Er, what? I don't think you understand what the "general welfare" clause is for or why I brought it up. The clause is not an enumeration of a specific power, but a statement of the
purpose of government, why the States and the People should submit to the authority of the Republic. That's our foundational
ideal. And the Confederates, being proto-fascists, hated this ideal. They considered it in concept to be inimical to their self-interest as a class, and thus proscribed it in their version.
James Madison the President berated James Madison the abstract pettifog.
The meaning of "regulate" is quite the same now, because it just means to order and organize.
The plain language of the Constitution is not obviated by your
dislike of this or that derivative power.
Before 1933, the government was very much captured by trusts and monopolies, and there was already an incestuous relationship between the two. Very strange that you would call this, also one of our country's worst eras, a time of "free markets" even under the very capricious definitions adduced to this term.
What was the difference between before and after 1946 that makes it a clean break? Why wasn't it just one more stage in the same trend? As the popular line by
Proudhon evokes, the regulatory state was not a spontaneous invention of the Progressive or Liberal Consensus governments.
We might recall the line from some member's signature quoting Lemur: "Why do you hate [the libertarians'] extremely limited version of freedom?"
Ultimately, it's hard to have any kind of interesting discussion here, because empirical results are beyond your concern. It's not that dogmatic libertarians are critical of state intervention for a
lack of effectiveness, or how effectiveness could be improved. For them, intervention is per se illegitimate, so it must be smashed no matter what the outcome.
What that leads us to is the TR threads below this one, where the conflict lies between the skeptical uninitiate and the fundamental faith of the believer.
'Why is scripture reliable?' 'Because the holy spirit.'
'Why shouldn't the state intervene?' 'Because the animal spirits.'
What is there to talk about?
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