After asking five people if they agreed if the 1st amendment should be a law without telling them the 1st amendment verbatim, but rather paraphrasing it, the responses were mostly in favor of it. The two exceptions out of the five had some concerns about hate speech and the January 6th capital riot incident. I agree with the 1st amendment because of something I have heard recently; you can have freedom of speech, but that does not give you immunity to the consequences of what has been said. A good example would be Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West. He has been spewing a lot of hate, specifically with anti-semitism. He has now been dropped by the majority of his business partners and associates, has lost most of his friends, has lost his billionaire status and now nobody wants to anything to do with him. Consequences, for the most part, keep the freedom of speech balanced.
Before asking the five members of the discussion, I was already familiar with the 1st amendment due to a prior criminal justice class I took, but 40 percent of the group got the 1st amendment confused with another amendment. The two of the five were in the 18-25 range and didn’t know, however the remaining three, aged 33-65 knew that it was the 1st amendment.
As far as my political leanings, I tend to not lean any certain way; I don’t follow politics. If you are looking for an answer, I think all of them are power-hungry manipulators that make empty promises and the common citizen, specifically lower-to-middle class, are screwed either way.
Analysis: The only difference of patterns that I noticed is that the younger members had trouble recalling the difference between the amendments, but the older members did not.
Evaluation: The members just think the 1st amendment is protection to say whatever you want and protest peacefully wherever you want. The interesting part that one member mentioned was hate speech. I do not think you should be allowed to say anything hateful and malicious. I was impressed that they all had a general knowledge (even though the younger members mixed up amendments) of what the 1st amendment provides citizens even though the topic surely doesn’t come up all that often in their specific social circles.
Engagement: After viewing some information from the knightfoundation.org, it seems that a lot of people have differentiating opinions on the overreaches of the 1st amendment, particularly amongst the younger generation. Caucasian males are slightly more pro 1st amendment than girls and males of color. Girls and males of color believe the 1st amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. Geographic region has a role to play in it as well; people from the Midwest and West are traditionally progressive states compared to the Northeast and South. It’s no surprise that the Midwest and West regions were supportive of the 1st amendment, while the Northeast and South (Conservative, Bible Belt areas) think the amendment goes too far.
