Thats it. It doesn't exist for jobs, economy, health care, and etc. It just exist for the protection of the individual's freedom. All government policy should be weighed by what provides the most freedom for the individual.
and what would you say is the purpose of the commerce clause and general welfare clause?
and if we're talking about the most freedom for the individual, i take it you're pro gay marriage and pro Roe v Wade.
Jillian, although I am clearly not allowed to practice before the Supreme Court, I am not entirely unfamiliar with our Constitution, and the commerce clause has become the most over misused clause in the constitution.
The commerce clause simply corrected a deficiency in the Articles of Confederation which allowed the individual states to levy whatever duties they saw fit on goods imported from foreign countries and also goods from other states by empowering Congress to regulate trade with foreign nations and among the individual states.
Section 8, Clause 1, was another correction on the deficiency of the Articles, because any government must have the taxing power, and that is what this clause established.
As to the meaning of Welfare of the United States, "With respect to the words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." - James Madison
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State." - James Madison, considered the 'father of the Constitution'
IMHO, our Constitution established a very limited federal government with most of the governing powers left to the states. The Constitution only granted the federal government powers that could not be successfully utilized by the individual states, and all other governing powers were left to the individual states.
Although I was not the one ask, I will answer your question about gays and abortion. I believe that all of our citizens are empowered to do anything they wish as long as they do not infringe upon the rights of another.
Personally I do not believe that abortion should be used a means of birth control because there are many less drastic methods, including the morning after pill, but I will never have to face that decision.
