Helvering’s general welfare trumps Heller’s gun
By Craig J. Cantoni | July 9, 2008
Now that the empty heads in the pathetic media have pontificated about the narrow Supreme Court decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, let’s take a moment on this Independence Day for an intelligent discussion of something that trumps Heller’s gun.
First, as backdrop, the essence of the Heller decision is that citizens have a right to keep an assembled gun in their house for self-defense. As Porky Pig used to say at the end of his cartoons, “That-that’s all, folks.” Of course, because Supreme Court justices are on a piecework pay system in which they get paid for the number of highfalutin words they produce, the Heller decision produced pages of words to say what Porky could have said in one sentence, even with his stuttering.
If the Supremes had decided that citizens didn’t have the right to keep an assembled gun, I would have said the hell with them and kept my two pistols assembled and ready to fire. The odds of federal and local agents finding out would be nearly zero, just as it was nearly zero when my grandpa said the hell with Prohibition and made booze in his cellar. Unenforceable laws that run counter to human nature and natural rights are laws that will be broken and will make the government look like the overbearing buffoon that it is.
There is a very low probability of a bad guy taking my property. But there is 100 percent certainty that federal agents will take my property. The Heller decision says that I have a right to defend my property in the first instance, which I would have done anyway, regardless of what the Supremes had ruled. On the other hand, a decision known as Helvering v. Davis says that I have no right to defend my property in the second. In other words, I have a right of self-defense where the probability of harm is nearly zero, but I have no right of self-defense where the probability of harm is 100 percent.
You won’t hear the pathetic media pontificating about this bizarre situation and gross violation of rights.
What is the Helvering v. Davis decision? Made in 1937, it said that Social Security was constitutional and that the “general welfare” meant anything that Congress wanted it to mean. The Court would not have ruled this way if it were not for Herr Franklin Delano Roosevelt putting a gun to the Court’s head by threatening to stack the court with justices loyal to him. FDR’s attorneys helped the emperor in democratic clothing by confusing the scaredy-cat justices with gibberish about Social Security taxes being insurance premiums instead of taxes.
The net result is that 71 years later, the nation is bankrupt, if “bankrupt” is defined as having more IOU’s than the ability to pay the IOU’s. The IOU’s for just Social Security and Medicare are over $60 trillion, or more than $700,000 for each American under the age of 18. Amazingly, the pathetic media is largely silent about this and thus lets both presidential candidates get by with fiscal hogwash that will increase the bills while decreasing the value of the dollar bill.
Even more alarming, well over half of Americans are either dependent on the government for handouts or subsidies, or live in a household where the breadwinner works for the government or works in a private-sector job that is dependent on government regulations. Thanks to Helvering, the tipping point was crossed long ago.
Once politicians were allowed to define the general welfare, politicians defined it for the welfare of politicians, ensuring that they would be reelected. The illustrious members of our national and state legislatures invited leeches, ticks, mosquitoes and every other species of bloodsucker into their offices to feed off the body politic – all in the name of the general welfare.
If wealthy farmers want a subsidy, it’s for the general welfare. If horny retirees in big Buicks want free Viagra, it’s for the general welfare. If Barack Obama wants free goodies for his favorite charities in order to buy votes in South Chicago, it’s for the general welfare. If George W. Bush wants taxpayers to build a stadium for his baseball team, it’s for the general welfare. If John McCain wants taxpayers to fund the elections of politicians they hate, it’s for the general welfare.
And on a personal level, if Tom, Dick and Harry want government agents to take the Cantoni family’s silverware for their own benefit, it’s for the general welfare. Unfortunately, because Helvering trumps Heller, I can’t shoot the bastards.