Could history be changed?

[L2R]

I hear something a bit disturbing here and in the news.
This isn't the sky is falling post but there is a trend that has me wondering.

Just the other day AB was looking for a video that cannot be found. Probably a coincidence but...

I have been reading that social media outlets are limiting conservative views)
Utube is cutting off gun related themed videos.
I was just reading that lawyers in Colorado had found evidence to support the notion that magazines and high capacity guns existed back when the state was creating state laws to protect the right of gun owners. No doubt, the current politicians wish that didn't exist.

My concern is that if this is all true, then what is to prevent them from removing historical facts and references that would support 2nd amendment issues or anything else they don't like?

Is there anyone protecting documents that exist online to preserve the accuracy of history?

Should we consider a repository (hard copy) of history that supports our views of the 2nd amendment so it cannot be conveniently lost?

I know this is a tall order, I don't know who would undertake such a project but I can see history being lost online where most of the world now searches for information.

Maybe I am worrying over nothing. Maybe there is hard copies or protecdions in place that I am not aware of but I am a bit concerned about how history might be manipulated.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by L2R

My concern is that if this is all true, then what is to prevent them from removing historical facts and references that would support 2nd amendment issues or anything else they don't like?

This is why I tracked down and made copies of both the Senate report on the RKBA from 1982 (unformatted link here: https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html . I had a link to a formatted version, and that link is now dead. Hmmmm ...) and the DOJ study of the same topic from 2004 ( http://www.constitution.org/uslaw/doj/doj_statement.htm ).

Like the link I had to a formatted version of the Senate report, my link to the formatted version of the DOJ report has long been dead. It disappeared during the Obama administration, then it reappeared at another .gov address, then it disappeared again. Thankfully, the Constitution Society has preserved the text.

I have copies of both in their original, formatted versions on my computer and backed up at home because I fully expected that they might go walkabout during the Obama administration, and I was right.

[Aguila Blanca]

Here's another article about the founding that I bookmarked a long time ago. I hadn't downloaded a copy of it, but I think I'll do so while it's still available ... just in case.

https://guncite.com/journals/vandhist.html

Check the end notes on this one -- they contain some other interesting/useful links

[zukiphile]

Is there anyone protecting documents that exist online to preserve the accuracy of history?

This question may illustrate that it isn't wise to regard the internet as an accurate reference for history. I have diminished regard for organizations that claim neutrality, but then intentionally edit material to serve a political end (Wikipedia is one example), but the basic error rests in regarding these mechanisms as reliable.

Only a couple of decades ago, people didn't expect to find everything instantly on the internet. Then, one began to see arguments greeted with "Link?", as if the internet were the world and the absence of a link meant the absence of the information.

Some things are hard to find, and for no good reason. I looked for a short story by Hawthorne about the social hierarchy of birds, a story I'd read well before the internet. I finally found one source with really oddly formatted text, not very convenient for reading, as if someone wanted to do the bare minimum to keep the story from being lost. I was thankful someone had done it. On the other hand, there may be 100,000 youtube videos of russians having traffic accidents. The logic isn't overwhelming.

If Google, or youtube or Wikipedia don't have good faith curation as part of their models, shame on them, but shame on us for our teeth having rotted too.

[JohnKSa]

Indeed, one must be careful not to assume that because something can't be found on the internet, it doesn't exist.

It's become fashionable to say that 'X' didn't happen because it can't be verified with a search engine, but there are many reasons that 'X' could very well have happened without turning up in a search result. Some sinister, some very mundane and reasonable, some accidental or due to error.

[Mainah]

The quality of fake videos is just about to add a real wrinkle to this. Real history can soon be replaced with fake history.

[Prndll]

This is THE problem with leaving everything in the hands of who-knows-who when it comes to something so easily manipulated as 1's and 0's. THIS is what makes the cloud, social media, and various other aspects of the web so dangerous. A large portion of our digital documentation is under the authority of those that have their own agenda and have no desire for accurate recording of history. Music, Movies, tv shows, documentaries, news print, books, and all manner of human events are being systematically filtered on the whims of a small handful of people. People with corporate names like Facebook, Youtube, Wikipedia, Twitter, etc.

They say information wants to be free. Well, 'free' is subjective.

This is a very serious issue that goes well beyond firearms. Most people have no clue as even today mots people still no nothing about computers beyond the Facebook like button. Having a cell phone with more power than what sent men to the moon placed in the palm of the hand means nothing when no one understands what that kind of power actually is. We think we are on the cutting edge of technology when we can put thousand dollar telephones in the hands of six year olds while being able to talk to our cars. There simply isn't a care in the world for what's being lost in all this. IQ levels for most of the population is going down while only increasing for a select few (and no, having a degree of any kind does not make you smarter).

So many will look to ISP's for responsibility. Many others want government control and regulation. We are all responsible for the internet in general. It's what we do with this thing that makes the difference. If you want to treat Facebook and Twitter as if they ARE the internet, there will be a price to pay.

[L2R]

I already lack confidence in what I read online.

Several snipits of info just crossed my screen this week that seemed to be connected.

I think that there is a concerted effort already underway to delete some of the past to fit the ideology of a few.

If so then,
every time a pro gun writer,lawyer or judge finds a historical document to preserve our 2A rights, they are basically data mining for the other side.
And they are deciding what is searchable and what is not as time goes by.

So how can we combat that, seems ominous.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by L2R

Is there anyone protecting documents that exist online to preserve the accuracy of history?

Organizations such as The Constitution Society are doing a pretty good job. But you need to remember that the Internet is not the official repository of anything for the United States government. That's the job of the Library of Congress. I have no doubt that both the Senate and DOJ reports to which I referred above are safe and secure in the Library of Congress.

But ... you have to know they're there or you won't know to look for them. And for people outside of Washington, DC, it's likely not convenient to trek to the Library of Congress to spend days/weeks/months looking for obscure documents supporting the Second Amendment. That's why I think when we find a document on-line that seems important, it's not enough to bookmark it. Links go dead all the time, and not always for nefarious reasons. It's like the first rule of real estate: "If you like the view ... buy it." If you find a document that seems important ... download it, and then back it up to a portable hard drive or a CD or DVD.

[44 AMP]

If you are just now coming to the realization that the Internet is not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, you're a bit late to the party.

[L2R]

I think that anyone with a conservative, 2A view understands the slant on information provided online and that is will continue to get worse.
.
Guess I am still concerned about my grand kids. They are growing up with the internet as 'the source' for information because that is about all we have now. And unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much that champions a conservative view. I think a poll for those under 20, would give very high marks to wiki for example.

I think AB is right that we should all start collecting important documents are we come across them. Wish I had started 10 years ago.

AB, thank you for the insight. I well understood that the internet is not charged with keeping everything for everyone but had no idea where/who that was. So thank you for that.

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by LR2

Guess I am still concerned about my grand kids. They are growing up with the internet as 'the source' for information because that is about all we have now. And unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much that champions a conservative view. I think a poll for those under 20, would give very high marks to wiki for example.

I've witnessed the generational divide as my older child takes her college tours. They collect citations very quickly, and those become a sort of litter. When computer driven legal research dawned, I began to see briefs that had a dozen case citations for a point. These are cases of demand rising for something as the cost decreases.

When I wrote my thesis, all of the citations were to books I had read. It was certainly more labor, but it also afforded the luxury of the time to reflect, understand, and incorporate or reject ideas as my own view, as I wrote the first draft long hand.

I am not even arguing that one is categorically better or worse, but they are processes with different qualities, and I'm not sure how my children would ever know that process.

For what it's worth, we had bad curation and ideological editing of material back then too. Prominent in my memory was the English professor who demanded that the school's library remove Aristotle from the shelves because she had concluded he was a misogynist. Though she had cowed other faculty to sign her petition, I am happy to report her failure back then.

Before that, my grandfather had all his german language books publicly burned as the US entered WWI. This isn't a new problem, but the way it is implemented has a Ministry of Truth opacity that may leave younger people oblivious to it.

[T. O'Heir]

Social media, YouTube included, is not history. Nor does is it any kind of documentation, historical or otherwise. The Internet is a great, powerful research tool but you must consider the sites you're reading. Wikipedia, for example, is not a reliable source of info because anybody can post anything they want there. Ditto for the assorted social media sites.
"...removing historical facts and references..." That's more like 'social engineering'. As mentioned, a document, that social media and YouTube are not, not being on-line does not mean said document does not exist. Your American Constitution for example.
"...look to ISP's for responsibility..." ISP's are not responsible for content. That'd be like saying Bell, Verizon, Charter(or whatever/whoever your phone service provider is.) is responsible for what you say on your cell or land line.

[TXAZ]

Walter Cronkite rolled over in his grave several years ago. He had the courage to report reality even when it wasn't popular.

With news now being real time on social media, with highly biased commentary, I fear the 'pendulum' for guns is swinging faster away from RKBA.

[44 AMP]

and people who own social media network have total control of what the want out there, in other words they control information/news/and all kinda content on real time. Nothing can be done about it.

Other than the "real time" aspect, this is no different than what has ALWAYS existed. It was happening when the only mass media was print. I believe it happened when the only news outlet was the Town Crier.

"Nothing can be done about it". True, sort of. But the more important question is "SHOULD something be done about it?"

And there, dear folks, we run into real Constitutional issues. Not just freedom of speech and the press, but private property rights, as well.

Though people tend to think of them as public, because they allow public use, all the online/social media stuff is PRIVATELY OWNED. And, by private, I mean non-government, either a corporation or a single individual.

And those private owners are under no legal requirement to "preserve history" in any fashion, what so ever. They can pretty much do what ever they want, within the framework of existing law. They are NOT a public trust.

IF they choose to be, they can be the 21st century Randolph Hearst and do their own version of Yellow Journalism. And some do....

as to "changing history", some say this has always gone on. The internet makes it easier, doing a cut and past with a few clicks is not to difficult, removing a file, or a link to one, pretty simple.

Not like in the past where one had to FIND the books, and the people telling the story you didn't want told, and burn them.

The Winners write the histories. And, there has always been dissent about their accuracy from the losers, if there are any losers left....

[TruthTellers]

Originally Posted by Aguila Blanca

Here's another article about the founding that I bookmarked a long time ago. I hadn't downloaded a copy of it, but I think I'll do so while it's still available ... just in case.

https://guncite.com/journals/vandhist.html

Check the end notes on this one -- they contain some other interesting/useful links

Ctrl+A
Ctrl+C
Open notepad or wordpad
Ctrl+V

No downloading necessary, just a simple copy/paste job and it's yours forever. Google/Facebook/Twitter be damned.

[Double Naught Spy]

Could history be changed?

Understand that history is not fixed and static, but is its own entity that changes over time. All history is revisionist history.

The history that we grew up with was in and of itself a changed version from that which our grandparents may have learned in school. What my kids learn today is different than what I learned.

People seem to be under the impression that the internet is permanent, a safe depository of information. It has never been this. There is no Internet Library of Congress. It has always depended on their being servers supplied and maintained to hold information. These come and go. How the information is maintain will vary considerably, and not even for any sort of conspiracy or nefarious purposes.

Don't believe for a moment that newscasters of the past were honest and unbiased, not even Walter Cronkite.
https://www.aim.org/aim-column/the-t...lter-cronkite/
https://www.newsweek.com/new-biograp...his-halo-64849
https://www.discoverthenetworks.org/...lter-cronkite/

[GamestopDorito]

The age of corporate censorship of ideas is one thing, but we are also in the age of conspiracy theories. Where everyone sees hidden truths behind every action or event. The fact that these two are happening at the same time is making for some really disturbing stuff where it can feel like the truth is eroding completely. This is when autocrats will rise to assert "one truth" that must be followed, whether it is the left with its insane political correctness or someone like Trump who makes up reality as whatever he says (biggest crowds ever, best deals ever, I love guns, etc). Be wary of believing either sort of liar.

[SIGSHR]

Read 1984 by George Orwell.

[5whiskey]

Hmm interesting topic. Many good points made already. As zuke pointed out misinformation or the “drowning out” of opposite views existed before the internet.

The short answer, is the founding documents are etched well enough right now that even our grandkids won’t be ignorant of their existence. Some will not be ignorant of their content. The constitution, common sense, federalist and anti federalist papers, etc will not be forgotten over night. These documents go a long way to enshrine the 2nd amendment if you don’t have an anti-gun agenda when you read them.

A brief note on social media being privately owned. I am absolutely for property rights, but to accept google and facebook can do whatever they want is akin to accepting that power companies can charge whatever they want when one company is literally your only option. In the case of social media, we have options. None of those options are pro 2A though. So I agree we need to be ever vigilant.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by 5whiskey

The short answer, is the founding documents are etched well enough right now that even our grandkids won’t be ignorant of their existence. Some will not be ignorant of their content. The constitution, common sense, federalist and anti federalist papers, etc will not be forgotten over night. These documents go a long way to enshrine the 2nd amendment if you don’t have an anti-gun agenda when you read them.

Those documents will be forgotten within another generation. They aren't being taught in schools any more. Have you watched any of the videos on Youtube in which interviewers ask college students about who did what in the founding of the United States? The kids generally don't have a clue. Worse, they don't care that they don't know -- they think it's a big joke.

[44 AMP]

The kids generally don't have a clue. Worse, they don't care that they don't know -- they think it's a big joke.

This was true half a century ago, its probably always been true.

History is boring, its not "relevant" has always been the case with many people. Today social media and the huge focus on the "now" is moving the age old apathy to warp speed.

The documents of our Founding Fathers won't go away, but people's desire to read and understand them, will. Already today (and for quite some time before today) our children aren't taught using the documents themselves, but are taught with excerpts from them and "explanations" of what they mean.

We've gotten to a place (and gone past it) where people make legal arguments over what the correct definition of the word "is" is. (Thank you Pres. Clinton )

We have, essentially two different things in play here, the actual words of the documents themselves, and what various people in positions of authority say those words mean.

To me, it seems those things were more congruent in the past than they are today, on many issues.

Can history be changed? sure. But, it's a lot of work. Its easier, and just as effective to make people believe it is irrelevant.

"Don't matter what those old dead rich white guy slave owners wrote a couple hundred years ago," or, does it??

[5whiskey]

Don't matter what those old dead rich white guy slave owners wrote a couple hundred years ago

This. It’s a demanding task to erase well established history. Much easier to confront it with, “yeah that doesn’t matter it was 250 years ago, here look it’s the iPhone 17x (or whatever model)!”

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by 44 AMP

We have, essentially two different things in play here, the actual words of the documents themselves, and what various people in positions of authority say those words mean.

This is true. Look at all the furor that followed the Heller decision. For years, various people on the anti-gun side had been arguing that the 2A "meant" that the right to keep and bear arms applied only to militia duty [and that, since today the National Guard is the militia, it meant that only the NG should have guns]. Then Antonin Scalia upended that with a scholarly dissection of grammar and sentence construction, and -- by a 5-4 vote -- it became the law of the land that the right to keep and bear arms is NOT linked to service in the militia (or the National Guard).

And Hillary Clinton (who is a lawyer) has stated that Mr. Scalia was wrong.

So we're back to the concept that history is written by the winners, and Lewis Carroll:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

And that gets us back to the Constitution. The "progressives" want us to believe that the Constitution is a "living document." This means that it means nothing, because its meaning has to change as our use of the words involved changes. A good example is "regulated." The anti-gun side tells us that the 2A leaves the RKBA wide open to all sorts of restrictions because the 2A says the militia should be "regulated." But that's not what the 2A meant by "regulated" (according to me!). In the context of the 2A, I believe that the Founders meant "regulated" to be "ordered, consistent" -- like a "well-regulated" clock mechanism being a clock that keeps good time. Clearly, it makes no sense to maintain that a "well regulated" clock means a clock that has a lot of arbitrary restrictions placed on its operation.

This is why its so important to appoint more judges and more Supreme Court justices who are originalists, or "textualists." The Constitution has to be applied (IMHO) according to what the words meant to the authors. That's the only way government can be faithful to the framework that was established for the nation. If a large enough segment of the population thinks the original meaning and intent should not apply any more -- well, that's why there's provision for amending the Constitution. The problem is that there isn't a large enough segment of the population to enact the kinds of changes the liberals want, so they're trying to accomplish their goals by linguistic coup d'etat -- not changing the words, just changing what the words mean.

[44 AMP]

The "progressives" want us to believe that the Constitution is a "living document."

Because, well, it IS!!

Just not in the way they CLAIM it to be. Once again, the "progressives" (or what ever name they are going by this week) have taken a term, "Living document" and fitted it with their own definition, as if that makes their definition the correct one.

The Constitution absolutely IS a living document, but not in their sense of the term. The Constitution is a living document because it contains the ability to "grow and change" with the times. This is NOT done by re-defining the words in the document (as the progressives claim) but through the established AMENDMENT process.

The Amendment process allows us, (we. the people, etc) to add to or remove things from the Constitution. That is the sense in which it is a "living document". And that is the only sense in which the Constitution is, or should be changed.

Yes, there is also the "new Constitutional Convention" option, but to date, that has never been used (and hopefully never will be!) the Amendment process has been in use, and does work, proving that while a bad idea may become law (Prohibition) the same process does work to undo that bad law (repeal of Prohibition).

Where the Amendment process falls down is only in the opinions of people who think that their pet social theory should be a Constitutional amendment, and they don't get it passed. It may be a good idea, it may be a fine idea (equal rights for women, balanced budget, term limits, or something else) or it may be a very poor idea (Prohibition) but that doesn't mean we have to have it as a Constitutional Amendment. The process allows for either to be passed, and either to be repealed as the will of the people.

That is what makes it a living document, not changing the definition of the words in it.