Originally Posted By: Steve Lawson
Originally Posted By: Fin2Feather
Originally Posted By: Steve Lawson

I go back to the US Constitution and the framers of that sacred document. There are no provisions in there for a national health care system. As I stated previously, I am a strict Consitutionalist, if it ain't in the directions, don't do it.


Don't you think it's a little naive to expect that those drafting the constitution would have anticipated the population growth of the nation, not to mention the all needs of the people, 200+ years into the future?


If I did that for health care, I would also have to consider revisions to the rest of the Document because of changed technology in guns, printing, airwaves, TV, DVD, Music, pornography, photography, transportation, phamachology, illegal drugs,...... on and on and on ad infinitum.

I can see where the Consitution and its ammnedments would be quite a different document if the same authors were writing it today. They did not and we still have the greatest country in the history of the world mostly as a result of that document and those that devised it.


It's noble to think of the constitution as a finite document, but it's the priciples that are finite, not the document itself. What you say you'd have to do is exactly what we must do: consder the principles in light of the changes that have happened to the nation, the population, the world, and mankind in general since it was written. Many of the major issues we face today weren't even imaginable when it was written; it would be like trying to govern modern day science by the principles set out in a Jules Verne novel - worse, frankly. The writers you hold in such high esteem would never have approved of it; they were far too enlightened for that. The constitution is, and must be, a living document.

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. - Albert Einstein