30% of Americans think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.

*boggle*

Can I just say that again? Thirty percent -- more than 87 million people -- think that the First Amendment goes too far.

That's not all: 42% say the “press in America has too much freedom", while 41% disagree with the statement that "newspapers should be allowed to freely criticize the U.S. military."

Heaven help us.

Freedom-loving Americans can take some small comfort in the fact that American support for our basic freedoms is back at pre-9/11 levels...two years ago, the country was split 49%-49%.

This is all from a survey by the First Amendment Center, which also has some interesting analysis and commentary on the results.

From the analysis, it's clear that Americans have some pretty self-contradictory views on the First Amendment:

In the minds of many Americans, there is a troubling disconnect between principle and practice when it comes to First Amendment rights and values.

Americans in significant numbers appear willing to regulate the speech of those they don’t like, don’t agree with or find offensive. Many would too casually breach the wall between church and state. There is, in these surveys, solid evidence of confusion about, if not outright hostility toward, core First Amendment rights and values. . .

By a large majority, Americans say parents bear the primary responsibility for protecting their children from sexual material in the entertainment media, yet they are willing to broaden government regulation in that area.

Nearly eight in 10 believe the press has a government watchdog role, but four in 10 believe the press has too much freedom.

This is scary stuff, people. When your Administration is arguing (unsuccessfully, thank goodness) for the right to indefinitely detain people without charge, on the President's say-so, without access to lawyers. When the government asserts the right to put you under surveillance based on what you read. When the government can have access -- with no judicial oversight or even the need to prove probable cause or provide evidence -- to records of your finances, your purchases, your travels (not to mention searching your home) without telling you why, and without telling you what they're searching for. Freedom is being eroded in our country, and what's scarier is that the climate in which freedom flourishes is changing. When more than eighty-seven million people think that Americans shouldn't be able to practice their religion without government interference, or speak freely, or write about whatever they want, or assemble in public, or petition their government, we seem to be in trouble as a nation.

Think about that while you're enjoying your Fourth of July.

Comments

[gijyun]

87 million? i thought there were only about 26 million people in america...

[ayelet]

I've been reading about this as well and yes, it is truly, chillingly frightening. It's worse than the McCarthyism of the 50s, beginning to sound more like the paranoia that resulted in the Salem witch trials. So scary.

[dong resin]

Freedom scares most people silly.
I wish this were either not true or a passing moment of culture that we could blame on TV or something, but it continues to be civilization's most defining quality.

Depressing, huh.

[vmarks]

Ayelet, unless you lived through McCarthyism in the 50's you don't really know what's worse, now or then.

B'emet, the difference is, at that time, the government chose to pursue citizens in what we now look at as ever-more-draconian methods to get confessions of communist collusion.

Those methods are not employed today, the Supreme Court has provided an excellent check and affords rights to detainees, and what some who-knows-how-accurate survey comes up with has no bearing on what the government has done.

Me, I want more freedom. I want less violation by Congress on ALL of the Amendments. Particular attention paid to the first 10, if you please. Like that pesky General Welfare clause that only refers to the specifics listed in Article 1 Section 8, but any Congressman with special interest money burning a hole in his or her pocket seems to be so good at bending to refer to whatever he or she pleases.

[Vidiot]

What does "b'emet" mean? By Googling, it seems to mean "truth" -- so in your context, it seems to mean that you're saying:

Truly, the difference is. . .

Is that a fair characterization?

[vmarks]

b'emet means literally 'in truth.' The b' prefix is the preposition.

It can be used as an expression on its own, "B'emet!" or can preface a sentence with the same inflection that English speakers might give to "Come on, that's not how things are" or "Oh really!" It's a pretty common expression, although the English analogue isn't used as frequently.