charliesmum: (slammerkinbabe)
[personal profile] charliesmum
I find this story very disturbing on many levels, particularly this part:

Over a third of the 100,000 students questioned felt the First Amendment went "too far" in guaranteeing freedom of speech, press, worship and assembly.

Only half felt newspapers should be allowed to publish stories that did not have the government's approval.


Now there are a fair few 'young people' on my flist, and they all are quite intelligent and haven't displayed his kind of ignorance, so I can only hope the study was done within a particular demographic, and doesn't really reflect the opinions of the younger generation as a whole.

The First Amendment really means that an average citizen has the right to say something like 'Our President is a self-satisfied moron who thinks that anyone with an opinion that conflicts his own is a terrorist, regardless of whether or not his opinion is logical, or even sane,' without getting arrested. It means that a newspaper reporter can investigate a president and publish what he finds without going to jail. Unfortunately it also means that Howard Stern is allowed to encourage people to say 'ba-ba-booey' at people. That's the trade-off.

Censorship, or the lack thereof, is different than First Amendment rights, and a lot muddier. Yes, a show that runs at 8pm, when children are likely still in control of the remote should watch what it says, but writing angry letters to a network because my child was traumatised by seeing Steve from Blues Clues play a murderer on NYPD Blue would be stupid. (Which, believe it or not, some people did.) It's not the network's fault that a parent lacks capacity to make the logical conclusion that a notoriously violent cop show might not be kid friendly. If Steve suddenly starting stabbing various computer-generated cartoon animals in the heart with a saber because they wouldn't give him the clue that would be bad, but the actor trying to do a grown-up role? Not so much.

And that's another thing. Certain groups seem to get all up in arms because someone shows a body part, yet it's okay to show military recruiting ads during family viewing time. Frankly I find the tag line 'We've been waiting for you" more offensive than some cartoon bum, or a pop singer's breast, thank you so very much. Back around Halloween I mentioned some bad horror movie type thing shown on The Family Channel that felt it necessary to bleep out the word 'ass' but didn't see a problem with showing the severed heads of the killer ghost's victims.

And finally, the thing that really creeps me out about that article is the underlying subtext that seems to say stating an opinion that runs contrary to what the government thinks is wrong. Every day this message seems to get clearer - if you're not with us you're a Communist Terrorist. Sorry. Communists were my generation's bugaboo.

Someone smarter than me once said 'My country, right or wrong. If wrong, to be made right, if right, to be kept right'. And blindly agreeing to whatever is said is no way to keep a country right. Right?

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