Snoogens,
kelso:
you cant talk about welfare without addressing the largest recipients of it: corporations. the video highlights this and the ridiculousness of attacking the smallest percentage of recipients: the poor.
In rough, incomplete figures, the government spends $25 billion per year on Foreign aid, $30 billion per year on student aid, over $75 billion on corporate subsidies, over $700 billion on corporate tax breaks, over $490 billion on Social Security, $470 billion for Medicare and Medicaid, and over $500 billion per year on various social welfare programs (includes food stamps, housing assistance, unemployment, retirement and disability, etc.).
The rabbithole goes farther than any of us can possibly imagine, for the government refuses to tell us how they spend most of our money. I don't disagree that corporations benefit the most. We currently live in a state under Fascism, in which the government has merged with the corporations. The biggest corporate entities are kept in power through a system of government subsidies, bailouts, and tax breaks while corporation-paid lobbyists push the government to pass numerous regulations and tax laws that force small businesses to either become absorbed by the machine through mergers or go out of business.
However, you say that the poor are being attacked by those who focus on the elimination of social welfare. That simply isn't so. They are being attacked by the authoratative powers that be, as are all Americans outside of the exclusive richest percentage. Destroying social welfare would only free us from our modern system of serfdom and promote individual freedom, for all of us are forced into the system at some point. All forms of welfare should be abolished, for they can only be sustained through a system of bloated, unconstitutional bureacracies that rely on robbing us all blind.
AJ,
Back to the original quote, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798
Then go to
Article I, section 8 of the U.S. Constitution
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports 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; [Altered by Amendment XVI "Income tax".]
Then it goes on to list specific enumerations. The interpretation of the general welfare clause is a highly debatable topic that is not clear cut or dry.
You're confusing the meaning of "general" welfare with "social" welfare. They are two completely different things. The word "welfare" in the term "general welfare" isn't synonymous with charity as with the latter term. It simply means "well-being". Also, the "general" in "general welfare" applies to the whole of the American citizenry, excluding or pertaining to no particular groups. The Constitution was focused on protecting equality. Social welfare specifies particular groups to benefit at the expense of others which directly conflicts with the concepts of general welfare and equality. The supporters of the "living document theory" only use semantic confusion to twist the words of the constitution to justify their authoritarian goals while masking them as humanitarian outreach. So you see, the Constitution is cut and dry. And it is in black and white. The Framers purposefully avoided ambiguous language, making the Constitution easily interpretable.
I did not attack your points because I don't completely disagree with you, but you are attempting to frame this debate in a simple black and white manner rather than trying to understand why the laws are the way they are or the history behind them.
Trust me.. I believe nothing until doing my own research. I think that is a trait that every rational mind should possess. And I'm glad to see you do the same, even if we do disagree on some issues, my friend. I can't resist a good debate.
I'll finish with a few more quotes to ponder:
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." - H. L. Mencken
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely executed for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." - C. S. Lewis
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Originally Posted by Nathan Kelso
