Part of the problem with getting slip shod and thinking that the world has changed is that those who are determined and know it hasn’t changed can steal a march on you – China is doing this. From the Washington Times:
China is expanding its nuclear forces with a new multiwarhead mobile missile and keeps its strategic stockpiles in deep underground bunkers, the Pentagon disclosed in its annual report to Congress on the Chinese military.
China is thought to have up to 75 long-range nuclear missiles, including hard-to-find, road-mobile DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), according to the report, which was released Wednesday. China also has 120 intermediate- and medium-range missiles…
The additional information that China has developed a massive underground network to protect its nuclear force indicates that China is reaching for a first class nuclear force – something which will give China the strategic ability to start wars, and then retreat behind a nuclear umbrella if the war does not go in China’s favor. While the United States maintains sufficient nuclear force to destroy the Chinese population, we may lack means to strike hard a China’s nuclear force. And massacring Chinese is not making war – no decent American government would ever contemplate doing that except in the extremity of the Chinese government massacring the American people via nuclear war.
While China is building a 21st century nuclear force, the United States has not produced a nuclear weapon in 20 years – and recent (asinine) nuclear agreements require us to reduce our aging force to 2,200 warheads or less – none of which, I’ll bet, are capable of penetrating China’s very hardened nuclear sites. While the Strategic Defense Initiative will increasingly protect us from an “out of the blue” nuclear strike, the fact that we lack “first strike” capability (ie, the ability to hit it so hard that any response would be suicidal on China’s part) gives China immense strategic flexibility.
They can use this flexibility to start wars – on their own or via proxies like North Korea – with impunity. If we fight and lose, China is happy – if we fight and win, we can’t fight it to a finish because China can retreat behind a nuclear umbrella and threaten a massive attack against the United States if we go for total victory. We must redress this strategic balance.
First and foremost must come the most aggressive possible deployment of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Technology is advancing so fast that we may soon have the capability even of thwarting a massed attack upon the United States. This will go far towards curbing any Chinese nuclear-armed ambitions. But crucial to a balanced nuclear strategy is the ability to wipe out all or most of China’s nuclear force in a first strike. This will take new types of warheads designed for deep penetration, as well as the most advanced targeting systems to ensure we hit the target squarely.
It is time to wake up from the 1991 false hope that strategic nuclear thinking was obsolete. We live in a world of nuclear weapons, and those weapons are simply going to spread, and more and more nations will develope the capability of hitting the United States. As in all things military, the safety of the United States lays in maintaining an overwhelming qualitative edge. In 1991, we easily had that over China – we very likely still do, but we won’t have it for long, if we don’t start rebuilding our nuclear force. This is not a plea, necessarily, for more warheads than we have now but, instead, a plea that the warheads we have be of the latest technology, and fitting for our needs…and our need right now is to be able to destroy deeply buried nuclear sites (and not just in China – Iran and North Korea also deeply bury their nuclear forces).
The real world goes on, whether we will or no…time get back in to it as far as nuclear weapons are concerned.
Blogs For Victory 
So tell me Mark, where are you going to get the billions (trillions?) to pay for this little program? Borrow it from the Chinese?
Casper,
We already spend a certain amount on our current nuclear program and at least a portion of that could be re-directed. Also, we can probably find savings elsewhere in the Defense budget – and, of course, if we eliminate the $500 to $750 billion in wasted spending in the overall budget, we’d find plenty of resources for this.
Mark,
I thought you were worried about the deficit. Now you want to divert money to a new, bigger weapons program that we “might” need somewhere in the future. Isn’t that expanding government?
What’s obvious Mark, is that you are fine with cutting programs you don’t like (programs that might actually help someone), but are more than willing to expand programs you want whether they are needed or not. China isn’t the threat you are worried about. We are their biggest customer and they own a lot of our debt.
Casper,
I would never cut a dime which helped anyone in need – and there’s the difference between you and me. To you “caring” means “shovel bags of money and don’t ask if its spent wisely”. To me it means, “get aid to those who need it, period”.
Mark,
When have I ever said i wanted to shovel bags of money to anyone? I’m for workfare not welfare.
So you are still for giving OPM to people, just making them go through the motions of make-work first. But it is still OPM. You also seem to think that the best time for self defense is when you are attacked or even after based on what you said about the burglar killed in Colorado. Yes let’s ignore every warning sign and wait till something happens and then start in on a program that will take years or decades to address it. Very smart. Just like the business owners in Colorado should have waited till the man armed with knives got close enough to use them and then just done a Barney Fife citizens arrest. I am very very glad you and people like you are not in charge of any security for anyone. You just sit around and tsk tsk tsk about those big meanies who really do have spines and really do protect you.
Providing for the common defense. In the constitution. Providing welfare. Not in the constitution.
GMB,
Don’t know how you missed this:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, 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.
Casper,
Please tell me that you aren’t that ignorant of our Constitution. What you are citing is the preamble, NOT THE BODY OF THE CONSTITUTION. The only place in the body of the Constitution that “general welfare” is mentioned is in Article 1, Section 8, commonly known as the “general welfare clause”, which reads as follows:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
You’ll note that the clause ends with a semi-colon, because what immediately follows are the ENUMERATED DUTIES OF THE CONGRESS UNDER ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8. Those duties are as follows:
I’m sorry, I just don’t see any mention of Congress having any power to provide welfare to people who can’t or won’t work.
Spook,
“Please tell me that you aren’t that ignorant of our Constitution. What you are citing is the preamble”
I was responding to GMB who selectively quoted the preamble in his post. Of course there isn’t anything in the Constitution about nuclear weapons either.
I’m sorry, I just don’t see any mention of Congress having any power to provide welfare to people who can’t or won’t work.”
There is a difference between the two. I don’t have any sympathy for those who won’t work. However, I’m not ready to let those that can’t work starve.
Casper,
Just exactly the kind of weaselly response we’ve come to expect from you. GMB’s exact words were:
“Providing for the common defense. In the constitution. Providing welfare. Not in the constitution.”
Now, if he had said, the words “common defense”, in the constitution, the word “welfare”, not in the constitution, your answer would be, at least, technically accurate. But we all know that YOU KNEW what he meant, and you chose to answer as though you didn’t. This gotcha mentality has been your MO ever since you first came to this blog. You go out of your way to take people’s words out of context, or to try to rephrase them to alter their meaning. It’s not befitting a teacher, and it’s getting really old.
Casper, have you ever made this ignorant comment without being severely corrected and chastised? Then why do you keep doing it?
” The question that begs an answer is, if the framers of our Constitution, who labored so resolutely in philadelphia that torridly hot summer in 1787 intended the powers of Congress to have no boundaries, why did they bother to enumerate seventeen?”
James Madison, when asked if the “general welfare” clause was a grant of power, replied in 1792, in a letter to Henry Lee,
” If not only the means but the objects are unlimited, the parchment [the Constitution] should be thrown into the fire at once.”
Do you teach THIS to your students? Or do you keep telling them your own version of how our constitution was written and how and why and what it means and just keep ignoring the facts?
Actually, Wikianswers has a great, concise answer to what is meant by “promote the general welfare”.
back then…the term welfare did not mean food stamps and SSI…it meant the good fortune, health and happiness of the people…
it was up to each one of us to get a job…and pursue those things…not for the state to provide it to us
you can pretty much blame the failure of our “liberal” education today for the failure of our militaries failure to advance ahead of this threat…we stand still while our enemies stole all our secrets…
thanks clinton…
js
they bought and paid for the secrets.
the KKKlintoons should have been tried and hung for treason.
just put the weapons in space…set them to detonate after re-entry of every enemy city…
loss of life is minimal…but when they have nothing electric…its a lost cause to fight us…
EMP is the future…the mightiest battle ships…the fastest planes…the most advanced tanks…are useless after an EMP
What our founding fathers thought about welfare.
Thomas Jefferson observed:
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.
And James Madison:
That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.
And Samuel Adams:
The Utopian schemes of leveling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional.
spook
Casper,
Please tell me that you aren’t that ignorant of our Constitution.
HUH?
it is the loony lefty temporary substitute “teacher” you are talking to here.
this moron should be teaching sign to the mannequins in the basement.
🙂
Yes Casper is ignorant of the constitution or at least dislikes it enough to claim it says what it does not say and means what it does not mean.
Casper. Please obtain a dictionary. I would suggest two different dictionarys. One modern and one in use in 1789. Look up provide. Look up promote. Note the differences. Then tell me I do not understand the constitution.
Just to make things easier on you.
Promote.
to help or encourage to exist or flourish; further: to promote world peace.
Provide
to make available; furnish: to provide employees with various benefits.
Do you see any difference.
Great point Green Mountain Boy. Well done.