It isn’t known whether Gene Lyons is ignorant of the meaning of the Preamble to the Constitution or that he knows and deliberately twists it to support his socialist ideology. In either case, it all comes out the same way, which can be called stupidity.  In his column Arkansas Democrat-Gazette of March 4, 2010, he quoted the Preamble to support his contention that the Constitution allows the nut job (a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama) and the sycophantic socialists in Congress to shove government-controlled health care down our throats. His argument is based on the general welfare part of the preamble which states, 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.

Two words must be noted to understand fully what the founder wrote. They are the words provide and promote as in provide for the common defence and promote the general welfare.  The Lyons type minds of the world want to twist the words to make it say provide for the general welfare. They do that in order to make the Constitution conform to their agendas and ideology. The Preamble is a general statement of the intent of the Constitution, but it does not state any specifics for what the government can or cannot do, though the liberals such as Lyons try to make it the grounds for their shucking and jiving.

A correct understanding of the Constitution would solve the mental gyrations of Lyons and his ilk. The term promote the general welfare must not be used to expand the powers of Congress in an effort to circumvent other provisions of the Constitution. In other words, courts will not interpret the Preamble to give the government powers that are not articulated elsewhere in the Constitution as seen in United States v. Kinnebrew Motor Co.  National health care is an attempt at an end run around the Constitution by twisting the general welfare statement into saying what it does not mean.

Addtionally, in Article I, Section 8, the first clause of the 18 limits on government reads, … provide for the common defence and the general welfare … That which follows are specific statements which give the federation of states collectively the power to do that which the states individually cannot do. Items 1 through 18 are the limits on the government as constituted by the states acting as a whole or as one unit; and the term  provide for the common defence is linked to general welfare with conjunction and which coordinates the two parts of the sentence. In other words, common defence and general welfare have equal standing and are defined by the next 16 clauses. The 16 clauses, in addition to giving the limits on government, define the meaning of provide for the common defence and the general welfare. They also give meaning to the words promote the general welfare of the Preamble.

When Gene Lyons writes he always shows his leftist ideology and depends on others not knowing enough to see his deliberate falsehoods in order to push the nut job type agendas. Lyons’s use of the Preamble is false ground for his argument in support of government health care. Such chicanery is what has helped lead us to  where we are today, fighting for freedom from government so that we can enjoy continued liberty by fighting against the liberal fools such as Gene Lyons.

© 03-04-2010 DEC