A moral system is simply a collection of beliefs about what is right and wrong. Check out this Wikipedia article on value systems. Perhaps the word “value” rather than “moral” may help to reduce the confusion. Libertarianism and utilitarianism are competing value systems, each with their own definition of “good”. A value system may be a religion, living your life according to the tenets of Christianity or Islam.

And all are separate from systems of government. However, certain systems of government can be set up in accordance with those systems. Governments don’t have value systems, but governments, in the way they are designed, reinforce certain value systems.

It’s been a pleasure. Stick around when you get a chance.

Again, if you really want to get into learning about this, I highly recommend Randy Barnett’s book.

I’m not a big fan of “original intent”. However, I am a fan of using the ratification debates, understanding of language/etc, to figure out exactly what the people of the day thought they were ratifying. For example, if the words “necessary and proper” were commonly understood at the time to suggest that these legislation should both be necessary (not for extraneous purpose) and limited to the properly enumerated powers, how can we go back now and say that “necessary and proper” only means “convenient and only ancillary to the enumerated powers”?

Simply put, the document used to mean something, and that meaning has been stripped by the Court. Of course, it’s not only Legislative powers. The Court has been stripping power out of the 1st Amendment (McCain-Feingold), and the 5th Amendment (Kelo). Now the government can tell you what you can and can’t say about a candidate, and can take your house to give to a developer. Even the Bill of Rights is not sacrosanct when we can “interpret” rights out of existence.

As for “general welfare”, James Madison (the father of the Constitution) said:

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. If the words obtained so readily a place in the “Articles of Confederation,” and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted.

The idea was that the states would take care of everything else.

But I still assert a fundamental difference between these kinds of things that fall under the broad egis of “the general welfare” and the specific limitations in the constitution, such as attempts to restrict gun ownership or attempts to establish a state religion. If the framers of the constitution expected the clause in the opening of I.8 (which echoes the preamble) not to refer broadly to other things that would “provide for the common defence and general welfare” — that is, things not in the laundry list to follow — then why even have a bill of rights? Why amend the constitution to specifically forbid establishment of a state religion of I.8 doesn’t explicitly permit it and therefore it’s unconstitutional?

But we’ve long recognized the rights of the people to use power granted to them under the constituion to ratify and administer programs for the common good.

Not particularly. This has been something that has crept over the span of centuries, probably culminating in Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Court if they didn’t find his New Deal programs Constitutional. Check out Randy Barnett’s “Restoring the Lost Constitution” (available from Amazon) if you really want to get into the history of exactly how and where the relevant clauses of the Constitution explicitly designed to limit government have been washed away.

We may “recognize” the rights of the people to do whatever they want, but these powers are not granted by the Constitution. We don’t pay attention to the Constitution anymore, but that doesn’t change what it says.

But I guess the post I was responding to sort of laid out the premise that libertarians can’t argue with non-libertarians. I’m not a libertarian, so perhaps this is a waste of time.

The premise was that libertarians and utilitarians are working from different first principles. Meaning that you believe the common good trumps individual economic liberty, and I believe individual economic liberty trumps the common good. I said it was tough to debate this point, because we are aiming at different purposes.

It’s like saying that I want a blue house, and you want a yellow house. For us to have a house, one of us has to give in, or I have to convince you to change your mind, because yellow houses have poor resale value. My argument against something like national healthcare, when talking to you, would not be that it’s immoral to steal my money to give you healthcare, it would be that national healthcare is simply a bad deal.

That doesn’t change the fact that the Constitution is a document designed to limit government (which is a completely tangential point to the original post).

To establish a national healthcare system, we would need to amend the Constitution. Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution explains clearly what jurisdiction our Congress has to make laws in our society, and grants the power to make any laws necessary and proper to those enumerated powers. Nowhere have we granted the government power to dictate or enforce a socialist economic system.

The Constitution does not stop individual States from engaging in socialism, but it does not provide any power for the Federal government to do so. If you want universal health care, perhaps you should inquire with your state government?

But I guess the post I was responding to sort of laid out the premise that libertarians can’t argue with non-libertarians. I’m not a libertarian, so perhaps this is a waste of time.

Instead of argue, then, I’ll tee up a really nice one for you to hit down the fairway: please tell me about the time when we “believe[d] in constraining the Federal Government to operate within the boundaries of the Constitution” as you define those boundaries. And then explain to me what was superior about that time in history to this in terms of individual liberty (if that’s the measuring stick we’re applying).

All best,
patrick

PS – Here’s the larger quote. I wasn’t so much cherry picking as trying to avoid tedium:

“the expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society, all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.”
http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN20.html

should be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society, all the different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.

Those words don’t say that a wealthy person should pay a higher percentage of their income as tax. In proportion sounds more like each person paying the same percentage, but that percentage would account for a greater absolute amount of money. That smacks of cherry picking out of context Patrick. How about providing a link to the whole document?

Patrick:

But just as we decide that the interstate highways are good for all of us, we are free to engage in vigorous debate, weigh the evidence, and decide whether or not We the People want to pool our resources and establish national healthcare.

The Constitution provides enumerated powers to the Federal government. It then specifically states that those powers, privileges and rights not enumerated are reserved to the people and the states. Nowhere do I find an enumerated power to establish national healthcare using the Federal Government as the agent. I have to conclude that the Federal Government cannot, within the framework of the Constitution, do what you suggest without a Constitutional Amendment. Sadly we no longer believe in constraining the Federal Government to operate within the boundaries of the Constitution. Thus, we get arguments like Patrick’s.

It is convenient to Patrick’s argument to overlook the 9th and 10th Amendments, the debates between the Federalist and Anti-Federalist camps during ratification and the Federalist Papers, the words of the authors themselves.