Originally Posted By: sinij
Originally Posted By: Derid


10th Amendment " The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. "


You are about a century and a half late, this issue was settled shortly after civil war. Government can and does regulate it under commerce clause.

"Section 8. Clause 1. 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; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States."

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Also, unless the amount doled out by a Federal entitlement program to each person is equal to or less than or equal to the money paid in - it is wealth redistribution.


How do you expect to account for your share of road use, your share of policing, your share of research, your share of clean air, your share of military, and your share of complete lack of rioting and looting due to starvation? I have an idea - lets collect a share of everybody income so we can pool money together, we will call this collection a tax, and then you as a member of society benefit from all these 'general welfare' goodies without having to individually pay for them.

Lets drop pretenses and call things by their proper names, you simply don't like paying taxes. Following your illogic any tax on YOU is wealth redistribution, because they take YOUR MONEY away from YOU and YOU don't like it! You know who else doesn't like to pay taxes? Greeks. We know how that story goes.



Obamacare tried to tell people what they have to do, and that they have to provide money to a private company. That is what makes it blatantly unconstitutional. Also the way the Commerce Clause got interpreted, went against the intent of the Founders and was quite a tragedy.

In any case, I will admit I am surprised. I would never have thought even the most rabid Marxist would have advocated for validation of any scheme that legalized congress forcing people to pay money to any crony industry.

Also, under the shoddy implementation we currently have of the commerce clause - making a universal health care system in the same mold as Social Security would have been technically legal. Dont get upset at me that your leaders chose to use an invalid method that screws us all over.

You are also incorrect about my logic regard wealth redistribution, first of all because in the greater sense - infrastructure improvement, if sound in of themselves, do help everyone. Also, most of those infrastructure improvements can also be classified under military use - such is the reason the highways were first built in the 50's for example. certain things, like the Military , are things the govt has a right and obligation to provide.

But even irrespective of that, the cost per capita of infrastructure improvements is so small that it is easy to conclude that most if not all people get a greater benefit than they paid. Also, infrastructure improvements help create wealth.

This becomes un-true when it comes to entitlement programs and other programs that directly take from one person and hand to another. Not only do these programs not create wealth, but there is a clear chain of financial custody that can be followed to identify exactly who paid what and received what.

Trying to twist logic to make a comparison between infrastructure that anyone can use and that creates wealth - and direct taxation and redistribution is disingenuous at best. Blatantly insulting at worst.

Of course knowing you, you will come out swinging at the straw man again saying " Oh so your saying there should be no social safety net, yadda yadda blah blah" and arguing how social safety nets provide a greater societal benefit, and totally ignore the fact that I have never argued against the presence of some forms of social safety nets. The difference you do not seem to grasp, is that the scope and reach of such are what makes the difference here.

There is a big difference between providing a basic social safety net, and the types of sweeping cradle-to-grave micromanagement of society and the economy you are advocating.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)