I'm not sure how lit this is in the traditional sense, but it has to do with written language so I thought /lit/ was the right place for it.
When reading the US Constitution or Declaration of Independence, it's amazing how plainly it's written and how understandable it is. Why is modern law not written like this? Legalese is almost impenetrable for a layman, and much more verbose. But it's not as if the concepts of most laws are above non-specialist understanding.
I get that the Constitution is notoriously open to interpretation (often carried too far, in my opinion, but that's another matter), but I doubt that the language gymnastics of modern law reduce ambiguity, and probably just obfuscates it even more.
The same can be said of scientific writing in general, I believe, though the need for technical language there is understandably more necessary.
>>7736174
Because americunts are dumb by nature.
>>>/pol/
>>>/rk9/
>>>/or just dont bring up this fruitless subject/
>>7736174
Hello, OP. I'm not a legal expert, but I have had multiple interactions with the law over the course of my life, and have occasionally looked up various laws and statutes as a result. FWIW I'm also (by general standards if not /lit/ standards) a fairly well-read college graduate, and fluent in English. I also recently re-read the US constitution, and according to wiki, it is among the shortest of extant, effective constitutions (in addition to having inspired many of those). I am also in the habit of actually reading and fully understanding my legally binding apartment leases, even though they do tend to be similar.
It has been my personal experience that plain legal language itself (in the USA) is not exceptionally difficult, even when it is being parsed into various subsections and paragraphs. The whole difficulty arises from the legal tradition as implemented in the United States, case precedents, and interpretation. This latter stuff is the stuff that I really don't know, and comprises a lawyer's training. But I do know how to parse several paragraphs of legalese and have a clear understanding of what that block of text, taken by itself, means. It's the relation of some language/jurisdictions to others that, if I needed a lawyer, I would ask their advice because they know the things I don
