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From: ken@ihuxq.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: A New Constitutional Amendment
Message-ID: <603@ihuxq.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Feb-84 14:39:37 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxq.603
Posted: Tue Feb  7 14:39:37 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Feb-84 22:23:56 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 43

--
>>> 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.

>>> Wouldn't YOU like to challenge the U.S. Tax Code on the grounds that
>>> nobody can understand it?  I sure would...

>>> Scott Renner
>>> {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner

No, No!!! You silly person!  The LAST thing we need is a "Plain
English" amendment.  What we really need is a public education
system that can turn out even marginally literate citizens--folks
who can read and write well enough to see that so-called bureaucratese
is by its very nature semantically meaningless, but that so-called
legalese is merely ugly.  If you are literate, you can read and
understand the Tax Code--in fact, you can even figure out exactly
what fine points of distinction are being made in its sundrie high-
falutin' phrases.  Now, the Tax Code may be unwieldy, unfair, or
even ambiguous, but it is perfectly understandable.  To a literate
person, anyway, and certainly to any judge.

Sure, "Plain English" is a political plum.  A sure safe issue.
After all, who's for obfuscation?  Landlords, bankers, and lawyers,
that's who--and nobody likes the likes of them.  But it's a ludicrous
solution to the growing cancer of American illiteracy.  To quote
Richard Mitchell ("Less Than Words Can Say"):

"It's as though you went to the hospital with a broken arm and the
people in the emergency room, instead of setting the thing, got
busy on the telephone trying to find you some other line of work,
something that requires only one arm."
-- 
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JE MAINTIENDRAI   ***** *****
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