According to a random survey of 1,000 U.S. citizens done by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), 53% of respondents think that the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing civil liberties.
Here's the question that was asked:
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.'
Only 47 percent of respondents selected 'Does not describe my thoughts at all'.
FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens said,
Evidently, one out of every two Americans wishes they had fewer civil liberties. Many of them reject the right to assemble, to have a free press, and to petition the government. This is a dictator's fantasy.
I guess it's not that surprising with the free press out there every day, demanding they not be free anymore.
The fear of their own freedoms again brings to mind the words of our founding fathers. For example, in talking about the Roman Empire in a letter to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson wrote:
No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and … their minds are to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and to be deterred from those of vice … These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure and order of government.
But I have to admit, I did not suspect that the immoral people Jefferson and his contemporaries worried about would want and fight for a tyrannical government to punish their evil.
Any more than I would expect that they would want to introduce apex predators into human-inhabited areas.
But here we are.
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