was any subsequent abuse of power because of a lack of clear explanation by the brave revolutionaries whose passion was liberty?
Clearly, those who wished to expand the powers of government for their own political purposes have been disingenious in their pretense that the Founders intended for one set of imperfect people in the society to possess the power to make and pass laws to "take" the earnings of the likewise imperfect people they represent under the guise of "helping" another set of people--all a simple vote-buying scam designed to accumulate even more power to themselves!
"The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of property] and a community of goods [common ownership] are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional. - Samuel Adams
"Our Ageless Constitution", a 1987 Volume which was recently reprinted and is available here contains an essay on Pages 110-116, entitled "Limited Spending and Taxing Powers and 'Small, Frugal Government' (Jefferson). In that comprehensive essay, constitutional scholars trace the 200-year departure from the principle intended to secure liberty and prevent the kinds of runaway taxing and spending by which the current Administration, and those preceding it, have been and are enslaving future generations.
Outstanding.
Yet, this is the liberal/communist canard: nothing means what we say it means unless it means what we say it to mean. That we gave them our children without a fight and as a convenience is too much to believe
Very well said. What gives anyone the right to step on me simply because he was voted in to preform a specified job? Presidents are not Gods. Anyone in the house and senate don't fit the job descripion either.