"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
Here's a small portion of a much larger critique of US Constitution Preamble & Bill of Rights:
ReplyDelete"While it is true that by "promote the general Welfare", the Framers did not mean "welfare" as we know it today, nevertheless the lack of any definition (as with "Justice" and "domestic Tranquility") has contributed directly to the current abuses. But whatever their definition of "general Welfare" might have been, how can any body which restricts freedom of choice through monopolizing certain services and then steals the assets of individuals to pay for what they have not voluntarily chosen, be conceived as promoting anything which could possibly be called "general Welfare"? Sounds more like "general harm" to me! For exactly the same reasons, instead of securing "the Blessings of Liberty", what the Framers did was conspire to infringe the freedom of choice and to steal the assets of everyone. Still perhaps the Framers were being inadvertently honest when they wrote "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity", since if they were referring only to themselves (the Framers, their associates and political heirs) that is exactly the effect that the Constitution had - to create an overlord class of first class citizens who would rule the rest!"
Full critique: http://selfsip.org/critiques/billofrights.html