That hope thing, it's tempered.

[pecunium]

I don't think I can add anything to this. It's probably the most depressing thing I read in ages.

I bothers me more than Bertie "Go ahead and break their fingers" Gonzalez being nominated.

Really.

Students say 1st Amendment, "goes too far."

Comments

[zuggy9.livejournal.com]

Oh crap... this does not bode well for the future.

So many brave souls will have died in vain for this country if this doesn't change.

Depressing

[syreene.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I had the same response. >_

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

Holy shit.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Several years back, someone did a study in which adults were presented with fundamental constitutional rights phrased in modern language. Some appalling percentage disapproved.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. Let them read the actual body of the Declaration of Independence, even without shearing off the famous bits, and they reject it. Filthy socialist claptrap. Not safe, seditious and unpatriotic.

I'd just like to think the idealism of youth would lead them to value the first amendment (hell, all 10 would be nice).

TK

Just a thought

[ladymeow.livejournal.com]

Maybe they would appreciate it more if it was taken away?

Re: Just a thought

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

As someone who grew up in the Marcos-era PHilippines, I'll agree with that.

Re: Just a thought

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That might depend on how it's taken away.

Right now the mainstream press is doing a pretty damned good job of functioning more as a party organ (Isvetia, with some balls, but small ones) than it is a watchdog.

The defensiveness of it. The lack of real reportage on real scanadals, while engaging in slavering devotion to crap like Whitewater is horrifying.

So a shift, to one where the press is more obedient might not bother them so much as it would bother those of us who know what we need the press for.

Their kids, on the other hand, would notice. And the net, unless it changes a lot; which could happen, I know people who've spent lots of time in China, things there are different, will allow a lot more ready samizdat.

But it would still suck, hell it sucks now, and we still have the freedom to do what we want.

TK

Re: Just a thought

[ladymeow.livejournal.com]

Funny how that works out.

Argh.

Sad but not surprising

[soggyoptimist.livejournal.com]

My Inner Devil's Advocate says this is what follows from creating classifications like "hate speech"; when people are fired for using the word "niggardly" in a memo; when Huckleberry Finn isn't taught in classes out of concern for students who might be offended. When we assert that some speech is not protected because it is insulting and creates disharmony, then the issue becomes choosing criteria for which speech is protected and which is exempted from protection. These students just have different criteria than I do.

Re: Sad but not surprising

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Huck Finn has been not taught since it was written.

I recall it being forbidden in some schools in my neck of the woods because it, "poorly depicted black people," and made Jim look dependent and infantile, in need if a white boy to look after him.

At the same time, in parts of the south, it was being banned because it showed Huck thinking Jim was morally superior to him, and had a black in the position of care-giver, and role-model for a white boy.

No, I think the real problem is the students are sipping from the trough of Fox News, and the ancillary effect 30 years of the media being whipped with charges of bias, and caving in to those who want to neuter it.

TK