Self-Evident truths 

By Hank Silverberg

  “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”

    Anyone who has graduated high school should recognize those words as the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. But over the last week, it has become clear that much of the Declaration, approved by the Continental Congress over several days in July of 1776, is a mystery to many Americans.  

     Thomas Jefferson wrote it, borrowing heavily from political philosophers of the time. It was a compromise document with Jefferson changing John Locke’s “life, liberty and property,” to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” to broaden the concept and more likely to delay a continued debate over slavery. That would plague the new country for another 87 years.   

     To many Americans, the words are sacred. They stand for a revolt against tyranny and a push for self-government.

    So, it is with dismay and a little disgust that we note two ridiculous examples of ignorance and 21^st century technology over the 4^th of July holiday.

    First there was the NPR Twitter experiment. For years public radio has taken part of its programming on July 4^th to read the Declaration on the air. It is designed to remind people of the liberty we hold dear and the sacrifices that were made to obtain it.

   This year the radio network, which some people consider, dare I say it, “liberal,” chose also to put the Declaration out on Twitter in 113 consecutive tweets. This is 2018 and for many people, especially millennials, social media has become their main source of information, so that made sense.

    But here’s the problem. The Declaration of Independence is a radical document. It was put together by revolutionaries. One sentence, taken out of context, can obscure the meaning of the whole document. Take this one with less than 240 characters as an example:

   “Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.  A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people”

       Or this one:

    “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.”

     The target, in 1776, was the irrational, and some historians say, “mad” King George III. But in this case, an out of context NPR tweet in 2018 was read by thousands of Trump supporters as an attack on their President.    

    The 18^th century language alone should have been a clue this was history and not current events. It was, after all, sent out on the 4^th of July.  But social media posts rarely deal with facts and often deal with split second, knee jerk reactions. So, NPR was bombarded with negative responses and charges of bias and “fake news.” It was clear most of them came from Trump supporters who had no idea what they were reading.

    But this was not the only ridiculous social media nonsense. The Declaration of Independence was re-published in parts leading up July 4^th on the Facebook page of the Liberty County Vindicator, a wonderfully named newspaper in southeastern Texas. The paper, which has been around since 1887, reported that its tenth installment was censored. When it was put up, Facebook shut down the post and called it “hate speech.”

Reacting on the paper’s website, the editor believes this part of the Declaration, again an 18^th Century charge against King George III,  triggered the censorship. 

 "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

   Something about “merciless Indian Savages” triggered Facebook’s new campaign to censor “hate speech”.

http://www.thevindicator.com/news/article_556e1014-7e41-11e8-a85e-ab264c30e973.html  

Facebook told ABC news it was a mistake and the post was restored. A company statement says Facebook processes millions of complaints each week and sometimes they “get it wrong.” That means someone complained to Facebook, likely taking the words out of time and out of context. The words are indeed offensive in today’s world. But many things from history are reprehensible when looked at with hindsight. Surely Facebook’s programming geniuses could feed important historical documents into the data base to avoid the confusion.

    All of this presents some interesting observations about the impact of social media and the education of the American public.   

     Most people would not know every word of the Declaration or the US Constitution either, but why did those reacting so fast on Twitter, or Facebook, not recognize the tweet or the Facebook excerpts as 18^th Century language and figure it out?  And why out of context, did many in the Twittersphere automatically assume the NPR tweets were aimed at Donald Trump?

     I don’t want to generalize about people I don’t know personally. But it does make you wonder what they were thinking or if they were thinking at all.

     America has some big issues to deal with in its 243rd year. Let’s hope the country’s population and more importantly the electorate, can deal with real information that needs more than 240 characters to explain. They should take some time to think and avoid quick emotional reactions based on incomplete and insufficient social media posts. That includes posts generated from @realDonaldTrump and @POTUS.          

  (Your comments & suggestions are welcome.See section below.)  

   

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