"I am contending for the rights of the living, and against their being willed away, and controuled and contracted for, by the manuscript assumed authority of the dead." - Thomas Paine.
You might also want to review the 9th amendment.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
In other words, if the People want Congress to spend money on reducing AIDS in Africa, then it is their right.
Of course, historically speaking, the 9th Amendment came out of a concern Alexander Hamilton had of a "strict" interpretation of the Constitution.
In Federalist 84 Hamilton noted:
"It has been several times truly remarked, that bills of rights are in their origin, stipulations between kings and their subjects, abridgments of prerogative in favor of privilege, reservations of rights not surrendered to the prince. Such was Magna Charta, obtained by the Barons, sword in hand, from king John. Such were the subsequent confirmations of that charter by subsequent princes. Such was the petition of right assented to by Charles the First, in the beginning of his reign. Such also was the declaration of right presented by the lords and commons to the prince of Orange in 1688, and afterwards thrown into the form of an act of parliament, called the bill of rights. It is evident, therefore, that according to their primitive signification, they have NO APPLICATION to constitutions professedly founded upon the power of the people, and executed by their immediate representatives and servants. Here, in strictness, the people SURRENDER NOTHING, and as they retain EVERY THING, they have no need of particular reservations. "We the people of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." Here is a better recognition of popular rights than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our state bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government."
such a thing, it is inconcievable to any rational person that he was suggesting that future generations should pay no heed whatever to the framework and intent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
As to Hamilton, it is clear that our current economic condition has far more to do with too much Hamilton, and not enough Madison.
"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."
-- James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
-- Professor Alexander Tytler over 200 years ago
Tytler was precient.
-- Modified on 9/15/2010 8:50:28 AM
...that Paine would have paid no heed whatever to the framework and intent of the Constitution & Bill of Rights?
But he certainly would have weighed its imporance to a far lesser extent then you seem to.
Hamilton wasn't addressing economics in Federalist 84, but rather politics. However, he did have quite a lot to say on the subject of economics, being that he was the father of the American School of Economics.
The three major planks of the American School are:
1. protecting industry through high tariffs.
2. government investments in infrastructure.
3. a national bank.
Since 1980, the United States has declined economically, and our debt has exploded, largely because the first two planks were abandoned. Take note that prior to then, these ideas were strictly adhered to, and resulted in the rural wasteland of the United States turning into the strongest economic power the world had ever seen.
However, government spending on infrastructure has turned into a Union protection racket and boondoggle.
And Federal intervention in monetary policy has upset the natural balances of supply and demand and is the primary cause of the boom bust cylces of the last 30 years.
1 out of three aint so hot. though in baseball it gets ya to the hall of fame.
I see no problem with a Union protection racket, since such a thing would only benefit us in the long term. But I think you're being a little melodramatic here.
I highly disagree with the Austrian theory of market cycles. Austrian theory is so filled with hate of government, that they fail to see the root causes of market cycles.
In reality, the Fed is more or less forced to respond to imbalances that markets naturally produce (the wage to productivity gap). Such imbalances can be mitigated by higer unionization, tying the minimum wage to the inflation rate, and repealing the Reagan top marginal income tax cuts.
2 harms. They artifically inflated cost of doing business which drives domestic companies wanting to manufacture here for export, to go there and deliver direct.
They also divert capital, which is not unlimited (unless you have a printing press like the Fed) from projects that are truly needed to ones which will continue to ensure Democrat voting union members remain employed.
I won't even get into how government regulations, taxes, and environmental concerns drive manufacture overseas as well.
These are economic realities which must be taken into consideration unless it is your plan to seize private capital like Castro.
We all know what a paradise he's got goin....
"They artifically inflated cost of doing business"
Which is the same as saying that they divert profits to the wages of workers. I see no problem with this.
"which drives domestic companies wanting to manufacture here for export, to go there and deliver direct...I won't even get into how government regulations, taxes, and environmental concerns drive manufacture overseas as well. These are economic realities which must be taken into consideration unless it is your plan to seize private capital like Castro."
2nd point here first. I have no desire to live in a society as "free" as China. I don't desire the freedom to breathe in deadly pollution, or buy products contaminated with lead. I'm quite happy we have some modicum of regulations that prevent that. We need more of them.
As for those regulations and higher wages driving companies overseas, there's a simple solution to that. Raise tarriffs to the point where that would cease to be profitable.
I don't believe in playing nice to private capital. Leave them to do what they're going to do, but we should keep them on a short leash. If necessary, bashing them in the head to remind them who's boss doesn't hurt either. If Widgets Incorporation wants to tell us that they're going to move operations overseas, we should tell them that we'll bar them from importing their products to the United States. After that, I think the "invisible hand of the market" would take care of itself. 
It's interesting that you quoted Paine here. It appears to have come from The Rights of Man, Paine's response to Sir Edmund Burke.
Of course, when read in context, you see that Paine was referring to monarchial governments, and would have little to no bearing on the discussion at hand.
One page later, Paine says "All the monarchical governments are military. War is their trade, plunder and revenue their objects." This is the kind of gov't he was referring to in the quote you sited.
However, Paine has hope for something different.
"Government founded on a moral theory, on a system of universal peace, on the indefeasible hereditary Rights of Man, is now revolving from west to east by a stronger impulse than the government of the sword revolved from east to west. It interests not particular individuals, but nations in its progress, and promises a new era to the human race."
-- Modified on 9/15/2010 12:21:25 PM
