Perhaps it's because they have spent their formative years in a country run by a climate of fear that privileges "backing our troops" over legitimate and legal dissent.

I wish that when people typed out large numbers they'd just use scientific notation. I don't like to see so many zeros.

But on topic:
I thought flag burning was illegal when I was in high school, too. And that was like, a decade ago. I thought it was illegal because the people I grew up around thought it was wrong... and I equated wrong with illegal. It happens when you grow up in an isolated redneck town, like much of America does.

Just because you live in "a climate of fear" or in an "isolated redneck town," doesn't mean you can't be informed!

If 100,000 were surveyed, the problem is more than just rednecks - it means America is not informed. There's an easy solution to not being informed - being educated. The article DOES go on to quote educators as saying, "Schools don't do enough to teach the First Amendment. Students often don't know the rights it protects."

While this might not be the only cause, it's the most immediate and direct.

These are the same kids that can't point to Florida on a map.

Luckily the current administration is committed to improving education by giving up on it. Let's train them to pass a test instead.

i think government officials and the FCC and pundits and whoever else
bark their stupid opinions about how what somebody said was offensive
so often
that kids think it must be wrong

fuck the FCC

I'm not too surprised by these findings. High school kids are used to having authority everywhere and rarely question it in any meaningful way other than just childish rebellion.

Isn't this story the same as this story?

civics needs to be taught in high school. all four years.

Was going to say the same thing. It was also discussed at length in this thread.

Education is obviously not the way to win the "War on Terrorism (TM)."


Also known as the "War on Dissenting Political Opinions."

Really? And you know this how?

I grew up in a town of 400 people. My information sources were:
1. The TV (we didn't have cable)
2. The radio (amazingly enough NPR never told me that flag burning was legal)
3. townsfolk (rednecks)

We didn't have a library. We didn't have the internet. We didn't even have a streetlight.

While America has changed since I was in high school and now even most rural towns have internet access (the way I'd assume most rural people would stay Informed), many still only use the internet for chatting, email and porn.

All I'm saying is that the results of this survey don't suprise me.

A large pecentage of people have never travelled more than 5 miles from their home, and many think president=god (always correct, omnipresent) - and think education is for people too lazy to work hard and weirdo liberals...

Asreal, I don't know if you've ever hung out with American high school students, but I think you're giving them way, way, WAY too much credit here. Most of them just want to do well enough on tests so no one yells at them, and then get the fuck out of there.

"What makes you say this, Stan?"

I'm a product of American public schools (many of them, in fact), and that's just about all I saw, including myself. Most American kids just want to fill in some answers on a sheet so they can go home and piss off their parents somehow.

That's sort of what I was thinking too. Like people here using the (fucking useless) Golden State exams to play connect-the-dots.

I went to public schools, and I was required to memorize not only the Preamble to the Constitution, but the Bill of Rights as well.....in the eighth grade. Bu then again, I had some kick ass teachers.