The Sacrifices Made by the Declaration of Independence Signers
michaelwsmith.com
michaelwsmith.com
The source of most of this mess appears to be some Ann Landers column in turn apocryphally attributed to Rush Limbaugh Sr? Jesus christ. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-07-04-010704...
Perhaps read a history book or something?
Have you conclusively dismissed all events stated in the article? It doesn’t seem your case is that strong right now.
So why don’t we try to focus on what’s your main dislike? Could you explain your reason for the reflexive desire to disprove? I don’t understand where the suspicion comes from. Why are you and others seemingly eager to dismiss these histories? What would be so troubling to you if it were true? I’m genuinely curious.
Because while I admit some part of me would be highly entertained by HN becoming a hotbed of dominionist propaganda, it's probably a net negative for society overall given the amount of wealth tied up here.
I know you don't like and take issue with the article, but can you provide an alternate readily available source that accounts for the fates of these 56 men after they signed the declaration of independence?
The piece writer is a crooner, not a historian. Why would you take anything he says at face value?
Your comment seems suspiciously like an ad hominem attack, which is normally a sign of a weak position, and lacking a strong argument. Would you like to have another go?
Good luck getting cancer-treatment tips by Steve Jobs.
But I see what you're really doing here. Doesn't really matter, the post was rightly binned. Have a great day.
> Surely it's whoever puts up random historical facts, who should justify them with sources.
Yes quite. I posted an article, it seems to stand on its own. You claimed some other fact, but didn't provide a source. Perhaps your advice is wiser than you know! haha
> Good luck getting cancer-treatment tips by Steve Jobs.
Well lucky I never need them, but oh your edit is getting nastier isn't it? I get that you're not happy, but maybe you could explain your why, or provide some more sources?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hart_(New_Jersey_politici...
It should be obvious that they are discriminating: they are advocating that the article not be present because the author is someone who has a name and he’s a Christian, and the only reason that his article could be here are “awful”. Further, what do you see about that that is defensible?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Even for the broadest understanding of "interesting", nothing on the article or site really inspires curiosity or meets the intended standard.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1781013
Since we know the algorithm for how something gets to front page, I just have a very hard time believing that so many people felt strongly about a completely contentless article that doesn't inspire genuine curiosity in the article's subject matter (it completely lacks citations, so I guess it's curiosity just to see if the article is BSing us or not...), is definitely off-topic, so I really question how this got to the front page for any amount of reasonable time. Especially since the article is from 2015...and a July 4th poem apparently now that I re-read it.
So again, maybe the context is more clear, but why is it on HN? How did it ever get to front page if it's very much so off-topic and just a love letter written, and not a very good one.
I will be honest, just like I was suspicious of the article, I'm suspicious on your insistence that it's discrimination; just reading the article, I had no idea the author was christian; knowing that now, the article makes a bit more sense, as based on my experience growing up christian, the focus on the suffering and how it's actually beautiful in a way is very much so in line with many sects of Christianity; someone must suffer for our freedom from sin is inherent to Christianity, and even as a kid, everything was oriented in how much you struggled to do something. I wouldn't tell any Christian they're wrong for their belief but having done that and tried other options, I think I could convince you the other options are pretty good, and even christian compliant depending on your reaching of the Bible RFC known as New Testament. Edit: forgot a section below:
But there is nothing in the article that indicates anything about the author or the purpose really of the article; to find that it's not even like a tech person or a philosopher or someone who does have something interesting to discuss as per HN rules is very confusing. The Christian musician part is confusing not because they are christian, but more to the fact "knowing that the person is not really of interest to on-topic items, why is this article here?"
The article was just really random, it's quite surprising to me and I'm presuming the parent at least that it made the front page, the focus on the article is a bit strange for me, there is no content that is interesting or curious. If it was a breakdown of how some of the early US government members handled their religious beliefs with their understanding of freedom with some discourse examples, would have loved to read this! It would be interesting, could test their logics and discourse myself and see if I find fault with the logic or conclusions, would be great to see which philosophies or areas of the Bible guided their philosophical design, etc.
But an old 4th of July love letter? Doesn't matter who wrote it, not interesting, just a repeat of what I already learned was non-sense long ago.
What you’re saying is just ideology, you don’t have any facts or sources to back it up. I get that you don’t like article, but that’s insufficient to make it untrue.
Sure, I get it can be confusing from your point of view. But what you are saying is ideological and your reactions. You are not countering any point in article with facts or sources. That's it. Does that make sense to you?
I'm from the US and left for Europe some time ago; seeing the difference in cultures and how countries and cities are run inspired me to reflect a lot on what we were taught growing up in the US, and as a result of that reflect I've gotten very skeptical of anything promoting American Exceptionalism; what we learned in schools was very much so a Disney version of American History, and at least in my experience, advocating for American exceptionalism especially when it comes to the members of the original early US government is usually an indicator to treat with suspicion.
I was also confused why this was on HN, as reading the article, it is very much so fanciful in nature, focusing purely on the sacrifice and struggles of the member of early congress. Nothing wrong with interest in this, certainly even if the original members of congress basically just copied from existing philosophies and such, in some ways it's still respectable that they soldiered on. But there is a lot more to the stories, and this article read to me more like just a love poem to the US' early government members. It was like being in 5th grade American History again)) cute but harmless I guess since I know better.
But I was curious, why on HN? Certainly it's not for the article content, as I'm not even convinced this isn't just AI written. So I wondered, "maybe it's the org itself? Are we supposed to recognize the author?", so I wanted to know who the author was.
As I get it, the author is a Christian musician and this is their self-promo site; nothing wrong so far, a little annoying to see all the plugs for their albums and actions, but hey, it's their site, so I shouldn't be surprised. But checking further, I can see that the author/musician is fairly active in both US and Christian politics, and is a fair supporter of the US right; anything involving a person active in US politics definitely makes me a little interested in what they're really doing, since it's nearly weekly if not daily that there is a new scandal in the US political sphere from all parties and even the most innocent. Combined with the article basically being US "Founding Father worship" in my opinion, I got quite wary of the person and wondered even more why this is on HN. (not even an interesting article frankly speaking) Seeing charities being pumped heavily on the site, combined with the fact that many popular charities in the US are not so great or used for scams by well off persons, I'm definitely curious who this person is and their history, since for some reason they're being spammed on a tech new aggregator site with an article that has nothing to do with tech.
In checking for controversies for this person, luckily looks like the worst controversy they have is purely in the Christian sphere about endorsing some specific translation of the Bible? Hard to tell, but at least it calms the alarms a little.
Granted this is a wall of text for what was about 30 seconds of reading and checking, but I hope you can understand the though process and why an article like this might trigger some alarms in people; the article is shared in a strange place, has little content except praising American Exceptionalism and hard work of the original government, it's not clear who this person is or why we should care about their article of praise, and at face value, and they're aligned with a political group that is rather contentious for their (now determined) illegal actions on last elections.
It seems quite an odd case to make that the effort which culminated in the declaration of independence came at no cost, and no suffering for those whose enterprise it was. And it seems a perverse ideology to want to deny or downplay that cost and suffering.
Please keep rubbish out of this site.
The signers of the declaration knew going into it that they were signing their own death warrants should the revolution fail. It's also famously why John Hancock made his signature comically large. Big or small he knew he was going to die if the fight failed.
Don't let your anti americanism get in the way of some American historical trivia.
Also false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock#cite_ref-FOOTNOTE...
Point still stands.
If it’s so obviously wrong, why not just source to where it’s wrong? the repetition of dislike, or whatever at the article without sources is suspicious and ideological. Why would your support that?
> Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Those debts seems to have been incurred after the signing. He was more a bad businessman than a victim of British oppression.
The website is deeply, substantially difficult to read. It takes significant effort to read that site. It's actually startling how difficult that site is to read. It might even be worth having an entire discussion on why that site is so difficult read.
By the time I reached the end, I was left with an unsettling feeling that anyone who cares so little about whether what they wrote is legible might also not be particularly careful about whether what they wrote is true. Presentation does matter.
If that were true how would you know what it was saying in order to disagree with it?
But like your ad hominem, it’s an irrelevant point, sorry.
> Also, you might want to read up on what an ad hominem is so you can use it correctly in the future.
Oh, okay, is that what I might wanna do? Hahaha. No, you wouldn't know. I guess you're the ad hominem expert, tho, right? That's you trying to do it there?
I see you just want to fight. I'm not here for that, sorry.
Did you get upset? I suppose you couldn't take that criticism of what you were doing, so you had to try to flip it around! Hahaha, not exactly a recipe for improvement, is it? Hahaha.
The font weight is too light. It's not a body font, it's a display font. And using small-caps for body text is absurd.
I read some of it. It was too exhausting to read all of it. Not worth the effort.