The American generation who suffered through the Great Depression and defeated the tyrannical designs that Adolf Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo Hideki had for the world has often been called "the great generation." Will history see it that way? Let's look at it, but first start with a couple of statements from two truly great Americans.



In 1794, Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees. James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, "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, you'll recall, is the acknowledged father of the Constitution, and he couldn't find constitutional authority for spending "on the objects of benevolence."











Your congressman might say, "Madison was all wrong; after all, there's the 'general welfare' clause." Here's what Madison had to say about that: "With respect to the two words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." Thomas Jefferson echoed similar sentiments saying, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."



When the great generation was born, Congress spent only three percent of the GDP. Today, as the great generation dies off, Congress spends over a quarter of the GDP. There is no constitutional authority for at least three-quarters of that spending.



Let's look at the recent election campaign. Whether it was a Democratic or Republican candidate, for the most part, they won votes by promising to spend the money of their constituents "on the objects of benevolence." They promised to violate the rights of some Americans for the benefit of other Americans. They promised to take money from younger Americans to buy prescription drugs for elderly Americans, take money from non-farmers to give to farmers and take money from wealthier people to give to poorer people. In a word or two, politicians campaigned on an unstated promise to ignore any oath of office to protect and defend the United States Constitution and instead go to work on undermining it.



Don't get me wrong. I don't blame only politicians. For the most part, they're only the instruments of a people who have growing contempt for our Constitution. You say, "Hold it, Williams. Now you've gone too far!" Check it out. How many votes do you think a James Madison-type senatorial candidate would get if his campaign theme was something like this: "Elect me to office. I will protect and defend the U.S. Constitution. Because there's no constitutional authority for Congress spending on the objects of benevolence, don't expect for me to vote for prescription drugs for the elderly, handouts to farmers and food stamps for the poor. Instead, I'll fight these and other unconstitutional congressional expenditures"? I'll tell you how many votes he'll get: It will be Williams' vote, and that's it.



The "great" generation has transformed the electoral process from voting for those most likely to protect our Divine-given rights to liberty and property, to voting for those most likely to violate those rights for the benefit of others. There's no question that the "great" generation spared the world from external tyranny, but it has outdone any other generation in destroying both the letter and the spirit of our Constitution, and as such produced a form of tyranny for which there's little defense.

from another recent Indymedia post about similar topics:

"When Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin met to edit the Declaration of Independence, they knew there had been these three historic tyrannies of religion, violence, and wealth so massive and concentrated as to produce a feudal-like state (what Jefferson called "commercial monopolies" when he strongly argued for an Eleventh Amendment to ban them as part of the Bill of Rights).

Three years before the Declaration of Independence, in 1773, the East India Company had lobbied (it was then called "bribery and influencing") the King and Parliament into reducing the Company's tax on tea and giving them an Enron-style multi-million-dollar tax rebate (in 4 out of the 5 years before their collapse, Enron paid no federal taxes and even received money from the federal government; the East India Company cut a similar deal with England in 1773 with the Tea Act). Thus the East India Company could sell their tea and other products in the Americas at prices that undercut and threatened to drive out of business tens of thousands of colonial entrepreneurs.

But America's Founders would have no part of it.

They rose up against the world's largest and most powerful multinational corporation and ejected it from the Americas at the Boston Tea Party; the British Parliament reacted with the Boston Port Act, which taxed the citizens of Boston more than a million dollars (in today's money) to repay the East India Company. That a single corporation could change a nation's tax laws to its benefit without the people having had a say in the matter ("taxation without representation") set the stage for the American Revolution.

To America's Founders, democracy meant that a government drew its power and legitimacy from its citizens, and must be responsive solely to its citizens, and not to any other institution."

draws its power solely from the citizens (and it does), then can the government have a power which the citizens themselves do not???

In other words, a citizen does not have the right to appropriate another citizens income for his/her own benefit. It does not matter if the appropriator is poor, ill, etc. Taking someone else's property by force without compensation is theft.

So, from where could the government get the right to take one citizen's property and give it to another, be that in the form of a prescription drug benefit or an agricultural subsidy??

When a government does that, it is exceeding its legitimate authority.

Both parties do this. For the Left however, it is doctrine.