New poll reveals most Americans don’t get First Amendment

There’s yet another poll out revealing that many Americans, particularly the self-styled Constitution-lovers (something seen rather more often on the Right), don’t understand the First Amendment and the principles it enshrines:

According to the topline poll results (to which I received advance access), 72 percent of Republicans would support making it illegal for an American to burn or desecrate the flag. A little more than half of Republicans would punish the desecrators by stripping them of their U.S. citizenship, something Donald Trump suggested (to great and deserved indignation) a few weeks after he won the election last November.

Most GOPers recognize, at least in theory, that disfavored speech should still be protected: Around seven in 10 agree with the statement that "people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in public, even those that are deeply offensive to other people," compared to less than five in 10 Democrats. Nonetheless, 36 percent of Republicans would support prohibiting offensive public statements aimed at the police, and the same number would ban such comments aimed at the military. By comparison, just 24 percent would outlaw offensive speech aimed at gays, lesbians, and transgender people.

Despite constant declamations from the right on the importance of religious freedom, 67 percent of Republicans favor a law to "prohibit face coverings in public spaces." Nearly half would ban the construction of mosques in their community. That is much higher than among all Americans (28 percent) and among Democrats only (14 percent).

Perhaps most chilling: 63% of Republican respondents agree with Trump’s Twitter-declaration that journalists are “an enemy of the American people”. Then again, that’s an understandable reaction towards professionals who point out that most of what comes out of your political camp is stupid lies.

But lest liberals start feeling too superior:

Lefties, too, hold many lamentable views regarding the legal and cultural importance of free expression in America. Fully half of Democrats think that "government should prevent people from engaging in hate speech against certain groups in public." Some 53 percent say that defending someone else's right "to say racist things" is just as condemnable as "holding racist views yourself." Two in three believe offensive speech constitutes an act of violence, and the same number feel that college administrators "have an obligation to protect students from speech and ideas that could create a difficult learning environment."

I’m sure this is pissing into the wind, but still: “Hate speech” is not legally a thing. It has no statutory or legislative definition and no court has ever ruled that people, even marginalized groups, are protected from words and opinions they don’t like, no matter how offensive. Exceptions to the First Amendment do exist, but they are few, far in between and rigidly limited, and “having hateful views” is not one of them. And nor should it be. Giving the government power to crack down on speech you don’t like, no matter the reason, is the first step down a slope that ends with that government using those same powers to crack down on your speech because someone else doesn’t like it. That’s why free speech rights must be as broad and sturdy as possible.

The rest is just as inexcusable. It takes a narrow-minded and idiotic view to believe that defending other people’s rights to speak, including racists, is somehow wrong. That’s pretty telling right there about those people’s understanding of free speech, which is that they don’t understand it at all. And speech is not violence, for fuck’s sake. The two words are practically antonyms.

In short, both the Left and the Right are generally terrible on First Amendment issues, just in different ways and for different reasons. That isn’t reassuring.

(via @allahpundit; RT: @radleybalko)