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Fair point; it is revealing that none of the Bill of Rights amendments have multiple sections. Joel Send a noteboard - 30/08/2012 08:39:24 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.

However, the body of the Constitution has some rather lengthy sentences with hordes of clauses. Consider Article 1, Section 8, which contains a number of critical (and several still hotly debated) clauses:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

One sentence, and several of the clauses are by themselves longer than what most people prefer in a sentence today.

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.

So it really was a simpler time? :P Nuance is certainly the order of the day; as I have often noted, long standing controversies would be neither long standing nor controversial if they admitted simple easy solutions. Perhaps there are non-paternalistic reasons the founders reserved the franchise to the gentry: They had the free time to dissect policy matters rather than trying to do so based on thirty minutes to an hour of media oversimplification after an eight (or ten, or twelve) hour job and before bed. Matters are undoubtedly more complex now, but that is ultimately just another argument against soundbites obscuring rather than clarifying the issues. People want politicians to simplify challenging issues but, once again, if that were possible we would not need 500+ congressmen and a president to decide them.
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Anybody here ever studied the founding fathers of America? - 30/08/2012 07:34:28 PM 819 Views
Slave-owning, mysoginist, wig-wearing members of the landed elite? - 30/08/2012 07:51:33 PM 560 Views
Ha! Yeah, all personal faults aside - 30/08/2012 07:54:13 PM 498 Views
Not John Adams or Alexander Hamilton.....fool! *NM* - 31/08/2012 05:18:05 AM 296 Views
No, never, not even briefly. - 30/08/2012 07:57:39 PM 574 Views
What? Nooooo way - 30/08/2012 08:06:30 PM 575 Views
Funny, my reaction to sentences like those is nearly the opposite. - 30/08/2012 08:11:34 PM 555 Views
Fair point; it is revealing that none of the Bill of Rights amendments have multiple sections. - 30/08/2012 08:39:24 PM 588 Views
You're projecting. *NM* - 31/08/2012 12:48:12 AM 262 Views
I am aspiring. - 31/08/2012 01:09:40 AM 702 Views
As a personal aside ... - 31/08/2012 01:43:45 AM 632 Views
Yes. - 31/08/2012 01:49:41 AM 644 Views
Like I say, maybe I invest too much in online posting. - 31/08/2012 02:02:58 AM 673 Views
Re: - 31/08/2012 02:27:00 AM 656 Views
Re: Re: - 31/08/2012 02:37:35 AM 658 Views
Well - 31/08/2012 02:54:25 AM 661 Views
It does get repetitive too often. - 31/08/2012 05:07:41 AM 664 Views
Doesn't really matter. You're gonna keep doing it. - 31/08/2012 05:16:23 AM 616 Views
Maybe.... - 31/08/2012 05:03:11 PM 657 Views
Re: Maybe.... - 31/08/2012 05:15:52 PM 476 Views
Re: Maybe.... - 31/08/2012 06:18:32 PM 616 Views
You aren't Plato, Burke, or Madison. - 31/08/2012 10:34:22 AM 575 Views
That is why it is aspiration rather than equivalence. - 31/08/2012 05:01:20 PM 540 Views
I'm not so sure you're entirely right. - 30/08/2012 11:06:39 PM 700 Views
I did. They smelled of mahogany and death. They looked scabby and skeletal. - 31/08/2012 12:35:44 AM 601 Views
Sounds like you have a job to do. - 31/08/2012 01:11:10 AM 599 Views
Don't forget Hamilton! The creator of the American economy..... *NM* - 31/08/2012 05:19:50 AM 307 Views
... and big government. - 01/09/2012 01:54:20 PM 491 Views
I don't really buy that..... - 01/09/2012 08:33:28 PM 541 Views
I think the entire Age of Enlightenment is fascinating - 31/08/2012 06:32:23 PM 523 Views
You realize you just made a great argument for intelligentsia rule, right? - 01/09/2012 01:48:58 PM 611 Views
I would want better intelligenstia first - 01/09/2012 02:48:28 PM 682 Views
Ah, the old uneducated>miseducated argument. - 01/09/2012 03:39:07 PM 633 Views
*wonders if we could test* - 02/09/2012 02:45:10 PM 505 Views
no there is a better reason why it wouldn't work - 02/09/2012 02:58:18 PM 650 Views
No,no, I was wondering if -we- could test it. - 03/09/2012 04:17:11 PM 551 Views
yeah I am a bit of a cynic *NM* - 04/09/2012 03:01:28 PM 270 Views
I expect the rankings would be too subjective for credibility. - 02/09/2012 04:27:32 PM 634 Views

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