24 May 2025

Please read to the end. 

I had a very interesting experience on facebook the past few days. 

The post and comments were a clear case of Oversimplification Fallacy.

 

I like things to be simple as much as the next person, but life is anything but simple. 

The constitution has its plan text, but it also has nearly 250 years of judicial interpretation, that destroy any hope of plain text interpretation. Plan text reading will not help anyone. We have to dig in to the text, the judicial interpretations, and then the retranslating into common English. Then some us, like myself need a school house rock version. 

I am not an attorney, but I like some legal stuff. 

I come from Vernal, Utah. The Dinosaur Capital of the World. I love many things about Vernal and the surrounding area. But most everyone that comes from there, myself included, are simple minded folk. There are lots of well educated people, but people from there don’t want needless complexity. Still in many ways it is a very isolated community. At one time it was the largest city(?)in the US without a train system running through it. As far as I know there is still no train system that goes there. 

 

I have had to work hard to understand certain concepts that my semi sheltered, Vernal upbringing didn’t offer. I had to learn that the world is a lot bigger and more complex than I ever realized or imagined. 

The comments of the Facebook post seemed to devolve in people telling me I was wrong because I didn’t understand the plain text of the constitution. The courts have interpreted it so much that you can’t stick with a plain text interpretation. 

The fifth amendment on the constitution website talking about who is and is not a “Person” in the US:

“The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence indicates that, although aliens present within the United States generally have due process protections, the extent of those constitutional protections may depend on certain factors, including whether the alien has been lawfully admitted or developed ties to the United States, and whether the alien has engaged in specified criminal activity. Therefore, even with regard to aliens present within the United States, the Court has sometimes deferred to Congress’s policy judgments that limit the ability of some classes of aliens to contest their detention or removal.”

 Or read the website if you like. 

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5-6-2-3/ALDE_00013726/

I know I am usually not the smartest person in the room. That said I have more experience than I would ever want to admit. Certain aspects of this world are complex and messy and more difficult than we would like.   

Now that I have said that, each of us can be the smartest person in the room about something, butwe can choose to be meek. 

Meek is not weak. A Meek person can be the smartest person in the room. But the  Meek person does not go out of his or her way to prove that he or she is smarter about something. I need to remember that. 

For years I have had to just be quiet about all kinds of things. Lots of people think they are right about something. Certain things I know I am correct about. Unless it is a matter of life or death, I need to remember to be quiet. 

There are lots of things I don’t know, like the airspeed of an unladen swallow, and other more important things. So I can ask people that are smarter than me about certain issues. 

One thing I can understand well is mechanical issues. The most frustrating thing some days is knowing how something works but not being able to explain it to someone else and being physically incapable. For me, talking like everyone else is a challenge sometimes and movement can be excruciating.

 

There is so much I want to take part in but for various reasons I can’t. For example, I would love to help others move furniture at times, but I do an amazing job of getting in the way. Helping actually move things, not so much. 

That said I know a lot about certain subjects. I hate it when people don’t ask or pay attention at times. But it’s just easier to be quiet at times. 

I have to do better at being quiet and just being there. I know, I know a lot. So what. I don’t need to share my knowledge with everyone. In fact it’s better if we don’t at times. 

Meek? I’m probably not. I have to be reminded by life to much.