this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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Confidently Incorrect

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When people are way too smug about their wrong answer.

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[–] [email protected] 269 points 1 year ago (6 children)

The constitution is about 19 pages long. Here's a pdf

[–] [email protected] 121 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Did you read the entire thing?

[–] [email protected] 163 points 1 year ago

I doubt that, but OK.

[–] afraid_of_zombies 51 points 1 year ago

Yeps. One of my electives at uni was the history of the US constitution law for non-legal majors. I had to take 2 history classes for my degree and I thought it would be an interesting subject. Not only read it also had it read to me by my professor. He was a retired JAG officer and militant ACLU supporter.

[–] CuriousLibrarian 53 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I guess we need to know what people consider long. The full document is longer than the Declaration of Independence , which I know a lot better. I can’t remember having to read the Constitution in school, just the preamble and a couple of amendments. This doesn’t excuse my ignorance though. Thanks for providing the whole document.

[–] FRCLYE 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Compared to most constitutions on the planet, it’s considered a short one.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think compared to most governments on the planet, the US Federal government was supposed to be a tiny one. That's why it's not supposed to be allowed to do virtually anything it does today.

The workarounds to grow the federal government are kinda like you're stuck on a desert island and all you have is coconuts, so you build your house out of coconuts, you build your car with coconuts, you build a wife with coconuts, you build your kids with coconuts, a whole society built out of coconuts. It's like "This is impressive, but what the hell made you think this was the intent of the assignment?

[–] overzeetop 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

you build your wife with coconuts

I vote we skip any more discussion about how we’re going to be using coconuts on this island.

[–] Spiralvortexisalie 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

A coconut wife sounds amazing, especially if they were to start buzzing with life one day.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just looked it up and it seems that the German constitution has more than 350 pages. But the first 20 sections contain the most important and almost unchangeable foundaries.

[–] saltesc 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To be fair, Germany has a loooong and mega history, and they'd have been thorough out of necessity. No idea what's in there, but I assume there's a lot that addresses all the parts and histories of Germany before it was unified. It would've been a nightmare drafting that thing up initially.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My five year old’s Fancy Nancy books are more than 19 pages.

[–] Jumper775 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Less words per page though, and less confusing language.

[–] Cabrio 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

True, we need to rewrite the US constitution as a kids picture book with appropriate language so that the 54% of American adults with a reading comprehension below 6th grade can keep up.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago

That's a startling number. It goes far towards explaining some of the responses my comments get.

[–] ShakyPerception 11 points 1 year ago

That… answers a lot of questions

[–] dx1 8 points 1 year ago

We couldn't possibly agree on how the terminology in the original translates into plain language. We can't agree on what it means in the first place, even the most obvious plainly worded things.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

For a book, remarkably short.
For a news article, quite long.
For a legal document, who reads those anyways?

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[–] pottedmeat7910 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

19 pages isn't really a lot, , but this guy doesn't strike me as much of a reader.

[–] Dozzi92 3 points 1 year ago

I'm a reader. I've never read the constitution though, fiction only. I also think it's too old, can't get into the classics as much as more contemporary lit.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Reading it and going over the contents is also a part of standard US high school curriculum. It's a graduation requirement. At least, it was when I graduated high school in California in the 90's.

[–] saltesc 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

We did similar in primary school in Australia. A big portion of the seventh grade is learning about the Westminster style of government, state and federal roles, and the courts. We even did our own class parliament session each week to debate and try pass different levels of law. We were able to get Grade 7s a specific hang out area at the school cafe passed based on our lower house (classroom) sittings, then our senate (Prefects and the primary school principal) passing it.

[–] Gazumi 8 points 1 year ago

Constitution or clinical studies, MAGA people will take a devout view, that they read online at MAGA.

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[–] jesterraiin 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If only people would respond with respectful "I doubt that, but ok".

These days, such a response is as scarce as an honest politician.

[–] SpaceNoodle 61 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] jesterraiin 23 points 1 year ago
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[–] WoahWoah 49 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In my experience, the two things that seem to surprise conservatives I've talked to are: the constitution is less than 20 pages long, it's on my phone, and we could read it together in about 30 min (no takers so far), and that there are living redwood trees in California older than Jesus. I don't know why the second one surprises them so much, but it's one that seems to consistently elicit surprise.

[–] Dozzi92 22 points 1 year ago

Old trees are such a treasure. It's a shame that despite their strength they can also be fragile. My house has chestnut floors, easy to find in 1927, but then a blight wipes out 90% of the population. And not to mention us humans but we don't need to constantly talk about that, except to say it should be our goal to help these things grow for millenia.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There was a quote attributed to Lao Tzu I saw on tiktok the other day, and I was pretty damn sure it was nowhere in the Tao Te Ching, but I was curious if there was some weird translation out there I wasn't aware of.

The conversation went EXACTLY like this. Like down to the word.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

If you look into the original sources, it gets confusing pretty quickly. There's a bunch of other sources (e.g. the zhuangzi) that assign quotes to Lao Tzu, but they're probably made up.

However, Lao Tzu probably didn't write the Tao Te Ching, so 🤷‍♂️.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi

Basically, by making shit up and saying Lao Tzu said it, tiktok is continuing a long Chinese tradition.

[–] guangming 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm confused, what was the quote talking about? Surely not the US Constitution...

[–] Mostly_Frogs 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Simplicity in governance is essential, just like they have in the United States Constitution. That thing is only like 19 pages long. I read the whole thing." -Lao Tzu

[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife 10 points 1 year ago

Confucius say "I doubt that, but OK".

[–] Lifecoach5000 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a machine language model, it was a pretty easy read I will say.

[–] Flemmy 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

One of my favorite things to do with chat gpt is having it rewrite things as Trump. I wasn't interested in rereading the constitution a second ago, but it's going to be tremendous, you wouldn't believe how great it's going to be

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] scottywh 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wow... So this is about to become a thing... Like beans... 😂

[–] SpaceNoodle 3 points 1 year ago

I doubt that, but OK

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[–] wwaxwork 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Maybe if they made it a podcast chaired by a bald angry man.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I thought this was Malcolm from Malcy in the Middle lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

say you havent read it without saying you havent read it.

[–] nomadjoanne 3 points 1 year ago
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