Inside April 19, 2005's Issue

First Amendment 101

Georgia Highlands College�s growing pains not pleasant, but natural and necessary

New kids on the block hate freedom

Kids these days are getting stranger and stranger.

In a 2004 study conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut of more than 100,000 high school students and their opinions on the First Amendment, an overwhelming number thought the document is abused and allows too much freedom.

Also, the study showed that only about half of the students thought newspapers should be allowed to print freely without government approval.

Of over 8,000 teachers and principals who were part of the study as well, 97 to 99 percent thought people should be able to express unpopular views, but only 83 percent of the students thought so.

These kids thought that burning the flag is illegal and that the government can restrict indecent material over the internet as well. Those are false.

What is wrong with these kids? Is it too much fast food and television that�s turning them into mindless zombies, or is it the government being Republican heavy? It is astonishing that the youth of today actually think that there is such a thing as too much freedom of speech and that the right to petition and question the government is wrong.

I hope that this extremely dangerous and silly confusion that these students have is just them being under-educated about the First Amendment instead of being simply evil and conforming.

Ignorance may be bliss, but once we have to worship one deity, can�t say what we want and Big Brother dictates life more on the basis of what we can�t do instead of what we can do, we pretty much flush democracy down the toilet.

Those students who feel the First Amendment goes too far and allows too much freedom need to either practice their First Amendment rights on a day-to-day basis or be taught what their lives would be like if they didn�t have any rights at all. Let�s lock them in a closet without any outside communication, even from their families. Let�s tell them what to do, and if they don�t like it they are punished with a lashing.

If these future voters are already beginning to mess up my fun and my freedom to say what I want, burn flags and distrust the government and are messing with my career as a journalist who takes great pride in never having a government official or the college president approve or disapprove of what goes in this newspaper, there go my rights as well as yours and the notion of living in a free society starts to deteriorate.

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