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U.S. Kids Don't Understand First Amendment
l4m3z0r writes "This rather alarming article discusses a study of high-school students in which they were asked about censorship, protected speech, and other aspects of the first amendment. The results are extremely worrisome: "Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories." and this "Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't.".."
Are all/most surveyed students born and brought up in America?
And does the First Amendment still feel the same after newly introduced Bills like PATRIOT ACT?
For instance, some countries have this Internal Security Act which allows government to imprison anyone for a couple of years without trial, and with that shadowing above your head, does it still matter if you're protected by another ancient right?
It's like a F1 driver still feels safe driving on slicks after it starts raining.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
How should students understand the first amendment right when they yet do not have those rights in public schools? (and I am not saying that they should have them.) for example; "Only half of the students said newspapers should be allowed to publish freely without government approval of stories." That is not surprising as they in thier school newspaper do not have the ability to pubilsh without teacher approval and "About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't" That is not surprising as thier internet use at school is severly restricted in what they can see. Anouther example is with only 83% of the students saying that expression of unpopular views is acceptible, coming from a very nondemocratic enviorment in schoolI can see how that is easily the situation. Students are under the heel of school officials. although, I am a while out of high school and this was just my experience.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Isn't there a fairly large difference between students unterstanding that newspapers are allowed to publish anything and the opinion that they should (or shouldn't) be allowed to basically publish anything? It seems to me more like we have children who are growing up to be facists, rather than we have stupid kids.
...after all, most adults don't know the first amendment, either, when they go off about how parties other than the government are "violating their first amendment rights."
In high school I was on the newspaper staff for a while. We had a major part of an issue planned for addressing sex in high school, with various stories and features.
The principal vetoed the whole deal.
Something similar recently came up at another, and the students just left an entire page blank as a protest.
How can we teach kids about 1st amendment freedoms when principals have 100% editorial control over school papers?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
The role of public schools isn't to produce free thinkers and speakers. It is to get the masses to submit to the government.
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I'd bet dollars-to-donuts the results would be almost identical.
The problem isn't with the kids; it's the system that allows these kids to develop ideas like these that's the problem.
No child left behind, indeed. Does it count when they've *all* been left behind?
...Ban the display of the Confederate flag.
...ban pictures of guns.
... dissent on widely held scientific theories.
...write speech codes that severely penalize students for voicing their opinions.
...and a legion of similar examples.
If the American judiciary can't understand the First Amendment, how the hell are America's students supposed to?
I would *love* to see the demographic distribution/correlation of the students surveyed, in particular Blue vs Red states, private vs public schools, political and denominational majority in their school district, as well as economic backgrounds.
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What you do today will cost you a day of your life
Most Americans don't understand the First Amendment. What percent of Americans know that the First Amendment guarantees religious freedom? What percent know that religious freedom is the first freedom mentioned in the First Amendment? Lots of people seem to think it's only about speech for some reason.
There is NO "preamble" to the Bill of Rights.
Actually, in a manner of speaking, there is. The OP's quote is taken from the original proposed amendments to the Constitution, said list being drawn up by Congress an approved on March 1, 1789. As a note, there was a preamble to said list, it did include the quote as cited by the OP, and there were twelve proposed amendments, of which one was never approved and one was approved in 1992. The First Amendment was originally "Article the Third".
-- Old Man Kensey
This is a disturbingly common reading of the phrase, and, understood in historical context, it's still wrong.
The grandparent post was right, though: etymology does help. As does grammar. The object of the sentence is not "religion": it's "establishment of religion." In this context, it most likely means organized religion as a whole. In other words, a passably acceptable paraphrase is "Congress can't make laws which deal with religion," not "Congress can't establish a state religion." You cannot parse the sentence that way (correctly, at least)! In any case, "establishment" is a noun, not a verb: I can't "establishment" a religion, and neither can Congress.
To be sure, yes, this means that Congress can't establish a state religion. But it means quite a bit more than that, when you actually sit down and start thinking through the repurcussions of it all. It means, in short, that any sort of preferential/discriminatory treatment of any religion on the part of Congress is disallowed. Which is how the Supreme Court has long interpreted it (that being a major part of their job, an' all...) and how the phrase was commonly understood until a bunch of people who really should know better decided to start flaunting the grammatical structure of English in service of misguided spiritual ideals (IMO).
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
The Supreme Court decision that stated that the "well-regulated Militia" clause was meant as a prerequisite for firearms possession (as opposed to a mere descriptive phrase, or an example, as many gun rights advocates argue) was United States v. Miller. This case also said that citizens, "when called for service ... were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."
So, since you obviously support this decision, you must believe that ordinary citizens should be able to possess fully-automatic rifles, explosives, and other arms that are "in common use at [this] time." Right?
Yes, it's parsing words, but so's quibbling over meaning of the first clause of the Second Amendment.
Liberty in your lifetime
and in doing so, sent a clear message to all neighboring countries that should they grant protection to terrorist organizations we'll summarily remove them from power.
Or rather a message was sent that the United States will attack whom ever it wants, when ever it wants. So, you (the foreign power) had better not cross us (The United States), or we will find your links to terrorism and hit you with a preemptive strike.
Don't let anyone kid you, Iran is next on the chopping block. I'm not against invading Iran, so much as I'm against the inevitable lies the Bush administration will use to justify such an action. He would probably have a lot more support if he was just more straight forward about the motivations for his actions.
The beginning of the end came during the Khruschev era.
Khruschev, unlike Stalin and Lenin, was a patriot for the system and cared about the survival of the USSR and the Soviet system of government beyond his own time of service. He hoped to decrease military spending and increase spending on domestic issues such as agriculture, education, housing, etc.
As long as the leadership (central committe, politburo) was convinced that the USSR maintained military superiority over the US, Khruschev was allowed to be a little more liberal with his spending. During the 1960 US presidential election in particular, there was a lot of talk about the "missile gap" and how the US had languished under Eisenhower/Nixon and needed its military might strengthened. Then, of course, Kennedy was elected and reassured everybody that there was no gap and that the US was indeed strong enough to take on the Ruskies. Add the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis in the mix and the Soviet leadership's grip on the economy closed again.
Khruschev was all but over after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and so was the Soviet economy. As the parent stated Brezhnev's uninspired leadership never challenged the military spending habits. The irony is that by not spending enough domestically, the USSR assured that their economy would dwindle and falter. Gorbachev understood the issues and was working toward solving them as much as he could with increased trade, glasnost, etc. but that put him at odds with the leadership and the military who were more worried about spending to match Reagan's SDI boondoggle. When the coup was attempted it sparked the endgame. The system had reached the tipping point and collapsed in on itself. Gorbachev had liberalized the country enough that it wouldn't stand for the military's coup.
Certainly, Reagan's spending sped up the endgame; but the fall of the USSR really began in earnest when the Soviet leadership ousted Khruschev. While certainly no altruist, Khruschev did indeed believe in his country and wanted it to thrive. Anyone who doubts this should read his speech to the Communist Party Congress in which he denounces Stalin and his policies. It was a move that was daring and shocking in its bravery.
Having said all of that, I'm glad we don't still have a Soviet Union to deal with. I like not worrying about nuclear war every morning, though I wish they'd keep tighter control of their stockpiles.
This terrorism thing doesn't even come close to the anxiety I felt about the Soviets. THAT was a scary time.
Hot Damn! It's the Soggy Bottom Boys!
From TFA:
Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't.
That's all true as far as current law goes, but it's a gross misunderstanding to suggest that the first amendment is about protecting pr0n. The framers made, and enforced, laws against obscenity and indecency. It's only recently that 1st amendment case law started to focus on protecting deviancy.
The primary purpose of the first amendment is to protect political dissent and religious freedom. The protection was made broader than "political" speech only to prevent politicians from enacting censorship under the guise of decency laws.
Ironically, political dissent is condemned by left- and right-wingers, as either "fascist" or "unpatriotic", and public expression of religious views brings down a torrent of ridicule. The only "first amendment rights" people get passionate about are exactly the ones that weren't even intended by the framers: frivolous and indecent expression that serves no decent purpose at all.
One day, your country will begin to understand these ideals, perhaps to the point that you will adopt them into your government.
One day, perhaps you'll travel a bit, and realise your country isn't unique, and many other people are at least as free as you, and they typically don't shout about it nearly as much. You also may come to recognise that the recently added "under God" is a minor repudiation of freedom in itself.
For the record, I am a great admirer of most of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, indeed all the things America is supposed to stand for.