Why have we stopped using plain English?
- Thread starter badbob
- Start date
pickpocket
New member
The Constitution used plain wording???
Mike Irwin
Staff
"The Consititution may be relatively easy to read, but other legal works from that era are just as full of mumbo jumbo as anything out today."
YEP!
And you know, I think it's pretty amazing that the Founding Fathers could do in 4 handwritten pages in about 3 months what the European Union can't do in almost 1,000 pages in 5 years...
YEP!
And you know, I think it's pretty amazing that the Founding Fathers could do in 4 handwritten pages in about 3 months what the European Union can't do in almost 1,000 pages in 5 years...
Esquire M Busterbury
Moderator
And to think they did it while blind drunk...maybe that's the key
(I've wondered if our founding fathers got in trouble with their old ladys for drinking so much. "You're going to go out and try to create a government with your friends again, Aren't you! That'll be the 3rd time this week! And you always come back smelling like a brewery! Damn it Benjamin!)
jacobtowne
New member
"...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Pretty plain to me. Although some senators like Kerry, Feinstein, Kennedy, Schumer, and Lautenberg seem to have difficulty understanding it.
JT
a good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer knows the Judge
i read somewhere that there are more lawyers than doctors in this country. Maybe that is a place to begin looking for the answers. Are we (as a society) more concerned with laws and legalese then our own personal health? Is there really a need for THAT many purveyors of the the law? is law school easy or is medical school just too tough? Any thoughts? I have no idea so any input would be helpful.
i read somewhere that there are more lawyers than doctors in this country. Maybe that is a place to begin looking for the answers. Are we (as a society) more concerned with laws and legalese then our own personal health? Is there really a need for THAT many purveyors of the the law? is law school easy or is medical school just too tough? Any thoughts? I have no idea so any input would be helpful.
Mike Irwin
Staff
"And to think they did it while blind drunk...maybe that's the key."
Considering that the water wasn't, for the most part, fit to drink, it's no wonder they drank alcohol.
If you're ever at Franklin Plaza, the National Historical Site where Franklin's Home used to be, you'll notice some very gross things in walking through the area...
There are round disks on the ground with text carved in them...
Privy -1780
Water Well - 1780
And, usually, they're separated by about 10-20 feet.
No wonder cholera and other diseases spread by human waste contamination tended to roar through the cities every year or so.
Which brings us to the pressing question...
Which gun for fighting off a swarm of cholera?
Considering that the water wasn't, for the most part, fit to drink, it's no wonder they drank alcohol.
If you're ever at Franklin Plaza, the National Historical Site where Franklin's Home used to be, you'll notice some very gross things in walking through the area...
There are round disks on the ground with text carved in them...
Privy -1780
Water Well - 1780
And, usually, they're separated by about 10-20 feet.
No wonder cholera and other diseases spread by human waste contamination tended to roar through the cities every year or so.
Which brings us to the pressing question...
Which gun for fighting off a swarm of cholera?
leadcounsel
Moderator
Part of it has to do with "common sense" which isn't so common.
In all fairness, a "plainly" written passage becomes very ambigious when you have 2 different readings. Now imagine 200 million different interpretations.
And I think that most reasonable people can agree that there should be SOME restrictions on the Constitution. For instance, should FREE speech include the common example of yelling "fire" in a crowd, inciting a riot, hate speech including burning crosses in your front yard, etc.? Most people will agree that the right to free speech does NOT include the right to put others in jeporady or hateful or harassing speech.
Therefore, as you begin to carve out parts of the Constitution to include "exceptions" people, special interest groups, corporations, interested passionate private parties, etc. dedicate their lives and resources to carving out MORE exceptions.
And, since law school generally costs $50,000 or more lawyers and the nation is saturated with lawyers and lawyers are very eager to take nearly any work that comes his/her way, you get lawyers taking these types of pursuits.
In all fairness, a "plainly" written passage becomes very ambigious when you have 2 different readings. Now imagine 200 million different interpretations.
And I think that most reasonable people can agree that there should be SOME restrictions on the Constitution. For instance, should FREE speech include the common example of yelling "fire" in a crowd, inciting a riot, hate speech including burning crosses in your front yard, etc.? Most people will agree that the right to free speech does NOT include the right to put others in jeporady or hateful or harassing speech.
Therefore, as you begin to carve out parts of the Constitution to include "exceptions" people, special interest groups, corporations, interested passionate private parties, etc. dedicate their lives and resources to carving out MORE exceptions.
And, since law school generally costs $50,000 or more lawyers and the nation is saturated with lawyers and lawyers are very eager to take nearly any work that comes his/her way, you get lawyers taking these types of pursuits.
MeekAndMild
New member
You laugh but years ago I read of deep well drilling heads which contain a mechanism for shooting into the rock to break up the ground so that the water flow would be faster. I'm not sure what caliber.
I would wonder too if the right to free speech also include the right to unwanted electronically amplified speech in the commons. When I lived in the city there was a certain park where lots of people gathered to eat their lunches. There was also a nutball who had huge loudspeakers mounted on the roof of his Chevy truck and a penchant for showing up at 11:45 to preach for an hour. The city passed a noise ordinance and got rid of him while all the libertarians moaned and groaned.
IMHO he should have been allowed to stand on a soapbox and shout himself blue in the face as long as he didn't have loudspeakers. In fact I wold have been comfortable to rope off one corner of the park and call it the nutball and panhandler corner so all the riffraff could have a place to go to annoy each other.
MatthewVanitas
New member
Hmm...
The fact that the meaning of the _first_ half of that sentence: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state," can be debated for months, does tend to disprove the "plain wording" theory.
Does "well regulated" mean:
"under certain legal limitations" ?
"supervised by governmental authorities (like the Nat'l Guard)"?
"properly prepared for its task" ?
???
BadBob, I think that most of the problem is that there is a group of people in and out of the Govenment who are under the impression that the Constitution is a LIVING DOCUMENT, which by their deffinition means that it can be twisted to say what they want it to say.
The only way the Constitution can be acurately interpreted is by using the COMMON LANGUAGE of the day to do so.
The Common Language defined simply means the language of the day in which the Document was written in, Today's language could in no way be used to accurately interpret the Constitution, the phraseoligy of old had a totally different meaning, than todays useage of the Language. And that is the Problem today, people are trying to use the modern language, to interprit the Constitution, and it simply cannot be done.
Just as an example the 2A is quoted to say "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the peope to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
There has been a lot of contiversy about the statement of a well regulated militia, which using the language of the day simply means that the militia must be called together to drill and pratice loading their weapons and pratice shooting and of course marching in unison, (IE: A WELL REGULATED MILITA) this had nor was it ever intended to mean a Standing Army of Fighting men. the Founding Fathers were dead set against a Standing Army maintained by and for the Government, That is why we had a Militia, which consisted of able bodied Men, that were not Military Men, but when called upon they would compose a fighting Force, to defend against a Foe from with out, or from within the country, we do now have a standing Army but it is under Civilian Control not Government Control, I know that seems like a wrong statement but if you look at it Donald Rumsfeld is not the Government, he is a Civilian in charge of the DOD. A fine line maybe but never the less it is considered Civilian Control, which includes the Congress, and the President being, the Comander in Chief.
Now that this has been explained, and is as clear as mud, I hope I haven't confused the issue futher.
I would suggest that a reading of the book The Second Amendment Primer, by LES ADAMS, PUBLISHED BY PALLADIUM PRESS OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA. would help to clear up a lot of the Misconception about the term Militia, it isn't Mumbo Jumbo as some think no more so than the Constitution, I heard said in a descution of the subject that the Constitution was written in a language of the common man so he would know exactly what it said and ment, the people of that day were for the most part Farmers and Merchants, some of them could read and a good lot of them could not, which is I believe the reason for the Federalist Papers, which were READ BY THOSE THAT COULD READ AND DISCUSSED OPENLY TO CAUSE DEBATE AND VOICE OPINIONS. to get people talking about the Doc. Proposed to be ratified by them, (the people). so it had to be pretty simple language but remembering that it was the common language of that day, not now.
The only way the Constitution can be acurately interpreted is by using the COMMON LANGUAGE of the day to do so.
The Common Language defined simply means the language of the day in which the Document was written in, Today's language could in no way be used to accurately interpret the Constitution, the phraseoligy of old had a totally different meaning, than todays useage of the Language. And that is the Problem today, people are trying to use the modern language, to interprit the Constitution, and it simply cannot be done.
Just as an example the 2A is quoted to say "A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the peope to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
There has been a lot of contiversy about the statement of a well regulated militia, which using the language of the day simply means that the militia must be called together to drill and pratice loading their weapons and pratice shooting and of course marching in unison, (IE: A WELL REGULATED MILITA) this had nor was it ever intended to mean a Standing Army of Fighting men. the Founding Fathers were dead set against a Standing Army maintained by and for the Government, That is why we had a Militia, which consisted of able bodied Men, that were not Military Men, but when called upon they would compose a fighting Force, to defend against a Foe from with out, or from within the country, we do now have a standing Army but it is under Civilian Control not Government Control, I know that seems like a wrong statement but if you look at it Donald Rumsfeld is not the Government, he is a Civilian in charge of the DOD. A fine line maybe but never the less it is considered Civilian Control, which includes the Congress, and the President being, the Comander in Chief.
Now that this has been explained, and is as clear as mud, I hope I haven't confused the issue futher.
I would suggest that a reading of the book The Second Amendment Primer, by LES ADAMS, PUBLISHED BY PALLADIUM PRESS OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA. would help to clear up a lot of the Misconception about the term Militia, it isn't Mumbo Jumbo as some think no more so than the Constitution, I heard said in a descution of the subject that the Constitution was written in a language of the common man so he would know exactly what it said and ment, the people of that day were for the most part Farmers and Merchants, some of them could read and a good lot of them could not, which is I believe the reason for the Federalist Papers, which were READ BY THOSE THAT COULD READ AND DISCUSSED OPENLY TO CAUSE DEBATE AND VOICE OPINIONS. to get people talking about the Doc. Proposed to be ratified by them, (the people). so it had to be pretty simple language but remembering that it was the common language of that day, not now.
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Kelly, but then we split the originalist thinking into its derivatives. As in, original intent of the writers? Do we go to the Congressional Records to define the meaning of the Congress? Or original intent as in, what did the people understand it to mean when they voted on the Constitution and it's various amendments? There is yet a third derivative, which I won't go into at this time.
So it is actually the language used at that time, but with modifiers. Yes?
(Sorry, I couldn't stand aside and not muddy the water more...)
So it is actually the language used at that time, but with modifiers. Yes?
(Sorry, I couldn't stand aside and not muddy the water more...)
Antipitas ,Kelly, but then we split the originalist thinking into its derivatives. As in, original intent of the writers? Do we go to the Congressional Records to define the meaning of the Congress? Or original intent as in, what did the people understand it to mean when they voted on the Constitution and it's various amendments? There is yet a third derivative, which I won't go into at this time.
So it is actually the language used at that time, but with modifiers. Yes?
(Sorry, I couldn't stand aside and not muddy the water more...)
Thre Constitution can only accurately be interppited, by using the Common language of the day in which it was written, and understood by the People of that day, in which they understood it to mean certain things, in a paticular way, in which the common language was clearly intended so the common people could understand the proposed Constitution and then accept or reject it, it was a long time before the Constutionwas Ratified by the New United States, but thank GOD it was.
So it is actually the language used at that time, but with modifiers. Yes?
To answer this Question I would have to Answer, So it is actually the language used at that time, I WOULD ANSWER YES, but with modifiers, I WOULD ANSWER TO WHAT MODIFIERS ARE YOU REFERING TO?
I don't see the waters as being muddied if it helps people to understand the reason that you cannot take a modern Dictionary and define words of the Origional Language of the Constitution.
So it is actually the language used at that time, but with modifiers. Yes?
(Sorry, I couldn't stand aside and not muddy the water more...)
Thre Constitution can only accurately be interppited, by using the Common language of the day in which it was written, and understood by the People of that day, in which they understood it to mean certain things, in a paticular way, in which the common language was clearly intended so the common people could understand the proposed Constitution and then accept or reject it, it was a long time before the Constutionwas Ratified by the New United States, but thank GOD it was.
So it is actually the language used at that time, but with modifiers. Yes?
To answer this Question I would have to Answer, So it is actually the language used at that time, I WOULD ANSWER YES, but with modifiers, I WOULD ANSWER TO WHAT MODIFIERS ARE YOU REFERING TO?
I don't see the waters as being muddied if it helps people to understand the reason that you cannot take a modern Dictionary and define words of the Origional Language of the Constitution.
badbob , Acording to the information I have on well regulated, it has only a partial reference to being well armed.
I gues the best way to try to explain it, due to the fact that I have trouble with some ways to explain things is to try this approach.
A well Regulated Militia is one that is brought together on a regular basis to drill and pratice the Arms loading of the day and if memory serves me correctly that portion of the drill was to load and shoot 3 shots well aimed and hitting a target in one minute, I may be incorrect on the time as I am thinking (Minute Men) which is probably incorrect, but at any rate this process was conducted to keep the men trained and ready if called upon to serve the Army, sort of like the weekend Warriors of today, or military Boot Camp, no disrespect intended, there by being well regulated. They may have even included some close order drill typical ofthe period.
I gues the best way to try to explain it, due to the fact that I have trouble with some ways to explain things is to try this approach.
A well Regulated Militia is one that is brought together on a regular basis to drill and pratice the Arms loading of the day and if memory serves me correctly that portion of the drill was to load and shoot 3 shots well aimed and hitting a target in one minute, I may be incorrect on the time as I am thinking (Minute Men) which is probably incorrect, but at any rate this process was conducted to keep the men trained and ready if called upon to serve the Army, sort of like the weekend Warriors of today, or military Boot Camp, no disrespect intended, there by being well regulated. They may have even included some close order drill typical ofthe period.