Murf76
Senior Member
- Nov 11, 2008
- 2,464
- 593
- 48
First, in response to your assertion that I "choose active ignorance". Fuck you, nancy. You'd never have the biscuits to talk to anybody to their face that way, least of all me.
And next, if you're a "moderate Republican", Jake the Joke must be Newt Gingrich.
No. I don't "need" to do a goddam thing I don't want to do. And certainly not because some keyboard commando living in his mama's basement, demands that I do. That's the problem with you liberals... you think you can order other people around and force them to goosestep to your tune. Then you're all shocked and surprised when free citizens refuse to do your bidding.
But, because you appear to be ignorant of what the general welfare clause means, and because I don't particularly mind setting you straight, here's what James Madison had to say about it:
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare,
and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare,
they may take the care of religion into their own hands;
they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish
and pay them out of their public treasury;
they may take into their own hands the education of children,
establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union;
they may assume the provision of the poor;
they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads;
in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation
down to the most minute object of police,
would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power
of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for,
it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature
of the limited Government established by the people of America."
The clause, itself, from Article I, Section 8, reads thus:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"
Traditionally, it's been understood as an authority for Congress to tax and spend. It hasn't been used as a permission slip for social spending since FDR threatened to pack the court. The 10th amendment was included for the purpose of clarifying this instruction, because, as we see in Madison's comment, the "general welfare clause" was under discussion even before ratification.
This country is a Republic. There is a set framework of agreed-upon Law in the form of our Constitution and all parties are compelled to work within that framework. This is NOT a pure democracy. Our founding fathers understood the fatal flaw of mob rule within the pure form of democracy whereby 51% of the majority would be free to tyrannize the 49% minority. "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner". So, it doesn't matter if you really, really, really want something... if it's not within the 17 enumerated powers for Congress to give.
Welfare programs belong in the STATES. Otherwise, our limited system of government is transmuted. Our central government needs to back the fuck off and leave a little money in the hands of state citizens so that the states themselves can collect a little. Our tax structure is ass backwards. The STATES should be collecting the larger portion and the central government should be collecting the smaller.
Meanwhile, your ridiculous hysteria about "corporations" fails to acknowledge that your hero is voluntarily SURROUNDED by them. The lobbyists he's demonized work within his administration. The insurance companies and pharmaceuticals are in his bed. And the non-profit "corporations" like labor unions and ACORN are his paid thugs. And don't give me any nonsense about not being in full hero-worship mode. Review your opening post right here on this thread first.
Are you really so thick that you can't understand that EVERYTHING Obamacare does... makes the problem worse and not better? It doesn't lower costs. It doesn't increase consumer choice. You can't simply fire and walk away from the federal government. You can't just take your business elsewhere.
If private insurance companies weren't ALREADY covered up in state regulation, maybe you'd have a case. But this is NOT free market trading. This is ALREADY a case of government interference. State regulations requiring certain levels of coverage and dictating choice cause higher policy prices. A state-by-state comparison of prices bears that out. In states where regulations are heavy, prices are typically higher.
In any given State, there are something like half a dozen insurance providers and sometimes less. They don't HAVE to work hard to attract customers. The don't HAVE to run lean and mean on their profit margin, to offer competitive rates and innovative plans. They're like two gas stations on opposite sides of the street where the owners have both agreed on price setting.
No one on this board, including you, has answered the following question... WHY is it that the only squeak we've heard from the big insurers was when they found out that the fine on the individual mandate wouldn't be high enough to force young people into the risk pools?
You bitch and whine about "compassion", but where the fuck is yours??? You are effectively HELPING the very corporations you claim to despise. Why should a healthy 25 year-old, unmarried man, pay for coverage on mammograms and obstetrics? All he needs is a catastrophic policy in case he has an accident or a grave illness. Why should he be required to pay 4 times what a couple of routine trips to the doctor's office would cost him?
Your fucked-up understanding of "compassion" is a total con job. You have no compassion for the struggles of young people who are being forced to finance the risk pools of Big Insurance, and you have none for older folks, whose medical records will be used against them for rationing. And you have none for the children yet to be born who will have to pay for the folly of your so-called "compassion".
Spare us all from the "compassion" of socialists. All you've managed to do with it so far is rack up 106 TRILLION dollars in unfunded liability and enslave our young with debt.
In ten years time, the interest on the national debt is expected to be 799 billion ANNUALLY. Now, how the fuck are these kids supposed to pay that along with all the other run-away entitlement programs they're supposed to pay for? Better to skip college and get on the dole. There's no future in working yourself to death to pay off someone else's debt and having nothing to show for it.
YOUR compassion might demand that you sacrifice your child on the alter of public debt... but MY compassion starts at home, with the responsibilities entrusted to me by God to protect my young.
, that it's a wonderment he didn't pat him on the head like a dog.
