“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
-Ronald Reagan (actor, speaker, author, Governor, President of the United States)
In a poll by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), the results should be disheartening. Short changed by their high school educations and then further indoctrinated by the overwhelming Leftist (many outright Marxists) professors, these kids have no idea what their actual birthrights are for being American citizens. Emphasis mine
In the most comprehensive survey on students’ attitudes about free speech to date, FIRE measured student responses to questions about self expression, reactions to expression of other students, guest speakers, and hate speech. Some key findings include:
- 46 percent of students recognize that hate speech is protected by the First Amendment, and 48 percent of students think the First Amendment should not protect hate speech.
- Most students (56 percent) support disinviting some guest speakers. Democratic students are 19 percentage points more likely than their Republican peers to agree that there are times a speaker should be disinvited.
- 58 percent of college students think it’s important to be part of a campus community where they are not exposed to intolerant or offensive ideas.
- Very few students report that they would participate in actions that would prevent a guest speaker event from taking place (2 percent). Even fewer said they would use violence to disrupt an event (1 percent).
- In open-ended questions, almost half of students (45 percent) identify speech with a racist component as hate speech, and 13 percent of students associate hate speech with violence.
- In class, 30 percent of students have self-censored because they thought their words would be offensive to others. A majority of students (54 percent) report self-censoring in the classroom at some point since the beginning of college.
Only 46%? Less than half believe speech is speech? And almost a majority believe “hate” speech isn’t protected?
Are we at that tipping point Ronny warned us about?
(H/T: F.I.R.E.)
