VERNACULAR

Vernacular

Conventional wisdom has it that your brain calcifies as you get older and you become ever more resistant to change as time continues to ramble onward to places unknown. In addition, advancing age dictates that you only learn new things under duress. Huh? The only old people I know that fits the above descriptions are people who had a closed mind throughout their life in the first place. I think most of us still enjoy learning new things and certainly relish the excitement of an adventure. Of course, it may well be that the only thing still agile enough to execute the adventure is the mind, but it works for me. I’m sure it works for you too. Right? Well I’m open to new things, but I must tell you that I draw the line when “they” feel the necessity of creating new words to describe what is happening in the new and improved, modern America. For example, when the authorities arrested the latest airline terrorist, now identified in the vernacular as the “crotch bomber”, they asked him a few questions and then “mirandarized” him. For the uninitiated, in 1966 the US Supreme court created a new right out of thin air when they decreed that US citizens had an enforceable constitutional right, under the Fifth Amendment, to be informed of their constitutional “right” to remain silent during any civil or criminal proceeding, including when being arrested for criminal activity. This new right is now called your Miranda Rights. The Miranda Right was created by case law involving Ernesto Miranda v. Arizona after the Supreme Court ruled that a citizen had to be informed that he had a right to be silent during any civil or criminal legal process. The Fifth Amendment sentence that is the basis for this right is, “nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The Fifth Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, and this particular right was promulgated in order to protect citizens from being forced to be a witness against oneself by using testimony that was obtained by torture or coercion. What I’m resistant to here is the use of the word, “mirandarized.” I object to this bastardized word because whenever you create a new word, and it comes into general usage, it automatically acquires authenticity regardless how you feel about case law creating a new “Constitutional” right without the Constitution being amended. As a side note, you can readily see that when the Government put the 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, into the civil court system, he became a de facto US citizen with Constitutional rights. These de facto rights make it illegal to present evidence that was obtained as a result of using coercion or torture. Bear in mind that water boarding has now been legally defined as torture, and as a result, the terrorist could walk from the court a free man. But wait, there’s more. After they “mirandarized” the crotch bomber, and informed him he had a right to be silent, he was also informed that he had a right to be represented and was provided with Government paid for lawyers. These lawyers, who are paid for by you and me, told the crotch bomber to shut up forthwith. (I wish that God would point his finger at lawyers and cause them all to become sterile.) The crotch bomber has now been “lawyeredup.” I think I’m going to throw up because I’m too old to understand these new and improved, modern bastardized words.