The "general welfare," the phrase most usually seized upon by social-welfare-fascists to justify their incursions on freedom, has only one conceivable meaning: the defense of all rights to life, liberty and property. Once you try to interpret the phrase as a license to invade any individual's rights, or the rights of any group of individuals however defined, for the benefit of some other group, be it larger or smaller, you have excluded the victimized group from the "general welfare."
Not one of the Framers would have approved of any of the things you appear to want to justify, except that Jefferson would have approved of government-run schools. (All right, the man was a genius, but he was wrong now and then, too.) An income tax? Zoning? Laws that dictate who may sell what, and what standards it must meet? Not a chance. Those were the precise things they rebelled against England for imposing upon them.
You don't think so? Look it up. Look up the Pine Tree Act. Look up the various acts that forbade Americans to trade with non-English firms on any basis. As for government-run schools, all but Jefferson would have shied back in horror, noting immediately that no other conceivable organ of State propaganda could possibly be as effective at producing docile and submissive subjects as a State school.
Let's have an end to this "general welfare" BS. There are only individuals and their rights. Trample anyone's rights -- which do NOT include a right to anything that belongs to any other man, nor a right to anything that someone else must produce for him -- and you lose the entire point of the American Constitutional enterprise.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
BWAHAHAHAA
Thanks for the laugh.
And wonderful insight also, that anyone [like Jefferson] that
disagrees with your purported vast knowledge of our
forefather's intent, is an idiot. [palace of reason....hahaha]
Rather than purported, it is perverted; twisted, your assumption
that the requiring of standards of quality should be deemed
"unconstitutional". I would agree [as I stated], that there has been
an exaggeration of the intent, but the basis is on solid ground.
I said:
"..It's the exaggeration of the intent; the providing of certain "benefits"
that do not truly of benefit all citizens. It is the providing of certain
services that are not promoting the general welfare, but only the
bank accounts of those distributing those "benefits" [ala' Joe Kennedy
and Mass Oil], that we lose sight of our Constitution's intent....."
You apparently missed that?
And this continual denouncing of the concept of public schooling;
the concept that all public schools conform to universal standards
of required study to provide each American child with an equal
opportunity to succeed, is ludicrous. It serves only to give
"conservatives" the appearance of being self-serving and careless
of concern for this Nation's future.
No child or person should be given benefit over another and
neither should be denied benefit. To demand universal and
conformed educational process of our public schooling, is the
correct action; you are free to pay for any other private education
you may prefer.
And there should be the teaching of Constitutional rights in
our schools. If that includes the teaching of the wrongness
of prejudicial attitudes, it is conforming closer to the teaching
of the Constitutional rights of others, than your idea of what
should be taught.
Thanks.