General Welfare

I was reading comments on a YouTube video and ran across this:

Listen, this is not the time to think with our hearts, but with our heads. We all would like to entertain fantasies that we are perfectly free, that we can live without govt control over our lives, but as human beings we are political, economic and social creatures, and this is a reality we have to accept. I believe in the Constitution too. The Constitution says that the govt has the mission to "promote the general welfare," and that means protecting my best interest.

To which I had to respond ... and I'd like to remember this for later:

Wrong.

"General" and "me" ... General and Specific -- are two very different concepts.

You are responsible for protecting your best interest. The government is responsible for maintaining an environment in which we are as free as possible to do that.