therightfangirl | (no subject)

I've been tempted to bring things I saw on Facebook over here a few times, but stopped, because the thought of dragging over my friends' things so that I could make fun of them... well, it struck me as cowardly and not the mark of a good friend. (In general I prefer to do my commenting directly, but--between wanting to spare my FB friends politics (at least the ones who don't talk it themselves) and not being sure what the FB system would report to where...)

BUT ANYWAY. I've Liked The Federalist Papers as a way to make *some* of the politics I see on my wall be ones I agreed with. Today they posted this:

Don't claim to love the U.S.A. while trying to make it a socialist nation.

Which isn't one of their more clever, and wouldn't be one of the ones I gave particular thought to (I mostly like them for their Founding Fathers quotes)--but I was glancing through the comments, and the first one I saw was this:

There is a distinct difference between providing a basic income so no one is left with nothing and a complete redistribution of wealth. The preamble of the Constitution includes the statement, "promote the general Welfare." Abandoning the people in their time of need is not promoting their general welfare in way, shape, or form.

Eisenhower saw this distinction. "Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."

The key is to provide a basic, minimal income for everyone to maintain their power as a consumer and their ability maintain a functioning home. Do that while freeing up the American market and discouraging outsourcing and this country's position as the world's economic powerhouse will be guaranteed.

Seeing this posted to the Federalist Papers FB amuses me because... well...

1) None of the programs cited here existed or were going to exist in any form anytime soon when Madison, Hamilton and Jay were writing. The argument wasn't between a federal government that addressed the needs of the poor versus one that didn't--it was between a federal government with basically any power of its own or not.

2) At least one of the Federalist Papers was fairly pointed about how it was stupid to read the power to tax to promote the general welfare very broadly, and no one could do so in good faith. (Not that the comment is citing that part--but the Preamble doesn't even have the force of law, so it's... even sillier.)

3) And on a more general note, how on earth can you free up markets while providing a national income? How can you discourage outsourcing while providing Americans what can only be assumed to be several times what foreign citizens are willing to work for for doing nothing? I'm not even sure what the phrase "power as a consumer" means, so I'll leave that one for now...

And of course, the Eisenhower quote ... that only argues that to disband those programs is politically infeasible, which speaks absolutely nothing as to right, wrong, beneficial or harmful. (Seriously, all I can get out of it for certain is "Yeah, good luck with that one!") If we read it as it's probably intended by this post--that the thought of dismantling the programs is stupid and only cared for by a very few of the extremely privileged, not the probability of success--then, wow, we've got baseless ad hominem with an implicit appeal to authority (a PRESIDENT said it, after all!)

...so yeah.

That was actually a funny little thing to wake up from my afternoon nap for, so I thought I'd share it. ^_^

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The preamble of the Constitution includes the statement, "promote the general Welfare." Abandoning the people in their time of need is not promoting their general welfare in way, shape, or form.

Idiocy like this makes me want to tear my hair out in fistfuls. Is this the common, accepted way of teaching and understanding the Constitution nowadays? If it is, I may as well just give up on humanity. We are too stupid to live.

***

Never in my dreams, not even when I was a child learning about the Constitution, would I have read that bit and think, "Oh! They're talking about government programs!" Never. Not once. (Especially, as you mentioned, there WERE no such things at that time, not the way we have them today!)

When did the word welfare cease to mean "well being" and come to mean "government handouts"? I must've been out sick that entire grade.

/rant

That's what I was taught in school. The Constitution tells you to have the government take care of you!

California. Ugh.

What age range are you, if you don't want to say specifically your age? I'm 44, so maybe this is a new(er) thing?

I'm 26, almost 27. :) This was from elementary to high school, though my high school government teacher was a libertarian and was like WTF WHY DID YOU GUYS GET TAUGHT THAT GARBAGE, HERE'S WHAT IT REALLY IS ABOUT.

I'm glad you finally got a proper teacher. Some kids never, ever do. It's really pretty scary. In some ways, you can't fault people completely for being so mixed up. What can you expect, when they've been taught nonsense for 12-16 years straight?

I guess that's why I put such value on providing correct information about any issue, whenever, wherever and however I can do so.

When I took Constitutional Law as part of my paralegal program, it was almost entirely about police procedural law. To note.

In what way?

Well... let's start with the fact that it never actually covered the Constitution, itself--it focused pretty much on the Bill of Rights, after your standard opening chapter about the structure of the government. And because it as largely a Criminal Justice class (it was optional for Paralegal majors), its focus was on what you could and couldn't do during the arrest and prosecution of a person, along with relevant legal precedents.

Ah, I see. Well, that's all important information, to be sure. But I think the title 'Constitutional Law' ends up being misleading!

Isn't that why Orwell wrote about totalitarian states destroying language?

It really does work out that way. Language is supposed to correspond to reality. Destroy language and you have the tool to destroy reality. That is why PC language and freedom of speech issues are so very important. It's not about being able to shoot your mouth off whenever you want. It's about liberty itself.

3) And on a more general note, how on earth can you free up markets while providing a national income? How can you discourage outsourcing while providing Americans what can only be assumed to be several times what foreign citizens are willing to work for for doing nothing?

I've wondered about this before, and I'm not an economist, but here's the conclusion I've come to. I think this would, in theory, be possible if--and only if--the United States could operate its economy completely independently of any foreign trade of any kind. Which, to be fair, is probably doable on paper. We're a big country with a good infrastructure, we have more oil in the US than in all of the Middle East, and we've got plenty of other raw materials, so I believe we could run a totally isolationist economy if brought down to the point.

It would also mean a lot of products would be suddenly unavailable for a long period of time, and a whole bunch of companies would die out or move overseas overnight, and prices would fluctuate unpredictably up and down for (at least) a few months, and there'd be a zillion other negative consequences that I can't even imagine right now, and it would go against pretty much everything the left claims to like. It's a completely insane idea on the face of it. But this is the only way I can imagine this "national income" thinggummy working. At all.

Edited 2012-08-12 03:21 (UTC)

" if--and only if--the United States could operate its economy completely independently of any foreign trade of any kind. Which, to be fair, is probably doable on paper."

Not even remotely. We import some rather critical things, like *half* the oil we consume.

Allowing this, then that makes this whole idea of a "national income" or "living wage" or whatever even stupider. It's just dumb all the way around.

One thing I never see discussed in discussions about what the government should or should not provide is, "what can the government realistically afford?" Something most households pay close attention to.

Contrary to popular belief, the government supply of money is not endless and does not increase simply by raising taxes. Taxes are a percentage of wealth earned and created. Sure, you can increase how much of a given pie you get, but that always assumes that the pie stays the same size regardless of how much of it you're claiming, which isn't true in the case of economics. If the government gets most of the pie, why should I look for a bigger pie? That game doesn't seem to be worth the candle after a while.

Contrary to popular belief, the government supply of money is not endless and does not increase simply by raising taxes.

I guess their view is, "Raise the taxes on Teh Evyl Rich! After all, they make more than enough money!"

Of course, they don't take into account that even rich people don't have unlimited funds that spring out of nowhere. If they are taxed too insanely or their businesses are regulated into the ground, they - unlike us poor folks - have the ability to move anywhere else in the world that they choose.

And to take their businesses and resources with them. D'oh!