Swell. Almost half of Americans (1,000 folks surveyed, margin +/- 3%) think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.
Oops. Can I say that?
Mercifully, the Founders made it tough to amend the Constitution — not impossible, but tough. Just for times and impulses like this.
(via Blather)
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The Constitution has always been about protecting the individual from the crowd, an idea way ahead of its time in 1789. My two thoughts about this poll
1. No one is learning anything about civics in school. I clearly remember the individual vs. the crowd arguments from high school. Who is not teaching these lessons?
2. As tragic as 9/11 was, our priorities have just gone haywire. Have we lost sight of the fact that we are 100’s of times more liekly to die on the freeway than we are from a terrorist attack? The new issue of Skeptical Inquirer has a very interesting article about the hype of danger vs reality in the wake of 9/11. (No link since their online archives are a couple of issues behind)
“Civics” is a dirty word. Nobody’s taught “civics” in decades, since it implies how we all have (gasp) duties and obligations, and since Viet Nam we all know that’s what The Man wants. The preferred term is “social studies,” and it is best taught via reading snippets from Time and People.