Indeed, dear Hostage: That is the very problem. It seems this question has been kept "open" until now.
But it definitely needs to be addressed, before the United States is bankrupted because having to pay for an influx of people from anywhere and everywhere who do not care a fig for American values and principles (indeed, may even be actively hostile to them), a great many of whom cannot even write their own name, who would destroy our Republic from within, economically, socially, culturally. These people come from cultures of poverty and ignorance, mostly looking for a better life.
Yet as much empathy and sympathy for such people as we Americans may feel, given their sub-human existential plight (mainly because of their noxious governments), not even the total receipts of the American people — i.e., a 100% tax rate, which equals total confiscation of the genius and productivity of the American people — could bail out this human plight after a year or so.
Maggie Thatcher once said something to the effect that the fundamental, inevitably fatal problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, it runs out of "rich people": There's nobody left to plunder. Everybody in society has been "equalized" on the level of poverty, financial and spiritual. Thus, the government has nobody left to hand the bills to, for which they issue demands under force of law that they be paid.
But you can't get blood out of a stone.
Therefore, one should consider the wisdom of Aesop's Fable about the Golden Goose....
Excellent essay/post, dear Hostage! I very much admire your proposed constitutional Amendment XXX. It would "nail down the language" — which nowadays would be very refreshing, considering that words of long, historical meaning have been converted, even inverted, to "define" a "new" meaning.
Examples from more-or-less recent times: e.g., the definition of "liberal"; the definition of "marriage." It appears there is not yet a scientifically precise "definition" of human sexuality. Seems to me, that is perennially an open question.
But not so "open" that it's not under God. Still, given the current morally-ambivalent public climate, it appears that a public case can be made that definitions regarding human sexuality itself are up for grabs.
Certainly, people are trying to do just that. I give you Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner as evidence.
Everybody seems to have gotten on-board with addressing "he" as "she," "him" as "her." Score 1 to BJ.
However, until and unless BJ can give me documented evidence that he has had a successful DNA transplant, I will never call him a "her."
But I digress. :>)
Thanks so much for writing, dear Hostage! Please keep me posted on developments!
I understand many times this has been raised and always tabled.....so it looks like they really don’t want to “settle” the matter let alone argue it..
You are pointing out some of the frustration with living in America today and that is the conversion, inversion and even perversion of definitions. In a historical sense I think we can correlate these observations to the general movement to drive God out of our schools and institutions, causing a loss of moral and practical judgment.
The words you point out are a start to a larger list. Indeed even ‘abortion’ was twisted as a right of privacy under the 4th Amendment.
I’ve often sought and asked the question of why the Founders had not insisted on including a table of definitions and explanations in the US Constitution as would normally be found in a contract or compact. The answers I have found or been advised of are that most definitions were already well-understood from the body of English Common Law.
However, it seems that as history removed the United States further and further from its roots in English Common Law, the training of lawyers eventually abandoned the study of English Common Law leaving jurists to fly on their own so to speak adhering to the direction made by leading jurists who were in turn given much free rein following Marbury vs. Madison which left the courts free to say what the law is.
Other reasons for not including careful and precise definitions, meanings and intents were to avoid having the US Constitution become a book. One of the aims of writing the US Constitution was to make it brief and understandable to the People. It was not to be an elaborate contract among the States to form a central government. It was worded to be understandable by the common American. This was necessary towards it ratification and adaptation.
We can envision state delegates and their principle legislators getting to the hard work of creating a reference ‘book’. Just as a wild guess I see such a book as limited to 25 pages in normal type so that it would be quite portable and manageable. It should be feasible then to incorporate the book by reference into a constitutional amendment as a binding source document. I’m sure lawyers would be thrilled to work on such a project. We can remember too that such a ‘General Reference Amendment’ would still require 2/3’s of the state delegates to propose it as an amendment and 3/4’s to ratify and make it part of the Constitution. So it would be safe to do as a project; I’m sure the work product of such a product would be a milestone in a new era, the ‘American Reformation’! Very exciting wouldn’t you say?
One other note, just watching the effort and debate associated with a ‘General Reference Amendment’ would be so educational and enlightening to American society and particularly to its younger generation as they would come to understand how words, meanings, intents and interpretations are so influential to their lives and futures. It could help to pare down the sloppiness of speech and could bolster appreciation for fine critical thinking. Anyways, I would like to see it and I’m never one to dismiss such thinking as fantasy because I saw in my lifetime a single man turn around a whole generation of youth to a healthier and more prosperous way of life. So I know it can be done if the right people are inspired and empowered to get it done.