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The Declaration of Independance- some scholars say we've been reading it wrong.
40hz:
Tinfoil hats, but its straight out of 1984. Make a little tweak to history, and suddenly the implications mean that you can do this much more that previously wasn't allowed.
-SeraphimLabs (July 06, 2014, 10:24 AM)
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+1 it being Tinfoil Hat.
It wouldn't fly here. Which is why any attempt at a power grab goes out of its way to avoid any mention of the Constitution or similar documents. All such power grabs (to date) have been justified using 'technical' legal arguments or very narrow and "nuanced" interpretations of provisions in the US Code.
The absolute last thing any of the endorsers of our current 'security' rules want to raise is a constitutional debate on the absolute legality of such measures. Because that is an argument they cannot win, no matter how hard they try to twist the Constitution to allow what they're doing.
And furthermore, they know it - as does everyone else. 8)
40hz:
The thing I really find amazing about the Declaration of Independence is how it still resonates today.
The language in that document is a masterpiece of writing style. And the topics it discusses are still as important today as they were back then.
Like I said, it's a good read. :)
IainB:
It's a fascinating idea that an old transcript could have an error that gets passed down through the years -- and a fascinating idea that a punctuation change could make a dramatic difference.
...
-mouser (July 06, 2014, 04:12 AM)
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Refer: Illuminated script.
CWuestefeld:
As others have noted, I can't see how the presence or absence of that punctuation has any real effect on the meaning.
I don't think that there's any doubt about where the heads of the founders were at - folks like Jefferson and Franklin, who wrote it, or Madison who wrote much of the Constitution were very much interested in the (classical) liberal ideology, as in the writing of JS Mill. Their philosophy was all about the sovereignty of the individual, and were not of a communitarian bent.
You might not like that, you might think that we've learned better since then, but the body of writing from these guys is pretty clear, and it's nutty to believe that a single punctuation mark, whose impact escapes most of us anyway, should be taken to contradict all that.
40hz:
but the body of writing from these guys is pretty clear,
-CWuestefeld (July 08, 2014, 11:57 AM)
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Excellent point. :Thmbsup:
We have library shelves of original writing, and large collections of personal letters, from several of these gentlemen. So it's not as if much imagination or scholarly debate is needed to grasp where they were coming from.
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