We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.That's pretty good writing, one helluva thesis statement. Now, here's the Preamble to the Iraqi Constitution:
We the sons of Mesopotamia, land of the prophets, resting place of the holy imams, the leaders of civilization and the creators of the alphabet, the cradle of arithmetic: on our land, the first law put in place by mankind was written; in our nation, the most noble era of justice in the politics of nations was laid down; on our soil, the followers of the prophet and the saints prayed, the philosophers and the scientists theorized and the writers and poets created.Who's writing this stuff, Don King? When you're writing a constitution, you don't open with your resume, you open with your intentions. Otherwise, it sounds less like a constitution and more like those opening remarks from the head of a state delegation during the roll call vote at a politicial convention: "Missouri, the Show-Me State, home of the best team in baseball, where at least one future President was born, where people use both arithmetic and the alphabet...etc."
Labels: columns, war/terrorism