You can’t imagine a free market driven military? Why not? Mercenaries have existed for millenia. Hell, the gubmint uses them now in Iraq. Instead of having a contract to protect X in Iraq, why not a contract to protect X in America? You’d have private mercenary organizations competing for contracts with both the gubmint and corporations for security. Merc groups specializing in defense would stay here, and those that specialize in offense would be sent overseas. Long term contracts for defending things that are gonna be there a long time, and short term contracts for individual actions, events, and offensives. I really don’t see why this is such a stretch.
It’s not a slam dunk case, but it certainly shoots down the arguments of those who claim that the Founding Father’s never would have dreamed of getting the federal government involved in health care.
The Alien and Sedition Act directly contradicted the First Amendment, and there was quite an uproar about it from the other founders (Thomas Jefferson despised it). Was there any uproar about the sailor health care matter being unconstitutional? I admit I haven’t done any independent research on the matter, but my hunch is that it went through with barely a yawn.
According the Constitution, Congress has the power to “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States” and “To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers”
Welfare, according to Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary of American English (the earliest I can find) defines “welfare” as:
Not just interesting, but hilarious!
According to wiki the preamble reads:
“ We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ”
And then they basically stopped there. They figured that was enough. It took 4 years before they decided to amend The Constitution ten times, also know as the bill of rights.
Think about that for a minute. What was going on for four years that they were okay without the Bill of Rights? How did they function? How was anything constitutional or unconstitutional?
Promote the general welfare is right there in the beginning! Right after saying the government should provide for common defence. They had to go back and the stuff about free speech and guns.
[QUOTE=emacknight]
Think about that for a minute. What was going on for four years that they were okay without the Bill of Rights? How did they function? How was anything constitutional or unconstitutional?
[/QUOTE]
Gods…please tell me you are kidding. 
I dinna thin’ that means what you thin’ it means, kimosabe.
-XT
Or it’s because extinguishing Bob’s house fire provides a benefit to everybody. Even if Bob’s house is already written off - and so Bob isn’t getting any benefit out of the deal - everyone else benefits by extinguishing their house fires before it even reaches their house.
It’s the same with police, the military and vaccinations. When your failure to protect yourself would allow my enemies to grow stronger, it’s in my best interests to take them out with a preemptive strike.
:dubious: Actually, no foreign enemy has ever been in a position to invade the U.S. since the Republic was founded, except the British in 1812 (and if they had won, we’d all be speaking English). Maybe if we had no army the Mexicans might have invaded us, but nobody else would have, least of all the Germans or the Chinese.
“promote the general welfare”
Well, seeing as the delegates couldn’t be bothered explaining it any further I guess no one knows what it means.
No, I don’t buy that. There is nothing stopping me from building my house in a responsible manner so that irresponsible neighbours won’t cause me harm.
Maybe in the case of row houses all built with oil soaked wood, but then living in one of those speaks to your irresponsibility. Other people’s houses are of no concern to me. I spent a lot of money on fire alarms and a fire suppression system (not to mention having distance between me and my neighbour), there is no reason other people couldn’t as well.
…says the guy living in Canada. :rolleyes:
[QUOTE=emacknight]
Well, seeing as the delegates couldn’t be bothered explaining it any further I guess no one knows what it means.
[/QUOTE]
You would have been much better off trying to claim you were talking tongue in cheek. You really don’t have any idea what was happening between when the Constitution was written and first Amended, do you?
Let me rephrase that…:p!! Why you would weigh in on this subject is beyond me.
FWIW, ‘Promote the general welfare’ isn’t really all that mysterious or opaque of a phrase (well, to anyone who knows even a little bit about the Founding Fathers, the Revolution, or the basics of US history). It means that simply that Congress will promote laws in keeping with the liberty stuff they were always going on about and to ‘promote’ legislation in the best interests of the governed and the principals of republicanism (no, not the modern kind). It’s really quite simple, actually.
-XT
Actually, Canada is a perfect example. For decades after the Korean War, Canada let its military fade away with neglect. Other priorities, like Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, and cheap University Education dominated the federal givaeaways. It was only with the demise of the cold war that Canada realized they needed a real military, not a bunch of blue-helmet cops standing between protagonists in ex-war zones.
Canada really has very little need for a conventional army. They need an emergency for for natural disasters, they need some military units to pull their weight in international/UN ventures. Bosnia and then 9/11 pointed to a serious need. However, the only one who could invade Canada is the USA, and on the remote chance they decide to, we can’t afford an army big enough to stop them; if anyone else threatens to, well, the USA wouldn’t allow it.
So the proportion of federal funds the USA spends on assorted military needs, Canada was spending on medicare. Even then, the feds welched on the deal. Medicare is a provincial responsibility, but the feds set the golden rules - “he who has the gold, sets the rules”. They promised to pay 50% of all costs as long as it met certain standards, like universal access, no fees. When costs climbed astronomically, they capped their share and slowly strangled the provinces financially. Medicare alternates between serious cost-cutting and false (or unfulfilled) promises to “eliminate hallway medicine”.
Regardless, even as a very healthy person, I wouldn’t trade it for the unmitigated chaos that up to now passed for US health care.
So yes, the OP is a fair comparision. If you have universal health care, you’ll have less for the military eventually. In some ways that’s bad - much of the advanced technology - integrated circuits for missle brains, computers, satellites, advanced jet aircraft, even DARPA’s internet - are a result of military-funded research. OTOH, a smaller military is less likely to be used to invade countries on a presidential (vice-presidential?) whim that had nothing to do with 9/11. (The initial conquest of Afghanistan, which was actually complicit in 9/11 if you recall, had very little of the massive US military involved.)
As for your constitution - in the days before steam, any invasion would move as fast as soldiers could march; while mobilizing at the time simply meant calling out all the able-bodied men with their own guns, which could be done in a minute. Bavaria or Belgium or other European countries could be overrun before they had time to raise the alarm; their citizens may have cared to protect the local duke or prince, depending on his popularity and the enemy’s, so standing armies wer necessary and as often as not, useful against the local populace - something the US constitution generally forbade. However, the citizens of the new republic had a vested interest in protecting their own sovereignity and had just finished proving it.
So a standing army of anything approaching the size needed for a war was probably considered a waste of money and had no purpose. They just needed someone to keep the forts in good repair and stop the cannon from rusting… A navy, OTOH, is not something you toss together in a few days, even in 1790.
That was deep.
Well, no, I’m Canadian. So my knowledge of US History is about the same as a kid from Arizona.
Because it’s my right; free speech says nothing about quality.
It’s also fun from an outsider’s perspective. There are a lot of lurkers wondering WTF is going on. You will be shocked to learn how little American history is taught outside of the US. And besides, if we stopped people from weighing in on subjects they know little about the weekly Lost thread would be all that’s left.
Well, as far as I can tell it’s mysterious enough to have an internet full of discussion on it. I guess as long as you know what it means and that it’s meaning is in line with your political philosophy we’re okay.
Nihon-go wakarimasu ka?
But your entire analysis is based on what happened when we did have a military. It’s nonsense to assume the same history would have played out if we had no military. All the natural resources we have.. all the fertile crop land… just there for the picking.
If anyone’s interested in reading it, here’s the actual text of the law Congress passed in July of 1798, “An Act for the relief of sick and disabled Seamen”. Warning: PDF file.
The SCOTUS has for some decades now given broad latitude to Congress to tax for whatever purpose it sees fit. While some originalists might argue against that, I think that’s mostly an academic issue, at this point.
Some founders had that expansive view and some did not. We’re now living with the legacy of the former group.
[QUOTE=emacknight]
It’s also fun from an outsider’s perspective. There are a lot of lurkers wondering WTF is going on. You will be shocked to learn how little American history is taught outside of the US. And besides, if we stopped people from weighing in on subjects they know little about the weekly Lost thread would be all that’s left.
[/QUOTE]
No, I’m not shocked at all…why SHOULD US history be taught in other countries? The thing is, though, before weighing in on a subject you should know at least the rudiments about what you are talking about. Would be like me coming in an giving my two cents concerning the political history and make up of the government in eastern Outer Mongolia. It would be entertaining, to anyone who knows a bit about it, but other than that it wouldn’t have much value.
There is an internet full of discussion about 9/11 CT’s, JFK assassination plots, space aliens and all manner of other things. This is not a good indication that the topic is worthy of debate. Here’s the thing…we have the Federalist Papers, as well as all kinds of letters and other writings from the folks who wrote the Constitution (both before and after they did so), so there is really no more mystery here to anyone who has even a cursory knowledge of the historical events, people involved or the context it was written in, than there is mystery involving space alien craft supposedly crashing in Roswell in the 1940’s. This in no way precludes people from endlessly talking about it, however.
BTW, political philosophy has little to do with this, as knowledgeable lefties are also well aware of what this phrase was intended to mean (as well as understanding what the 2nd Amendment was intended to mean)…the debate among the knowledgeable, IMHO, hinges around whether it’s still APPLICABLE today, and whether (or not) changes (using the system the FF’s wisely put in the system, as they kind of grasped that they didn’t have all the answers and tht things change over time in any case) should be made, Amendments amended or even done away with, or new Amendments added. That’s how our system was set up to work, after all…if something REALLY is outdated and out of step with the desires of the majority of our citizens, then there is a process that can be used to change, alter or even do away with some (or even all if that’s what’s wanted) of the Constitution and the later Amendments. Of course, since this really isn’t out of step with what the majority of citizens in the US want, those opposed try and twist and torture the language in order to cast doubt as to what the FF’s intent was, or too try and demonstrate how it’s no longer applicable, in order to do an end around the process…instead of trying to use the process as it was designed to make the changes they desire. They do this (on this issue) because they pretty much know that what they are trying to do is NOT the will of the majority of the citizens in this country, at least not at this time (who knows…perhaps we’ll become more civilized and in lock step with the rest of The World™ some time in the future ;)).
-XT
Right, eastern Outer Mongolia would be silly, but North Korea…
The text was in your original link, btw.
Interestingly, it only applied to sailors coming from foreign ports. I wonder if there was some concern about importing diseases.
[QUOTE=emacknight]
Right, eastern Outer Mongolia would be silly, but North Korea…
[/QUOTE]
Well, it would be equally silly, honestly. If someone came into the thread you linked to and started talking about what a great humanitarian Lil’ Kimmy is, or how well run North Korea is, and how they would easily vanquish the South due to their courage, determination, large penis size and 1920 style death rays (and they were serious), then, while amusing, they wouldn’t really be adding much to the debate there.
If your point (which, to be honest, is a bit illusive to me here) was that I know less about North Korea than you have demonstrated you know about the US in this thread, then I’d have to say that, on the surface of things, you seem to be in error. 
-XT
Why should the government come in and steal MY money, just so that welfare bums who can’t afford their own private armies get their own free protection force?
Really this entire worry of us speaking Chinese is xenophobia and racism. Who cares if our kids have to start speaking Mandarin? Is it really any of the government’s business if the natural order of things ends up with some people winning and some people losing?
I’m offended by all you statists who want to take my HARD EARNED money just so you can implement your own anti-Chinese, anti-Japanese Nazi ideology. It’s my right to invest as much or as little in defense as I want, not the government’s right to decide for me.