““When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Lewis Carroll
Our country has endorsed the Humpty-Dumpty Rule.
Laws are interpreted by whoever gains the upper hand.
Thomas Jefferson had put it this way.
The Constitution on this hypothesis is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819.