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Old 02-24-2017, 11:33 AM
 
Location: The Republic of Texas
78,866 posts, read 46,361,426 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NxtGen View Post
is not authorized anywhere in the constitution and only through word smithing and devious manipulation can such be claimed. That is kind of the point of this entire thread.

Yes... Yes it is.
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Old 02-24-2017, 11:44 AM
 
Location: Haiku
7,132 posts, read 4,733,005 times
Reputation: 10327
Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow View Post
I see the word "promote".

I do not see the word "provide" and no references that can be remotely interpreted as "provide"

So, how does the federal government come to provide so much for so many, without authorization?
The Constitution is a framework for how the US government works. In particular the Enumerated Powers and the Necessary and Proper Clauses give Congress the authority to pass laws in a variety of areas.

I am not sure why you are bringing this up as it has been litigated many times in the Supreme Court and basically Congress is doing exactly what SCOTUS has determined it is authorized to do by the above clauses of the Constitution. You can argue all you want about how it should be something else but the fact is, SCOTUS is the final arbiter and they have spoken loud and clear on the issue, many times.
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Old 02-24-2017, 11:46 AM
 
1,478 posts, read 782,364 times
Reputation: 561
One thing is for sure, if they cut welfare for women there will be a massive readjustment in the sexual and romantic lives of women. Right now they screw 3 or 5 men that have no jobs but street hustle for a little bit of change. Because that is culturally cooler than dating or marrying a plumber. And welfare and legalized abortion give them incentive to do whatever they want sexually with little to no consequences.

If welfare were eliminated I would bet male plumbers would look a lot more cool than they do know.
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Old 02-24-2017, 12:33 PM
 
4,279 posts, read 1,889,032 times
Reputation: 1266
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoByFour View Post
The Constitution is a framework for how the US government works. In particular the Enumerated Powers and the Necessary and Proper Clauses give Congress the authority to pass laws in a variety of areas.

I am not sure why you are bringing this up as it has been litigated many times in the Supreme Court and basically Congress is doing exactly what SCOTUS has determined it is authorized to do by the above clauses of the Constitution. You can argue all you want about how it should be something else but the fact is, SCOTUS is the final arbiter and they have spoken loud and clear on the issue, many times.
SCOTUS is in contempt of its duties. It has ruled far too many times against its own duties of interpreting the constitution as the founders originally intended. what is infuriating is that they have even admitted this numerous times in their judgments and defiantly have claimed that they, a single branch of our government can solely legislate meaning as they see fit based on the changing opinions of the people according to the interpretation they see as appropriate for the time.

SCOTUS has essentially crowned itself the ruling body over the people and this is absolutely not the role to which it was given in the design of a three branch checks and balances system. They have over stepped their authority far too many times and to be honest, most of them should have been impeached already if we had a legislative branch who was doing its job.
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Old 02-24-2017, 02:56 PM
 
10,920 posts, read 6,863,809 times
Reputation: 4942
Quote:
Originally Posted by TwoByFour View Post
The Constitution is a framework for how the US government works. In particular the Enumerated Powers and the Necessary and Proper Clauses give Congress the authority to pass laws in a variety of areas.

I am not sure why you are bringing this up as it has been litigated many times in the Supreme Court and basically Congress is doing exactly what SCOTUS has determined it is authorized to do by the above clauses of the Constitution. You can argue all you want about how it should be something else but the fact is, SCOTUS is the final arbiter and they have spoken loud and clear on the issue, many times.
Indeed, it has been heard many times in our country's history. I realize some people (likely the OP and others in here) disagree with those decisions, but these decisions have created an immense amount of precedence:

Cornell University Law School: CRS Annotated Constitution SPENDING FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE
Quote:
Finally, in United States v. Butler,543 the Court gave its unqualified endorsement to Hamilton’s views on the taxing power. Wrote Justice Roberts for the Court: “Since the foundation of the Nation sharp differences of opinion have persisted as to the true interpretation of the phrase. Madison asserted it amounted to no more than a reference to the other powers enumerated in the subsequent clauses of the same section; that, as the United States is a government of limited and enumerated powers, the grant of[p.155]power to tax and spend for the general national welfare must be confined to the numerated legislative fields committed to the Congress. In this view the phrase is mere tautology, for taxation and appropriation are or may be necessary incidents of the exercise of any of the enumerated legislative powers. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintained the clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated, is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Each contention has had the support of those whose views are entitled to weight. This court had noticed the question, but has never found it necessary to decide which is the true construction. Justice Story, in his Commentaries, espouses the Hamiltonian position. We shall not review the writings of public men and commentators or discuss the legislative practice. Study of all these leads us to conclude that the reading advocated by Justice Story is the correct one. While, therefore, the power to tax is not unlimited, its confines are set in the clause which confers it, and not in those of Sec. 8 which bestow and define the legislative powers of the Congress. It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.â€

Another important case was Helvering vs. Davis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvering_v._Davis
Quote:
Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court, which held that Social Security was constitutionally permissible as an exercise of the federal power to spend for the general welfare, and did not contravene the 10th Amendment. The Court's 7-2 decision defended the constitutionality of the Social Security Act of 1935, requiring only that welfare spending be for the common benefit as distinguished from some mere local purpose
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Congress may spend money in aid of the 'general welfare'... There have been great statesmen in our history who have stood for other views... The line must still be drawn between one welfare and another, between particular and general. Where this shall be placed cannot be known through a formula in advance of the event... The discretion belongs to Congress, unless the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power, not an exercise of judgment. This is now familiar law....
More on the actual ruling: Cornell University Law Case history Helvering v. Davis





As well, it is revisionist history to posit that the founders had no disagreement on these matters - or to that end, that there is a single clear "true" meaning or intent to the document.

Cornell University Law School: CRS Annotated Constitution SPENDING FOR THE GENERAL WELFARE
Quote:
The grant of power to “provide . . . for the general welfare†raises a two–fold question: How may Congress provide for “the general welfare†and what is “the general welfare†that it is authorized to promote? The first half of this question was answered by Thomas Jefferson in his opinion on the Bank as follows: “[T]he laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.â€531 The clause, in short, is not an independent grant of power, but a qualification of the taxing power. Although a broader view has been occasionally asserted,532 Congress has not acted upon it and the Court has had no occasion to adjudicate the point.
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With respect to the meaning of “the general welfare†the pages of The Federalist itself disclose a sharp divergence of views between its two principal authors. Hamilton adopted the literal, broad meaning of the clause;533 Madison contended that the powers of taxation and appropriation of the proposed government should be regarded as merely instrumental to its remaining powers, in other words, as little more than a power of self–support.534 From an early date Congress has acted upon the interpretation espoused by Hamilton. Appropriations for subsidies535 and for an ever increasing variety of “internal improvementsâ€536 constructed by the Federal Government, had their beginnings in the administrations of Washington and Jefferson.537 Since 1914, federal grants– in–aid, sums of money apportioned among the States for particular uses, often conditioned upon the duplication of the sums by the recipient State, and upon observance of stipulated restrictions as to its use, have become commonplace.


More on there be no true meaning or intent (particularly in relation to "Constitutionalism"):
The Atlantic: Constitutional Myth #1: The Right Is 'Originalist,' Everyone Else Is 'Idiotic' (author Garrett Eppsis an American legal scholar, novelist, and journalist. He is professor of law at the University of Baltimore; previously he was the Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor of Law at the University of Oregon)
Quote:
Politifact Georgia reports that pizza magnate Herman Cain told the audience at an Atlanta rally to read the Constitution, explaining that "for the benefit for those that are not going to read it because they don't want us to go by the Constitution, there's a little section in there that talks about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ... When you get to the part about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, don't stop right there, keep reading. 'Cause that's when it says that when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it. We've got some altering and some abolishing to do."

This quote neatly illustrates two pathologies of 21st-century "constitutionalism."

First, many of these patriots love the Constitution too much to actually read it (in case you were wondering, the language Cain is quoting is from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution). Second, they love the Constitution so much they want to "alter or abolish" it to make sure it matches the myth in their heads. Those myths are a problem.
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In a 2006 speech in Puerto Rico, Justice Antonin Scalia explained why conservatives are the only ones who actually believe in the Constitution. Progressives, he said, believe in "the argument of flexibility," which "goes something like this: The Constitution is over 200 years old and societies change. It has to change with society, like a living organism, or it will become brittle and break. But you would have to be an idiot to believe that. The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something, and doesn't say other things."
Quote:
The idea of a "living constitution" is useful because it lets right-wingers like Scalia pose as principled advocates and ridicule anyone who disagrees with his narrow ideas as an idiot. But if one side of a debate gets to define what the other side supposedly believes, it's no big trick to win the argument.

The argument is a classic bait-and-switch. It begins with the claim that the Constitution has a definite, fixed meaning. We must apply that meaning and only that meaning, or we are "changing" the Constitution. But then it turns out that the words themselves aren't clear. Then we learn that their meaning isn't what's written in the Constitution's text; it is actually somewhere else. The words on the page have to be interpreted, and they are to be interpreted in a secret way that conservatives "know" because they have looked it up in the Big History Book. If we do not accept their claims about what the words "really" mean, we are "changing" what is written on the page, trying to "amend" it on the sly.

(In fact, to hardcore conservative "originalists," not even amendments can change the "original meaning" of the Constitution. Not long ago, I published an essay in which I said that the Constitution "has become more democratic and egalitarian" since 1787. An indignant reader wrote and said that the democratic changes I was writing about had occurred "without amendment" and were thus illegitimate. I replied that the changes I was writing about were in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Third, and Twenty-Fourth Amendments, which had expanded individual rights, augmented the power of Congress to protect those rights while cutting back on state authority to limit them, made the Senate a popularly elected body, and expanded the right to vote to cover racial minorities, women, young people, and those who cannot pay a state "poll tax."
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Justice Scalia himself is a proud practitioner of this dark art. It's on display in his concurrence in the 2009 case of Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which held that the First Amendment bars any restrictions on independent campaign expenditures by profit-making corporations. Justice John Paul Stevens, in his dissent, had questioned the majority's radical ruling on "originalist" grounds. Private corporations were relatively new at the time of the framing of the First Amendment, Stevens noted, and many of the Framers were profoundly suspicious of the corporate form. Can we say that they "intended" Chevron to be able to flood the political process with electioneering messages?

Scalia brushed this aside in the same huffy tones my correspondent used to dismiss seven constitutional amendments. The Framers opposed corporations because they were associated with monopoly, Scalia explained. "Modern corporations do not have such privileges, and would probably have been favored by most of our enterprising Founders--excluding, perhaps, Thomas Jefferson and others favoring perpetuation of an agrarian society."
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All conscientious judges, of whatever philosophy, are trying to apply the words of the Constitution. But almost no serious constitutional question involves precise, unambiguous words. The Constitution says that the president has to be 35 years old, for example; no one I am aware of has ever challenged that rule by arguing that since 50 is the new 30, the president should now have to be at least 55.
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Americans of all stripes do exactly this every day with terms like "due process" or "commerce ... among the several states." Like "natural-born citizen," those terms were ambiguous when written, and they are ambiguous today. The job of constitutional interpretation is to apply them to the changing facts of American government and society. Is health insurance "commerce ... among the several states"? The Framers wouldn't have said "yes" or "no"; they would have said, "What is health insurance?"

If you think that answer means that "commerce" today doesn't extend to health insurance, you aren't supporting a "living Constitution"--you are describing a dead society, whose fundamental law cannot be applied to the facts of our national life.

When they are in favor of warrantless wiretaps or "enemy-combatant" detentions, many conservatives like to explain that the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Maybe not. But it's not a killing jar either, designed to freeze society in an eighteenth-century mold. It is a set of general rules which we, the living, must apply, in a fully textual sense, to unforeseen specific cases.



I also found these other two writings by Garrett Epps pertinent to this discussion:

The Atlantic: Constitutional Myth #2: The 'Purpose' of the Constitution Is to Limit Congress (author Garrett Eppsis an American legal scholar, novelist, and journalist. He is professor of law at the University of Baltimore; previously he was the Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor of Law at the University of Oregon)
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"The Constitution was written explicitly for one purpose -- to restrain the federal government," Rep. Ron Paul said in 2008.
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Dr. Paul is a likeable and honest person, but he knows as much about the Constitution as I do about obstetrics--the difference being that I don't try to instruct the nation on how to deliver babies.
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If this is true, it's the kind of truth that comes to us only from divine revelation--because it sure doesn't appear in the text of the Constitution or the history of its framing. Historically, in fact, it's ludicrously anachronistic, like claiming that the telescope was invented in 1608 so that people could watch Apollo 13 land on the moon. There was no federal government to speak of in 1787. "Congress" was a feckless, ludicrous farce. The concern that brought delegates to Philadelphia was that, under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was too weak. Many of the Framers were close to panic because the Confederation Congress was unable to levy taxes, pay the nation's debts, live up to its treaty obligations, regulate commerce, or restrain the greedy, predatory state governments. The Union seemed on the verge of splitting into tiny republics, which would quickly be recolonized by Britain, France, or Spain.

As early as 1780, Alexander Hamilton (one of the authors of The Federalist) wrote to James Duane that "[t]he fundamental defect [in the Articles of Confederation] is a want of power in Congress. It is hardly worth while to show in what this consists, as it seems to be universally acknowledged, or to point out how it has happened, as the only question is how to remedy it."

In April 1787, James Madison, second author of The Federalist, wrote to George Washington his aim for a new Constitution: "The national government should be armed with positive and compleat authority in all cases which require uniformity." (Madison also wanted a rule that no state law could take effect until Congress explicitly approved it.)

Shortly before, Washington had written to John Jay, "I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several States." Jay, third author of The Federalist, made clear to Washington his own view: "What Powers should be granted to the Government so constituted is a Question which deserves much Thought--I think the more the better--the States retaining only so much as may be necessary for domestic Purposes; and all their principal Officers civil and military being commissioned and removeable by the national Governmt." (Note the last part: State executives would be appointed by the federal government.)

As for the Constitution's text, if it was "intended" to limit the federal government, it sure doesn't say so. Article I § 8, a Homeric catalog of Congressional power, is the longest and most detailed in the Constitution. It includes the "Necessary and Proper" Clause, which delegates to Congress the power "to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."

The Framers' main plan for preventing overreach by the federal government lay not in coded restrictions on Congress's powers but in the Constitution's political structure. This is what George Washington meant when he expressed hope that "a liberal, and energetic Constitution, well guarded & closely watched, to prevent incroachments, might restore us to that degree of respectability & consequence, to which we had a fair claim, & the brightest prospect of attaining."
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The idea was that a bicameral legislature, an independent executive with the power of veto, and a separation between legislative and judicial power would channel Congress's broad powers into constructive channels. State governments would advocate effectively for their own interests both in Congress and with the people. That's a very different vision than the current right-wing claim that the Constitution contains between-the-lines "thou shalt nots" placing various areas off limits to regulation.

The far-right argument has the seductive power of any half-truth. Of course there are limits on Congress's power--they are located in Article I § 9: Congress, for example, can't pass a "bill of attainder," tax exports, or grant titles of nobility. In addition, the Bill of Rights explicitly prevents Congress from limiting freedom of speech, "the right to bear arms," trial by jury and so forth. But conservatives mean something different: What they mean is that if something isn't written down in the Constitution in so many words, the "intent" of the Framers was to keep Congress from doing it. If Congress wasn't doing it before 1787, it can't do it now.
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The error about the purpose of the Constitution explains the curiously two-faced nature of far-right "constitutionalism." On the one hand, they insist that they love the Constitution more than life itself; on the other, they keep trying to sneak amendments into it to strip Congress of power over the budget or allow state legislatures to repeal federal laws. The Constitution they claim to revere actually looks a lot like the Articles of Confederation.


The Atlantic: Constitutional Myth #7: The 10th Amendment Protects 'States' Rights' (author Garrett Eppsis an American legal scholar, novelist, and journalist. He is professor of law at the University of Baltimore; previously he was the Orlando J. and Marian H. Hollis Professor of Law at the University of Oregon)
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Not long before he was sworn in as a new member of the Senate, Tea Party favorite Mike Lee gave a speech in Draper, Utah, about the horrors of federal legislation in the Progressive Era.
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Lee is a "Tenther," part of a new extremist movement that seeks to brand all major federal legislation -- not only labor regulation, but environmental laws, gun control laws, and Social Security and Medicare -- as violations of the "rights" of states as supposedly spelled out in the Tenth Amendment. Senator Jim DeMint last year phrased it this way: "the Tenth Amendment says powers not explicitly given to the federal government in the Constitution go to the states or to the people."

Is he right? Let's look at the text, which reads, in its entirety:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Notice that DeMint, like a lot of "Tenthers," managed to sneak a word in that the Framers didn't write.

The word is "explicitly." Nothing in the Tenth Amendment says that powers -- such as power to regulate child labor as part of commerce, for example -- must be explicitly or expressly given to the federal government. Compare the language of the Articles of Confederation:

"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."

When the First Congress adapted this repealed provision as an amendment to the new Constitution, a few important words didn't make the cut. The Articles were familiar to every member of the First Congress. It seems hard to believe that they meant to copy the language but accidentally left some of it out.

What does the omission of the word "expressly" suggest?

Since the Amendment was adopted, constitutional thinkers have concluded that the express powers delegated to the federal government by the Constitution necessarily carry with them the "implied" powers needed to carry them out.

If "implied power" sounds like tricky lawyer talk, ask yourself the following question: Is the American flag unconstitutional? The Constitution doesn't make any reference to a national flag. By the "express" argument, states and only states would retain what we might call "the flag power." The U.S. Army would have to march under a congeries of the fifty state flags, depending on the origin of each unit. That would be cumbersome, confusing, and dangerous -- and more to the point, stupid. Congress can "raise and support armies." A country that has an explicit power to raise an army has the implied power to designate a flag. Nobody seriously reads a Constitution any other way.

Conservatives don't when it's a power they want the government to have. And James Madison didn't either. Madison was the sponsor of the proposed Bill of Rights in Congress. When Representative Thomas Tucker of South Carolina moved to insert the word "expressly" into what became the Tenth Amendment, Madison (in an eyewitness account reprinted in The Complete Bill of Rights, edited by Neil Cogan) "[o]bjected to this amendment, because it was impossible to confine a government to the exercise of express powers, there must necessarily be admitted powers by implication, unless the constitution descended to recount every minutiae. He [Madison] remembered the word 'expressly' had been moved in the convention of Virginia, by the opponents to the ratification, and after full and fair discussion was given up by them, and the system allowed to retain its present form." Tucker's amendment was voted down.
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"Constitutionalists" who try to smuggle the word back into the Constitution aren't being faithful to the document; they are rewriting it. (They also try to smuggle the ideas of state "rights" and state "sovereignty" back in. In fact, many proud "constitutionalists" these days seem to me to bear primary allegiance to the Articles of Confederation, not this new-fangled Madison thing.)

The best way to read the Tenth Amendment we actually have is that its words mean what they say, and not what they don't say. The Constitution grants Congress all the implied powers "necessary and proper" to using its enumerated powers.

By and large, there is no "clean division" between states and federal government in the Constitution we have. Of course the Constitution guarantees a role for the states. Some powers are given exclusively to the federal government, and cannot be shared, such as the power to conduct war and negotiate peace, regulate currency and emit bills of credit, or set the discipline of the armed forces and state militias. Some powers are given to the states, and can't be taken by the federal government, including the power to designate state capitals, adopt state constitutions, draw the political boundaries of cities and towns, choose the officers of their state militias. Many powers are explicitly denied to the states -- for example, they can't even negotiate agreements among themselves without Congress's permission. Some are expressly denied to the federal government -- the power to set criminal venue in states where the crimes did not occur, for example.

The rest -- the powers that aren't given explicitly and exclusively to one government or the other -- belong to the people. The people are the holders of "rights"; they are the holders of "sovereignty." And, being sovereign, the people can insist that powers be shared by the states and the federal government, relying on the political process, and on their own supremacy as expressed in presidential and congressional election, to police the boundaries.
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Old 02-24-2017, 03:28 PM
 
3,570 posts, read 2,502,753 times
Reputation: 2290
Quote:
Originally Posted by KS_Referee View Post
I have said this repeatedly and it still falls on leftist's deaf ears (eyes).



James Madison (known as the Father of the Constitution because he wrote most of it) said,


That quote is recorded in the official Congressional Record.
That's a pretty poor, out of context use of the quote. Madison was saying Congress can't tax and spend the funds taxed on French refugees from Haiti. He was making an argument against a bill. This is quite clearly not meant to show that you can't tax people under the Constitution. Indeed, the Constitution quite clearly grants Congress the power to tax.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow View Post
""in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,""

Provide defense
Provide general welfare. No it says promote, not provide.

When the 2 words are used in the same sentence, they cannot mean the same as many want it to mean.

The Federal Government is not authorized to do what they do, with forcefully taken money from the people.


This is the same as the left wanting people, person and individual, to mean citizen, citizens, or resident.
Umm . . . you seemed to have missed this: Article I, section 8, first clause, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."

Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow View Post
You just didn't want to hear it.

Providing welfare is called public assistance.

Promoting the General Welfare, is in the form of using the 1st amendment to convey what in their opinion is best. No one is forced to pay for things they don't need, want, and many cases could actually harm them(Obamacare, is a great example).
The 1st Amendment is not what you seem to think it is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by BentBow View Post
Trying my hardest to wrap my head around that. That makes no sense.
It says "will be", eh? what if you do not consent? Does he/she still represent you? Do you have a choice? Will be, says I will not have a choice. Do I have a choice? If I have a liberty of choice, they are promoting, if I don't and oppressed of my liberty to choose, they are mandating provision.

Actions and words are very different.
Formally, you can choose to represent yourself. Typically criminal courts will ensure that an attorney is present in case you realize that you've screwed up and want someone to represent you.
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Old 02-24-2017, 04:55 PM
 
Location: Planet earth
3,617 posts, read 1,810,206 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HockeyMac18 View Post
Indeed, it has been heard many times in our country's history. I realize some people (likely the OP and others in here) disagree with those decisions, but these decisions have created an immense amount of precedence:
The courts, including the United States Supreme Court were never given the enumerated power to alter the US Constitution. As a matter of fact, the Constitution only authorizes a single way for it to be changed, and that way is by amendment as is written in:

Quote:
Article 5 - Amendment
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
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Old 02-24-2017, 05:01 PM
 
Location: Planet earth
3,617 posts, read 1,810,206 times
Reputation: 1258
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheCityTheBridge View Post
That's a pretty poor, out of context use of the quote. Madison was saying Congress can't tax and spend the funds taxed on French refugees from Haiti. He was making an argument against a bill. This is quite clearly not meant to show that you can't tax people under the Constitution. Indeed, the Constitution quite clearly grants Congress the power to tax.



Umm . . . you seemed to have missed this: Article I, section 8, first clause, "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."



The 1st Amendment is not what you seem to think it is.



Formally, you can choose to represent yourself. Typically criminal courts will ensure that an attorney is present in case you realize that you've screwed up and want someone to represent you.


Am I taking ALL of these founding fathers quotes out of context? Surely not.

By the way, Madison specifically said, "...on objects of benevolence,..." Exactly what is benevolence if NOT charity?



James Madison (known as the Father of the Constitution because he wrote most of it) said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

“A wise and frugal government… shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.” — Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“A people… who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.” – George Washington

“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.” – James Madison, Essay on Property, 1792

“Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good.” – John Adams

“To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and ‘Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” — John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Beware the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry.” – Thomas Paine

“If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.” – Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, November 29, 1802

“All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from a want of honor or virtue so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.” – John Adams, at the Constitutional Convention (1787)

“The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.” – John Adams, 1765

“If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash.” – George Washington

“I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.” – Thomas Jefferson

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” — Benjamin Franklin
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Old 02-24-2017, 05:02 PM
 
4,279 posts, read 1,889,032 times
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Originally Posted by KS_Referee View Post
The courts, including the United States Supreme Court were never given the enumerated power to alter the US Constitution. As a matter of fact, the Constitution only authorizes a single way for it to be changed, and that way is by amendment as is written in:
BINGO!!!

Using SCOTUS to alter the form of our government is not by mistake, they darn well know what they were doing. Every one of them should have been impeached for their violations.
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Old 02-24-2017, 05:03 PM
 
10,920 posts, read 6,863,809 times
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Originally Posted by KS_Referee View Post
The courts, including the United States Supreme Court were never given the enumerated power to alter the US Constitution. As a matter of fact, the Constitution only authorizes a single way for it to be changed, and that way is by amendment as is written in:
When did the courts alter the US Constitution?
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