I'm going to set aside the messy idea of a basic income and just say something about a phrase that makes me want to burn off the face of anyone who says it... "interpret the Constitution" This very phase drive me up the wall. Interpretation is for vague use of language or translation between languages where there is no a one-to-one correlation between word meanings. The Constitution doesn't need "interpretation" because it's written in basic English, the very same language I'm using right now. Word for word the definitions are no different from their meaning today as when it was written. Sorry, but the very idea of saying "interpretation" to a native fluent speaker/thinker is insulting, belittling, arrogant, and stupid. Sorry, about the rant. End.
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If documents like the Constitution didn't need interpretation, lawyers wouldn't exist, and neither would there be any point for the Supreme Court because meanings would be so obvious so as to never require any debate whatsoever.
Sorry, but your rant shows a simplicity of thinking in the context of complexity. It would be great if language was akin to mathematics, but it just isn't. Language is non-Aristotelian, meaning A does not always equal A.
Example: Apple = Apple. That seems to be pretty obvious right? But apples can be quite different from each other. They can be different sizes, shapes, and colors. They can also vary according to a temporal dimension. An apple right now is not going to be the same apple in a year.
Definitions also drift with time. A word right now is not going to necessarily mean the same thing 100 years from now. Definitions are not set in stone.
So yeah, the words we use require actual thinking.
Nonsense. Lawyers only exist because most systems have redundancies and parasites, and Lawyers could be seen as both. Blurring definitions with rhetoric is the con that lawyers use to parasitize the system. Good thing lawyers will soon be replaced by AI systems.
"Apple" noun 1. the round fruit of a tree of the rose family, which typically has thin red or green skin and crisp flesh. Many varieties have been developed as dessert or cooking fruit or for making cider. 2. the tree which bears apples.
So yeah, words require dictionaries.
ggrks
You are right about that. There is also plenty of other writings by the authors supporting Their meanings and intent. Any 'interpretation' is normally meant to give more power to the government, which they would have obviously been against.