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Palin Fans Deface Paul Revere Wikipedia Page
An anonymous reader writes "Fans of Sarah Palin were found to be changing the article on Paul Revere to make it fit their idol's view that Paul Revere was not warning the American colonists that the British were coming, but rather warning the British were not 'going to taking away our [guns]'."
There's stuff about it on the discussion page
Why don't you check the revision history? Find on page? Really?
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
From reading, it appears that based on the edit history, the same people trying to edit the Revere page are frequent (positive) contributors to the Palin page.
today is spelling optional day.
That article is about conservative apologists trying to backfit what she said into history. Paul Revere didn't fire gunshots and ring bells on his horse ride - that happened AFTER he was captured and gave inflated numbers to the British. His ride wasn't about warning the British - that was an unintentional side effect of getting capture. He rode to warn the militia and ultimately get to John Hancock and Sam Adams.
Even the experts in that article don't really back her up - they says she basically lucky that some part of the store could be backfitted to match what she said.
To be fair, I don't believe she is as dumb as she appears. I think she intentionally puts on that stupid accent and plays dumb to win over the fly-over states.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
John Rogers
Nice selective editing just like the conservative blogger. This is what she said:
âoewarned the British that they werenâ(TM)t going to be taking away our arms by ringing those bells and making sure as heâ(TM)s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.â
That just didn't happen. He didn't ring any bells, he didn't shoot any guns, and the purpose of the ride was not to warn the British. In the process of warning the militia he was captured and gave an inflated count to the British as a warning.
You do realize that Paul Revere was captured on his ride and did warn the British that they would not be able to take away the colonists' guns?
False. After his capture Revere told the British that the country was raised against them. Not one word about taking away the colonist's guns.
And while it is true that "you can't take their guns" is a reasonable inference from "they are ready and waiting for you", it is also a reasonable inference that "you can't take their trousers" or "you can't quarter soldiers in their homes", but for some reason you don't mention either of those, nor the dozens of other things you could reasonably infer from what Revere reported telling them, which was not "you can't take their guns" but "the country is raised against you."
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Well, why not look at the article's list of changes? If you do that you will stumble on User:Tomwsulcer, , a user who authored a set of editions which includes adding the aforementioned changes to Paul Revere's article, where he explicitly quotes Sarah Palin as the source. He also posted comments on Sarah Palin's talk page expressing his intention and motivation.
Yet, this is just an idiot wasting his time posting stuff he came up with on a wikipedia article. There are literally hundreds of this sort of edits being committed every single day on wikipedia, adding crap that is later removed. Why is this particular idiot being singled out for shovelling crap onto that site?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
It goes a bit beyond that. The changes to Paul Revere's article are based on direct quotes from Sarah Palin and the editions to Paul Revere's article are being discussed in Sarah Palin's talk page. Among the people committing the changes we find this guy, who on his user page includes the following quote:
So, it's pretty obvious that there is more at play than mere correlation.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
I presume you must know that Palin was rightly mocked for her actual quote as well. The "I can see Russia from my house!" bit was a hyperbole meant to ridicule the actual statement for its stupidity.
Her actual statement was trying to lend legitimacy to herself. As if being close to Russia meant she was somehow an expert on it. She was conflating seeing it with being informed and knowledgeable about it.
And that's logically asinine. I live next door to a physician. That in no way qualifies me to treat anyone medically and gives me no expertise in the medical field. And if I were trying to claim medical expertise by mentioning proximity to a doctor, I'd rightly be thought a fool for it.
That's kinda more accurate than what really happened actually. Paul Revere warned almost no Americans. Dude got picked up by the Brits almost before he left.
If by "almost no Americans" you meant "The militia at Charleston, Lexington and Concord who went on to fight the battles of Lexington and Concord" and by "almost before he left" you meant "three hours later, after doing what he set out to do" and that "picked up by the British" means "picked up and then released", and you ignore all the other guys who were doing the same thing and weren't stopped then... yeah, you're absolutely right.
And if you interpret "Seeing the signal lights up in the church tower then quietly passing on the message to Samuel Adams and John Hancock in person that an attack was coming and that they had best be ready for it" as "Warning the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms by ringing bells firing warning shots", then Palin was spot on.
But many years later, his name fit well into a song, and so everyone now knows about his midnight ride.
It was about eightyfive years later, in the poem "Paul Revere's Ride". It was a fictionalized account and got quite a few details wrong, such as leaving out the other riders like William Dawes, but was still more accurate than that embarrassing sound-bite was.
I will freely admit that Palin has demonstrated that she attended history class in High School at least once, but I am still unconvinced that she was awake at the time.
The whole thing is silly. Paul Revere never actually said, "The British are coming!" because that makes no sense......they were all British. He more likely would have said, "The regulars are coming."
There are so many misconceptions about Paul Revere's ride because of that romanticized Longfellow poem. Paul Revere was a good enough guy, but he didn't even make it all the way. He got detained by the British, and his riding partners were the ones who rode the rest of the way.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Actual Transcript:
"GIBSON: Let's start, because we are near Russia, let's start with Russia and Georgia.
The administration has said we've got to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. Do you believe the United States should try to restore Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia and Abkhazia?
PALIN: I do believe unprovoked and we have got to keep our eyes on Russia, under the leadership there. I think it was unfortunate. That manifestation that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the race toward a more democratic nation with democratic ideals.That's why we have to keep an eye on Russia.
And, Charlie, you're in Alaska. We have that very narrow maritime border between the United States, and the 49th state, Alaska, and Russia. They are our next door neighbors.We need to have a good relationship with them. They're very, very important to us and they are our next door neighbor.
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."
The leading question to her response was actually asking how her close proximity of Alaska gave her insight into Russia. On careful read she mangled the response to how being close to Alaska gives her insight, she could have talked about cultural and trade ties between Alaska and Russia. But its also not a response that she came up with to legitimize her foreign policy knowledge. Once again you are talking about a misinterpretation of the real interview based on the SNL representation.
And let me state this again, I am not a Palin fan, and think she is clumsy in press engagements. However I think the majority of people in this country falsely attribute the Tina Fey parody to the politician.