“Promote the General Welfare”

While Walter Williams filled in for Rush Limbaugh yesterday, a caller asked about the phrase “promote the general welfare” in the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution.

I don’t know if the Founders meant by “promote” anything other than to advance or to further, but I see the word “promote” as in Merriam-Webster’s 1st definition,”to advance in station, rank or honor.” Maybe one can compare that to being “promoted” at one’s job. For example, the Founders created the Constitution “in order to,” among other things, “promote the general welfare” of the people of the United States, or to raise the standard of living as well as level of freedom of their posterity. Of course, when the very government the Founders created, which is sworn to uphold that very Constitution and its stated purposes in the Preamble, enacts laws and restrictions on the citizens’ freedom and creates burdens on Americans and siphons from them the fruits of their labor, then such a government is then violating the concept of “promoting” the citizens’ standard of living and their “general welfare,” and is thus demoting them.

Are today’s 20- and 30-somethings better or worse off than their parents’ generation? And if they’re worse off, then whose fault is that? Is it  government’s fault? Well, ultimately it’s the people’s fault because it is a government of and by and for the people, after all.

There was so much progress in the 19th and 20th centuries, but then our Federal government inflicted  Americans with the income tax, and then created the Federal Reserve, and then the fascist New Deal, and several wars, etc.

Governments in America have caused the demoting of Americans, and we really must get back on track by dismantling all the enslavements and impoverishments that government has caused.

According to Roto-Reuters, Americans’ hygiene habits are worse than ever, especially as seen in tests on their kitchen sinks and faucets, but I don’t know if government is to blame for that. However, one can make the case that while people are expecting government to do more and more for them (as well as to them), perhaps they expect government to wash their hands for them as well.

Actually, my favorite episode of The Munsters was when Herman yawned and accidentally inhaled the dining room furniture, and Eddie and Marilyn had to go to Home Depot to get a replacement set of dining room furniture, while Lily was away at her Gardening Club meeting.