Thursday, April 28, 2011

Quote of the day

"Liberty and limited government were not invented in 1776; the were reaffirmed and strengthened."

-Cato Handbook for Policymakers (7th Edition)

6 comments:

Jim Waters said...

That's right! It's important to remember that government does not grant our liberty (we are "endowed" with it by "our Creator"). Rather, one of government's primary purposes is to "guard" our liberties.

Hempy said...

Obviously you haven't read the Constitution. The Constitution does grant liberty.

It's right there in the Preamble. If the government didn't grant it, the Creator could do nothing to endow it. The Creator works through human agents to effect change. What's endowed by the Creator has to be implement by people and government.

One of the primary purposes of government is to promote the general welfare as prescribed by the Constitution. That promotes the common good.

Alexander Hamilton wrote in his 1791 Report to Congress on manufactures,

"The terms “general welfare” were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those that preceded otherwise, numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limits than the “general welfare;” [Art. 1, §8, Clause 1] and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition."

Anonymous said...

Your great common good and general welfare has been taken to the point that fully able people now sit on their couch and just collect government checks. The government has sucked the initiative and incentive out of the people to the point that too many no longer care for their families or themselves. They are addicted to government handouts.

But so is the governor, the education system, those on tenure that don't have to earn their job every day, public servants in the union, ....

What a deal!

Logan said...

Hempy,

"...and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The Preamble states that Liberty is Blessing, it implies that it was already in existence. The Constitution helps secure that for Americans. It does not grant it.

The Declaration of Independence disagrees with you too...

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Hempy said...

Anon:

The one's collecting government checks are the companies that are bounty hunters.

These are called tax credits, deductions, and everything else that can be deducted from the federal tax code.

That also includes grants and gifts from Congress such as the $250 million that Enron got from Congress, or the $29 billion that Well Fargo got from Congress after taking over Wachovia who had been convicted of laundering $378.4 billion in drug money.

They are the parasites doing nothing but undermining the common good and the general welfare. Their activities are criminal.

You objection to tenure for educators is just a whiner wanting to go backwards to nepotism.

Former Sen. Phil Graham said that we've become a nation of whiners. The Bluegrass Policy Blog supporters are a bevy of whiners.

Anonymous said...

No Hempy, tenure is protection for those folks that aren't confident they can earn their job day after day after day with their performance. Otherwise, they would welcome changes to the system and compete on performance like everyone else in the private sector to keep their job.

Your bounty hunters actually do make a profit which probably infuriates all the folks living off the tax feed trough. But I do agree that private companies should take nothing from the government and the government should get out of dictating how private companies have to do business. Try prevailing wage mandates, Davis-Bacon edicts, the ruling against Boeing on building a facility in SC, ...

Ironic, isn't it, that people eating out of the tax trough always think they know more than the people that are earning money to feed them. Of course that is why educators, civil servants, unions, etc. duck accountability at all costs. It's so much easier to run a mouth than to run a competitive business.