Posted on 03/03/2002 6:26:29 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:39:16 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
I know this is petty but, it isn't a mistake. The first paragraph of Article 1, section 9 says the following;
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;No mention of the word "promote".
Just to reiterate though, providing for the "common Defence" and "general Welfare" are not powers in and of themselves. They are merely descriptive phrases meant to classify the specifically enumerated powers that are listed directly following those general terms.
OMG!!!
You're kidding! Intercourse is unconstitutional?
As far as I know, the subject of intercourse was never decided upon in the Supreme Court, so the constitutionality of restricting intercourse was never officially determined.
The good news is, the Nonintercourse Act of 1809 was repealed through legislation shortly after the War of 1812 w/ Great Briton therefore making intercourse legal again. Now go have fun, but make sure you first check the local laws governing such activities, especially if you live in S. Carolina or Utah.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, it's subsidies to Cuba ended, reducing Castro's ability to support communist uprisings in other countries. If the embargo ended today, would Castro use the money to feed his starving people or to export revolution in other countries? The answer is obvious and an excellent reason to maintain the embargo as long as Castro is in power.
Now that the Cold War is over, we may disagree on whether continuing the embargo is the best way to achieve our goals. However, the argument that the embargo should be ended for humanitarian reasons is misplaced. The Cuban people aren't suffering because of the embargo, but because of Communism. The Cuban government distributes food and medicine to the ruling elite, while the people struggle to get by on rations and whatever they can afford from the black market at high prices.
The current embargo is primarily on sugar and tourism, while allowing medicines and food-aid directly to the Cuban people. So for humanitarian reasons, we have already partially lifted the embargo on private aid that circumvents the Cuban government.
Lifting the official embargo would not permit American corporations to do business directly with the Cuban people. The Cuban government will not allow that. Instead, the Cuban government wants to act as the middle man. The Cuban government gets paid in dollars and "pays" the workers in worthless Cuban pesos. The arrangement is profitable for everybody involved, except the Cuban workers it was supposedly intended to help.
There would be alot of American dollars directly given to people in Cuba which wouldn't be subject to Cuban government scrutiny.
The reason to lift the embargo is to put free people at eye level of the Cubans and give them hope. Give them a sense of what their nation might be like if they were free from the restraints of Castro's vicious regime.
I used to be 100% pro-Embargo, until a couple of yrs ago. It makes no sense.
You just don't get it, do you?
There's NOTHING in Cuba that isn't subject to government scrutiny! Not one damned thing! There's also the fact that possesion of US dollars is punishable by law.
You're on!
Prohibition doesn't work. The interaction with Americans will end up with dollars in the hands of Cubans, I gurantee it. The Cuban government cannot effectively prevent that from occurring.
In a letter to his friend and Senator Wilson Cary Nicholas (who strongly argued against the need for an Amendment to grant additional constitutional authority for the federal government to obtain land from foreign nations trough means other than war) Jefferson expressed his lingering constitutional concerns about the purchase of the Louisiana territories in this way ...
"When an instrument admits two constructions, the one safe, the other dangerous, the one precise, the other indefinite, I prefer that which is safe & precise. I had rather ask an enlargement of power from the nation where it is found necessary, than to assume it by a construction which would make our powers boundless. Our peculiar security is in possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."
Conceding the likelihood that the framers' enumeration of powers was "defective" -- for "this is the ordinary case of all human works" -- he urged, "Let us go on then perfecting it, by adding by way of amendment to the constitution, those powers which time & trial show are still wanting." In the present case, he concluded, it was "important . . . to set an example against broad construction by appealing for new power to the people."
But after all that, he went ahead with the purchase and put aside the Amendment that he (himself) drafted in order to fulfill his constitutional duty, for the purpose of expediency. I wish he had attempted to pass the Amendment as quickly as it could have been done. It no doubt would have passed easily, and it would have at least helped prolonged the time it took to turn the Constitution into a "boundless" piece of "blank paper".
Bump!
What? You think people are just allowed to move around where ever they choose spreading good cheer and dollars? They aren't. You really need to brush up on communist dictatorships.
I never said that. But prohibition does not work. 80 people died of drug overdoses in American PRISONS last year.
It is patently obvious that where there is a will, there is a way. Furthermore, the Cuban government cannot be everywhere. The transfer of dollars to Cubans will happen and has happened and is probably occurring right this minute by one of the few Americans who are allowed to go there or who have travelled to Cuba from a country which allows it.
Really? Nobody saves away dollars they receive from Americans in order to leave? I highly doubt that.
Cuba doesn't have its own currency?
Castro pays workers wages in pesos, and only one-tenth of the value of their labor. He take the other 90% (actually it's 100% because the pesos are just so much play money) paid in the dollars he demands from countries who use his workers. The only currency Castro accepts as exchange for goods and services, are U.S. dollars.
"Directly given to people?" In what way? Do you mean tips? Or are you implying that Americans doing business in Cuba would directly pay Cuban salaries?
The reason to lift the embargo is to put free people at eye level of the Cubans and give them hope.
"Give them hope?" Do you have any idea what life a communist country is like? Don't you understand that the Cuban government deals with every other country in the world and that the average Cuban citizen isn't allowed to set foot in the foreigners-only resorts where the free Spanish or Italian or Canadian citizens might "give them hope" as you put it? What makes you think American tourists would be allowed to have more interaction with ordinary Cuban citizens than tourists from other countries?
I've already explained why the Cuban people don't get the food and medicine they desperately need. Do you seriously think that if Americans spent money in Cuba, that the money would go directly to Cuban citizens? Your naivete is remarkable.
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