A Little Light Reading
Does this ever happen to you? You pick up a Shakespeare play after not having read one in a while, and none of it makes sense to you? You step back, collect yourself knowing full well that you are intelligent enough to understand the language, particularly given that it is your own language and supported by the fact that you have actually understood Shakespeare in the past?
This is how I feel slogging through laws, regulations, and executive orders. Now you can shake your head and think that there is no way to understand the impossibly convoluted language of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Or you can try to sharpen your legal ease reading skills, and move on to the provision of the TARP under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
Then, with these in mind, or if you are very devoted, under your belt, you should next attempt President Obama's proposed budget.
Of course, unlike the promise of a Shakespeare play where the reading becomes its own reward, I'm afraid I might want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon not only from the sheer torture of attempting to read the legislative and executive documents, but even more so from whatever sense of reason I can glean from them.
So then, why bother?
I take the ideas upon which America was built seriously; it is my basic understanding that these documents represent unprecedented governmental intrusion into our lives and liberties, contradicting that very foundation.
I would really like to understand how, and by what means, our elected leadership, each of whom has sworn to uphold those ideals, has determined to usher America into this New Era of Responsibility while simultaneously treating its citizenry as overindulged children.
This is how I feel slogging through laws, regulations, and executive orders. Now you can shake your head and think that there is no way to understand the impossibly convoluted language of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Or you can try to sharpen your legal ease reading skills, and move on to the provision of the TARP under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.
Then, with these in mind, or if you are very devoted, under your belt, you should next attempt President Obama's proposed budget.
Of course, unlike the promise of a Shakespeare play where the reading becomes its own reward, I'm afraid I might want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon not only from the sheer torture of attempting to read the legislative and executive documents, but even more so from whatever sense of reason I can glean from them.
So then, why bother?
I take the ideas upon which America was built seriously; it is my basic understanding that these documents represent unprecedented governmental intrusion into our lives and liberties, contradicting that very foundation.
I would really like to understand how, and by what means, our elected leadership, each of whom has sworn to uphold those ideals, has determined to usher America into this New Era of Responsibility while simultaneously treating its citizenry as overindulged children.
Comments
An excellent point! Good post.