What is Digg?84 Comments
- webcure, on 10/11/2007, -1/+88What a great line from Benjamin Franklin:
"We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
Digg it! - BLyn, on 10/11/2007, -0/+73Obscure Fact: there's a treasure map on the back.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -10/+61Obscure Fact: Dick Cheney blows his nose with the Declaration of Independence and has Tony Snow wipe his ass with the Constitution
- Indyanna, on 10/11/2007, -2/+39Please, please, please - can we have a category for History? This is NOT offbeat news - but there's no other choice for the submitter.
Please? *groveling* - coltrane68, on 10/11/2007, -10/+32No offense, but you should consider using the spell check. The word is "independence", not "indepence".
- sockpuppets, on 10/11/2007, -2/+15#6: it was printed on hemp paper.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a mill that made hemp paper. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. - qishi, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11Submitter shouldn't need a spell checker for that. Reading it once would work.
- BigLambos, on 10/11/2007, -3/+11Every1 who signed the Declaration would be sick to their stomach if they saw what our government was like today
- silencerider151, on 10/11/2007, -3/+10This proves that our independence day is becoming more about mild amusements than the serious nature of keeping our freedom.
- chris35535, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7didnt Jefferson have 5 kids with one of his slaves
- psygnisfive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6The wonderful thing about governance is that ultimately it doesn't matter whether something is illegal or not. If you've got the ability to defend your actions, then you do it. Independence was illegal too, but it doesn't matter because the legality has no effect on whether or not it independence is executed. Might makes right, in the world of politics and government.
- madm0nk, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7I liked this one better.
"Those who are willing to sacrifice liberty in the name of safety, deserve neither liberty or safety" - Benjamin Franklin - arbulus, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5that really needed a /sarcasm tag.
- manmademark, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Slavery was pretty messed up. Shouldn't do that.. its bad.
- daRoach, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Jefferson was upset that slavery (among other things) was edited out, but firmly stood his ground on "inalienable" vs. "unalienable".
- whatthefu, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Poor Richard Stockton :(
- Zackypooh, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6you're a huge idiot.
- iChaz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Rutledge:"Dude, you royal *****... You forgot to capitalize United."
Script:"Oh, sorry man.. I'm just kinda tired, you know..."
Franklin:"Why tired?"
Script:"Well, i went out and got drunk with friends last night and now I'm hung over."
Franklin:"Oh, them. I told you you really should not hang together, but more assuredly, hang separately."
Script:"Sigh..." - noisey, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Everyone who signed the constitution would probably be sick to their stomachs because we use indoor bathrooms. But, they'd probably be more interested in Cars, TV and Radio.
- Echarter, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4"We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
Benjamin Franklin ruled then, and he rules now. - SelfAbortion, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Not really all that obscure. It's not like they try to hide it.
- JohnP, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Er.. yea... The English wrote about freedom under law way before the USA existed in any form.
P.S. The cameras are in shops and on high streets.. turning them off would be idiotic. Youre just a technophobe. - EdgarVerona, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3If I'm not mistaken, they hadn't abolished slavery before 1776. It came later, so at this time the grievance was valid (at least to those who believed it to be so, and who [it sounds like] were pushed out of the Declaration's final revision).
- dankosaur, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5i'd say we're doing better than big brother England.
- loganhid, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4FTA - $4 at a flea market - flea market, matgumary, its just like....its just like....a mini mall
- madm0nk, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Slavery in the U.S. was "outlawed" in 1865 by the 13th amendment (not so you would really notice though).
- arbulus, on 10/11/2007, -2/+4That's probably modern day propaganda by the DEA, ATF, and ONDCP so they can continue to skew hemp use in a bad light.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2The Duke of Westminster owns the American Embassy building in London.
America owns every one of its other embassies around the world except this.
They have been trying to buy it from the Dukes family for nearly 50 years.
He has gone on record as stating "You can have the embassy building, when you
give me back the land you stole from my family during the war of Independence"
The Dukes family owned almost everything from Massachusetts down to South Carolina. - EdgarVerona, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2I'm impressed at fact #2, one that I did not realize until today!
"2. Jefferson Was Upset that Slavery was Edited out.
In his first draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson [wiki] listed the British crown’s support and importation of slavery to the colonies as one of the grievances:
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither."
The passage, however, was edited out by request of the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia. Jefferson (himself a slave owner!) remained upset about this removal of the condemnation of slavery until his death."
I consider myself to be a Declarationist at heart, but the one thing I could never resolve was that apparent contradiction that Jefferson had whereby he proclaimed that all men were created equal but seemed silent on slavery. Of all the ways that a man can be rendered "not free", slavery is perhaps the most direct and obvious.
The silence in the declaration on this topic has always made me feel uncomfortable, even if slavery happened to be common in that age (remember, totalitarianism was common as well, and the Declaration sought to rebuke that)... and I deeply appreciate knowing that it made Jefferson himself feel uncomfortable as well. - drafhk, on 10/11/2007, -4/+6Here's a fun fact: our founding fathers probably would have given the whole thing up if they had known where our country would be today.
- K3ITHK, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2There is nothing obscure about these facts.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1You will have to bear in mind that the British have been invaded several times in their history, enslaved, way of life and language erased etc.
The reason the British are they way they are, is a history of endless war.
They also very rarely lose the away game, best to keep them onside eh ? - mabhatter, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1The USA was build on contractual servitude. Many of the early colonies were actually contracted to a trading company to build a settlement and provide so many goods for sale in Britain. Many early setters made the very common trade of seven years work service for passage. It was an enforceable contract under law, but it also had a definate start and end and was freely entered into. The southern idea of slavery as hereditary was contradictory to even British legal precedent at the time. But of course it's easy to look away when there's profit involved.
- CornStarch, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1If there weren't so many sincere comments like that floating around digg these days it wouldn't.
- Zackypooh, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1O yeah, and he decided to bang his slaves until he had a kid with one.
- Zackypooh, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2#5
How come i can never find a deal like that!? - Zackypooh, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1And you.
- rtakach, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4who cares, your brain read it the same way and it was a totally cool article
- madm0nk, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Hmmm... I wasn't going by the article I was remembering what I learned in HIST 252A & B (U.S. History 1776-1877 & 1877-Present) both of which was taught by a very outstanding professor who clearly showed signs of duress from unveiling the truth to students who were pretty much lied to all through high school history. The British have a long and dark history of plain disregard for fellow human life, before during and after the American "Revolution".
- smithco, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2The Jeffereson 'fact' seems to me to be a case of historical revisionism. Slavery in Europe and Britain was, for practical purposes, finished, when the Americans rebelled. The last two major slave trading peoples in the Western world at that time were the Dutch and the American colonies. In Britain, slavery was effectively ended in 1772, this is well before Jefferson's supposed condemnation of British slavery. And lets not forget that Jefferson owned many slaves and worked them as hard as any land owner. Had he truly been opposed to slavery, he would have been a Loyalist and helped British abolitionism take root in the Americas.
One very interesting perspective on the Declaration of Independence is that it was a way for the Americans to continue slavery and discrimination while the rest of the civilised world embraced abolitionism. There is a lot of propoganda generated around the American rebellion. It is well worth the effort to strip some of that away and discover different perspectives on how the United States of America came to be. - Nebetsu, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2#5 - That's expensive toilet paper! O.O
- psygnisfive, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Uh, no. The Declaration of Independence was a document written by entities other than the government of the United States, and has never been part of US legal tradition. It's a nice document, but it's not part of our legal system.
- miriclaire, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- miriclaire, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Is this like the theory of relativity? It's all relative? Like it.
- StarManta, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Ben Franklin is full of great lines, many of which were written for PoorRichard's Almanac.
- mabhatter, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1no, up until 1960's when congress had to actually pass a law about it, that's pretty much how the Supreme Court of the United States interpreted the rules. Even in the first half of the 1800's they were arguing that slaves weren't really whole people (they were only 2/5 so they could never be free or citizens), or women weren't included as "equal people" because Jefferson and the others put too many conditions in the Declaration and Constitution instead of using simpler words like "all people" they used things like "all men"...
People in power will pervert the law for their ends in all sorts of ways. - Quactaur, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1Here's a really interesting fact: The United States was technically illegal for a good many years after the constitution was signed:
After the articles of confederation were signed, it became obvious that the union wouldn't hold together long unless it becamea federation. The new constitution was written up, but to bring it to law, all 13 states had to sign. As some wouldn't, and Rhode Island didn't even send a delegate, the new constitution changed the law to only need 2/3 of states : but crucially, it hadn't been signed into law. Therefore to dissolve the Confederacy and create the Federal United States, a circular logic of law had to be used, which technically made the constitution an illegal document! - psygnisfive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+2The Declaration of Independence also has no legal standing.
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -3/+3yet the British abolished slavery before the U.S.
I wonder who the slaves fought for, and, what happened to those towns and communities that wished to remain British ?
Airbrushed methinks.
History is (re)written by the victors -
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