The Preamble, the Supremes and the Gvernment.

I was talking informally with some students last week about current events, and they were talking about the government response to the hurricanes and their take on the whole hurricane experience. Our school district still has a goodly number of Katrina evacuees and the experience, on the whole, has been positive.

Then, of course, I read the blogpsphere and read the postings and comments that the Government should have done this, or the Governmnet should have done that. I am especially pleased with the Porkbusters initiative from the bloggers and I support those efforts.

Then of course, we have the nomination of Judge Alito, and the recent confirmation of Justice Roberts, and I am wondering what that means for the state of the Supremes.

All three of these topics are gelling in the back of my mind, and the ideas I am getting are pretty radical, so I have to go to the dictionary to look up the word PREAMBLE:

A preliminary statement, especially the introduction to a formal document that serves to explain its purpose.

My thesis is simple. What if we suddenly find that we have enough justices on the Court to make a conservative majority, and they decide to uphold the Constitution. What is the Governnment supposed to do? What, in itself is the business of Government. What should the Government provide?

So then, I go to the Preamble of the United States, which serves to explain its purpose, and certainly gives a good summation of intent. We read:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 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.

Bold words. But what to make of them? Let's fisk it, shall we?

We the People: That's us. We decide what our government can and cannot do.

In order to form a more perfect union: It isn't perfect, but we can keep trying.

establish justice,: without justice then nothing else works. We have to have Courts and the Constitution will provide for those courts.

insure domestic tranquility,: we want to live in peace and raise families, pursue business and not be bothered by nonsense. Especially government nonsense.

provide for the common defense: we have to provide for a standing Army. A good Navy helps, and in this age of airplanes, an Air Force might be handy. Of course, when this was written, the US Marine Corps already existed, they should be included in the provisioning.

promote the general welfare: These are interesting words. The general welfare. I would imagine that this subordinate clause is all about the general welfare of the people. It sure doesn't sound to me like any specific welfare, no handouts to individuals. This deals with the general good of the people. No Great Society here. Maybe we should just come out in favor of everyone working and saving and taking care of themselves. That would certainly promote the general welfare and be a whole lot more inexpensive than what we are doing now.

and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,: this clause seems to mean that we intend to remain free and to pass that freedom along to our progeny.

The Constitution goes farther, in fact, and whole libraries are printed to hold the words that try to divine the intentions of the founders. The preamble seems to me to be fairly simple and easy to understand. Would that the Supreme Court, and the Congress, would take the words in the Preamble strictly to heart.

As a matter of fact, the only things I see in this Preamble that the government is supposed to provide are the Courts and a common defense. I don't see bridges in Alaska, or walking parks in New Orleans, (or levees, for that matter). There is a whole lot of fat that we could be cutting, if we return to the words in the Constitution.