'Dictator's fantasy': 53% of Americans say First Amendment goes 'too far'
More than half of Americans say the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the US Constitution go “too far.” One free speech advocacy group warns that such views are a “dictator's fantasy” come true.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, formerly known as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), published the result of the latest version of its National Speech Index on Thursday. The survey, which sampled the opinions of 1,000 Americans between July 5-10, is included quarterly as part of America's Political Pulse, described as “an ongoing weekly survey conducted by the Polarization Research Lab that will allow researchers to track changing sentiment on free speech. in America through time.”
When provided with the text of the First Amendment and asked if it “goes too far in the rights it guarantees,” a plurality (47%) of respondents said the statement “doesn't describe my thoughts at all.” The remaining 53% thought, to varying degrees, that the First Amendment “goes too far.”
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Nine percent “somewhat” agreed that the First Amendment “goes too far,” while 16% said the statement “somewhat” or “mostly” described their thoughts. Almost one in eight of those surveyed “strongly” agreed that the First Amendment “goes too far.”
Responding to its findings, FIRE said a larger share of Democrats (61%) saw the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment as too expansive than Republicans (52%).
“Apparently, one in two Americans wish they had fewer civil liberties,” lamented Senior Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “Many of them reject the right to assemble, have a free press and petition the government. This is a dictator's fantasy.”
Respondents also showed a high level of confidence in the government's ability to make “fair decisions about what speech is considered terrible.” While a plurality of respondents (35%) said they did not trust the government “at all” to make such a determination, 27% said they trusted the government “somewhat” to determine what speech qualifies as terrorist, while the same percentage described himself as “somewhat” confident in the government to identify terrible speech.
A much smaller share said they trusted the government a lot (8%) or not at all (3%) when it came to policing what they thought was horrific speech.
Similar findings emerged when analyzing respondents' views on the government's ability to make “fair decisions about what speech is considered” intimidating, threatening, annoying, annoying, bothersome and indecent. Americans likely trusted the government the least when it came to determining what speech was offensive, with 44% indicating they did not trust the government with this task, while 33% of respondents said the same about threatening speech.
Among all seven categories, the share of respondents who did not trust the government to determine what speech fit that criterion hovered in the mid- to upper 30s with two exceptions, while the percentage of respondents who trusted the government “somewhat ” make such. decisions ranged from 25% to 27%.
Between 22% and 27% trusted the government “somewhat” to make determinations about certain types of speech, and between 6% and 12% trusted the government “a lot”, while between 3% and 4% trusted it “completely”.
Asked whether they believed colleges and universities should “have police arrest student protesters opposing the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza” or whether they should “allow the protests to continue as a matter of free speech,” a plurality of those surveyed (38% ). ) thought that institutions of higher education should “allow the protests to continue”, while 28% supported having the protesters arrested.
“While many of the protests were legal, some of the most high-profile protests included tent camps, vandalism, and the occupation of buildings. These behaviors are not protected by the First Amendment and cannot be justified in the name of free speech,” Stevens added
He cited Americans' views on the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas protests as evidence that “Americans have little tolerance for some forms of protected speech and a lot of tolerance for unprotected behavior, when it should be the other way around.”
“The state of free speech in America is dire,” Stevens warned.
The research shows that most Americans agree with Stevens' analysis, though not necessarily for the same reasons. Sixty-nine percent of those polled thought things were going in the “wrong direction” in the United States “when it comes to whether people can freely express their opinions.” This represented an increase from the 63% who felt this way in the April poll, matching the percentage who thought the state of free speech was headed in the “wrong direction” in January.
Only 5% of respondents viewed the right to freedom of speech in the United States as “completely safe,” while another 17% described it as “very safe.” Thirty-six percent characterized the right to freedom of expression as “somewhat safe”, while 30% classified it as “not very safe” and 12% categorized it as “not at all safe”.
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