Required reading
Jun. 30th, 2004 09:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
asherisI don't always agree with this guy, but he really nails it on the head in this piece.
Dale McFeatters
June 30, 2004
(SH) - A survey conducted two years ago came up with the dismaying finding that the nation was evenly split on the proposition, "The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees."
We can perhaps dismiss that as a momentary, if scary, post-9/11 aberration. A new survey by the First Amendment Center shows that a reassuring 65 percent of the people thought that the freedoms enumerated at the outset of our Bill of Rights are just fine, while 30 percent still think they go too far.
Thirty percent is still too many. Who are these people and, more importantly, who taught them American history?
What part of the 2l5-year-old First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States do they find excessive? Freedom of religion? Freedom of speech? Freedom of assembly? Freedom of the press? Freedom to petition Congress?
The Center found that only 1 percent could identify petitioning Congress for the redress of grievance as one of their First Amendment rights. Maybe most Americans don't know about that right, but considering the demands they make of Congress they have no problem exercising it.
While 58 percent knew freedom of the press was a First Amendment right, only a comparative handful, between 10 percent and 17 percent, could identify the remaining three. That's OK. The ability to identify the other amendments falls off pretty rapidly after the First. The Third says that government can't quarter soldiers in our houses, a big deal in colonial times but a right many of us have recourse to today.
But here's a handy mnemonic for the First: GRASP - grievance, religion, assembly, speech and press. Now, go forth and be surveyed.
And while we don't want to skew the results of the Center's next survey, we wish the pollsters would take a rolled-up copy of the Constitution and beat about the head and shoulders those respondents who think our First freedoms go "too far."
Contact Dale McFeatters at McFeattersD@SHNS.com.
(Used here without permission, because I think everybody should read this.)
For good reason it's the First
Dale McFeatters
June 30, 2004
(SH) - A survey conducted two years ago came up with the dismaying finding that the nation was evenly split on the proposition, "The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees."
We can perhaps dismiss that as a momentary, if scary, post-9/11 aberration. A new survey by the First Amendment Center shows that a reassuring 65 percent of the people thought that the freedoms enumerated at the outset of our Bill of Rights are just fine, while 30 percent still think they go too far.
Thirty percent is still too many. Who are these people and, more importantly, who taught them American history?
What part of the 2l5-year-old First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States do they find excessive? Freedom of religion? Freedom of speech? Freedom of assembly? Freedom of the press? Freedom to petition Congress?
The Center found that only 1 percent could identify petitioning Congress for the redress of grievance as one of their First Amendment rights. Maybe most Americans don't know about that right, but considering the demands they make of Congress they have no problem exercising it.
While 58 percent knew freedom of the press was a First Amendment right, only a comparative handful, between 10 percent and 17 percent, could identify the remaining three. That's OK. The ability to identify the other amendments falls off pretty rapidly after the First. The Third says that government can't quarter soldiers in our houses, a big deal in colonial times but a right many of us have recourse to today.
But here's a handy mnemonic for the First: GRASP - grievance, religion, assembly, speech and press. Now, go forth and be surveyed.
And while we don't want to skew the results of the Center's next survey, we wish the pollsters would take a rolled-up copy of the Constitution and beat about the head and shoulders those respondents who think our First freedoms go "too far."
Contact Dale McFeatters at McFeattersD@SHNS.com.
(Used here without permission, because I think everybody should read this.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-08 12:26 am (UTC)Good post. It shows you how American's are loosing site of things. The one thing you can string together from most dictatorships/monarchies/regimes is their control of the written word and to a lesser extent the remaining items from the First Amendment. The press is an excellent part of the checks and balances of a government.
I remember after one particularly stimulating classroom session in Officer School (for the Army National Guard) - I went home and read the Constitution of the United States. I mean, READ it. Thems some powerful words, and it started this whole shooting match.