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I agree that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But that point is Consitutionally irrelevant. For one thing, no one has ever suggested that the Constitution requires anyone to commit suicide, nor is any such policy being suggested.

But more importantly, the Constitution is not a contract where citizens cede their inalienable rights to the government. Instead, the Constitution is a grant of limited and specifically enumerated power to the Federal government. The Constitution does not exist to specify what rights the government grants to individuals. It exists to limit the power of government within specified bounds. Nowhere does the Constitution grant the government many of the powers that it now claims to exercise by right.

As for the "general welfare" and "necessary and proper" clauses, it is not logically possible for them to mean what many seem to think they do. To be granted the general power to do whatever may be "necessary and proper," and in the "general welfare," is to be given absolutely unlimited power. Almost anything can be claimed to be in the general welfare, and almost anything may be "necessary and proper" in order to accomplish some Consitutionally-sanctioned goal. Or at least, government officials will so argue, and expect the courts to defer to their discretion in the matter. Clearly, to hold that either of these clauses justifies any government action that violates the inalienable rights of individuals makes the Bill of Rights meaniningless. And to hold that either clause grants any power not specifically enumerated makes the enumeration of those powers pointless.

The only fair way to interpret those clauses is that they grant the government the same power to act that any private individual would have. In other words, they empower the government to do whatever is necessary in order to fulfill its Constitutionally-mandated powers, provided a private individual would have the right to do those things. These clauses give the government the power to buy and sell property, enter into contracts, drive vehicles down the street, erect buildings, open and maintain bank accounts, and all the other everyday actions that any private person would have the right to do, without any explicit enumeration of those powers in the Constitution. The point to the enumerated powers is that they involve actions which would not be rightful for a private individual to perform without the consent of everyone affected. The point to the clauses in question is that they make it unnecessary to explicitly enumerate every action which the government may rightfully perform.