"Why We're Americans" (Nat Hentoff, Village Voice)

[swag]

(I'm not in full accord with the Hentoff program on every issue (choice being one) - or jazz pick - but on civil liberties he usually nails it. There's not a wasted word in this very worthwhile article, from which two brief excerpts follow.)

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0617,hentoff,72960,6.html

In a war against terrorism with no discernable end, precedents by this president can be harder to dislodge by his successors than at any time in our history. Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe charts the grim future:

"The more people grow accustomed to a listening environment in which the ear of Big Brother is assumed to be behind every wall, behind every e-mail, and invisibly present in every electronic communication, telephonic or otherwise, the Constitution will be mummified."

But even now, far too many Americans, including the next generation, are ignorant of why they are Americans—or to use the president's mantra, what basic "American values" are.

In a national study last year, Future of the First Amendment, funded by the Knight Foundation, more than 100,000 high school students were interviewed on what they know of the First Amendment. Seventy-three percent either had no opinion or took the First Amendment for granted, whatever that may mean. More than a third believed that the First Amendment goes too far in its guarantees.

Thirty-six percent of these high school students say that newspapers must obtain government approval before publishing!

. . .

Once, in Miami, I was asked to speak on the Constitution before a large audience of primarily black and Hispanic high schoolers. Before I went on, a teacher told me not to be disappointed in their indifference because, she said, "all they care about are clothes and music."

After more than an hour of my stories on how we got the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments, I got a standing ovation, because they had discovered America.

[Faryn Balyncd]

1. Henthoff at his best

[swag]

2. A kick before dying.

[myrna minx]

3. I'm going to bookmark. I don't have time to read this

in it's entirety right now, but I look forward to reading it later. thanks.