RichardHarlos.com

Have you ever read a U.S. President’s executive order? Most people I’ve talked to never have read one.

Can you guess their main reason for not reading one? Many of them tell me it’s because the sentences are too long and complicated to understand. I agree with them on this point.

What if there were a way to make these long, complicated sentences easy to understand? Would you read them?

I hope you’re thinking ‘yes’ because I’ve taken one long, complicated sentence and simplified it. The sentence is taken from the executive order that talks about blocking property. Blocking property is just another way of saying ‘your government doesn’t give you permission to use something that you own.’

Sounds bad, right? It is bad.

Simply put, If the U.S. government believes you’re connected to anything ‘not good’ in Iraq, your government has given itself permission to keep you from using your stuff. What kind of stuff? Bank accounts, cars, investments, etc.; your government can now keep you from any of these things just because they say so.

I’m not kidding.

Let’s look at one sentence from the executive order on blocking property. First I’ll show you how just one sentence appears in the White House’s official message to Congress on July 17th, 2007.

After the official version (immediately below), I’ll show you my easy to understand format of this sentence. I think you’re going to like the easy to understand version much better:

“My new [Executive] order takes additional steps … by blocking the property and interests in property of persons determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq or undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.”

Fairly hard to understand in that format, right? Now, feast your eyes on this version of Bush’s Executive Order on Blocking Property in its new, easy to understand format:

“My new [Executive] order takes additional steps … by blocking

1. the property and
2. interests in property

of persons determined

• by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with
• the Secretary of State and
• the Secretary of Defense,

to have

• committed, or
• to pose a significant risk of committing,

an act or acts of violence that have the

• purpose or
• effect

of threatening the

• peace or
• stability

of

• Iraq or
• the Government of Iraq

or undermining efforts to promote

• economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or
• to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.”

I wish all legal and official documents were broken down like this so that more people could understand what our government is up to. Don’t you?