Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

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hn_throwaway_99

I don't think it's shocking at all. It's a fuckup, so what? All of the conspiracy theories and online discourse around this just show how stupid most conspiracy theories are and how braindead so much online discourse has become.

Just look at the Reddit thread on this, which currently has nearly 50k votes, and one of the top comments is "Treasonous", https://old.reddit.com/r/law/comments/1mj3ttx/constitution_o.... Like I wholeheartedly believe that the current administration may want to (and, IMO, already has) subvert large parts of the Constitution, but deleting a few paragraphs from the Library of Congress' online version of the Constitution is not how they're going to go about it. What, do people not think there are, I don't know, a couple million copies of the Constitution out and about? Do they think some judge is just going to open the Library of Congress website and go "Oh well, I know that part was there yesterday, but it's gone now so I guess we can't have a navy anymore."

It's all just so dumb.

No one is supposing this is the way they'll do it, only that this could be a way they do it. As you've already suggested, they're also already doing it other ways.

There's a reason authoritarian regimes are known for destroying and modifying records. It's because they often destroy and modify records.

> only that this could be a way they do it.

No, it couldn't. Again, just erasing sections of laws from websites is not how it is done. It's dumb to conflate what authoritarian regimes do to memory hole historical events (which, to be clear, I think the current US administration has done or at least attempted to do) with just thinking "Yep, we'll just delete this law from the website and then we'll be good."

This was obviously a clerical/administrative screw up, if only because the consequences are so clearly benign.

I think you may be arguing with people who are disappointed that this is benign.

Meh, I'd be happy to know that. But in several other instances of "honest mistakes" from this administration, we've found out later they were quite deliberate violations of people's rights.

For example from this Trump personal defense attorney → Deputy AG → freshly minted federal judge whose team "made a mistake" in allowing planes to take off despite court orders: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/emil-bov...

None of your rights have been violated here. This is a website.

I didn't mean to suggest that they had in this particular instance! Edited to clarify.

This is a really strange take to me. If I go online to look up my rights from an official source, like the Library of Congress, and some of them are missing, that isn't benign. No, it hasn't changed the law, but it changes what I know about the law.

Y'all act like the administration didn't rename the Gulf of Mexico like it changes the physical gulf or ownership status. Or direct museums about how to portray history. Or, historically, sharpie on a weather map. Removing or changing information as they find convenient is entirely reasonable to expect from the admin.

That said, they rolled it back, so likely someone effed up.

> Y'all act like the administration didn't rename the Gulf of Mexico like it changes the physical gulf or ownership status. Or direct museums about how to portray history...

No, we aren't. Those are two different things - heck, I literally said "which, to be clear, I think the current US administration has done or at least attempted to do", and I was referring to specific instances of stuff like this, https://www.npr.org/2025/02/05/nx-s1-5286299/nsa-museum-dei-....

My whole point is that raising your pitchforks over obvious clerical errors makes it that much harder to identify real attempts of deception. I think tptacek hit the nail on the head with his "I think you may be arguing with people who are disappointed that this is benign" comment.

So on the one hand, you acknowledge that the admin has done similar things. On the other hand, you think it's "obvious" that they didn't do this thing. Which, again, is similar to other things. That they have done.

The best advice I've ever heard, I'm going to proffer to you: remove the word "obvious" from your vocabulary.

I actually don't really care whether it's benign or not. Not everyone cares about this as much as you do. I just think soapbox warrioring needs to be addressed.

Why would someone be editing a copy of the Constitution in the first place, knowing full well that it doesn't make any real legal change?

It's not a "copy of the Constitution"; it's a site about the Constitution. If you Google "US Constitution", the top of the search page will be the National Archives transcription.

This is just people wanting to be het up about something. How would this particular Constitutional heist even work?

The way it works is they do a hundred illegal things all at once, and see what gets through, see what people band together and spend time on.

To accomplish that they demand 100 changes all over the place to official words/documents. Then on "the day" they command everyone to do all the changes.

This particular incident, is a mistake by some web admin, who forgot to hold off until "the day" it is all suppose to change

It is an accidental glimpse into what they are putting real effort into, its unbelievable what they are already getting away with and what will keep coming

For what reason would anyone be editing text of the constitution? It's not dynamic.

Probably just another less-important thing tossed out there to keep the distraction index high.

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