It's because of the inherent "slipperiness" of language. Trying to paraphrase a lot of Wittgenstein here, but basically words only have meaning inside of human

It's because of the inherent "slipperiness" of language. Trying to paraphrase a lot of Wittgenstein here, but basically words only have meaning inside of human constructs. Classic example: customer wants to pay you to create a database to manage customers. You ask: what's a customer? Customer says "Isn't it obvious? Just go use a dictionary" But it's not obvious. Instead you need to have a relationship with the guy using the term. Over time, you arrive at a common understanding. Or -- English ain't C. What this means in systems of humans is that even very well defined terms can "drift" over time and from generation to generation. What we're seeing now in the U.S. is a nation that nowhere resembles being faithful to the social contract, our constitution. Yet if you start teasing apart why it got like that, you find a lot of little, somewhat reasonable re-interpretations of what various terms mean. Don't even get me started on the Commerce Clause. It's not corruption. And it's not dumb people. It's just the natural drift of meaning, combined with each generation feeling like it's facing some sort of huge existential crisis.