Re: "Usefull languages"

J Y S Czhang scripsit:

>         b.> IMHO it is a better constitution than most - including the
> American one.
The American constitution is archaic.  It is surely the oldest
written constitution in the world still substantially in force:
in 200+ years it has only been changed 17 times, not counting the
Bill of Rights, which is packaged as 10 amendments but is essentially
a paper-bag-bug fix.  Of these, two are mutually canceling (Prohibition
and Repeal), and only 6 by my count actually affected the machinery
of government substantially; the rest were about extending civil rights,
particularly the right to vote.

(A paper-bag-bug is one so obvious and serious that the programmer
really ought to wear a paper bag over his head until it's fixed, BTW.)

What's surprising is that it's still there.  Most countries with written
constitutions have changed them over and over (as have most U.S. states),
and even the British informal constitution was radically transformed
in 1832.  A few crufty conventions like the Electoral College seem
quite tolerable against that massive record of continuity.

--
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There
are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language
that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful.
        --_The Hobbit_

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