Has the entire instrument of Government been reduced to a single phrase?

That phrase of course being........."Provide for the General Welfare"......

……..or “Promote the General Welfare”

"General Welfare".....the two words at the heart of the phrase and controversy, only appear twice in the Constitution, once in the Preamble and again in Article 1. Section 8. Two words, upon which the entire foundation and history of the Democrat Party and our liberal nanny statist government is built and expands upon. Two words, which allow the remaining 4,541 words to be ignored and disregarded in entirety, and the government the ability to do “whatever it wants.” in lieu of what “We The People want.” Two words, which have served as the permission slip for the unadulterated Democrat embarkment towards the complete control of every aspect of our society and economy…..Tyranny.


Has the entire instrument of Government been reduced to a single phrase?


This poll and question is asked in the name and honor of Thomas Jefferson........

“to lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the U.S.” that is to say “to lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.” for the laying of taxes is the power and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. they are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. in like manner they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. to consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct & independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding & subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. it would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the U.S. and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they pleased.

--Thomas Jefferson--Founder--Conservative--Hater of Liberals--Great American

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"…..Would render all the preceding & subsequent enumerations of power completely useless"

Clearly the Founders grow wiser the further left this country ventures. TJ was spot on, as today there are no more limits on government, every and any restraints have been severed by the single phrase, or are merely waiting to be subverted by the two words. The entire apparatus now operates with complete disregard of We The People, without fear of The People. Every and any nanny state whim can be passed and implemented in defiance of the Constitution and in the name of Promoting the General Welfare.

For a government that controls your healthcare, your salary, what kind of light bulbs you can buy, your retirement, the water level in your toilet, your education, your exhalation, your birth your death your life and everything in between.........can be called many things........but clearly not a "Limited Government".....clearly not the defined and restrained government as intended by the Founders and our Forefathers.



......"they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they pleased"

I realize many of you statists….view the unconstitutional ventures of our government as “Good” rather than “Evil”…..and its why you show no opposition to an all powerful centralized government, your life as a vegetable, The Democrat Nanny State, or The Kenyan-Irish Tyrant. But the day will come, when you will look back and remember how you cheered on a government that defied 70% of We The People…..because they will eventually defy 90% of We The People. And the day you move from the minority to that majority........is the moment you realize what the power to do whatever evil they please entails. Anything and everything can be done in the name of “Promoting the General Welfare”, at least according to the statist dictionary. A Government of, for, and by a single phrase.......

When government’s chains are severed……our own are secured…..
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We have time to return to the Constitution. But not much. We already experience tyranny here. It is only a matter of time before the prisons fill with political prisoners. We already have show trials up on Capitol Hill. Can torture and executions be far behind?

The Kenyan-Irish tyrant? What?

"The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers."
--Thomas Jefferson--Founder--Conservative--Hater of Liberals--Great American





.....the greatest calamity is upon us.
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Wiseone said:

The Kenyan-Irish tyrant? What?

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Obama heads to Ireland in search of his roots - CNN.com

.......anything but American.
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Badmutha said:

Obama heads to Ireland in search of his roots - CNN.com

.......anything but American.
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Tell that to Irish-Americans.

StillBallin75 said:

Tell that to Irish-Americans.

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I get it now, he's got a mindset from the mid 1800s.



Also from the article:

You discover a lot about yourself when you're running for president," Barack Obama said on the campaign trail in 2008. "It was brought to my attention last year that my great-great-great-grandfather on my mother's side hailed from a small village in County Offaly."

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Clearly, there's not enough American in his blood. Why does anyone still listen to this guy's rants?

Badmutha said:

That phrase of course being........."Provide for the General Welfare"......

……..or “Promote the General Welfare”

"General Welfare".....the two words at the heart of the phrase and controversy, only appear twice in the Constitution, once in the Preamble and again in Article 1. Section 8. Two words, upon which the entire foundation and history of the Democrat Party

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:roll: Someone's ignorant of history.

Oh, and Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party, just thought I'd point that out.

spud_meister said:

:roll: Someone's ignorant of history.

Oh, and Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party, just thought I'd point that out.

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He was also a hypocrite, having negotiated the purchase of the Louisiana Territory during his Presidency despite the Constitution not giving him the explicit power to do so. This stretches how much he followed a "strict interpretation" of the Constitution.

He also severely hurt the American economy by signing the Embargo Acts which prohibited trate with both England and France while they were fighting in the Napoleonic War. The American economy suffered while the economies of England and France were untouched by it.

spud_meister said:

:roll: Someone's ignorant of history.

Oh, and Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party, just thought I'd point that out.

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It gets complicated. I have, and have read, about half of his collected papers. This was news to me so I looked at Wikipedia:

The Democratic-Republican Party or Republican Party was an American political party founded in the early 1790s by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Political scientists use the former name, while historians prefer the latter one; contemporaries generally called the party the "Republicans", along with many other names.

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He and Madison had a lifelong exchange of letters. Not one time can I recall either of them demanding increased taxes on the wealthy in order to give handouts to those who will not work.

Misterveritis said:

It gets complicated. I have, and have read, about half of his collected papers. This was news to me so I looked at Wikipedia:

He and Madison had a lifelong exchange of letters. Not one time can I recall either of them demanding increased taxes on the wealthy in order to give handouts to those who will not work.

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I'm aware that the modern Democratic Party is nothing like the historical one, the point of my post was to point out the stupidity in the claim tha the "entire foundation and history of the Democrat Party " was built on welfare.

But if you read further through the wiki article:

Democratic-Republicans split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe, and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party.

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spud_meister said:

:roll: Someone's ignorant of history.

Oh, and Thomas Jefferson founded the Democratic Party, just thought I'd point that out.

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The Party TJ founded.......is not the Democrat Party of today.

While the labels may remain the same........that is where the commonalities begin and end. If TJ were alive today.......he would have zero support for what todays Democrat Party has become.........a collection of tyrants, wanna be dictators, and statists.
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spud_meister said:

I'm aware that the modern Democratic Party is nothing like the historical one, the point of my post was to point out the stupidity in the claim tha the "entire foundation and history of the Democrat Party " was built on welfare.

But if you read further through the wiki article:

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The entire foundation and history of today's Democrat party is built upon the two words--General Welfare.......

........its why NOTHING proposed by today's Democrat party can be found anywhere in the Constitution. And without the LSD enduced interpretation of "Provide for the General Welfare"......the Democrat Party and Nanny State of today would not exist.
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spud_meister said:

I'm aware that the modern Democratic Party is nothing like the historical one, the point of my post was to point out the stupidity in the claim tha the "entire foundation and history of the Democrat Party " was built on welfare.

But if you read further through the wiki article:

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I have Jefferson's and Madison's collected writings. Jefferson's are easier to read. Madison's are much harder. He abbreviates more, as was the custom of the time.

The Democrats might have stood for something once. But it has been a very long time since it was anything of value to the American way of life and politics.

Ron Paul on the General Welfare Clause | Cato @ Liberty

Ron Paul on the General Welfare Clause

One does not have to agree with everything Paul has said or stood for over the years to grant that he has a point, and a very important one. It’s a mark of how widespread our constitutional misunderstanding is that so many Americans take it for granted, at least until the Tea Party came along, that most of what the federal government does today is constitutional.

In a nutshell, the Constitution was written and ratified to both authorize and limit the government created through it. It was designed to do the latter not through the Bill of Rights — that was an afterthought, added two years later — but through the doctrine of enumerated powers. Article I, section 8, grants the Congress only 18 powers. Nothing for education, or retirement security, or health care: Those responsibilities were left to the states or to the people, as the Tenth Amendment makes clear.

Indeed, as was often asked: What was the point of enumerating the 17 other powers if Congress could do anything it wanted under this single power? The Framers could have stopped right there. They didn’t because they meant for Congress to have only certain limited powers, each one enumerated in Article I, section 8. And taxing for the general welfare limited Congress even further by precluding it from providing for special parties or interests.

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Some, who have not denied the necessity of the power of taxation, have grounded a very fierce attack against the Constitution, on the language in which it is defined. 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…. Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it…. But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?

--James Madison--Founder--Father of the Constitution--Hater of Liberals--Great American
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Misterveritis said:

I have Jefferson's and Madison's collected writings. Jefferson's are easier to read. Madison's are much harder. He abbreviates more, as was the custom of the time.

The Democrats might have stood for something once. But it has been a very long time since it was anything of value to the American way of life and politics.

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I don't think the entire mess in which we now find our Republic can be solely blamed upon the Democrats. There's another party that could do something when they teeter-totter into power; but instead maintain the status quo. There's no doubt that the founders had many words of wisdom which we do not heed at this time. I think Madison said something that was scary true.

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy”
-James Madison

Ikari said:

I don't think the entire mess in which we now find our Republic can be solely blamed upon the Democrats.

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The entire mess can be placed on Statists....wether its Rhinos, or every Democrat in Washington.

There's another party that could do something when they teeter-totter into power; but instead maintain the status quo. There's no doubt that the founders had many words of wisdom which we do not heed at this time. I think Madison said something that was scary true.

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A government of, by, and for a single phrase........is not easily reversed......
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Badmutha said:

A government of, by, and for a single phrase........is not easily reversed.......

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Yeah, but some attempts would be nice. Neither party makes even the attempt. They both keep pushing and pushing down the same road of bloated government and consolidated power against the People.

Ikari said:

Yeah, but some attempts would be nice. Neither party makes even the attempt. They both keep pushing and pushing down the same road of bloated government and consolidated power against the People.

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Republicans are guilty of this, albeit a voting public now (D)ependent upon government has made their complicitousness an easy decison........

........with that said......the Democrat party of today has never and will never do anything that reduces the size or power of government.......like all tyrants.....they love the idea of government by a single phrase.
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Wiseone said:

The Kenyan-Irish tyrant? What?

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Yeah, I was with him until that part. Otherwise great post though.

Badmutha said:

Republicans are guilty of this, albeit a voting public now (D)ependent upon government has made their complicitousness an easy decison........

........with that said......the Democrat party of today has never and will never do anything that reduces the size or power of government.......like all tyrants.....they love the idea of government by a single phrase.
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I do not believe the current incarnation of the Republican party is one that will ever do anything to reduce the size and power of government....like all tyrants....they love the idea of government rule over the People and the power of the People they wield as their own.

Misterveritis said:

It gets complicated. I have, and have read, about half of his collected papers. This was news to me so I looked at Wikipedia:

He and Madison had a lifelong exchange of letters. Not one time can I recall either of them demanding increased taxes on the wealthy in order to give handouts to those who will not work.

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It can be this way, or it can be "those" who are denied work due to intolerance and hatred.
Your choice.
Do intolerance and hatred exist ?

Ikari said:

I do not believe the current incarnation of the Republican party is one that will ever do anything to reduce the size and power of government....like all tyrants....they love the idea of government rule over the People and the power of the People they wield as their own.

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If what you said were true.......Republicans would be Democrats.

(D)ependent upon (D)ependents and their (D)ependence--The (D)emocrat Party.......
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Badmutha said:

If what you said were true.......Republicans would be Democrats.

(D)ependent upon (D)ependents and their (D)ependence--The (D)emocrat Party.......
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So what are the functional differences between Bush and Obama? Not a lot you say? The parties act very similar you say? Yeah, that's the Republocrats for you.

Ikari said:

I don't think the entire mess in which we now find our Republic can be solely blamed upon the Democrats.

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I do agree that both parties have had a hand in damaging the nation. I believe the Democrats have had the greater effect.

Ronald Reagan called the people in both parties who believe the answer to every problem was bigger, more powerful, more centralized government statists. More and more I like that term. Marxism doesn't quite match. Socialism doesn't quite match. Fascism doesn't quite match. Statist matches.