Why was I modded Troll? If a European was taking exception to an American saying, "Well, you know, all people in {insert other country here} are stupid, would he have been modded Troll? Or would he have gotten a +5 Insightful?
You forget the French WOULD NOT JOIN until they were assured of our victory.
Regardless, the French came to our aid because the British were their enemy at the time (the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that.) So while the help was most certainly critical to the success of the American Revolution, France had it's own reasons for coming down on our side. I'm not denigrating France for that either: it's how the game is played.
I do, however, take exception with people that demean what the Revolutionaries did accomplish with comments such as the GP made. No, we don't forget that, and as a matter of fact France's decision to aid the Revolution made an enormous impression upon us.
- Driving down wages in labor categories for true US citizens (see the house building industry, carpenters, bricklayers, etc).
- Putting a strain on the public school system (forcing classes to be taught only in spanish??)
- Putting undue strain and long wait times on ER in hospitals since they have no insurance and can't really get any due to being illegal
- In states that permit it..putting a strain on the welfare and entitlement programs that are there for citizens only.
- Bringing in new crime, new and improved criminal gangs.
Yeah...no problems at all....
Shh... don't mention those. Nobody wants to hear them because then they'd have to make some hard decisions.
The truth is, we've not been hit hard enough (yet). When we are, the GP and people like him will be crying out for "something to be done".
It's not like I'm in the States and too stupid to realize things might be done differently elsewhere.
You, on the other hand, might want to realize that there are a whole lot of Americans on this US-based Web site. Furthermore, we're well aware of the rest of the world, thank you very much. We don't care all that much about it, but we're certainly aware of it. So, enough with the automatic anti-American sentiments. Most of us here are American, and if you'd like this dialog to remain civil, tone it down a little.
I understand that the popular idea among many people of other countries is that Americans make good verbal punching bags, but frankly, it just makes you seem uncivilized.
As far as I know, no nation in the world allows you self-defense against the state (also known as cop-killing).
That's one of the most impressively deliberate misunderstandings of the United States Constitution that I've encountered on Slashdot. I challenge you to find any reference in the Constitution or any of the Founders' writings that in any way promotes "cop killing." The fact that our Founders specifically codified a defense against the State into the highest law of our land should give you pause. ALL STATES decay over time... it's inevitable. Unlike all those other governments, though, the Founders recognized that governmental entropy exists, and did their best to stave it off for as long as possible. They also recognized that an unarmed population is at the mercy of the first demagogue to come along. They also fully expected (and required) the Citizens of this country to guide their government to the betterment of all, to keep it honest... and destroy and replace that government if there is no other option.
As I understand it
You don't understand it. Any of it, I would venture to guess. Read the Constitution. Read what the Founders wrote, read what they were trying to achieve, understand their logic, their reasoning. Understand what it is that America is losing to an overarching government. Understand... and don't come back until you do.
Especially absurd is the recurring theory that private guns prevent the national government from becoming dictatorship.
You know what? I'll take the wisdom of the Founders over your "oh, please", and raise you a "boy, are you dumb." Don't tell me how things are different now. They're not: people running governments are no less sociopathic than they've always been, and deadly force is often the only message they are capable of receiving. If you disagree, fine... but you'd better have a little history on your side.
And a few guns. The Founders we're not advocating private thuggery (where on Earth did you come up with that?): they were advocating two things (both of which you clearly misunderstand.)
1. Private gun ownership acts as a deterrent to excessive use of force by government. It also keeps them a bit more respectful when dealing with us (we used to shoot IRS agents. Too bad that practice declined.)
2. If all else fails, and the government turns on its people anyway, at least they aren't completely at its mercy. At that point, nobody cares about restoring democracy (the U.S. has never been a democracy, but you obviously don't understand that either) they care about survival, and those with guns usually survive whereas those without them don't.
Had the Weimar Republic not been so gung-ho on disarming the German population after World War I (remember, Hitler finished the job but he did it legally since that law was already on the books) a lot of German Jews might still have been alive when the War ended. There are times, even in otherwise civilized countries, where the threat of, or the use of, deadly force by private citizens is justified and required to prevent more bloodshed. If you don't understand or believe that, you're a fool who refuses to learn a recurring lesson taught to us by world history.
I don't own a firearm now, not having found a reason to date to acquire one, but I do not accept that the U.S. Federal Government should be allowed to tell me I cannot. I'm not alone in this, either. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Second Amendment right is, in fact, a personal right.
So I'm happy that other countries (Europe, I'm looking at you) are now so civilized, culturally-advanced and secure that private citizens no longer need weapons. Really, I am. In the long run, though, you're fooling yourselves if you believe that the situation will last.
Why is it that the unborn are deprived of life without due process?
Now you're just trying to get into a debate on when something is considered life.
I guess if you wanted to debate it, you have to first be born to become a US Citizen, so any unborn child is therefore not a citizen.
Then we could get into the definition/interpretation of the word "born" to mean either created or released into another medium (delivered) and debates on the meaning of the 14th.
Sadly, it looks like the America you're probably going to die in though.
I'm glad I don't have kids. Yes, I know, people said the same thing in the fifties and sixties, with the threat of atomic war with Russia hanging over their heads and we survived the Cold War. Not that we're exactly out of the woods, but we haven't died in a nuclear holocaust. Those times were pretty damned scary, but I have to admit: if my parents had succumbed to those fears I wouldn't be here. They took the chance that life would go on, that the final conflict would never come. And it hasn't, yet.
Nevertheless, we have bigger fish to fry nowadays. We are not dealing now with an externality, such as fear of encroaching Communism that motivated our behavior during the Cold War. Yet, the problem is no less ideological in nature, and what makes it worse is that the ideologues in question happen to be running our government. Actually, "ideologue" is perhaps too mild a term. "Sociopath" comes closer to the mark, I think.
I'm not certain this trend can be reversed either, because far too many of us are in support of it. Many of us are afraid of illegal immigration (with good reason, it's true) and look upon these security "enhancements" with an uncritical eye. Others are swayed by the usual "think of the children" arguments, and again give the Government a free pass. In any case, throwing away whatever remains of our vaunted Constitution, whatever is left of our humanity, is not a viable solution. Long term, allowing our fears to be played upon by an ever-more-powerful State is going to cost us. Bigtime.
By the time the full effects are felt by most of us, well, I don't know. We may be in too deep by then. "Constitution Free Zones" show how far we've fallen in a few short years.
Perhaps not the American people, but the American government (with the consent of the people) certainly seem to be war mongers.
Look how much money they US spends on war compared to the rest of the world [armscontrolcenter.org] (more than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world combined!)
Have a look at the number of countries with a US army base [current.com] (willing hosts or otherwise).
These is not really the actions of a peaceful country.
Peaceful? Hm. That depends upon your point of view. Ours is that after the second World War, the rest of you couldn't be trusted to keep the lid on, to stay all nice and peaceful.
And we were absolutely right about that: you can't. The past half century of continuous warfare has made that patently clear. There have been no major global conflicts since the end of the Second, and whether you like it or not, the U.S. was largely responsible for that fact.
Ask yourself these questions: how many World Wars has the United States started? How much territory have we conquered with our armed forces? How many subject peoples live in misery under our iron grip? How many nations have we annexed? What's that? None? But, how can that be? You have so many tanks and guns and bombs and planes and stuff! Why aren't you using them to aggrandize yourselves? What? You're just not interested in Empire? Wow. That's so... odd.
Europe has such a history of war and bloodshed that Europeans often just can't figure us out. The answer is... we just don't care about you. Really, we don't, any more than you care about us. Just give us your oil and your adulation and we'll leave you alone.
Good news for you though. Given the way Bush has squandered our resources on this fruitless War in Iraq, it's unlikely we'll be able to maintain the global military presence you're complaining about for much longer. When we begin to pull back for real, when the ever-present threat of a U.S. military reprisal fades away... well. The rest of you are going to find yourselves embroiled in yet another World War, or perhaps something even worse. Not today, not tomorrow, but sooner or later it's going to happen. As Professor Falkenberg said, in Falkenberg's Legion, "We deduce the existence of peace because there are intervals between wars." As a civilization, we're overdue for another big one. It is inevitable, like the tide, and even a superpower can't hold that back. Not for long.
Just don't try to drag us into it. The United States won't be there to help next time, because we can't even make clock radios anymore: no more World Wars for us. Maybe China will come to your aid, always assuming that it's not Chinese soldiery occupying your cities at the time. Personally, I'm tired of paying for everyone else's defense: it's expensive and I could use the tax money for something else. Maybe a big screen TV, or a nice propane grill for my deck. In any event, America has been accused of playing "the world's police force", and criticized roundly for any activity in that regard. The problem is, my friend... the world needs a police force. It does, because it can't be trusted to play nice with itself. We stepped up to the plate and took the job, and nothing we did was ever good enough, but we're about ready to quit and are looking for a successor. Any takers? I hear that Putin has put in an application.
Just be careful what you wish for. In spite of many groundless claims to the contrary, we've never been an Imperial nation (not like the British, not like the Russians) and really have not used the most powerful military in history in ways that many other nations would have. More to the point, there are a lot of would-be dictators out there who are waiting for a time when the U.S. can no longer be depended upon to put them down. That time is coming, and soon. Rather than complaining about the United States, whose course is nearly run, I'd begin looking to your own defense, if I were you.
Democracy yes, and btw this is also how a court (a legal assembly of people) judges what the truth is... So voting for what Truth is, is not really born with Wikipedia.
True enough... although juries often get it wrong, mainly because facts are not relative but Truth is.
One could think this doesn't prevent either the main problem with democratically-elected-truths: conservatism
Well, from a societal perspective, conservatism is a way to slow down the pace of change. That's often a good attribute: change for the sake of change is rarely good, and well-considered changes that take longer are generally more worthwhile than immediate ones made with no forethought. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Now wait a minute: this sounds good, but is it really? I generally agree that a line is crossed when information that doesn't fit the group mindset is suppressed.
Even so, I'm not sure that conservatism is a good word regarding democratically-elected Truth: I'd say willful ignorance might a better term. Put it this way: there are more real facts available to more people for less effort than at any previous time in human history. If you're contributing to a "democratically-elected truth" there's absolutely no excuse for an uninformed decision. The only reasons for doing so are personal bias or ignorance: neither are easily curable conditions, I'm afraid.
Well, I didn't read the FA, but it sounds like this is probably more about the fact that these two assholes beat and robbed another boy. Even minus the theft, they'd still have been in trouble for assaulting someone, and virtual or not, they took that which did not belong to them.
It's a bit of a stretch to say, well, it should be taxed because a couple of bullies got charged with stealing it. And the actual crime here occurred in meatspace, not in the virtual environment.
You can have a choice, fight to perhaps live or die while being used as a weapon.
Oh, I agree with you a hundred percent. I just have doubts that most people, when faced with such a situation, will make the hard decision. Still, Flight 93 showed us that it is possible. Like you said, the assumption is going to be that the plane is being used as weapon.
I suppose that a lot depends upon the character of the passengers themselves: some people can accept what must be done and do it, some just can't... and others will if someone else leads. I mean, the passengers on Flight 93 fought back even though they didn't know what the terrorist's plans for the aircraft were. They won the battle too, even though everyone died. The people on the other planes just flew into buildings.
Yeah, I rarely RTFA unless it happens to be a subject that I'm really interested in, and then I'll usually just go Google for it myself. Not many of the articles posted here are all that interesting or informative, but you're right: the commentary is generally much more entertaining.
He claims he is smarter than slashdot, plain and simple, and he isn't.
I think you're misinterpreting the GP. I think he was trying to say, "I know better than to take everything I read on Slashdot at face value", and that's the correct stance.
Slashdot Mirror
Why was I modded Troll? If a European was taking exception to an American saying, "Well, you know, all people in {insert other country here} are stupid, would he have been modded Troll? Or would he have gotten a +5 Insightful?
Hypocrisy is alive and well on Slashdot, I see.
You forget the French WOULD NOT JOIN until they were assured of our victory.
Regardless, the French came to our aid because the British were their enemy at the time (the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that.) So while the help was most certainly critical to the success of the American Revolution, France had it's own reasons for coming down on our side. I'm not denigrating France for that either: it's how the game is played.
I do, however, take exception with people that demean what the Revolutionaries did accomplish with comments such as the GP made. No, we don't forget that, and as a matter of fact France's decision to aid the Revolution made an enormous impression upon us.
Canada is not the U.S. Get the bigger picture. And besides, this is not a discussion about gun control: find another forum.
I guess if you wanted to debate it, you have to first be born to become a US Citizen, so any unborn child is therefore not a citizen.
That's irrelevant. The constitutional protections apply to non-citizens, too.
Inalienable rights do ... the other rights don't necessarily apply to non-citizens.
- Driving down wages in labor categories for true US citizens (see the house building industry, carpenters, bricklayers, etc).
- Putting a strain on the public school system (forcing classes to be taught only in spanish??)
- Putting undue strain and long wait times on ER in hospitals since they have no insurance and can't really get any due to being illegal
- In states that permit it..putting a strain on the welfare and entitlement programs that are there for citizens only. - Bringing in new crime, new and improved criminal gangs.
Yeah...no problems at all....
Shh ... don't mention those. Nobody wants to hear them because then they'd have to make some hard decisions.
The truth is, we've not been hit hard enough (yet). When we are, the GP and people like him will be crying out for "something to be done".
It's not like I'm in the States and too stupid to realize things might be done differently elsewhere.
You, on the other hand, might want to realize that there are a whole lot of Americans on this US-based Web site. Furthermore, we're well aware of the rest of the world, thank you very much. We don't care all that much about it, but we're certainly aware of it. So, enough with the automatic anti-American sentiments. Most of us here are American, and if you'd like this dialog to remain civil, tone it down a little.
I understand that the popular idea among many people of other countries is that Americans make good verbal punching bags, but frankly, it just makes you seem uncivilized.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Packs of Robots Will Hunt Down Uncooperative Humans
Packs of uncooperative humans will hunt down robots and steal their batteries.
As far as I know, no nation in the world allows you self-defense against the state (also known as cop-killing).
That's one of the most impressively deliberate misunderstandings of the United States Constitution that I've encountered on Slashdot. I challenge you to find any reference in the Constitution or any of the Founders' writings that in any way promotes "cop killing." The fact that our Founders specifically codified a defense against the State into the highest law of our land should give you pause. ALL STATES decay over time ... it's inevitable. Unlike all those other governments, though, the Founders recognized that governmental entropy exists, and did their best to stave it off for as long as possible. They also recognized that an unarmed population is at the mercy of the first demagogue to come along. They also fully expected (and required) the Citizens of this country to guide their government to the betterment of all, to keep it honest ... and destroy and replace that government if there is no other option.
As I understand it
You don't understand it. Any of it, I would venture to guess. Read the Constitution. Read what the Founders wrote, read what they were trying to achieve, understand their logic, their reasoning. Understand what it is that America is losing to an overarching government. Understand ... and don't come back until you do.
Especially absurd is the recurring theory that private guns prevent the national government from becoming dictatorship.
You know what? I'll take the wisdom of the Founders over your "oh, please", and raise you a "boy, are you dumb." Don't tell me how things are different now. They're not: people running governments are no less sociopathic than they've always been, and deadly force is often the only message they are capable of receiving. If you disagree, fine ... but you'd better have a little history on your side.
And a few guns. The Founders we're not advocating private thuggery (where on Earth did you come up with that?): they were advocating two things (both of which you clearly misunderstand.)
1. Private gun ownership acts as a deterrent to excessive use of force by government. It also keeps them a bit more respectful when dealing with us (we used to shoot IRS agents. Too bad that practice declined.)
2. If all else fails, and the government turns on its people anyway, at least they aren't completely at its mercy. At that point, nobody cares about restoring democracy (the U.S. has never been a democracy, but you obviously don't understand that either) they care about survival, and those with guns usually survive whereas those without them don't.
Had the Weimar Republic not been so gung-ho on disarming the German population after World War I (remember, Hitler finished the job but he did it legally since that law was already on the books) a lot of German Jews might still have been alive when the War ended. There are times, even in otherwise civilized countries, where the threat of, or the use of, deadly force by private citizens is justified and required to prevent more bloodshed. If you don't understand or believe that, you're a fool who refuses to learn a recurring lesson taught to us by world history.
I don't own a firearm now, not having found a reason to date to acquire one, but I do not accept that the U.S. Federal Government should be allowed to tell me I cannot. I'm not alone in this, either. The Supreme Court recently ruled that the Second Amendment right is, in fact, a personal right.
So I'm happy that other countries (Europe, I'm looking at you) are now so civilized, culturally-advanced and secure that private citizens no longer need weapons. Really, I am. In the long run, though, you're fooling yourselves if you believe that the situation will last.
Why is it that the unborn are deprived of life without due process?
Now you're just trying to get into a debate on when something is considered life.
I guess if you wanted to debate it, you have to first be born to become a US Citizen, so any unborn child is therefore not a citizen.
Then we could get into the definition/interpretation of the word "born" to mean either created or released into another medium (delivered) and debates on the meaning of the 14th.
Please, don't do that.
That's not the America I grew up in
Sadly, it looks like the America you're probably going to die in though.
I'm glad I don't have kids. Yes, I know, people said the same thing in the fifties and sixties, with the threat of atomic war with Russia hanging over their heads and we survived the Cold War. Not that we're exactly out of the woods, but we haven't died in a nuclear holocaust. Those times were pretty damned scary, but I have to admit: if my parents had succumbed to those fears I wouldn't be here. They took the chance that life would go on, that the final conflict would never come. And it hasn't, yet.
Nevertheless, we have bigger fish to fry nowadays. We are not dealing now with an externality, such as fear of encroaching Communism that motivated our behavior during the Cold War. Yet, the problem is no less ideological in nature, and what makes it worse is that the ideologues in question happen to be running our government. Actually, "ideologue" is perhaps too mild a term. "Sociopath" comes closer to the mark, I think.
I'm not certain this trend can be reversed either, because far too many of us are in support of it. Many of us are afraid of illegal immigration (with good reason, it's true) and look upon these security "enhancements" with an uncritical eye. Others are swayed by the usual "think of the children" arguments, and again give the Government a free pass. In any case, throwing away whatever remains of our vaunted Constitution, whatever is left of our humanity, is not a viable solution. Long term, allowing our fears to be played upon by an ever-more-powerful State is going to cost us. Bigtime.
By the time the full effects are felt by most of us, well, I don't know. We may be in too deep by then. "Constitution Free Zones" show how far we've fallen in a few short years.
Perhaps not the American people, but the American government (with the consent of the people) certainly seem to be war mongers. Look how much money they US spends on war compared to the rest of the world [armscontrolcenter.org] (more than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world combined!) Have a look at the number of countries with a US army base [current.com] (willing hosts or otherwise). These is not really the actions of a peaceful country.
Peaceful? Hm. That depends upon your point of view. Ours is that after the second World War, the rest of you couldn't be trusted to keep the lid on, to stay all nice and peaceful.
... odd.
... we just don't care about you. Really, we don't, any more than you care about us. Just give us your oil and your adulation and we'll leave you alone.
... well. The rest of you are going to find yourselves embroiled in yet another World War, or perhaps something even worse. Not today, not tomorrow, but sooner or later it's going to happen. As Professor Falkenberg said, in Falkenberg's Legion, "We deduce the existence of peace because there are intervals between wars." As a civilization, we're overdue for another big one. It is inevitable, like the tide, and even a superpower can't hold that back. Not for long.
... the world needs a police force. It does, because it can't be trusted to play nice with itself. We stepped up to the plate and took the job, and nothing we did was ever good enough, but we're about ready to quit and are looking for a successor. Any takers? I hear that Putin has put in an application.
And we were absolutely right about that: you can't. The past half century of continuous warfare has made that patently clear. There have been no major global conflicts since the end of the Second, and whether you like it or not, the U.S. was largely responsible for that fact.
Ask yourself these questions: how many World Wars has the United States started? How much territory have we conquered with our armed forces? How many subject peoples live in misery under our iron grip? How many nations have we annexed? What's that? None? But, how can that be? You have so many tanks and guns and bombs and planes and stuff! Why aren't you using them to aggrandize yourselves? What? You're just not interested in Empire? Wow. That's so
Europe has such a history of war and bloodshed that Europeans often just can't figure us out. The answer is
Good news for you though. Given the way Bush has squandered our resources on this fruitless War in Iraq, it's unlikely we'll be able to maintain the global military presence you're complaining about for much longer. When we begin to pull back for real, when the ever-present threat of a U.S. military reprisal fades away
Just don't try to drag us into it. The United States won't be there to help next time, because we can't even make clock radios anymore: no more World Wars for us. Maybe China will come to your aid, always assuming that it's not Chinese soldiery occupying your cities at the time. Personally, I'm tired of paying for everyone else's defense: it's expensive and I could use the tax money for something else. Maybe a big screen TV, or a nice propane grill for my deck. In any event, America has been accused of playing "the world's police force", and criticized roundly for any activity in that regard. The problem is, my friend
Just be careful what you wish for. In spite of many groundless claims to the contrary, we've never been an Imperial nation (not like the British, not like the Russians) and really have not used the most powerful military in history in ways that many other nations would have. More to the point, there are a lot of would-be dictators out there who are waiting for a time when the U.S. can no longer be depended upon to put them down. That time is coming, and soon. Rather than complaining about the United States, whose course is nearly run, I'd begin looking to your own defense, if I were you.
You're going to need it.
The reason they got away with the lies in the US was because the public wanted blood.
Do you realize how stupid that sounds? Please, stop posting in this thread: some interesting comments are showing up but yours isn't one of them.
The real problem with democracy is that sheeple get to vote
Yes, because matters are so much better in countries where people don't get to vote.
Get a grip.
I believe the term you're looking for is Dilithium.
No, Trilithium
Under dutch jurisprudence a "good" is something that is "owned by" someone and that has a value to the person that owns it.
One man's garbage ...
Democracy yes, and btw this is also how a court (a legal assembly of people) judges what the truth is... So voting for what Truth is, is not really born with Wikipedia.
True enough ... although juries often get it wrong, mainly because facts are not relative but Truth is.
One could think this doesn't prevent either the main problem with democratically-elected-truths: conservatism
Well, from a societal perspective, conservatism is a way to slow down the pace of change. That's often a good attribute: change for the sake of change is rarely good, and well-considered changes that take longer are generally more worthwhile than immediate ones made with no forethought. There's nothing wrong with saying, "Now wait a minute: this sounds good, but is it really? I generally agree that a line is crossed when information that doesn't fit the group mindset is suppressed.
Even so, I'm not sure that conservatism is a good word regarding democratically-elected Truth: I'd say willful ignorance might a better term. Put it this way: there are more real facts available to more people for less effort than at any previous time in human history. If you're contributing to a "democratically-elected truth" there's absolutely no excuse for an uninformed decision. The only reasons for doing so are personal bias or ignorance: neither are easily curable conditions, I'm afraid.
Well, I didn't read the FA, but it sounds like this is probably more about the fact that these two assholes beat and robbed another boy. Even minus the theft, they'd still have been in trouble for assaulting someone, and virtual or not, they took that which did not belong to them.
It's a bit of a stretch to say, well, it should be taxed because a couple of bullies got charged with stealing it. And the actual crime here occurred in meatspace, not in the virtual environment.
Hey, is it in bad taste to cast 5,000,000 votes for yourself?
Shit, cross site scripting! I voted for a pop-up!
Anyone else think this is the worst idea yet?
Oh, I dunno about that. I think Smilin' Bob would make a fine President.
Of course, it won't be implemented correctly, but e-voting is mathematically possible.
Kinda like DRM, in that sense.
You can have a choice, fight to perhaps live or die while being used as a weapon.
Oh, I agree with you a hundred percent. I just have doubts that most people, when faced with such a situation, will make the hard decision. Still, Flight 93 showed us that it is possible. Like you said, the assumption is going to be that the plane is being used as weapon.
... and others will if someone else leads. I mean, the passengers on Flight 93 fought back even though they didn't know what the terrorist's plans for the aircraft were. They won the battle too, even though everyone died. The people on the other planes just flew into buildings.
I suppose that a lot depends upon the character of the passengers themselves: some people can accept what must be done and do it, some just can't
Yeah, I rarely RTFA unless it happens to be a subject that I'm really interested in, and then I'll usually just go Google for it myself. Not many of the articles posted here are all that interesting or informative, but you're right: the commentary is generally much more entertaining.
He claims he is smarter than slashdot, plain and simple, and he isn't.
I think you're misinterpreting the GP. I think he was trying to say, "I know better than to take everything I read on Slashdot at face value", and that's the correct stance.
Note also that the French didn't really misdeploy, so much as underestimate the Germans.
That was a common failing among Germany's enemies at the time.
Wow...it has only been a few short years, and we're already at it with revisionist history?
No no no. It's called "consensus truth", and it seems to be the only kind of truth that some people accept.
I wonder what Stephen Colbert would make of this? "Consensual Truthiness" or something like that.