Results of a $1 million John S. and James L. Knight Foundation-sponsored study of young people’s attitudes about the First Amendment are in, and they are frightening.
After being told exactly what the First Amendment says, more than a third of high school students said it goes too far in guaranteeing rights. Half the students didn’t think newspapers should be able to publish freely without government clearance.
An excellent story on this by Associated Press education writer Ben Fuller quotes Hodding Carter III, president of the foundation:
“These results are not only disturbing; they are dangerous. Ignorance about the basics of this free society is a danger to our nation’s future.”
The students’ attitudes were checked against those of adults, according to the story. So 97 percent of teachers and 99 percent of principals surveyed said people should be allowed to express “unpopular views,” but only 83 percent of students agreed. Half the students think the government censors what can be put on the Internet and three out of four think flag burning is illegal.
The biggest-ever study of its kind, it queried 100,000-plus students, nearly 8,000 teachers and more than 500 administrators at 544 public and private high schools in early 2004.
The mind boggles. The only explanation is wholesale failure of our schools to present even the most basic themes and concepts of what this country is about. That begs the question: What, exactly are they studying?
No wonder this country of ours is highballing toward a deep economic and social precipice with our mindless, greed-driven free trade regime that’s gutting America of its industries and robbing millions of Americans of decent, family wage jobs; yet people meekly keep going to Wal-Mart or some other big-box retailer to load up on goods made everywhere but in America.
No wonder we have a thoroughgoing incompetent – with four years of horrendously bad results to prove it – in the White House, and yet millions flocked to the polls to re-elect him, in no small part because of $200 million worth of saturation-level sliming of his opponent in TV ads, nearly all of which were just lies and distortions.
Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who, on being asked about deliberations at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, replied, “You have a democracy, if you can keep it”?
Well, Ben, we’ve had a good 228-year run, but things are looking bleak from here on out. Our poorly educated, ill-informed citizens seem destined learn to their grief that American democracy is one thing that can’t be brought in for cheap from China.
My, we are crabby today.
Every generation is sure that the one following will be unable to cope.
If a $200 million political campaign brainwashes the public, maybe Carl Rove should be made Education Secretary. Just think what he could do with the billions that agency has at its disposal.
rsf, I will admit to reacting badly at seeing so much evidence that big, important things affecting all of us are heading the wrong way. Our economy is being hollowed out to add to the already great wealth of a relative few, while the many who should be paying attention, raising hell and voting their own best interests are pacified with cheap goods  for awhile, anyway  from China and elsewhere, and distracted with wedge social issues that serve as replacements for the communist bogeyman of days gone by.
Couple that with fresh evidence a whole lot of young people are ambling, fat, dumb, happy and distracted by what passes for music being pumped into their brains at iPod range, into a future that may hold some really nasty surprises. Most generations face some hard tests. Looking back, most had the benefit of at least one parent at home full time or close to it and teachers who meant business at school, with collaboration between the two not uncommon.
No, I don’t think the next generation is going to hell in a handbasket. I do think they’re being set up and let down at the same time  not unlike the way millions were set up and let down when the booming 1920s turned into the Great Depression bust.
The question isn’t whether young people will able to cope with the Social Security problem, with Bush’s legacy of voodoo economics gone wrong again, or whatever else comes their way. To my mind, the question is why they should have to be burdened with bad policies designed to enrich Bush and the Republicans’ oh, so generous benefactors, and mollify the voting public, at least during the first phases of a succession of bait-and-switch maneuvers.
As for Rove, I expect if he wanted to have his way with the Department of Education, he would only have to say so.
On the economy, I’m kind of with you, but I think of it as a new kind of feudalism, with the overlords consisting of the usual ruling elites and attendant con men, with an added middle class viscountery (word?) of lottery winners and other types playing golf in Florida while getting checks from New York City for some disability or other mopery.
As for distracted youth, I recall a quote from the Goncourt brothers about the rise of pornography in mid 19th century France: “One controls a population as one does a lion, through masterbation.” What would they say today…