not unlimited powers

[taliv]

while the topic primarily deals with federal welfare, i think the sentiments expressed below regarding limited powers of the federal government are parallel to RKBA.

would that today's 'liberals' were cast in the mold of Jefferson

" I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it."
-- Benjamin Franklin

"There is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken and insolent. The day you passed that act you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health for support in age and sickness."
---- Benjamin Franklin's 1766 criticism of a British welfare act

“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.”
-- James Madison, as he disapproved of an attempt to appropriate $15,000 for French refugees

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"... If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
-- Thomas Jefferson

"Our tenet ever was . . . that Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant that they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action." -- Thomas Jefferson

note: i expect this thread to last not much longer than fiscal responsibility in the federal gov, which apparently was under heavy attack by nanny-staters before the ink on the parchment was dry

 

[madmike]

But what about that right to Cable TV Congress passed a few years back?

Don't you believe in rights?

 

[Art Eatman]

Hey, sure, we're all aware of abuses of power, insofar as passing laws to Do Good. That's largely irrelevant unless you're prepared to become as politically active as the supporters of those candidates who abuse these powers.

Independent people tend to act individually. Dependent people win out because they act as groups. The mutual support thing wins elections.

Art

 

[Henry Bowman]

Independent people tend to act individually. Dependent people win out because they act as groups. The mutual support thing wins elections.

Yes, and people who like to tell others what to do strive for elected position that allow them to do just that while people who want to be left alone (and to leave others alone) shy from such positions.