so obviously we'll be wringing our hands about the fact that high school students don't really give a damn about the first amendment .

The results reflected indifference, with almost three in four students saying they took the First Amendment for granted or didn't know how they felt about it. It was also clear that many students do not understand what is protected by the bedrock of the Bill of Rights.

Three in four students said flag burning is illegal. It's not. About half the students said the government can restrict any indecent material on the Internet. It can't.

really what's disturbing is not that most high school students are fools, but that they're riper for authoritarianism than other americans and are trending downward on these issues. but let me try a couple of provisional explanations out on ya: first, they inhabit essentially authoritarian institutions. obviously, e.g. most schools (and most schools are run by governments) claim a complete monopoly of censorship over publication and expression. why in the world would you expect defenders of freedom to emerge from a childhood dominated by totalitarian institutions? and of course, you'd have to be a fool indeed not to see that under the reign of our idealist and utopian leaders committed only to freedom, we are becoming a much more authoritarian society.