"...endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."~Declaration of INDEPENDENCE ----------------------------------------------- Governments are instituted to protect our unalienable/inalienable/natural rights. Our (unalienable/inalienable/natural) rights come directly from our basic needs (food, clothing, etc.). Imagine being one of the first humans on this earth. ------------------------------------------------- We're on this earth (or put on this earth, if you prefer) with nothing except the land. From the land we can get, food, clothing, shelter, we can make weapons to defend ourselves and what we acquire; we can make tools to use, we can communicate freely, passing along ideas, information, and knowledge. To believe what you want and practice what you want. To be with whomever you wish. Plants also have medicinal properties to prevent, treat, cure. (just because we lost/gave up that knowledge about plants doesn't mean we have the right to force another to care for us medically or to force others to pay for that care) ----------------------------------------------------- Look at what I said above then re-read what I quoted from the Declaration, then read the Bill of Rights (first 10 Amendments to the Constitution). See the relation? This is also one reason why they originally were forbidden to directly tax us. ----------------------------------------------------- In the Constitution the word "welfare" is used in the context of states and not persons. The "welfare of the United States" is not congruous with the welfare of individuals, people, or citizens. The Founding Fathers said in the preamble that one reason for establishing the Constitution was to ■promote the general welfare.■ What they meant was that the Constitution and powers granted to the federal government were not to favor special interest groups or particular classes of people. There were to be no privileged individuals or groups in society. Neither minorities nor the majority was to be favored. Rather, the Constitution would promote the ■general welfare■ by ensuring a free society where free, self-responsible individuals would enjoy ■life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,■ rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence. ------------------------------------------------------------- Writing about the ■general welfare■ clause in 1791, Thomas Jefferson saw the danger of misinterpreting the Constitution. The danger in the hands of Senators and Congressmen was ■that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.■ -------------------------------------------------------------- In Federalist No. 41, James Madison asked rhetorically: ■For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? ■ Madison was replying to anti-Federalist writers who had warned that the ■general welfare■ clause opened the way to unlimited abuse. He haughtily accused those writers of ■labour[ing] for objections■ by ■stooping to such a misconstruction■ of the obvious sense of the passage, as defined and limited by those powers explicitly listed immediately after it. ------------------------------------------- IN Federalist #84 ■For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said, that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?■ Such a provision ■would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretence for claiming that power■ ■ that is, a power to regulate the press, short of actually shutting it down. We now suffer from the sort of confusion Hamilton foresaw. ------------------------------------------------------- "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. " - James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792 _Madison_ 1865, I, page 546 ---------------------------------------------- In many people■s minds, the federal government is entitled to do anything it wasn■t positively forbidden to do, whereas the principle of the Constitution is that the federal government is forbidden to do anything it isn■t positively authorized to do.