What government is for

From the latest Imprimis:

"For the 21st century constitutionalist [read liberal], perhaps the greatest virtue of redefining the privileges or immunities clause is the prospect of transforming the Constitution from a guarantor of “negative liberties” into a charter of “affirmative government,” guaranteeing an array of “positive” rights. As President Obama has observed in a radio interview in criticism of the legacy of the Warren Court of the 1950s and 1960s, “[It] never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and . . . more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. . . . [T]he Warren Court . . . wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution. . . that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”

Heh. Funny. What Obama says as complaint, I say in praise. The government isn't SUPPOSED to be watching out for us as a nanny, making sure we get everything we need. Providing for the general welfare is far from creating a right to health care and other things. Free citizens have a right to pursue these things, and a moral obligation to see that their neighbors are not destitute; we do not have them guaranteed by the government. Government is there to keep the streets safe, and enforce law and order; it is to ensure equality of rights, not of outcomes.