Even if all of this is true, I fully support removing the ammendment, on the grounds that it seems stupid to have people without law degrees draft thousand page bills dealing with constitutional law and legal principles.

A giant crock of s**t. Another conspiracy theorist.

I think the key here Acheron is that those bills would not be so long or obtuse if regular folk wrote them. See the tax code, 15, 16 volumes of code could be so simplified down to: 'For every X/year you make give me Y% of that and I'll leave you alone until next year.'

Holy misinterpretations, pacman!

So, are we to believe that during the period when this amendment was in effect, there were no lawyers in government? A most cursory analysis shows that this was not the case, and therefore not the intent of the amendment was not so convoluted.

Interesting footnote, though. I've now learned my something new for the day, and shall go home and play PS2 for a while.

yeah definitely not, a good portion of the framers had legal training.

'I think the key here Acheron is that those bills would not be so long or obtuse if regular folk wrote them.'

I really doubt it. But it seems like a stupid theoretical bullshit thing to argue about since its such an arcane and dead amendment anyway.

pchimp-' Holy misinterpretations, pacman!

So, are we to believe that during the period when this amendment was in effect, there were no lawyers in government? A most cursory analysis shows that this was not the case, and therefore not the intent of the amendment was not so convoluted.'

I think the point of this is that the amendment was ratified but never enforcrd or even acknowledged as being ratified by the powers-that-were in Washington, so of course the lawyers carried on as before. I think it would be a good idea if it was enforced though. Just imagine, laws that everyone can understand and are written in ( relatively ) plain language, so that they can not be 'open to interpretation'.

Thanks Dragonstaff. I may be wrong, but I imagine lawyers of the days of yore having set rates to do things that required them, unlike today wheer you have to have a law firm on retainer if you're in big business so they can make sure what you're doing is within the regulations.

The gap between the educated and uneducated was much wider back then, but things were still set forth in simple language so all could understand. It seems like nowadays they're contrived to make it impossible for anyone but the lawyers to understand.

Per Vas' general request I am positing guitarjon as a cocksucker for life so his resubmission of this article may be rejected forthwith and with due malice of forethought.

Hear hear.

:'(