A scary future

Everyone always says the children are the future leaders of America. This sounds like a good thing, especially given the current leaders of America. I think that the American children in high school could do a pretty darn good job of running this country, especially compared to people like Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft.

Given some recent studies, however, it appears I am quite mistaken.

I support free speech. It's a pretty important part of my life, as someone who harbors quite a few unfavorable opinions.

Additionally, I support a newspaper's right to publish whatever it wants, provided it is true. A newspaper does not, and should not need government approval.

These are First Amendment guarantees which were ratified 214 years ago.

Apparently, for today's high school youth, those guarantees are too old and outmoded. According to a comprehensive study conducted by J-Ideas, which is a project of the Ball State University Department of Journalism, entitled "The Future of the First Amendment," only 27 percent of high school students personally think about how the First Amendment affects them.

That same study reports that 36 percent of high school students take the First Amendment for granted.

If there was no First Amendment, you would not have the right to read this, nor would I have had the right to write it.

Good job, you're a rebel.

There are very many alarming statistics that were generated by this report, and the one that scares me the most is the one that shows the most about the ignorance of our future leaders. Thirty-seven percent of high school students do not know enough about the First Amendment to be able to honestly say that they either think about it or take it for granted.

In the words of Lewis Black, "I'll repeat that, because it bears repeating."

Thirty-seven percent of high school students do not know enough about the First Amendment - that's the one about free speech - to be able to honestly say that they either think about it or take it for granted.

That is a scary thought.

All together, that means 73 percent of American high school students either don't know anything about the First Amendment, or they just don't care.

This isn't some random federal law being discussed here. This is the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. It guarantees the right to speak your mind, to practice your religion, to be informed by a media that is not influenced by the government. And kids out there just don't care, or they don't know any better.

That was just the beginning of the survey. Sadly enough, it only got worse from there.

The survey went on to report that 44 percent of the high school students who know something about it believe the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.

Which one are these kids looking to get rid of?

Every guarantee of the First Amendment is fundamental to the everyday life of citizens of this nation. There is no question that without its guarantees, our lives would be substantially different. If there was no First Amendment, the government could pass a law tomorrow saying that anyone who uses the word "like" more than once in a sentence should go to jail.

Luckily enough, the leaders of tomorrow do support free speech, as 83 percent of high school students agree that people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions. The study also reports that 70 percent of high school students agree that musicians should be allowed to sing songs with lyrics that others may find offensive.

So which is the first amendment right that the high-school students want to get rid of? That's right, ladies and gentlemen: This one.

Forty-nine percent of high school students believe that newspapers should not be allowed to publish freely without governmental approval of stories.

So, half the high-school students in America want the government to directly influence the media. This is a sickening, scary, disgusting thought.

What if President Clinton had the authority to approve every story that newspapers wanted to run about Monica Lewinsky? What if George W. Bush had carte blanche to rewrite stories about the war in Iraq?

That's what our leaders of tomorrow are saying they want.

I'm begging now, obviously the leaders of today are as uneducated as they come. Please, someone educate our leaders of tomorrow.