On Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:31:04 -0500, steven l. rubenstein
<rubenste(a)ohiou.edu> wrote:
I am glad that Silverback and I are in agreement as
to
principles. However, Skyring and Silverback are still either
misrepresenting or misunderstanding the issues in this particular case.
Skyring wrote:
In this case Adam changed "shall be" to
"is". That changes the meaning
and saves only a few letters. Nor did he use any commonly-used form of
words to indicate a paraphrase. He used boldface to indicate that he
thought it was a factual statement.
First, your claim that changing "shall be" to "is" is a change in
meaning
is absurd. The Constitution is using the subjunctive because guess what,
constitutions are written before they are instituted. But once the
constitution is instituted, events actually come to pass, and the
subjunctive should not be used for ongoing or actual events.
Perhaps you can explain Section 101 then. It clearly says "There shall
be an Inter-State Commission."
Using your logic above, one might expect that there is now an
Inter-State Commission. But one would be wrong.
I am sorry that you see this as some sort of game. I suggest that if
you don't know about Australian constitutional matters, it's probably
wisest not to comment on them.
--
Peter in Canberra