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providing can include promoting, but promoting does not imply providing. You are jumping to an inference which does not exist. The common defense is a specific duty and power of the federal government, not the health care of the people.
You should read the ratification debates, the federalist/anti-federalist papers so that you can actually understand what the purpose of the federal government is. Your expectation is not in line with what the powers of the federal government are.
Please join the other Constitutional law experts and read my comment #39, keeping in mind, this is not my own version of the law or reality. The ACA has been constitutionally "vetted" by legal experts even better versed in these matters than those commenting in this thread, if you can believe that too!?!
The proper powers of the federal government are specific and enumerated. Health care ain't one of them.
But neither is health care prohibited from becoming an interest of the federal government if the voters ask it to be involved.
You can't find nuclear power plant regulation or dam regulation or interstate highways or pharmaceutical regulation in the constitution either. So what?
the people through their elected representatives to provide a system of health care through the federal government
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare,
Promote the general Welfare
Article 1 section 8
Welfare is not public assistance. It means common well being, not overall care from cradle to grave.
For contagious continuous harm, to the population traveling to more than one state. (The Plague, Small Pox...etc.)
For answers, however, we need look no further than the farewell address of our first President, George Washington, who, in reference to our constitution, warned,
"Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield."
Change in the constitution by usurpation? When did that happen? It happened in 1937!
Few americans realize that up until 1937 the Congress of the United States conducted its business within the boundaries of seventeen enumerated powers granted under Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution, these powers defined clearly the areas of national purposes over which Congress could enact legislation including the allocation of funds and levying of taxes. Anything not set down in the enumerated powers was considered outside the purview of the national government and hence, a matter for the states. There were occasional challenges to the concept but it was not until Franklin Roosevelt's new deal that it was attacked in deadly earnestness.
Understood, and as I also commented about what the preamble is and/or is not...
The preamble is fairly well accepted to be "reliable evidence of, the Founding Fathers' intentions..." as I also already commented. As such the ACA, for example, seems to fall within the broad range of what the founding fathers intended to be our "fundamental purposes and guiding principles."
True, yes, the preamble does not state specifics, "nor enlarge the powers confided to the general government," and I would not point to the preamble for absolute legal justification the ACA is constitutional. However, if the idea might be to consider the ACA in light of the founding father's intentions, as perhaps the OP was/is doing, seems to me the preamble and the ACA are not in conflict, nor in conflict with the constitution (as also already determined).
I read the OP as stating 'the Preamble provides for healthcare', not what you are indicating.
I can't stand the ACA but it's not unconstitutional. It's just bad legislation.
I read the OP as stating 'the Preamble provides for healthcare', not what you are indicating.
I can't stand the ACA but it's not unconstitutional. It's just bad legislation.
Where in the constitution, does it say, the federal government can govern the people directly. I know it is in there someplace. I just cannot find it???
Where in the constitution, does it say, the federal government can govern the people directly. I know it is in there someplace. I just cannot find it???
But neither is health care prohibited from becoming an interest of the federal government if the voters ask it to be involved.
You can't find nuclear power plant regulation or dam regulation or interstate highways or pharmaceutical regulation in the constitution either. So what?
So regulatory agencies are unconstitutional. They are bureaucracies run by unelected bureaucrats who have no obligations to Congress. THAT'S WHAT!
Welfare is not public assistance. It means common well being, not overall care from cradle to grave.
For contagious continuous harm, to the population traveling to more than one state. (The Plague, Small Pox...etc.)
For answers, however, we need look no further than the farewell address of our first President, George Washington, who, in reference to our constitution, warned,
"Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield."
Change in the constitution by usurpation? When did that happen? It happened in 1937!
Few americans realize that up until 1937 the Congress of the United States conducted its business within the boundaries of seventeen enumerated powers granted under Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution, these powers defined clearly the areas of national purposes over which Congress could enact legislation including the allocation of funds and levying of taxes. Anything not set down in the enumerated powers was considered outside the purview of the national government and hence, a matter for the states. There were occasional challenges to the concept but it was not until Franklin Roosevelt's new deal that it was attacked in deadly earnestness.
1937???
How do folks who think like you and make arguments like these reconcile what Washington said with Article I, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution of 1787, and all the changes made necessary in similar fashion?
Change can either be for better or worse. Not to judge accordingly is backward thinking or no thinking at all.
I'm more inclined to keep in mind what Jefferson explained, already quoted earlier today...
"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions, I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know, also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times."
"We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.
Not that such argument can make a difference to the mind closed to counter reason...
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