General Welfare, Part 2

Article 1, Section 8
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;.......

Now that I have a better understanding of this clause it astounds me how much we've taken it out of its literary and historical context, completely ignoring words in the text and their meanings, like "common" and "general", "duties, imposts, and excises". "General welfare", for example, means national welfare or benefit, according to the Heritage Guide to the Constitution; not local or regional benefit, but the benefit of the whole.
     To understand the concept of the whole we must understand how the Founders thought, that is, their meaning of  "United States". It may shock you to hear that the United States is not in itself a republic.The United States is a federation or corporation of fifty republics where each state is a sovereign, republican nation. A republic is a self-governing entity. The United Nations (notwithstanding its corruptness) is a federation or corporation of sovereign, self-governing nations. It is not a nation in itself but a governing body. The United States, by statute, is a federal (from the word "federation") governing body representing fifty self-governing nations. Our Constitution does not say that the United States is a Republic, as the Pledge of Allegiance indicates: "I pledge allegiance to the flag....and to the Republic (singular) for which it stands". It says....
   
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of  Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence."  Article 4, Section 4

In other words, the United States, the Federal governing body, shall guarantee to each State of the Union its sovereignty, the right to govern itself. It is the nature of statehood.

Perhaps it's time to revisit the Pledge of Allegiance. According to Constitutional law, the general welfare is to be provided for by the general government only in the context of protecting the States against invasion from foreign nations and violence between themselves. Then, is social security tax under the umbrella of the general welfare? Is medicare tax? Obamacare? Welfare? Anything on that whole liberty-eroding, wealth-stealing list of federal programs?

Man, the truth really has a way of getting you pissed off, doesn't it?

The General Welfare, Part 1

  We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.       The Preamble

     The general government has for many years used the Preamble to justify its legislative intervention in the domestic affairs of American citizens. Many people have used to it to justify our welfare state. The general misinterpretation is that our government is to provide for all our needs. It is a dangerous misinterpretation. The Heritage Foundation  takes an instructive look at the Preamble of the Constitution in historical context.    

.http://www.heritage.org/constitution#!/articles/0/essays/1/preamble    

To summarize.......

1. The Preamble was placed in the Constitution as an afterthought by Gouvernour Morris, independent of the Constitutional Convention. Preambles were declarative statements and neither granted nor limited power.

2. The Preamble was created in light of its counterpart in the Articles of Confederation. It was a general declaration between the states to insure military protection and the security of religious liberty, free trade, sovereignty, etc. It was an agreement among states, not people. That is, it did not involve the private matters of individual Americans. This is what was meant by the "general welfare". 

     The Preamble reads "promote the general welfare" . Provide is not the same as promote. The general government is to  "provide for the common defense", but it is to "promote the general welfare". Promote means to encourage to exist. Provide means to furnish, supply or equip. "General welfare" is applicable to the whole rather than to particular parts. For example, to federally fund the building of a highway in Illinois is beneficial only to the people within Illinois. It has no direct benefit to any other state of the union and therefore cannot be regarded as being in the general welfare. Concerning the domestic affairs of the states and we the people of the states, the general government is simply to promote our welfare by LEAVING US ALONE. But we've been psychologically conditioned to the contrary.
     Our President is quoted as saying  the Constitution, our national law, the very compact he himself studied and swore an oath to God to uphold and protect, is "a charter of negative liberties", and uses the civil rights movement to demonstrate its "flaws". Google it and hear it for yourself. Does this not raise a giant red flag in your mind?

The Nature Of The Oath

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."  The President's Oath of Office.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that i take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will act well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter; so help me God."  The Congressional Oath of Office.

"I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as _________ under the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.  So help me God."                     
The Supreme Court Justice Oath of Office

What is an oath? An oath is more than a promise between two human beings. An oath is a covenant between a human being and God. The Latin word for oath is sacramentum from which comes the word "sacrament".
In the Hebrew swearing an oath has a strong connotation. When God’s name is called out, the oath becomes consecrated and sealed. It is broken under penalty. Therefore, to swear an oath is also to curse oneself. In the Old Testament, when one swears an oath (sacrament) and fails to live up to it, the curses of the covenant are unleashed - conquest, slavery, exile, pestilence (Deut. 28). 
     In our society, there is little awareness of the seriousness of an oath. We take God’s name in vain (a.k.a. “so help me God”) and give it not a second thought. In our swearing- in ceremonies it becomes a simple formality, a show. Not in God's eyes. But who is there to hold them accountable to their oath if the people, particularly God's people, do not know the Constitution themselves? For certain, God is not mocked. Face it people, we are experiencing the curses of violating the covenant - conquest, slavery, exile, pestilence - on a different level, in the form of the progressive loss of our individual liberties and subversion of our sovereignty. We are no longer significant. 
     They, the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, are consistently violating the Constitutional law they themselves swore to uphold and preserve and defend, and we have unknowingly let them  get away with it. They are calling it "out-of-date" only because it limits their power. Our President says it has serious flaws. For him, for his personal program, it has flaws. For the people, it protects our liberties and protects us from the constraints and conscriptions of government.and it is the law. Biblical principle undergirds it. Individuals in power simply don't like to be constrained, and they count on our lack of knowledge. Well, we haven't let them down. So the President is stamping executive decrees all over the place and right on the forehead of Congress in the name of "fairness", and "equal opportunity" and "national security", but in direct defiance of Constitutional law. And to many, he's a hero. Congress has long ago given its Constitutional control of our national currency over to the Federal Reserve which, by the way, 1) is not a federal agency, and 2) has no reserves and has never had reserves and consequently it has crippled us economically. But that's another subject.
     Is it too late for us? All I can say is, it's never too late to educate yourself and fight for what is right in God's eyes.