The 1st Amendment: Red Flag Warning (Kids don't know and don't much care.)

The Chicago Tribune ^ | March 20, 2005 | Charles M. Madigan

[quidnunc]

A poll of 100,000 high school students: Teenagers know little about – and put little faith in – America's tattered free speech heritage.

Given the modern media atmosphere, it is hard to believe the 1st Amendment is in trouble. In this brave new world, all manners of language, assumption, scurrilous bilge and flapdoodle are afoot as expression takes a joyride on the expanding technology and ease of access of the Internet, the nation's freshest communications carnival.

You can say pretty much whatever you want there, any way you want to say it.

It provides both a hall pass for the sophomoric and a pathway for efforts that nudge right up against being profound.

You can advertise sexual fantasies and provide pictures. You can sell bogus pills from China. You can argue about philosophies. You can name-call and poke fun. You can present news very close to the point at which it happens. You can comment instantly.

You can blog until you are blue in the fingers.

The Internet's capacity for unbridled performances of all kinds is limited only by the perversity, the imagination, the creativity or the talents of the author.

In America, that is.

In some parts of the world, daring behaviors on the Internet can lead to a prison sentence or worse. Even taking advantage of access to it is a big risk.

Freedom of expression is one of the hallmarks of the American experience, a right we have cherished from the earliest days of the republic. Everything that is published here rests on that foundation, along with everything that is broadcast or televised.

-snip-

[SteveMcKing]

Why are school teachers such communists? Is it because their paycheck comes from a public system?

[Hodar]

Consider;

Union provides benefits that exceed many commercial endeavors. There is NEVER a layoff, and tests that check for competence are rejected by the union without comment. There is little or no responsibility for the educational level the students achieve, yet the raises are manditory. Teachers get every holiday known to man, 3 months off during the summer, a bonus week off in the fall and the spring, plus they get personal time off as well.

The AVERAGE teacher is scheduled to work 180 days/year, now we deduct their personal days off.

Contrast that to the AVERAGE american. 365 days/yr - 104 (weekends) - 10 holidays - 10 vacation days; means that we work an average of 241 days/yr.

I did not include sick days, nor bereavement; as these are unscheduled in all cases.

Thus, we have teachers working 180 while the rest of us work 241, or teachers working 74.7% as many days as the rest of us. We can be fired, laid off or down-sized; teachers can not. If we abuse our positions, we are fired; teachers are sent home for a time WITH PAY.

It would be an oddity to find a teacher who would even consider communism to be bad, given how much benefits they are reaping from this system.

[thoughtomator]

Freedom of religion is also an essential part of the 1st Amendment, as is freedom of association, two liberties that have been under constant assault by the champions of freedom of expression and freedom of the press.

These newspapers need look no further than the nearest mirror.

[StonyBurk]

Well you got the "already captured press" which tells
everyone how much it will always defend the First Amendment
yet the Press is only interested in promoting freedom of the
press. Where it comes to the religion part (establishment
and Free exercise) the Press generally comes down on the same side as the godless enemy within the ACLU.Most regional papers I wrote to when they publish stories about
the ACLU demanding removal of a Ten Commanments display
simply ignore me. When the Press acts as if Mel Gibson
equates to Michael Moore the PRess seems amazed that any
should question their critisism of Gibson,and adulation of
the fug ugly Socialist-Moore.

[M. Dodge Thomas]

I have a close friend who teaches math in a public HS in Chicago.

Like many of her co-workers she spends 2-3 hours a day outside of school hours writing lesson plans, grading papers, and filling out paper work for the city, state and Federal agencies overseeing her efforts. Plus a few hours on weekends, plus weeknights when she has a parent-teacher conference or other after school obligations.

Would she say that she has lazy or less than fully competent co-workers? Sure she would.... like most everyone else.

But she would also say in that her opinion most of the people she meets who bellyache about what a soft job teachers have would not last a week in at the front of a classroom at her school.

I suspect she's probably right.

[greatsquire]

WHAT IRA NAZIS ARE BEHIND MAKING US ALL SHUT-UP? WHO is TAMPERING WITH FREEDOM OF speech? JOIN ME, GOOD READERS, LET'S, WITHIN THE LETTER OF THE LAW, BOMB THEIR TOILET SEATS AND GAS them! MIND YOUR MANNERS, NOT literal bombs or violence, et c, please.

PEACE,
GREATSQUIRE

[The Chosen One]

it's still the right of the press to side with the ACLU. Its also the ACLU's right to be a godless organization.

[middie]

All school teachers are communists

All communists are enemies of the United States

Therefore, All school teachers are enemies of the United States.

Does that Aristotilian syllogism demonstrate the idiocy of the post?

The logic professor teaching the plebe class at USNA in the mid-50s would be spinning in his grave at the non-sensical nature of this entire exercise.

[StonyBurk]

it is the right of any to follow or feed whatever dementia
they choose. But the Press has NO right to expect reasonable
members to believe their crap about unbiased news and
opinion.And the ACLU as any other anti-American organization has a right to believe and to propagate whatever they desire-- But I have equal right to disagree and to voice my disagreement -most especially when these
organizations militate and decieve others with intent of
reshaping America into something Never intended by our
founders.

[The Chosen One]

your exactly right