Obtuse — Americans regarding the First Amendment

05 August 2024

Read this — then it gets worse

Below is from a 1,000 person poll of Americans, conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression on 05-10 July 2024:

The 10-question survey consists of five permanent questions to track support for free speech and the First Amendment over time and five rotating questions to capture public opinion about topical and newsworthy speech-related issues.

All data and results presented are weighted to nationally representative demographic targets with a margin of error +/-3%.

The First Amendment became part of the U.S. Constitution more than 225 years ago. This is what it says:

“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.”

Based on your own thoughts about the First Amendment, can you tell us what you think about the following statement: “The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.”

Response Frequency Percent

Does not describe my thoughts at all 465 47

Slightly describes my thoughts 95 9

Somewhat describes my thoughts 161 16

Mostly describes my thoughts 161 16

Describes my thoughts completely 118 12

According to the poll . . .

Forty-four percent of the sampled Americans think that they should tell everybody else what is true. And apparently further, squash everything and everybody in opposition.

It gets worse

FIRE (who published the poll's results) summed the situation this way:

Fifty-three percent of Americans believe that the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it protects, according to a new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

“Evidently, one out of every two Americans wishes they had fewer civil liberties,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens.

“Many of them reject the right to assemble, to have a free press, and to petition the government. This is a dictator’s fantasy.”

Americans are crying out for censorship.

Around 40% trust the government “somewhat,” “very much,” or “completely” to make fair decisions about what speech is considered terrifying, intimidating, threatening, harassing, annoying, disturbing, and indecent.

Another quarter trust the government “a little.”

And only 32% of Americans said they would be “not at all” comfortable with the government limiting the free speech of pro-Hamas protesters.

From that last summarizing sentence . . .

We see that sixty-eight percent of Americans want to squelch protests against Zionism's genocide of Palestinians.

This is a pretty good indicator of just how unpopular the First Amendment's free speech and assembly protections actually are in the United States.

Morally even more appalling, we can conclude that Americans think that the Israeli Zionism's self-alleged right to mass murder Palestinians outweighs our own American rights to speak and assemble in our own country.

Coming up with a more satanic reversal of moral sanity might be impossible.

The moral? — Lady Liberty burns at the stake

Turned to cinders by the majority of Americans' mental and moral sloth.

PeteFree.com

Obtuse — Americans regarding the First Amendment