Funny, my reaction to sentences like those is nearly the opposite.
Legolas Send a noteboard - 30/08/2012 08:11:34 PM
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
People no longer write like that because few can be bothered to read and comprehend it. Ending government by sound bite is as simple as demanding better instead of demanding simplicity. Heaven knows we should; the Constitutions text well demonstrates most government policy is too complex to fully address in five words.
As in, if only laws nowadays were even remotely as easy and clear to read as those. If you compare the Bill of Rights and the like to other countries' constitutions that mostly date to later periods, one of the things that will strike you is how succinct and simple the phrasing of the Bill of Rights is.
Edit: Which goes a fair way in explaining why soundbites nowadays are so popular - politics have simply become so complicated that, unlike in the Founding Fathers' time, a reasonably well-educated citizen can't keep up with it all or even fully understand most bills, perhaps not even if (s)he dedicated every available moment of his/her time to it.
This message last edited by Legolas on 30/08/2012 at 08:13:31 PM
Anybody here ever studied the founding fathers of America?
- 30/08/2012 07:34:28 PM
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Slave-owning, mysoginist, wig-wearing members of the landed elite?
- 30/08/2012 07:51:33 PM
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No, never, not even briefly. 
- 30/08/2012 07:57:39 PM
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- 30/08/2012 07:57:39 PM
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What? Nooooo way
- 30/08/2012 08:06:30 PM
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- 30/08/2012 08:06:30 PM
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My US history class was an hour long and I always got distracted by a butterfly or something.
- 30/08/2012 08:50:39 PM
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Did you just kinda compare yourself to the founding fathers?
- 30/08/2012 08:08:40 PM
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- 30/08/2012 08:08:40 PM
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Not positively, but I have often thought they were a bad influence on me. 
- 30/08/2012 08:21:48 PM
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- 30/08/2012 08:21:48 PM
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Funny, my reaction to sentences like those is nearly the opposite.
- 30/08/2012 08:11:34 PM
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Fair point; it is revealing that none of the Bill of Rights amendments have multiple sections.
- 30/08/2012 08:39:24 PM
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You're projecting. *NM*
- 31/08/2012 12:48:12 AM
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I am aspiring.
- 31/08/2012 01:09:40 AM
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As a personal aside ...
- 31/08/2012 01:43:45 AM
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Like I say, maybe I invest too much in online posting.
- 31/08/2012 02:02:58 AM
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- 31/08/2012 02:02:58 AM
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Re:
- 31/08/2012 02:27:00 AM
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Re: Re:
- 31/08/2012 02:37:35 AM
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Well
- 31/08/2012 02:54:25 AM
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It does get repetitive too often.
- 31/08/2012 05:07:41 AM
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Doesn't really matter. You're gonna keep doing it. 
- 31/08/2012 05:16:23 AM
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- 31/08/2012 05:16:23 AM
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I did. They smelled of mahogany and death. They looked scabby and skeletal.
- 31/08/2012 12:35:44 AM
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Don't forget Hamilton! The creator of the American economy..... *NM*
- 31/08/2012 05:19:50 AM
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... and big government.
- 01/09/2012 01:54:20 PM
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I don't really buy that.....
- 01/09/2012 08:33:28 PM
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Hamilton loudly and often advocated a central bank, national debt and active federal government.
- 01/09/2012 08:41:50 PM
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I think the entire Age of Enlightenment is fascinating
- 31/08/2012 06:32:23 PM
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You realize you just made a great argument for intelligentsia rule, right?
- 01/09/2012 01:48:58 PM
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- 01/09/2012 01:48:58 PM
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I would want better intelligenstia first
- 01/09/2012 02:48:28 PM
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Ah, the old uneducated>miseducated argument.
- 01/09/2012 03:39:07 PM
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*wonders if we could test*
- 02/09/2012 02:45:10 PM
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no there is a better reason why it wouldn't work
- 02/09/2012 02:58:18 PM
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I listen to some of supposed intellectuals talk and I am unimpressed
- 02/09/2012 02:53:21 PM
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Being well read does not make one smart, but does facilitate it to a great degree.
- 02/09/2012 04:32:05 PM
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I like the Starship Trooper approach
- 02/09/2012 05:04:17 PM
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I run very hot and cold on that one.
- 02/09/2012 06:28:44 PM
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What was that again about "you have a right to your own opinion, not your own facts"?
- 03/09/2012 06:39:01 PM
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Ah, right; I had forgotten our previous discussion of conscriptions termination in the '90s and '00s
- 03/09/2012 06:48:28 PM
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If you worked with more engineers you might change your opinion on the science degree part
- 04/09/2012 03:00:16 PM
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Maybe; I would likely just conclude horse sense is uncommon everywhere, but less so in engineers.
- 05/09/2012 12:11:58 AM
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