Rewriting History

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

U.S. Constitution by The Founding Fathers

How will we be able to decide for ourselves if things are right or wrong / good or bad if we are given elided versions of original text to read and hear? It scares me a little when I think there might be a Big Brother out there deciding what words are appropriate for me. It is starting to get close to the society Ray Bradbury envisioned in Fahrenheit 451, where critical thought reading was banned and books were burned for the "good of humanity".  Of course if you just change the original content of the words then you won't have to go to all that trouble to burn the books.

Just this week Mark Twain's classic novel  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is getting a reword. The book is about the adventures of two boys; Huck and his friend Tom Sawyer and their life living along the Mississippi river and their friendship with a black man named Jim.

This book was first published in 1884 and since that time it has been considered a classic and read by many children and adults. Now over 125 years later someone believes that society can't read the word 'nigger' for what it is and has decided to substitute the word 'slave' in its place. Is using the word 'slave' any better of a substitute? Leave it as written, don't quash the reader's ability to apply critical thought.

Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R) from Virginia will lead off the House of Representatives session with the reading of the Constitution. But guess what? Not the original version where in Article I, Section 2. Paragraph 3 it states:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

This was of course changed in 1868 with ratification of Amendment 14, Section 2: 

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

It was made even clearer two years later in 1870 with the ratification of Amendment 15, Section 1:  

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

And finally in 1920 when women were allowed the right to vote with the ratification of Amendment 19: 

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Why all this rambling on? Because I don't like it when someone decides to sugar-coat something, reminds me too much of a bitter pill about to be shoved done my throat. If we lose our ability to think for ourselves we might as well roll over and play dead, because we will wish we were. We need to be able to look at our past, warts and all, if we dare to move ahead toward a better society.

This is what scares me about the Tea Party, their cleaned up version of the Constitution, their deciding  in which God We Shall Trust. We need to be careful, keep a vigil eye out and don't forget to think.