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From: amigo2@ihuxq.UUCP (John Hobson)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: A New Constitutional Amendment (a SE - (nf)
Message-ID: <602@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Feb-84 11:33:23 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.602
Posted: Tue Feb  7 11:33:23 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 22:00:09 EST
References: <5425@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 27

Scott Renner advocates the following Constitutional amendment:

>>	2.  Heinlein's "Semantic Amendment", also known as the
>>	"Plain English Amendment."  It specifies that any law or
>>	regulation of the federal government may be ruled
>>	unconstitutional on the grounds that it is too complicated
>>	to understand.  The testing and sampling technique is
>>	specified in the amendment.  Lawyers, judges, law
>>	professors, etc. are to be excluded from the sample.

Lawyers, etc., use an understandable language; that is,
understandable to them.  They use a professional language in just
the same way we do.  We know what we are talking about, even if the
average layperson does not.  My wife, an intelligent but technically
untrained woman, saw the word "byte" written recently, and was not
sure how it should be pronounced (she knows what a byte is, she
just didn't know how it was spelled).  Should we then be forced to
say "seven or eight (depending on the system) binary digits" instead
of "byte"?  That is what the "plain english" advocates are insisting
that the lawyers must do.  All you would ensure is that the tax code
(Scott's example) would be even longer than it is already.

				John Hobson
				AT&T Bell Labs
				Naperville, IL
				(312) 979-0193
				ihnp4!ihuxq!amigo2