Resolved: The US founding fathers were Socialist

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then-candidate Barack Obama caused quite a stir when he explained his proposal to raise federal income taxes for individuals making more than $250,000 per year. Speaking with a man known later as “Joe the Plumber,” Obama remarked that “when you spread the wealth around, it’s better for everybody.” [1] John McCain and other conservatives instantly seized on the comments as evidence that Obama was a socialist, [2] a charge that has only intensified since Obama was elected President. [3, 4]If a desire to “spread the wealth around” is a dead giveaway of a socialist politician, however, then it should be clear to anybody that the Founding Fathers who drafted the Constitution (including the Bill of Rights) were indeed socialists. This is clear from both the text of the Constitution itself, and from the views held by a majority of its authors.1. The U.S. Constitution permits socialist policiesA. Redistribution of wealthTwo provisions in the Fifth Amendment expressly permit the federal government to redistribute private property: the Due Process Clause and the Takings Clause. I shall address them in turn.The Due Process Clause provides that “[n]o person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” [5]The clear implication of this clause is that a person may be deprived of life, liberty or property with due process of law. In other words, if a legislature passes a law providing for the deprivation of private property, then such a deprivation is perfectly constitutional. Just as traffic signals may lawfully deprive the “liberty” of car drivers, tax laws and eminent domain statutes may lawfully deprive individuals of their property. The 5th Amendment does not enshrine an inviolable right to private property; it merely provides a procedural right against the arbitrary deprivation of private property.Similarly, the Takings Clauses provides: “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” [6]Here again, the implication is that the federal government may take private property with just compensation. Importantly, the government’s power to take private property through the use of “eminent domain” does not require the consent of the property owner; as long as a court subsequently deems the compensation to be “just,” the taking is constitutional. For example, if the federal government wants to demolish a private home in the pathway of a proposed highway, it may seize the property by force in exchange for its fair market value. The fact that the home may have passed down several generations (making the home “priceless” to its owner) doesn’t matter, because the subjective value of the property to the owner is irrelevant. If the government wants to demolish a private home, it can demolish a private home.Many conservatives and libertarians consider the use of eminent domain to be an unjust violation of individual property rights. If true, doesn’t that make the 5th Amendment a rather textbook example of “socialism?"B. Government spendingGovernment spending is an indirect way governments redistribute wealth, because the beneficiaries of government spending are rarely the same individuals who finance it through their taxes. For example, if rich people pay a majority of the taxes needed to build a public road, then poor or middle-class taxpayers who also use the road have received a redistributive benefit from the rich. Similarly, a public education system freely available to all children is a redistributive benefit to poorer families from the wealthier taxpayers who pay for it. Thanks to the redistributive nature of such benefits, conservatives and libertarians often oppose government spending as a hidden form of socialism.For the purposes of this debate, we must ask: does the Constitution provide for robust government spending? The answer is an unequivocal YES.The General Welfare Clause provides Congress with a plenary spending power to “provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States.” [7] Here, my opponent attempts to distinguish “general welfare” from “social welfare,” and cites a few quotes from James Madison to prove that spending for the former is permissible while spending for the latter is unconstitutional. Unfortunately for my opponent, Madison’s views on the scope of the General Welfare Clause have always been in the minority.The majority interpretation of the General Welfare Clause is provided by Alexander Hamilton, who served as Treasury Secretary under President George Washington. To Hamilton, the clause allows Congress to spend money on almost anything it wants:"[T]he power to raise money is plenary, and indefinite; and the objects to which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive, than the payment of the public debts and the providing for the common defence and ‘general Welfare.’ . . . The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues should have been restricted within narrower limits than the "General Welfare" and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition. It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper.” [8]President Washington endorsed Hamilton’s expansive interpretation of the General Welfare Clause, and the First Congress (comprised of many of the same delegates who drafted the Constitution) subsequently enacted almost all of the ambitious spending recommendations detailed in Hamilton’s 1791 “Report on Manufactures.” [9] History has since vindicated Hamilton’s view, as Madison’s narrower interpretation of the General Welfare Clause has yet to be supported by a single Supreme Court Justice. I defy my opponent to show otherwise.C. Government regulation of the economyAnother important plank of socialism is a preference for heavy government regulation of the economy. Not coincidentally, the desire for greater economic regulation was one of the prime reasons the Constitution was drafted in the first place. [10] As Hamilton explained in Federalist Paper # 26, "I am much mistaken, if experience has not wrought a deep and solemn conviction in the public mind, that greater energy of government is essential to the welfare and prosperity of the community." [11]2. A majority of the Founding Fathers held socialist viewsInterestingly, my opponent's argument consisted of little more than the quotations of one Founding Father: James Madison. Of course, there were 54 other delegates at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, and a majority of them were Federalists who subscribed to the views of Alexander Hamilton. [12] The Federalist Party supported Hamilton's vision of a strong centralized government, and agreed with his proposals for a national bank and heavy government subsidies. In other words, they were socialists.More arguments to come in Round 3.Sources:[1] http://www.youtube.com...;[2] http://articles.latimes.com...;[3] http://www.foxnews.com...;[4] http://thehill.com...;[5] http://www.usconstitution.net...;[6] Id.[7] http://www.usconstitution.net...;[8] http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu...;[9] http://en.wikipedia.org...;[10] Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 16 (2005) (“The Commerce Clause emerged as the Framers' response to the central problem giving rise to the Constitution itself: the absence of any federal commerce power under the Articles of Confederation.”)[11] http://www.constitution.org...;[12] http://en.wikipedia.org...;