AMENDMENT I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I read a disturbing article in USA Today by Greg Toppo entitled: U.S. students say press freedoms go too far. The article stated that in a survey of 112,003 high school students surveyed that 'One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them.'

The article goes on to say that, 'The findings aren't surprising to Jack Dvorak, director of the High School Journalism Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington. "Even professional journalists are often unaware of a lot of the freedoms that might be associated with the First Amendment," he says.

The survey "confirms what a lot of people who are interested in this area have known for a long time," he says: Kids aren't learning enough about the First Amendment in history, civics or English classes. It also tracks closely with recent findings of adults' attitudes.
"It's part of our Constitution, so this should be part of a formal education," says Dvorak, who has worked with student journalists since 1968.

Ah, the bliss of ignorance as doctrined by the Bush adminstration. If people were better informed and not manipulated by conservative framing would the election have been as close as it was? I seriously doubt it. As the state of US public education continues to dwindle so does the collective awareness of our rights as its citizens. Educate yourselves. Don't count on the Bush administration to educate you or one day you will wake up and there will be an amendment to the 1st amendement. They will claim it was introduced to protect you and if you don't know any better you will believe it until you are thrown in jail for writing on your blog that George W. Bush is a cock sucker.

What I found encouraging was that 51% of these kids say that newspapers 'should be able to publish freely.' This is a mandate for the future of this country, much more so than the 'mandate' George W. Bush's claimed after this election. Ignorance breeds ignorance and the resulting lineage is an incestuous family tree that needs to be chopped down. Stay educated. Stay free.


For the full article go to: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-01-30-students-press_x.htm