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Today’s blacklisted American: The National Archives blacklists the Constitution and Declaration of Independence

The National Archives

The intolerance sweeping through our country has become so mindless that it repeatedly ends up being completely insane. It now appears that the website of the National Archives, which is also tasked with preserving the originals of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, automatically places a “harmful language alert” on all three.

The screen capture to the right shows the National Archives webpage for viewing the first page of the Constitution. The red box indicates the alert. That alert also appears at the top for every other page of the Constitution. It also appears if you view the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. (You can see screen captures of these additional alerts here and here.)

According to the National Archives, this “harmful language alert” exists because it is tasked with preserving all past documents, and thus must also make available to the public documents that:

reflect outdated, biased, offensive, and possibly violent views and opinions. In addition, some of the materials may relate to violent or graphic events and are preserved for their historical significance.

The webpage defines these offensive terms as those that:

reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes; be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more; include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more; demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies.

For today’s woke “intellectual” class, many of whom are certainly now running the National Archives, these descriptions certainly fit the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. All three were written by whites — who by modern academic thought are automatically considered racist — and therefore cannot be trusted under any condition. You should avoid reading them at all costs, and if you are forced to, you must make sure you focus in on the peripheral issues of race and slavery rather than actually reading these documents to find out how they established a limited federal government where the individual is free and sovereign and the groundwork was laid to end slavery forever.

The National Archives’ webpage also describes how their archivists are addressing the problem of being forced to preserve and make available such “harmful” documents. They are:

…revising descriptions and standardized sets of descriptive terms, supplementing description with more respectful terms, or creating new standardized terms to describe materials;

In other words, they are working to write supplementary materials that will redefine what these documents mean so that no one can possibly be offended. To be more blunt, they aren’t preserving these past historical documents at all, but working to rewrite them to fit their own personal political agendas. Don’t be surprised if eventually they shift from rewriting the supplementary materials and start redacting sections of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence themselves, so that the public will not be able to read some “harmful” sections.

Or as Orwell so cogently said in 1984, “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became the truth.”

But don’t worry. Trump has been removed, we don’t get mean tweets anymore, and the right people are in control. They will make everything all right.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
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The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

20 comments

  • Adrian Tymes

    The National Archives puts that warning on all its documents. It goes on court cases, books about produce, legal reports to Congress – everything. If you don’t believe me, check around their site and see for yourself. The warning is not specific to – and makes no comment on – the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence.

  • Mark

    DC bureaucrats are either mindlessly brain dead, or they totally disdain the history of our Republic. Either option is another data point for the past death of that Republic.

    And the replacement for that Republic died about a week ago. On Aug 31, Biden’ gave an accusatory, dishonest defense of his Afghanistan withdrawal. That withdrawal was proof positive that the Global American Empire that bestrode the world since 1945 is also dead.

    Whatever comes next hopefully will incorporate space exploration and achievements.

  • Kyle

    The US Constitution also may contain items known to the State of California to cause cancer.

  • WARNING: Do not use the Declaration of Independence in a bathtub.

  • t-dub

    What we did in Afghanistan was not a withdrawal, it was a surrender. A withdrawal would have gotten US citizens and cooperating Afghanis out first, then the troops, destroying equipment and bases along the way, leaving nothing for the enemy.

  • Mark

    t-dub – you are correct that this was a Surrender and not a withdrawal.
    I amend my statement to: “ On Aug 31, Biden’ gave an accusatory, dishonest defense of his cowardly Afghanistan Surrender. That Surrender was proof positive that the Global American Empire that bestrode the world since 1945 is also dead.”

  • Robert Pratt

    Adrian Tymes, what you seem to be arguing is sophistry at best. Of course the statement makes “comment” upon the document. The warning inherently means that items in the documents contain things reasonably considered offensive, etc. by others. The fact that the warning is applied to many other, or all, documents simply extends the absurdity as opposed to limiting such.

    In addition, the fact that anyone can find offense with most anything and thus society owes all advance warning is beyond risible. Let’s just cover all bases: When we wake up for our day, let the Big Brother screens (are those the so-called smartphones these days?) announce to us all that we may find some things disturbing during our day and thus consider everyone warned everyday giving us license to dispense with most all other warnings.

  • Doubting Thomas

    Robert Pratt – Enjoy your podcasts on Texas. Most informative. However, have to agree with Adrian Tymes. I found that warning on every document and other products that I searched out on the data base. Inaugural Addresses to WWII troop transport rail schedules.

    It appears that the brain dead bureaucrats place that above every search result.

    Stupid? Yes? Indicative of our snowflake culture-Yes. Reserved for Founding documents? No.

  • Edward

    Adrian Tymes and Doubting Thomas,
    The warnings on these documents is the comment on them. It says that there is harmful language in one or more places. If there were not such language, the warning would be unnecessary, but its presence demonstrates it is necessary.

    From the NARA’s Statement on Potentially Harmful Content:

    The Catalog and web pages contain some content that may be harmful or difficult to view.

    It isn’t that there may be some content, it definitely does contain content that may be harmful or difficult to view. The warning says that there is no question about these documents having definite problems.

    The FAQ section of the Statement on Potentially Harmful Content lists these definite problems:

    * reflect racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic opinions and attitudes;
    * be discriminatory towards or exclude diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion, and more;
    * include graphic content of historical events such as violent death, medical procedures, crime, wars/terrorist acts, natural disasters and more;
    * demonstrate bias and exclusion in institutional collecting and digitization policies.

    It looks like we have managed to raise at least one generation of Americans who are unable or unwilling to cope with reality.

  • Dave

    Doubting Thomas – I think you missed Robert Pratt’s point. To my understanding, he isn’t saying the warnings aren’t on every document. Instead, he is addressing Adrian’s implication that this fact somehow lessens the absurdity of the comment being applied to the Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

  • Robert Pratt

    Thanks Dave. You understood me perfectly.

  • Alton

    Note:. On he Day the American Republic died, August 31, 2021 – the total of Aide given to the State of Israel from 1947 to date – equaled 85% of the amount that the Biden Administration gave to the Tal-Lee-Ban and associated Islamists.

  • wayne

    Southern Fried Rabbit (1953)
    “What’s this I hear About You Whipping Slaves?”
    https://youtu.be/H8D93Awa434
    0:51

  • wayne

    Korematsu Vs. US
    Federalist Society (2019)
    https://youtu.be/fTv0FAQS0GE
    25:01

  • wayne

    Star Trek original series
    “The Omega Glory”
    (a) relevant clip
    https://youtu.be/uGO-SldLrNA
    3:06

  • Col Beausabre

    Ya know, I and a bunch of other people who frequent this blog once raised our right hands and swore “To protect, uphold and defend the Constitution” So what does that make us – racist, sexist, ableist, misogynistic/misogynoir, and xenophobic with discriminatory attitudes
    towards diverse views on sexuality, gender, religion? Or were we just deluded fools who were brainwashed to think that document was something noble?

  • Bill-OrionArm

    I would say that the lunatics are running the asylum but that expression has gotten really worn out in the last few years. There is a Youtube channel that has a video entitled ” Is a Mass Psychosis the Greatest Threat to Humanity?” The answer is of course yes.
    And it is not too much of a stretch to call progressivism a mass psychosis.

  • Andrew M. Winter

    CAVEAT TIME:
    Look at the web address. This is NOT where you go to read the Consitution
    The site you are looking at says it is:
    http://CATALOG.archives.gov. (all caps is mine for emphasis)

    The LIVE site where you go to read the Constitution is here:
    https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution
    I use the transcript pages you can click on at that page which resolves to here:
    https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript

    The warnings of offending language is NOT present here. You have to dig pretty darn deep into a CATALOG in order to find the one with the warning.

    Further more that warning is at the head of the overall site
    https://catalog.archives.gov.

    It’s on every page of the catalog.

    I’m not even sure what that catalog is supposed to do! Maybe it’s where you can purchase copies or some such. But that is NOT the site you go to if you just want to read the Constitution.

    This was is looking like alarmist “fake news” based on what someone spent a lot of time digging to find.

  • Andrew M. Winter wrote “It’s on every page of the catalog.”

    Which is 100% inappropriate. This warning should not exist, at all. It is not the business of the National Archive to issue opinions, pro or con, about the content it preserves. Its only job is to preserve it, and make it available to the American people.

    That this warning clearly appears on the pages for the country’s founding documents means the National Archives is trying to tell the American people those documents are questionable and should be read with caution. How ugly.

  • Cotour

    The Left among us must always change the objective into the subjective and project their agenda.

    As an example: “Social Justice”. Social Justice is about the subjectification of the legal system. Law, and what is contained in the Constitution that structures it is Objective.

    An outrage and just one more example of the Left, the Marxists, the Socialists to attempt to redefine anything that makes America as founded America. America and its Constitution IS the problem and MUST be leveled in order for the Globalist agenda to be fully expressed and realized.

    And that it is being done at this level is shameful, raw and blatantly revealing of their agenda. And it is so crystal clear that anyone who denies it is either delusional or mentally challenged, or a Democrat party supporter.

    I say, no thank you.

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