An honest question for conservatives

[P@triot]

First, this is not trolling. I am an admitted liberal but I enjoy hearing different points of view so I can better understand what other people see or think. That's why this is an honest question: I want to understand the conservative viewpoint.

What role(s) should a government play in our lives?

With so many conservatives decrying taxation and government regulation, what should (if anything) governments do? Are there any tasks that should belong to the government rather than a private business? Assuming the government collects something in taxes, what should those tax dollars be spent on?

Again, I promise this is an honest question and I'm not setting folks up with a pre-planned, "airtight" counter-argument.

Fair question, so I'll give you a fair answer. This conservative believes that the government should do only what it is enpowered to do by the people & enshrined in the Constitution. Not one iota more. So pretty much, if it isn't spelled out explicity, then it should be delegated to the states per the Founding Fathers intent. They were very careful about that as they feared a strong central government & wanted a strict balance. That is why it drives us conservatives up a wall when libs started talking about the Constitution is a living document. It isn't, but it is designed to be flexible, which is why it has lasted 225 years today. I hope that answers your question.

To expand on that GREAT ANSWER - unlike the dumbocrats, our founder weren't so stupid as to believe they knew everything. They understood that times, technology, and events could require something they hadn't considered, and thus could require something added or removed from the Constitution. Because it can be AMENDED does NOT mean that it can be ignored. It doesn't mean you can just make up unconstitutional shit like Obamacare, Social Security, etc., call it a "tax" and then just shove to the throat of the American people.

Doesn't it speak volumes that the Dumbocrats have implemented all of these programs without taking the simple step of first amending the Constitution? Why not tak that step? Because they knew the majority of America did not want their programs. The minority is ruling the majority. Not what our founders intended.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If I had a dollar for every thread that started out:
An honest question for conservatives


They rarely are, BTW

I'm sure. I was undecided about posting this question here, as I assumed trolls would have a field day attacking instead of answering. Then again, like you said, I assume trolls would also post this kind of question. I hope some will believe I'm sincere.

BTW, Go Gators! After the Bowling Green game, I was worried--now I'm feeling confident!

Labeling your question as an honest one implies that other questions are dishonest. People tend to take offense when they are called liars by idiots.

 

[OODA_Loop]

That is why it drives us conservatives up a wall when libs started talking about the Constitution is a living document. It isn't, but it is designed to be flexible, which is why it has lasted 225 years today. I hope that answers your question.

It is flexible in that it has and can be amended to provide for more freedom, not reduce it.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"...our rights come from nature and God, not from government."

Wrong.

Rights come from us, human beings. We created the concept, we define it.

You just argued against rights coming from nature by arguing that rights come from nature.

 

[P@triot]

Perhaps another way to ask my question is, "What would the ideal government do?"

It would adhere to the law! The law that limits it's power to ensure maximum freedom for the people.

And if it was found that doing so was not enough (and I can't imagine how that could ever be the case), then the govenrment would follow the law once again and properly amend the Constitution.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

"...our rights come from nature and God, not from government."

Wrong.

Rights come from us, human beings. We created the concept, we define it.

where does the right to life for a tree or a rabbit come from......?

did the tree or the rabbit create the concept for themselves....or does it just exist in nature....?

All rights come from humans. They are something we thought up. Trees and rabbits have no need, awareness or any other connection to this human creation. Other life forms have all the rights we decide to attribute to them.

Does that mean that if I, as a human, decide that you don't have rights, you don't?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Webster's: "the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity." Not sure about subsidies, but it seems that unemployment and the rest help people do well in respect to happiness, well-being, and/or prosperity.

Provide for the General Welfare of the United States.

Not indivduals.

Interesting point, OODA. Are you arguing that the welfare of the US is divorced from the welfare of its citizens? Perhaps a better question: How do we measure the welfare of the US, not individuals?

No, he is pointing out that the welfare of a country is separate from the welfare of individuals.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Interesting point, OODA. Are you arguing that the welfare of the US is divorced from the welfare of its citizens?

"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."


Taxes, duties, imposts, excises, paying debts and providing for the common Defence are collective undertakings, not individual.

Not sure if I see your logic. Taxes are a collective undertaking; agreed because it's done by a collection of people from a collection of people. But can't general welfare be the same? A collection of people spending taxes for the welfare of a collection of people?

Explain how taking money from one group to give it to another is good for the group as a whole. Cancer works by taking resources from the larger collective to provide for the smaller group, and that always ends up destroying both. Wouldn't it be better for the group to share freely and without coercion?

 

[del]

If I had a dollar for every thread that started out:
An honest question for conservatives


They rarely are, BTW

I'm sure. I was undecided about posting this question here, as I assumed trolls would have a field day attacking instead of answering. Then again, like you said, I assume trolls would also post this kind of question. I hope some will believe I'm sincere.

BTW, Go Gators! After the Bowling Green game, I was worried--now I'm feeling confident!

Labeling your question as an honest one implies that other questions are dishonest. People tend to take offense when they are called liars by idiots.

i've never felt offended by you.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

a tree has the inherent right to live and grow otherwise it would die....or never even come into being....

are you saying a human has less right than a tree......? that his right to life must depend upon the decision of another human being....?

This indicates a very strange understanding of the word 'right'. Capacity would be closer to what you are saying.

Only humans have rights, so of course a human cannot have fewer rights.

Actually, you are the one with the strange concept of rights.

If rights are defined by humans then animals that fight for life, must, by your definition, be human. The simple fact is that nature illustrates each and every day that rights are not something we invented. There are rights that we do define, such as the right to vote, which is why it is contingent on a predefined condition of law. Natural rights, however, are ours simply because we exist.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I'm sure. I was undecided about posting this question here, as I assumed trolls would have a field day attacking instead of answering. Then again, like you said, I assume trolls would also post this kind of question. I hope some will believe I'm sincere.

BTW, Go Gators! After the Bowling Green game, I was worried--now I'm feeling confident!

Labeling your question as an honest one implies that other questions are dishonest. People tend to take offense when they are called liars by idiots.

i've never felt offended by you.

I never labelled any of my questions as honest either.

Besides, neither of us takes me seriously.

 

[Wroberson]

The American Government should provide for the people. I could care less about other governments. Not because we're lazy, but to prevent America from looking like a shanty town filled with struggling people. It's an image thing. American Government always point out when other government fall short to provide their people with basic needs. So it's only fitting to practice what you preach.

 

[eflatminor]

The American Government should provide for the people.

Because that approach worked so well in Soviet Union???

...but to prevent America from looking like a shanty town filled with struggling people.

The typical person in the bottom 5 percent of the American income distribution is still richer than nearly 70% of the world’s inhabitants.

The Haves and the Have-Nots - NYTimes.com

Shanty towns in America, eh? The closets thing we have to that is...Detroit, which, ironically, long ago adopted your idea to "provide for the people". How's that working out for ya?

 

[Jackson]

First, this is not trolling. I am an admitted liberal but I enjoy hearing different points of view so I can better understand what other people see or think. That's why this is an honest question: I want to understand the conservative viewpoint.

What role(s) should a government play in our lives?

1) Protect our homeland.
2) Protect our political and economic foreign interests
3) Create fiscal policy conducive to the growth of business and industry
4) Establish and enforce domestic criminal law that is based upon actual harm to the citizenry
5) After the top four are accomplished, shut the fuck up and stay out of our lives.

This was a good starting point to a fair question from the OP.

 

[Jackson]

Provide for the General Welfare of the United States.

Not indivduals.

Got news for you Ooda, that particular thing you stated was not specified........



Preamble to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you one of those Constitutional scholars who inserts words into it to change meanings to prove your point?

The preamble is collective too, although not the general welfare clause under discussion which is Article 1, Section 8

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; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;


•To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
•To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
•To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
•To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
•To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
•To establish post offices and post roads;
•To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
•To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
•To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
•To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
•To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
•To provide and maintain a navy;
•To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
•To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
•To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
•To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;

Poignant remark, Ooda. The General Welfare clause is intended for the United States as an entity, not as individuals! Thank you!

I

]Provide for the General Welfare of the United States[/I].

Not indivduals.

[/QUOTE]

 

[California Girl]

I don't really give a damn about your questions.

Then don't answer it.

It's quite a straightforward concept. Federal Government does what it is remitted to do by the Constitution, the rest it does not do. Not rocket science.

It's not straightforward. The Constitution gives the Feds the power to promote the "general welfare". What should that entail? Is there any limit to the amount the Feds can borrow under the enumerated powers? Regulating foreign trade--does that mean embargo, tariffs, and/or IP treaties?

Seems to me, anyone who has to ask these 'questions' isn't an American. We learn this shit in school... at least in decent schools... perhaps the public education system is - again - failing?

Wow. I ask for your point of view and you respond by questioning my patriotism/nationalism. Way to represent conservatives!

I don't represent anyone or any ideology. My views are my own. That's a conservative thing... no 'group think'... that is a liberal concept... y'all just blindly accept whatever your damned corrupt, self serving politicians tell you. I have a low tolerance for 'group think'. I don't do herd behavior.

 

[California Girl]

Got news for you Ooda, that particular thing you stated was not specified........



Preamble to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you one of those Constitutional scholars who inserts words into it to change meanings to prove your point?

The preamble is collective too, although not the general welfare clause under discussion which is Article 1, Section 8

Poignant remark, Ooda. The General Welfare clause is intended for the United States as an entity, not as individuals! Thank you!

I

]Provide for the General Welfare of the United States[/I].

Not indivduals.

[/QUOTE]

Well said.

 

[DiamondDave]

I don't really give a damn about your questions.

Then don't answer it.

It's quite a straightforward concept. Federal Government does what it is remitted to do by the Constitution, the rest it does not do. Not rocket science.

It's not straightforward. The Constitution gives the Feds the power to promote the "general welfare". What should that entail? Is there any limit to the amount the Feds can borrow under the enumerated powers? Regulating foreign trade--does that mean embargo, tariffs, and/or IP treaties?

Seems to me, anyone who has to ask these 'questions' isn't an American. We learn this shit in school... at least in decent schools... perhaps the public education system is - again - failing?

Wow. I ask for your point of view and you respond by questioning my patriotism/nationalism. Way to represent conservatives!

Yawn

Again we have a left who likes to take "general welfare" OUT OF CONTEXT AND WITHOUT THE COMPLETE PHRASE...

It is the GENERAL WELFARE OF THE UNITED STATES... AKA the UNION... not each and every individual and their personal wants and needs..

And lest ye forget that it is not all inclusive, as the SPECIFIC powers granted are specifically enumerated in the rest of article 1 section 8

My God, some people just read what they want to read

 

[DiamondDave]

Webster's: "the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity." Not sure about subsidies, but it seems that unemployment and the rest help people do well in respect to happiness, well-being, and/or prosperity.

Provide for the General Welfare of the United States.

Not indivduals.

Got news for you Ooda, that particular thing you stated was not specified........

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Preamble to the United States Constitution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Are you one of those Constitutional scholars who inserts words into it to change meanings to prove your point?

The preamble of the constitution is an invocation, an introduction... not anything granting power to the government.. but nice try

 

[Cowman]

How are you defining 'a government'. We have a Constitution that outlines the role of federal government. Anything else should be left to the states.

So about this war on drugs that is a huge thing for the right, with states trumped by the feds. Or maybe trying to criminalize abortion?

Face it, the right is frequently supportive of things the federal government can do that is not at all mentioned in the constitution.