🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <_JydnfyShqjye53eRVn-jQ@rcn.net>, Jon Nadelberg
<news@nadelberg.com> wrote:

> "Tim May" <timcmay@removethis.got.net> wrote in message 
> news:140820052235276093%timcmay@removethis.got.net...

> > It's _never_ the function of government to take any position whatsoever
> > on what people choose to eat.
> >
> > Those who wish to fund the development of "food pyramids" are welcome
> > to fund such efforts, read the books of these kind of people, etc. And
> > those who prefer to eat certain kinds of foods are free to do so.
> >
> > But government has no business, no constitutional right (in the U.S.),
> > to use tax monies to fund food advocacy of any sort.
> >
> 
> In the Preamble, one of the things the government is supposed to do is 
> "promote the general welfare" of the people.  So this is part of it. 
> 


The Constitution says that powers not explicitly provided to the
government are denied to it. The general language about "provide for
the general welfare" is just boilerplate in the intro section.

It doesn't mean government has any power or authority to ban certain
foods, to promote other foods, to require certain ingredients, to ban
others.

Government has no business advising people on what they should eat, any
more than it has business advising on clothing, or recommended
recreational activities, or advising on hobbies, etc. Simply not an
enumerated power.

Lastly, for now, "general welfare" does not have the meaning many today
ascribe to it. (The same situation as with "well-regulated militia,"
which has nothing to do with government regulations in the modern
sense, but everything to do with the 18th century meaning of
"regulated," closer to "well-oiled" in the modern sense than in
anything having to do with government laws, which the Second explicitly
was set up to bar.)


--Tim May