Revising (Or Correcting!) The Declaration Of Independence

The past is not dead. It is not even past, as earnest historians (presumably progressive) attempt to revise the Declaration of Independence. From the Times:

Every Fourth of July, some Americans sit down to read the Declaration of Independence, reacquainting themselves with the nation’s founding charter exactly as it was signed by the Second Continental Congress in 1776.

Or almost exactly? A scholar is now saying that the official transcript of the document produced by theNational Archives and Records Administrationcontains a significant error — smack in the middle of the sentence beginning “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” no less.

The error, according to Danielle Allen, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., concerns a period that appears right after the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in the transcript, but almost certainly not, she maintains, on the badly faded parchment original.

That errant spot of ink, she believes, makes a difference, contributing to what she calls a “routine but serious misunderstanding” of the document.

The period creates the impression that the list of self-evident truths ends with the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she says. But as intended by Thomas Jefferson, she argues, what comes next is just as important: the essential role of governments — “instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” — in securing those rights.

“The logic of the sentence moves from the value of individual rights to the importance of government as a tool for protecting those rights,” Ms. Allen said. “You lose that connection when the period gets added.”

The story reviews her very impressive detective work and concludes with her perspective:

“We are having a national conversation about the value of government, and it does get connected to our founding documents,” she said. “We should get right what’s in them.”

Oh, brother. Progressives are about to ener their Blue Period and righties are about a week away from being labelled 'period deniers'.

I should add something about 'who controls the present controls the past and who controls the past controls the future'. But the future is now!

ERRATA: The text in question is in italics:

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

IN OTHER NEWS: A timely surprise for libs was found in a recently discovered version of Lincoln's handwritten Gettysburg Address:

...testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure without national single payer health care.

Who knew?

Comments

[Jane]

Hey DOT, did you hear about this?

As you would guess, this didn’t go over so well with those in attendance.

CORONADO, Calif. – Some parents of the Coronado High School class of 2014 left the school’s June graduation ceremony scratching their heads, while others were downright ticked off after a local Israeli peace activist took advantage of his keynote speech to go on a political rant against his homeland and America.

“I, as an Israeli, grew up much like you, privileged and unaware of the inequalities the injustices imposed upon Palestinians by country. And because the country is so segregated, I as an Israeli, never met Palestinians. In fact, I was taught that Palestinians are my enemies. Only to discover, many years later, that actually they’re not,” said Miko Peled, author of the book The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. [...]

“I was also taught to fear and distrust Arabs and Muslims because they too hate me. And it turns out, they too, do not. In fact, it turns out there is no such thing as they.

“So I would say to you, based on my experience, to question your country and question your government, but to trust in people. And fear not people who wear a headcover or a beard. Fear not people who call God by a different name, people who have a different skin color or whose eyes are shaped different than yours.

Peled went on to encourage graduates to shun any type of war or violence as a means to solve problems. He talked against racism and injustice, which provided a smooth transition into a screed against the U.S.

“I call on you to demand more of your country and to ask tough questions of your leaders, and to demand that they does more for you, as well as for others. Ask for example why is it that here in the US, which makes up only 5 percent of the world population and claims to be the land of the free, we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Why is it that almost half of the 2.5 million prisoners in the U.S. are African Americans, though they only make up 12 percent of the population?

“Why is it that after kidnapping millions of Africans and enslaving them for centuries and forcing them to live under racist laws and segregation as though they are less than human, why are their children and grandchildren not compensated for the holocaust that was inflicted upon their ancestors, but instead are incarcerated in disproportionate numbers.

http://eagnews.org/high-school-graduation-speaker-calls-for-slave-reparations-slams-israel-in-speech/

[Dave (in MA)]

I would urge Mr. Peled to take a nice, leisurely amble through Gaza and share his thoughts with those friendly folks.

[Dave (in MA)]

Butthurt moonbat didn't like me criticizing Sen. Fakeinjun.

[DrJ]

Incoming! Instalanche!

[maryrose]

TC:
I love the comment wrt Moochelle of "Who died and left you boss?"
Obama doesn't get praise every 5 minutes so he's forced to campaign to feed his oversized ego.

[Bud Norton]

With a period, without a period, it still means govt is instituted only to protect inalienable rights and that consent to that govt can be withdrawn when it deviates from that limited purpose. I find it more interesting that Obama (twice, I think) has deliberately omitted "endowed by their Creator" when quoting the Declaration. Now that's a re-write of significance.

[Paul A'Barge]

...consent of the governed...

Consent of the governed, baby. Consent of the governed. Stuff that in your parchment and smoke it.

[jimmyk on iPhone]

In any case, the D of I is like 100 years old and in a strange language. Who really knows what it means.

[Beasts of England]

Viva l'Italia(cs)!

[maryrose]

Bud:
He doesn't believe in the Creator and thinks that he endows everyone with whatever power or rights they possess. He is not a Christian man and does not believe our country was founded on Christian-Judeo principles. He is the Anti-American .

[Paul A'Barge]

consent of the governed. Consent.

[Charlie Martin]

I believe that the long dash there is used to indicate, -- A list -- Or a sequence --Or fragments connected by the topic of the sentence.

I also suspect that Jefferson wasn't concerned about what some damn fool 200-odd years later thought of his punctuation.

[Danube on iPad]

Hadn't heard about it, Jane. A great-nephew was in the graduating class. We attended the pre-party but not the graduation itself. My sister (his grandmother) was there. I'm calling her right now.

How unspeakably rude.

[goy]

This is a joke, right?

Thanks to over 150 years of propaganda peddled by the statist victors of the "Civil" War and their heirs, this nation has labored under the destructive illusion that Lincoln "saved the Union" and "freed the slaves".

The reality is that Lincoln left in his destructive wake over one million dead or maimed Americans and - more relevant to the root cause of our crumbling nation today - an all-powerful federal leviathan which deems itself the sole authority over the limits of its own powers, and which has since made slaves of every U.S. "citizen". Through outright deceit, unilateral executive overreach, florid prose and sheer force of arms, Lincoln achieved the Fundamental Transformation of voluntary membership in a Republic, with a constitutionally-limited government, into compulsory acquiescence to the will of an empire, ruled by the elite in D.C. using the threat of military force.

So... who controls the past? Heh. Look around, son. That ship sailed a LONG time ago.

Left behind today is a nation comprised in large part of takers, narcissists and parasites who are programmed from kindergarten to see the federal government as tantamount to a perpetual parent, and Lincoln as a secular god. After the leftists win the Second "Civil" War, the history books will be no less approving of Obama than today's are of Lincoln.

[AliceH]

My grammarian credentials are < 0, yet I fearlessly submit that capitalization was commonly used both for the start of a new sentence, and the start of a new predicate clause.

[john b]

I've often thought the decision to stop teaching cursive in the schools today was related to limiting access to the founding documents. Like the professor says, It's not whether or not you are paranoid, it's are you paranoid enough?

[Douglas Weber]

I am not sure what her claim is about the change in meaning. Jefferson is listing the axioms under which the following analysis will work.

1. That all men are created equal(a radical assumption for the time).
2. That all men have certain rights(also a new concept)
3. That men create governments to secure these rights(that is governments are not created by God.)
4. That if governments fail to secure these rights, then the people have a right to change the government.

All of these axioms are major departures from the existing modes. And should be feared by any supporter of a centralized, all powerful state; for it says the people have the right to judge their government and change it if it does not secure the natural rights they have.

[maryrose]

MM;
Any news on Norman?
JIB: Welcome back! Loved Frederick's blog. I bet he learned a ton.

[Danube on iPad]

My sis was appalled. Just amazing.

[rse]

john b-the process of physically creating a symbol for sound augments phonetic reading and the abstract mind. All curricula now is designed to create understandings likely to provoke a belief in transformational change.

Getting rid of cursive is minor next to the insistence that the visual as in film or videogames is just as communicative and thus on parity with print itself.

I am actually not speculating on this. I just trace from the footnotes in papers or books not on most people's radars.

My youngest, referred to at JOM as the Diva, actually writes in cursive as a former Montessori kid. She refers to it now as the hippie school. She has said and her teachers and classmates agree she is basically the only high schooler she knows of who writes in cursive. Like many of us, she knows it allows her to write faster.

[Miss Marple]

NORMAN HAS BEEN FOUND!!

My sister went out at 3AM and walked up and down the streets, calling him in a whisper. She figured he was scared of traffic and strangers and might be hiding. She heard rustling in bushes and such but thought it washer imagination. When she got home and unlocked her house, she turned around for one more look and there he was, dirty and covered with burrs.

The fence is to be fixed today. He is currently at the kennel we use for grooming and he will stay there all day while she is at work. She had taken a flier there yesterday, so when she pulled up with him the entire staff came outside to greet him!

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and suggestions. That dog is very important to her and although he isn't very important in the big scheme of things, he is an important part of our family.

You all are the best!

(I didn't get back here until now because I had to take my husband to the airport to return to Africa. She called me to tell me at 10:45.)

[rse]

Also, apparently the Southern Poverty Law Center attorneys have been meeting with state ed officials to make sure no barriers exist to enrolling every child who shows up.

No need for bc or ssn. Some readers have forwarded me the announcements within last week or so.

I guess there may be a push to allow the unescorted to attend school this fall.

[centralcal]

So glad to hear the wonderful news about Norman, MM.

[Beasts of England]

Jane@11:57 - What a tool. Another tedious manifestation of 'white' guilt. And while it's an inappropriate venue to espouse such drivel, I'd assume that even high schoolers are too smart to fall for that crap. Ugh.

[Rick B]

AliceH.

Capitalization was also used by authors to draw particular Attention to specifics. There weren't no grammar or spelling nazis for English in ye Olden tims.

We don't have any idea whether Jefferson signed off on the engrossment of the DoI or whether the proofing was left to another committee member or a clerk. I have very sincere doubts as to an engrosser making a period followed by a capital letter bodge - except in a progressive fantasist fairy tale, of course.

I much prefer George Mason's Virginia Declaration of Rights for its clarity of exposition and lack of the G3 demerit laundry list. Mason and Madison were packing the real brains in ol Virginny.

[Marlene]

Welcome home Norman!

[cathyf]

There is only one correct response when anyone bases any argument upon pedantic exactitude in 18th-century punctuation:

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*gasp*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I mean, REALLY? You read the Declaration without noticing that our Founding Fathers lived in an era when obviously everybody treated punctuation and spelling as someplace that they could give over to the full flowering of artistic license?

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

RickB-- Mason and madison were fine wordsmiths, but Jefferson was un artiste! Just look at Monticello, or his whoring in Paris.

[Danube on iPad]

Wonderful news, MissM.

[Beasts of England]

Or his whoring at Montecello!!

[Stephanie]

Yea! Miss M.

[James D.]

MM, great news - glad to hear Norman made his way home!

[jimmyk]

Welcome home, Norman, and welcome home, JiB and family. To JiB, thanks for the travel reports and Frederick's fabulous blog. To Miss M, no explanation necessary to anyone who's ever had a dog. Yesterday in Manhattan a woman died trying to save her dog from getting run over. She got run over instead, the dog made it. (On Drudge if you want the gory details.)

[James D.]

I'd assume that even high schoolers are too smart to fall for that crap

I wouldn't. Not after 12 years of prog indoctrination.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

BoE-- too funny.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

Welcome home Norman.

[jimmyk]

Mason and Madison were packing the real brains in ol Virginny.

Yes, Jefferson was a great wordsmith and by any reasonable standards brilliant, but not as deep a thinker as Madison and, for all his flaws, Hamilton. All relative of course--few around today can hold a candle to any of them.

[rse]

So Danielle Allen used to be at U-Chicago and is heavily involved in some of the same "democracy is about how we organize ourselves in the future" pushes I have seen in Obama mandates like the omnipresent Positive School Climate.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/apr/30/danielle-allen-obama-equity-equality

The UK is just more forthcoming in their press on the real agendas.

[Denver]

Did Menchen add (or subtract) a period? Let's find out.

The Declaration of Independence in American, By HL Menchen

WHEN things get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not trying to put nothing over on nobody.

All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else. That any government that don't give a man them rights ain't worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don't do this, then the people have got a right to give it the bum's rush and put in one that will take care of their interests. Of course, that don't mean having a revolution every day like them South American yellowbellies, or every time some jobholder goes to work and does something he ain't got no business to do. It is better to stand a little graft, etc., than to have revolutions all the time, like them coons, and any man that wasn't a anarchist or one of them I.W.W.'s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man ain't hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and put in new ones who won't carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch them. This is the proposition the people of these Colonies is up against, and they have got tired of it, and won't stand it no more. The administration of the present King, George III, has been rotten from the start, and when anybody kicked about it he always tried to get away with it by strong-arm work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled:

He vetoed bills in the Legislature that everybody was in favor of, and hardly nobody was against.

He wouldn't allow no law to be passed without it was first put up to him, and then he stuck it in his pocket and let on he forgot about it, and didn't pay no attention to no kicks.

When people went to work and gone to him and asked him to put through a law about this or that, he give them their choice: either they had to shut down the Legislature and let him pass it all by himself, or they couldn't have it at all.

He made the Legislature meet at one-horse tank-towns, so that hardly nobody could get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go to work and do things like he wanted.

He give the Legislature the air, and sent the members home every time they stood up to him and give him a call-down or bawled him out.

When a Legislature was busted up he wouldn't allow no new one to be elected, so that there wasn't nobody left to run things, but anybody could walk in and do whatever they pleased.

He tried to scare people outen moving into these States, and made it so hard for a wop or one of these here kikes to get his papers that he would rather stay home and not try it, and then, when he come in, he wouldn't let him have no land, and so he either went home again or never come.

He monkeyed with the courts, and didn't hire enough judges to do the work, and so a person had to wait so long for his case to come up that he got sick of waiting, and went home, and so never got what was coming to him.

He got the judges under his thumb by turning them out when they done anything he didn't like, or by holding up their salaries, so that they had to knuckle down or not get no money.

He made a lot of new jobs, and give them to loafers that nobody knowed nothing about, and the poor people had to pay the bill, whether they could or not.

Without no war going on, he kept an army loafing around the country, no matter how much people kicked about it.

He let the army run things to suit theirself and never paid no attention whatsoever to nobody which didn't wear no uniform.

He let grafters run loose, from God knows where, and give them the say in everything, and let them put over such things as the following:

Making poor people board and lodge a lot of soldiers they ain't got no use for, and don't want to see loafing around.

When the soldiers kill a man, framing it up so that they would get off.

Interfering with business. Making us pay taxes without asking us whether we thought the things we had to pay taxes for was something that was worth paying taxes for or not.

When a man was arrested and asked for a jury trial, not letting him have no jury trial.

Chasing men out of the country, without being guilty of nothing, and trying them somewheres else for what they done here.

In countries that border on us, he put in bum governments? and then tried to spread them out, so that by and by they would take in this country too, or make our own government as bum as they was.

He never paid no attention whatever to the Constitution, but he went to work and repealed laws that everybody was satisfied with and hardly nobody was against, and tried to fix the government so that he could do whatever he pleased.

He busted up the Legislatures and let on he could do all the work better by himself.

Now he washes his hands of us and even goes to work and declares war on us, so we don't owe him nothing, and whatever authority he ever bad he ain't got no more.

He has burned down towns, shot down people like dogs, and raised hell against us out on the ocean.

He hired whole regiments of Dutch, etc., to fight us, and told them they could have anything they wanted if they could take it away from us, and sicked these Dutch, etc., on us.

He grabbed our own people when he found them in ships on the ocean, and shoved guns into their hands, and made them fight against us, no matter how much they didn't want to.

He stirred up the Indians, and give them arms and ammunition, and told them to go to it, and they have killed men, women and chdren, and don't care which.

Every time he has went to work and pulled any of these things, we have went to work and put in a kick, but every time we have went to work and put in a kick he has went to work and did it again. When a man keeps on handing out such rough stuff all the time, all you can say is that he ain't got no class and ain't fitten to have no authority over people who have got any rights, and he ought to be kicked out.

When we complained to the English we didn't get no more satisfaction. Almost every day we give them plenty of warning that the politicians over there was doing things to us that they didn't have no right to do. We kept on reminding them who we was, and what we was doing here, and how we come to come here. We asked them to get us a square deal, and told them that if this thing kept on we'd have to do something about it and maybe they wouldn't like it. But the more we talked, the more they didn't pay no attention to us. Therefore, if they ain't for us they must be agin us, and we are ready to give them the fight of their lives, or to shake hands when it is over.

Therefore be it resolved, That we, the representatives of the people of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, hereby declare as follows: That the United States, which was the United Colonies in former times, is now a free country, and ought to be; that we have throwed out the English King and don't want to have nothing to do with him no more, and are not taking no more English orders no more; and that, being as we are now a free country, we can do anything that free countries can do, especially declare war, make peace, sign treaties, go into business, etc. And we swear on the Bible on this proposition, one and all, and agree to stick to it no matter what ha pens, whether we win or we lose, and whether we get away with it or get the worst of it, no matter whether we lose all our property by it or even get hung for it.

[Rick B]

NK,

I share George Washington's opinion of Jefferson. Washington was very pleased with Jefferson's presence in Paris during the American revolution but missed the opportunity to admire his perspicacity in spending the French revolution in Washington.

[Jane]

My sis was appalled.

We live in a very odd world.

[Sardondi]

Huh? The guy who said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" is supposed to be lecturing Americans in their founding document (and in a clumsy and poorly constructed sentence no less) that they should ignore everything else he ever said about the primacy of individual freedom and instead submit themselves to the state?

Riiiiiiighhhhht.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

rse raises an important point. By tradition Brit papers allign themselves with one of the political parties. The Guardian overtly thumps for socialist Labour. The Legacy Media in the USA do the same thing, except they are all Dems and they are dishonest about it.

That said-- the Allen woman seems interesting. She has a 'Foundation" grant -- natch.

[jimmyk]

The Mencken is great. I'll reiterate my comment way at the top by writing the paragraph in outline form.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

1. that all men are created equal
2. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
3. that among these [rights] are:
a. Life
b. Liberty
c. the pursuit of Happiness.
4. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
5. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

So that's five "truths." Within one of them are mentioned three rights, obviously a small subset of the total. None of this is affected by the presence (or lack) of a period.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

@1:34-- nice textual analysis. I agree. The 'period' is all about Allen's Leftist agenda, and nothing to do with the explicit Declaration of the Founders.
The NYT piece is one of the clearest examples of agenda 'journalism' you'll ever see. Disgrace.

[daddy]

Good Morning.

It would make sense to me that the next move from the Left would be an effort to excise the name of the Father of the Country, "Washington," from Washington DC.

The argument would be that it is offensive and disgraceful for a progressive nation to have a Capitol named for a White, Male, Slave Owner. The Left via their politicians and academia and the MSM, would be quickly able to foist the argument that the word "Washington" in the offensive Washington Redskins brouhaha, is much more culturally and racially offensive than the second word, "Redskins."

I suppose there would be some argument among the Left to decide what DC should be called, but ultimately I think it would be changed to King, DC, in honor of
Martin Luther King, the popular Black Civil Rights Icon of the Modern world, who completed the final overthrow of the bondage that Slave Owner Washington had instituted some 230 years prior.

Eliminating George Washington as the Father of the Country would pretty much complete the Left's coup d'état against the Founders, the Declaration, and the Constitution, and with those guys extricated from "the hearts of our countrymen," (and from the minds of our future generations of school children) the Left would be able to substitute the glorious plans they have envisioned for running our nation and the world.

And naming the Capitol, "King" would pretty much exactly fit reality, since DC is our current King, (until we are able to breed another Washington with the guts and Leadership to overthrow the bastards that are stealing our heritage and dismantling our Republic.

[Extraneus]

Wouldn't that be 4 truths and 1 list?

[rse]

NK-she only gets more interesting. http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/014665in.html is from 2004 and an earlier book and her desire to make democracy all about citizens developing new rules.

Oh, and Race. She does not appear to have embraced any concept of post-racial.

[NK(withnewsoftware)]

For three plus years now I have commented about the Debt Bomb and the end of OPM (RickB calls it the OPM famine.) Here is the statists' push back against default to force all of us to pay for the Debt Bomb disaster they created. Appropriate 401-K, pension plan assets ans other savings:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-03/expropriation-back-christine-lagarde-most-dangerous-woman-world

[matt]

We must be very careful in assessing the Founding Fathers. Each brought a brilliance to the discussion that complemented the others. There was a confluence of Godliness and the Age of Reason and events that was extraordinary.

No other nation before had been founded upon principles so very clearly enunciated. The Declaration and the Constitution were probably the most reasoned political treatises in history.

These men had a rock solid grasp of Aristotelian, Augustinian, and Thomist principles along with those of Locke and Smith. There weren't a lot of books around, so they had to be good to endure.

These modern Luddites are pissants compared to the FF's.

[rse]

No wonder I was picking up connections between Allen's phraseology and what I have been working on and worrying about. http://www.amazon.com/Education-Justice-Democracy-Danielle-Allen/dp/022601276X

She is definitely wanting to play in my current domain.

[SCW]

We better start paying cash for "certain purchases"

ObamaCare, with the aid of hospitals, insurers, banks, and private data managers, is initiating a program to track store and credit card purchases to see if people are telling the truth about their lifestyle choices.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/07/welcome_to_the_end_of_doctorpatient_confidentiality_.html

[BELL]

Ya, but should we trade we're all 'Makers' for ISIS goddes of war and cia operations director ate or Hilly energy policy or..... Dem NWO is so complicated! Let's just trade divide by region and conquer wirh porous borders so we don't have to be a hundred South Koreas daddy, even with UN drones.......

: )

[Danube on iPad]

Anyone who thinks punctuation at the time of the Founding corresponds to that of today should take a close look st the Second Amendment.

[jimmyk on iPhone]

"Wouldn't that be 4 truths and 1 list?"

My read is that the "that" in 3 refers back to "these truths," so it is a truth that "among these are [list]...."

[Extraneus]

Rush is right. If Hillary wins, it would just be depressing to watch an old woman in decline.

Hillary Clinton Mistakes The Two Political Parties In UK

[Extraneus]

Makes sense, Jimmy.

[Extraneus]

BBC: So how special is the special relationship?

CLINTON: It is so special to me, personally, and I think it is very special between our countries. There’s just a — not just a common language — but a common set of values that we can fall back on. It doesn’t matter in our country whether it’s a Republican or Democrat, or frankly in your country whether it’s a Conservative or a Tory. There is a level of trust and understanding. It doesn’t mean we always agree because of course we don’t.

Doesn't seem like she knows what the "special relationship" even is.

[Extraneus]

Perhaps she mentioned that the UK punches above its weight. I didn't watch the video.

(I did shudder at the pic of her at the video link, though.)

[Extraneus]

Physicist Offers $30,000 Reward To Anyone Who Can Disprove Climate Change

Wouldn't the data indicating that global temperatures haven't risen in 17 years win the prize?

[sbw]

Climate changes. Sometimes up. Sometimes down.

Not a functional bet.

[Squid]

The period creates the impression that the list of self-evident truths ends with the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she says. But as intended by Thomas Jefferson, she argues, what comes next is just as important: the essential role of governments — “instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” — in securing those rights.

Why is it, do you suppose, that the esteemed researcher and our betters at the Times have left out all discussion of the other bullet point elevated by the punctuation change? Namely, the right of the people to replace their government when it gets too big for its britches. Surely they wouldn't go to all the trouble of elevating the importance of self-governance and then leave the rest behind!

[That one rings all the bells, Ext.]

Heh, just one minute sect.

[daddy]

Ext,

It doesn’t matter in our country whether it’s a Republican or Democrat, or frankly in your country whether it’s a Conservative or a Tory.

Obviously she's still "Rusty", but since Obama told us she's the best Secretary of State ever, we need to cut her some slack.

I just hope that that the Boston Baseball Team today clobbers their opponents, the Red Sox.

BTW, Anyone want to start the bidding on how long Hillary is going to be "Rusty"?

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Rodham doesn't care about any country that doesn't have Corona on tap as a staple.

Great news about Norman.

[Captain Hate on the iPad]

Excellent editorial, sbw.

[Extraneus]

My bet is she's just going to continue getting rustier and rustier, daddy, and it won't be a pretty sight. I think she should withdraw from the public eye. Maybe take a cruise.

[boatbuilder]

On the bright side, the Times piece may cause some of its readers to actually read the text of The Declaration... Nah, if they paid attention to such things they would not be NYT readers. They have been told that The Declaration of Independence has been proven by a distinguished scholar to mean precisely the opposite of what all of the ignorant mouthbreathing, godbothering, Faux News watching, women-hating, raaacist Republicans believe, and that's good enough for them. The science is settled.

[Extraneus]

Here's the pic at the video link...

And if you don't find that depressing enough, here it is in high resolution (trigger warning):

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1747347/thumbs/o-HILLARY-CLINTON-facebook.jpg

[boatbuilder]

That "physicist" could give Al Gore a run for it in the con department.

[daddy]

My bet is she's just going to continue getting rustier and rustier, daddy, and it won't be a pretty sight.

Well you know Ext, it is tough when she's being grilled by such tough, unfriendly interviewers as Dianne Sawyer, NPR's Terry Gross, and this obviously harsh BBC gal. She'll do better I am sure once she gets some friendlier interlocutors.

[boatbuilder]

Yay Norman!

[Azurin]

I read through every comment here and not one person said anything about the actual document. http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/documents/declaration-of-independence.jpg
Every sentence, including the two in question, ends with a period and then a line with the next sentence starting with a capital letter. Once you see the actual document, this missing period idea seems laughable. There are a few sentences where the period really is missing and it is still obvious there is an end and a beginning.

[rse]

The Times piece and its misrepresentations should drive all of us to watch the 1st 25 minutes of this 2011 video of Allen laying out her views that it's all about Political equality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrW6HNi9-QU

Freedom is not a limitation on what Equality remedies can be pursued. Political equality in the sense of effective equal agency comes first. It is appalling but it fits completely with why Obama always refers to CC as College and Career Ready Standards. CCSSO calls them College, Career, and Citizenship Ready Standards to make sure students will have desired dispositions.

Dovetails quite closely with what Allen wants, which is I am sure why the NYT featured this. Then her book simply gets incorporated into ELA required reading or on an assessment when answers must reflect what is in passage and her reading of the Constitution or Declaration groundless as it is as a factual matter becomes what students believe and then they are to act on that belief.

Fait accompli with no need for formal amendment.

[James D.]

I agree with sbw - that bet is a joke.

Any, anyway, the question isn't whether human activity affects the climate.

The relevant questions are:

How MUCH is human activity affecting the climate?

Are other factors (solar activity, etc) having a larger impact than human activity?

How accurate are the models that are calculating the possible future impacts?

What are the costs (not only financial, but in terms of quality of life, etc) of taking action to reduce the impact of human activity on climate?

How do those costs compare to the potential costs of climate change?

I'm sure we can all come up with more.

[Threadkiller]

There weren't a lot of books around, so they had to be good to endure.

Benjamin Franklin to: Charles William Frederic Dumas

Dear Sir,Philadelphia, 9 December, 1775.I received your several favors, of May 18th, June 30th, and July 8th, by Messrs. Vaillant and Pochard;(1) whom if I could serve upon your recommendation, it would give me great pleasure. Their total want of English is at present an obstruction to their getting any employment among us; but I hope they will soon obtain some knowledge of it. This is a good country for artificers or farmers; but gentlemen of mere science in les belles lettres cannot so easily subsist here, there being little demand for their assistance among an industrious people, who, as yet, have not much leisure for studies of that kind.

I am much obliged by the kind present you have made us of your edition of Vattel. It came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, (after depositing one in our own public library here, and sending the other to the College of Massachusetts Bay, as you directed,) has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting, who are much pleased with your notes and preface, and have entertained a high and just esteem for their author. Your manuscript "Idee sur le Gouvernement et la Royaute" is also well relished, and may, in time, have its effect. I thank you, likewise, for the other smaller pieces, which accompanied Vattel. "Le court Expose de ce qui s'est passe entre la Cour Britannique et les Colonies," bc. being a very concise and clear statement of facts, will be reprinted here for the use of our new friends in Canada. The translations of the proceedings of our Congress are very acceptable. I send you herewith what of them has been farther published here, together with a few newspapers, containing accounts of some of the successes Providence has favored us with. We are threatened from England with a very powerful force, to come next year against us.(2) We are making all the provision in our power here to oppose that force, and we hope we shall be able to defend ourselves. But, as the events of war are always uncertain, possibly, after another campaign, we may find it necessary to ask the aid of some foreign power.

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=DelVol02.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=459&division=div1

Who knew?

[Captain Hate]

Btw, five people from Cleveland, including the two losers who murdered the owner of the Colony and look like 404's nonexistent sons, have been apprehended.

[Captain Hate]

You guys thought I was joking about Zuckerberg Data Mining Inc:

http://minx.cc:1080/?post=350239

[Annoying Old Guy]

Sue was asking earlier about why Bill Clinton gets a pass on his behavior. It seems to me that it's not just Bill Clinton, but much (almost all?) of the Modern American Left's leadership who get indulgences. That, to me, is the clearest sign it's not longer a political party but a cult. The Obama-mania was just an exclamation point on top of existing evidence.

I used to wonder how all of these small cults could be so unconcerned about their leaders violating so many of the beliefs of the cults in their personal behavior. I still don't understand it but now at least I know people who are members that I can study.

[Steve]

WHERE DO WE GO TO COLLECT OUR $30,000?
Where do I go to collect my money? Physicist Offers $30,000 Reward To Anyone Who Can Disprove Climate Change

http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2014/07/where-do-i-go-to-collect-my-money.html

[MCL]

This is old, but is a worthwhile read:

http://rcarterpittman.org/essays/misc/Equality_v_Liberty.html

The article discusses how Jefferson rearranged and rephrased words from Mason's original draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and changed "all men are born equally free and independent" into "all men are created equal".

The main point of the article is that for liberty to exist, inequality must also exist.

"It is equality of freedom and independence that gives unto man his opportunity to be rich or poor or to be good or bad. Equality of men leaves no choice, because if all men are equal by nature or inherently there can be no differences and no distinctions. All have an equal right to stand at the judgment bars of God and man--but all are not entitled to the same judgment. Virtue and depravity are not entitled to the same rewards on earth or in Heaven."

[cathyf]

Actually, azurin, the end of the very next sentence/clause which comes after the disputed period should probably be a period rather than a comma, too. Because 18th-century punctuation (and fpelling, and Capitalization) were pretty fluid. Especially when it didn't change the meaning of the text.

[cathyf]

To drag over a topic from the previous post... Last night JOM was discussing various presidents and their characters and Reagan and his optimism came up. Everyone knows that Reagan had just as challenging a childhood as Obama, right? In the first 9 years of his life, before they settled in Dixon, the Reagan family moved a gazillion times, usually in the middle of school years. Because his dad was a drunk, and kept getting fired, or got mad and quit.

[Miss Marple]

http://nationalreport.net/obama-visit-mosque-host-muslim-leaders-july-4th/

Nothing celebrates our nation like a visit to a mosque.

[cathyf]

yikes! I count that as an 18-minute gap! Where's Rose Mary Woods?

[Janet - the districts lie fallow, while the Capitol gorges itself]

Going around on FB -

[Jack is Back! (In the USA)]

A few observations from today's DC walk-about:

I wonder how Moochelle feels about the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum running the larest damn McDonald's on the planet? Has she complained to Biden? Thad Cochran is on the Board, maybe he'd be receptive to an AA woman's concerns now?

Interesting bumper sticker on a car with Illinois plates crusing along Constitution: "How can the Democracts handle the terrorists when they can't face Fox News?"

In an on topic observation: The film they show at the start of the Capitol tour, they celebrate the idea of our Constitution giving power to the people then show all the laws Congress has passed that give power to the Government over the people. Probably written and directed by Danielle Allen.

[Extraneus]

Everyone must have checked out that high-res pic and had to take a visit to the crying room, Cathy.

[centralcal]

Looks like Porchlight will have her new neighbor - maybe as soon as October. Iowahawk just made a deal on a property and home there.

[rse]

MCL-something to think about in the context of what is clearly an intentional invasion of our southern border, esp in light og Governor Bown's remarks, is Allen's statement is that the reason you have voting rights is to use the resulting political power to be inventive about obtaining true equality.

Basically you vote yourself a revolution.

I have written about repeatedly encountering a communitarian obligation in various aspects of the required implementation of the Common Core in places no one is likely to be looking. Places I was only accidentally monitoring at the time.

At about the 41:55 mark in that video Allen mentions "are we as a society able to build and maintain communitarian commitments to each other?"

[Rob Crawford]

Nothing celebrates our nation like a visit to a mosque.

Celebrate liberty by celebrating a tyrannic cult.

Obama and his like neither understand, nor side with, civilization. They are barbarians.

[rse]

Allen states point blank in her power point that "Equality consists of the capacity of individuals to judge and pursue their own happiness; governments are the first and most important tool for protecting our capacity to pursue our own happiness."

Allen's views are not mainstream but neither are they outliers. The NYT was attempting today to mainstream them. Most people are not aware that the current ed agenda is really all about distributive justice.

[Frau Brennnesseln]

Or his whoring at Montecello!!

Beasts, his brother Randolph Jefferson was the documented randy one in the family.

Be very wary of established liar Joseph J. Ellis, aka Prof. Muenchausen, who manipulated retired pathologist Eugene Foster's Jefferson DNA study to cover Bent Willie's exposed backside. Scientist Foster complained in print about the misuse of his work for political purposes and was ignored.

...in a letter to the New York Times calling it "regrettable that [our] statement has been transmuted into assertions that all doubt had been removed" The Nov.9 letter also said, "the genetic findings my collaborators and I reported...do not prove that Thomas Jefferson was the father of one of Sally Hemings's children. We never made that claim. Nor do we believe that the Y-chromosome type we found in Hemings's descendant occurs only in the members of the Jefferson family...this study could not prove anything conclusively...
...
Thomas Jefferson himself was not tested, only descendants of his paternal uncle, Field Jefferson. This fact troubles some forensic geneticists working professionally in DNA paternity cases.

What did the DNA match positively establish? The findings show a probability that the DNA of Eston (Hemings) shows a descent from some male in the Jefferson paternal line, rather than being a randomly occurring match from someone in the general population, which is put at a 100-to-1 chance. A simple analogy would be recovering from a victim a bullet that has distinctive rifle-barrel markings enabling it to be traced. The research has shown that said rifle was owned by males of the Jefferson family. But who pulled the trigger?
David Murray WaPo 1998

[Danube on iPad]

"Who knew?"

I did.

[Beasts of England]

$30,000 for disproving climate change? A whole $30,000? Wow. I guess physicists don't have lot of extra change, but I keep more than 30k in my Hookers & Blow account...

[henry]

Beasts, that is a lot of vuvuzelas!

[Jack is Back! (In the USA)]

"That's not a period but rather a smudge mark that Mr. Hancock inadvertenly made."

[Frau Brennnesseln]

Beasts, my 5:26 was sent to expose both Joe Ellis and Randy, erm, Randolph Jefferson.

[Beasts of England]

lol, henry!

@Frau - I tend to agree that Randolph was the father in question, but I also believe that red-headed Tommy spent plenty of time 'celebrating diversity'.

[Extraneus]

Is it possible that all of those who've claimed that Jefferson fathered Sally's child are the same people whose interest is to denigrate the Founding Fathers?