X-Message-Number: 23131 From: Subject: Re: message#23128 (Mike Perry) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2003 19:29:47 +0000 You are correct it was Madison who commented on the General Welfare clause. My ignorance has been exposed! I will only comment on the part of your post that struck a strong chord with me. This can never be proved and is only my opinion: I don't think for a moment Jefferson would look at all the government bureaucracies created in the past 100 years with favor. I believe he would feel betrayed by politicians that followed him. When I say we were had more freedoms in the 1950's than now, I was referring to the government bureaucracies that now exist but didn't then. Medicare, Medicade. and D.E.A. If I took the time I might find many more. We pay for those bureaucracies in money and lost freedoms...in the 1950's we neither paid for them and (except for the blacks) enjoyed the freedoms they have removed! If the federal government had enforced the constitution back then, it would have insisted (in the usual fashion...with guns drawn) that states not interfer with blacks voting. It would have also immediately abolished the state imposed poll tax. If that had been done, all the civil rights marches etc. would have been unnecessary! That is another example of what happens when government fails to do it's mandated job! I am aware that the income tax is constitutional. If I remember correctly the Fed's. promised it would only be one percent (or some very small figure) and that only the rich would be hit with it. "Well", we the people said..."that sounds pretty good. Hit those greedy rich! I think i'll vote to ratify it"! Oops, screwed ourselves again! I don't think we need an "experiment" in the results of self responsibility and the right to determine how much of our property we keep. It speaks for itself. A government that is focused on preventing the initiation of force, fraud and enforcing contracts...and nothing else, would be vastly superior to the nanny state we now suffer under. How a rational person can argue against that baffles me! That doesn't sound "radical" to me...only very moral! Work within the system! If we had a government limited to that mentioned in the above paragraph, there would be far fewer things to "work within the system" for. Best wishes, Jerry Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=23131