Stupid or subversive?

[flaja]

I'm a conservative no libertarian. In order to save space and time I gave you a reasonable answer. Here's the list of federal agencies: http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All_Agencies/index.shtml

Let's go to the first one: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/

How is the ACF enumerated? It isn't.

It is not enumerated, but it is implied.

Congress has the power to levy taxes and borrow money to pay “for the common defense and general welfare of the United States”. Therefore, it is necessary and proper (as per article I) for Congress to appropriate money to provide for the welfare of children when doing so is necessary and proper to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

You can argue over whether nor not a government action helps or hinders the general welfare of the United States, but you cannot legitimately argue that the federal government does not have the Constitutional power to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

 

[DamnYankee]

Except that the United States had nearly universal manhood suffrage for white men (with or without property) by the 1830s. A property requirement was never any big barrier to voting; America had a lot of land and not enough people to work it. If you had arrived in this country penniless, you could easily find a job that would enable you to acquire any land or other property that may have been necessary to entitle you to vote.

Regardless, the fact that the English decedents in the east had huge farms and free labor they had the money to influence the State legislature, while the Germans, Irish and Scot decedents had little or none.

 

[SmarterthanYou]

It is not enumerated, but it is implied.

Congress has the power to levy taxes and borrow money to pay “for the common defense and general welfare of the United States”. Therefore, it is necessary and proper (as per article I) for Congress to appropriate money to provide for the welfare of children when doing so is necessary and proper to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

You can argue over whether nor not a government action helps or hinders the general welfare of the United States, but you cannot legitimately argue that the federal government does not have the Constitutional power to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

you clearly do not understand what the constitution was written to do. try reading my signature line.

 

[DamnYankee]

It is not enumerated, but it is implied.

Congress has the power to levy taxes and borrow money to pay “for the common defense and general welfare of the United States”. Therefore, it is necessary and proper (as per article I) for Congress to appropriate money to provide for the welfare of children when doing so is necessary and proper to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

You can argue over whether nor not a government action helps or hinders the general welfare of the United States, but you cannot legitimately argue that the federal government does not have the Constitutional power to provide for the general welfare of the United States.

Madison expected you to say that and disputes your assertion in Federalist 41:

"It has been urged and echoed, that the 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,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. "

 

[uscitizen]

Liberals claim intellectual superiority yet fail to grasp the significance of the simple language of the Constitutional preamble, that all power is vested in the People who in turn grant certain authority to the Federal government. Even when this simple concept is reinforced by not just one but two plain language Amendments, IX and X, their intellect fails.

Either that or they willfully work to usurp the will of the People.

Which liberal are you?

Only liberals have supported the feds usurping states rights?
If you actually believe that you are stupid or brainwashed.

 

[flaja]

Regardless, the fact that the English decedents in the east had huge farms and free labor they had the money to influence the State legislature, while the Germans, Irish and Scot decedents had little or none.

What huge farms? Plantations were rare. Large plantations were rarer still. Most of the southern white population did not own large amounts of land and did not more than a few slaves- if they owned any at all.

 

[flaja]

"It has been urged and echoed, that the 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,'' amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. No stronger proof could be given of the distress under which these writers labor for objections, than their stooping to such a misconstruction. "

In this very same Federalist Number 41 Madison also declared that dealing with the subject of whether or not the federal government would have too much power under the Constitution “may open a boundless field for rhetoric and declamation; it may inflame the passions of the unthinking, and may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking” –as so often happens with you liberals and libertarians. If you are going to discuss the Constitution you must first concede that there is (and by design must be) a diversity of opinion regarding the Constitution. Your particular interpretation is not the correct interpretation just because it is yours and if you cannot insist that is it without become the unthinking and misthinking person that Madison complained about. As Madison continued, “…cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT, good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused”. Regardless of what the Constitution says you libertarians will find reason to complain. The Congress could be nothing more than a debating society and the federal government could have no power at all and you libertarians would complain anyway that it has too much.

Furthermore you have completely misconstrued what Madison says in the passage that you cited. People like you claim that the power to provide for the general welfare of the United States amounts to an unlimited power. What Madison is saying is that your claim is boundless. The general welfare clause that you fear may be a grant of unlimited power is not. It is not an unlimited grant of power and I am not saying that it is. According to Madison people, like you, are (intentionally?) making the Constitution say something that it does not say simply because you are opposed to the Constitution- regardless of what it actually says or does not say. You have no respect for the rule of law and thus you will not accept the Constitution as valid because you do not wish to be bound by it.

As Madison said in the rest of the passage- which you did not cite- your objections may have some merit if the only power given to the federal government by the Constitution is a general power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Madison concludes that the enumerated powers are part and parcel of the general power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. But what you don’t want to acknowledge is that the last of these numerated powers is the power to make any law that is necessary and proper for carrying out the powers that are expressly given. Congress has the power to make laws that are necessary and proper to provide for the general welfare of the United States. The Constitution could not anticipate future conditions so it could expressly give Congress every power that Congress may need to deal with situations and circumstances that could not have been anticipated in 1787. What these implied powers are are political rather than constitutional issues.

 

[DamnYankee]

What huge farms? Plantations were rare. Large plantations were rarer still. Most of the southern white population did not own large amounts of land and did not more than a few slaves- if they owned any at all.

Yes they were rare, numbering perhaps 1000 in my state for example, which made their rich landowners that much more powerful.

 

[DamnYankee]

In this very same Federalist Number 41 Madison also declared that dealing with the subject of whether or not the federal government would have too much power under the Constitution “may open a boundless field for rhetoric and declamation; it may inflame the passions of the unthinking, and may confirm the prejudices of the misthinking” –as so often happens with you liberals and libertarians. If you are going to discuss the Constitution you must first concede that there is (and by design must be) a diversity of opinion regarding the Constitution. Your particular interpretation is not the correct interpretation just because it is yours and if you cannot insist that is it without become the unthinking and misthinking person that Madison complained about. As Madison continued, “…cool and candid people will at once reflect, that the purest of human blessings must have a portion of alloy in them; that the choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT, good; and that in every political institution, a power to advance the public happiness involves a discretion which may be misapplied and abused”. Regardless of what the Constitution says you libertarians will find reason to complain. The Congress could be nothing more than a debating society and the federal government could have no power at all and you libertarians would complain anyway that it has too much.

Furthermore you have completely misconstrued what Madison says in the passage that you cited. People like you claim that the power to provide for the general welfare of the United States amounts to an unlimited power. What Madison is saying is that your claim is boundless. The general welfare clause that you fear may be a grant of unlimited power is not. It is not an unlimited grant of power and I am not saying that it is. According to Madison people, like you, are (intentionally?) making the Constitution say something that it does not say simply because you are opposed to the Constitution- regardless of what it actually says or does not say. You have no respect for the rule of law and thus you will not accept the Constitution as valid because you do not wish to be bound by it.

As Madison said in the rest of the passage- which you did not cite- your objections may have some merit if the only power given to the federal government by the Constitution is a general power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. Madison concludes that the enumerated powers are part and parcel of the general power to provide for the general welfare of the United States. But what you don’t want to acknowledge is that the last of these numerated powers is the power to make any law that is necessary and proper for carrying out the powers that are expressly given. Congress has the power to make laws that are necessary and proper to provide for the general welfare of the United States. The Constitution could not anticipate future conditions so it could expressly give Congress every power that Congress may need to deal with situations and circumstances that could not have been anticipated in 1787. What these implied powers are are political rather than constitutional issues.

This post makes no sense at all. First of all I'm no liberal, and you have completely misrepresented my point of view.

 

[flaja]

Yes they were rare, numbering perhaps 1000 in my state for example, which made their rich landowners that much more powerful.

You don't get it. By the 1830s property requirements for voting had gone by the wayside. The rich landowners could be outvoted by the yeomenry who had them outnumbered. The power of the rich landowners, that you speak of, came because they didn't have to work for a living and were by default the only group of people that could fill elected offices. It was their money and not their ancestry that gave them their political power (just like today).

 

[flaja]

This post makes no sense at all. First of all I'm no liberal, and you have completely misrepresented my point of view.

I haven't said that you are a liberal, but your disregard for the Constitution (and a general inability to acknowledge the views of other that borders on arrogance) clearly makes you a libertarian.

 

[DamnYankee]

You don't get it. By the 1830s property requirements for voting had gone by the wayside. The rich landowners could be outvoted by the yeomenry who had them outnumbered. The power of the rich landowners, that you speak of, came because they didn't have to work for a living and were by default the only group of people that could fill elected offices. It was their money and not their ancestry that gave them their political power (just like today).

Which means that the folks who owned the big farms, who happened to be of English ancestry, had the political power. *shrug*

 

[DamnYankee]

I haven't said that you are a liberal, but your disregard for the Constitution (and a general inability to acknowledge the views of other that borders on arrogance) clearly makes you a libertarian.

I'm not a libertarian either, and my clear annunciation of the intent of the Constitution through the Federalist shows my respect for it.

 

[Cancel5]

Liberals claim intellectual superiority yet fail to grasp the significance of the simple language of the Constitutional preamble, that all power is vested in the People who in turn grant certain authority to the Federal government. Even when this simple concept is reinforced by not just one but two plain language Amendments, IX and X, their intellect fails.

Either that or they willfully work to usurp the will of the People.

Which liberal are you?

Not the one who claimed superiority, that's for sure. The more I know, the less I know.

 

[Cancel5]

How many times have I stated here that the Federal government should stick to its mandate of Constitutionally enumerated powers? Only an idiot would think that position is subversive.

Times change brother, that which stagnates, dies.

 

[Cancel5]

Yes. The Constitution and the laws and treaties made under it are the supreme law of the land. But there would be no supreme law of the land, i.e., the nation-state of the United States of America, if any of the land’s constituent parts could put themselves beyond the jurisdiction of that law by seceding from the land.

Also, according to the Constitution the debts and obligations incumbent on the United States under the Articles of Confederation remained in force under the Constitution. Each of the original 13 states had ratified the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union before they each ratified the Constitution. Thus each state is obligated to maintain its perpetual union with the United States.

Furthermore, it is a myth that each state entered the Union with an opt-out option. The law governing the admission of new states from the Old Northwest Territory, that was enacted by the Confederation Congress before the Constitution was ratified, had a provision that any state that entered the Union had to remain a perpetual part of the Union. (Since the Republic of Texas ceded some of its territory to the federal government upon its admission to the Union, Texas was given the option of dividing itself into as many as 5 separate U.S. states.)

These issues were clarified by the Supreme Court decision in Texas v. Miller and the legal action that Custis Lee took in federal court to reclaim his family’s property that the federal government had seized during the rebellion, i.e., Arlington National Cemetery. If Virginia had legitimately left the Union, then Arlington would have been conquered foreign territory, but federal courts ruled that Virginia had remained part of the Union so the Lee family was owed compensation because their private property had been taken for public use. The Federal government returned Arlington National Cemetery to the Lee family who then sold it to the federal government.

I bow, I am not superior in my knowledge of history. I like to bake, it is my forte and I sing. Thanks, I have refreshed my knowledge here!

 

[Cancel5]

Yes. The Constitution and the laws and treaties made under it are the supreme law of the land. But there would be no supreme law of the land, i.e., the nation-state of the United States of America, if any of the land’s constituent parts could put themselves beyond the jurisdiction of that law by seceding from the land.

Also, according to the Constitution the debts and obligations incumbent on the United States under the Articles of Confederation remained in force under the Constitution. Each of the original 13 states had ratified the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union before they each ratified the Constitution. Thus each state is obligated to maintain its perpetual union with the United States.

Furthermore, it is a myth that each state entered the Union with an opt-out option. The law governing the admission of new states from the Old Northwest Territory, that was enacted by the Confederation Congress before the Constitution was ratified, had a provision that any state that entered the Union had to remain a perpetual part of the Union. (Since the Republic of Texas ceded some of its territory to the federal government upon its admission to the Union, Texas was given the option of dividing itself into as many as 5 separate U.S. states.)

These issues were clarified by the Supreme Court decision in Texas v. Miller and the legal action that Custis Lee took in federal court to reclaim his family’s property that the federal government had seized during the rebellion, i.e., Arlington National Cemetery. If Virginia had legitimately left the Union, then Arlington would have been conquered foreign territory, but federal courts ruled that Virginia had remained part of the Union so the Lee family was owed compensation because their private property had been taken for public use. The Federal government returned Arlington National Cemetery to the Lee family who then sold it to the federal government.

I have to spread some around, must be kissing your ass too much, lately, huh! It is what some on here would call it.

 

[Cancel5]

Neither, do you have a problem with liberals?

If you are getting any of these benefits, thank a Liberal

I would guess on an individual basis, no, but in general, it seems he likes to flame a bit!

 

[Cancel5]

Nice re-write of history. LOL

Do you have any original thought whatsoever? If so I have yet to see it.

So, you conservatives where responsible for the civil rights movement? Let's just pick one to discuss, since liberals are such bad people and all.

 

[Cancel5]

Do you have any documentation that conservatives ever supported things like minimum wage, 40 hour workweeks, civil rights for racial minorities. Restrictions on child labor or pure food and drug laws?

I believe all we would have to do is pull up the vote for these issues and the states that helped fortify these changes.