[Old Teufel Hunden]

Did you read the rest of my post or just stop at when I cited the promotion of the general welfare clause? I went on to explain what that means. The federal government certainly has a vested interest in whether it’s citizens are healthy. That does not mean (as I stated in my previous post) that they should be devoting money or enforcement authority to attain this goal. It means they should “promote” it, by informing the public about it and raising awareness. That’s what I see Bill Frist doing here, advocating for a healthy lifestyle and raising awareness to the serious consequences of not doing it (children being too fat to join the military). Besides, he’s not even in the government anymore, but a private citizen.

[aruanan]

Did you read the rest of my post or just stop at when I cited the promotion of the general welfare clause?

Of course, I read it. I was taking the opportunity afforded by your mentioning the general welfare clause to point out 1. that it's been abused by utopian statists and venal politicians for many, many years, to promote unconstitutional programs, and 2. that the instrument for promoting the general welfare is the Constitution itself with its limits on the federal government. This is a point that it seems most people don't get, especially statist Democrats. Remember a while ago people asking folks in Congress what the limits were to their power and they said there were none and also what in the Constitution gave them the authority to enact Obamacare and they referred to the general welfare clause, as though that was sufficient to ignore the limits put on the federal government by the Constitution?