Expressing my opinion?

I suppose I should not have started this post when I did. I'm in the middle of a class. My inducement to do something like this is just as insidious, though.

I just had to sit through ten minutes of political discussion. Mind you, it all started in a very applicable manner. This being a journalism class, the discussion was concerning a new survey of highschools over first amendment freedom.

From USA Today:

One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get “government approval” of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys “too much freedom,” not enough or about the right amount, 32% say “too much,” and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

The survey of First Amendment rights was commissioned by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and conducted last spring by the University of Connecticut. It also questioned 327 principals and 7,889 teachers.

It set off a lot of needless speculation about what we are becoming as a society. I didn't have anything constructive to add to such a devolved and unconstructive discussion, so I decided to go here instead...

After class addition

I can't say I was really surprised but was quite annoyed about the whole discussion because some in the room ended up talking about where we are--about the 80s being a rerun of the 50s and so on. Other's suggested we are in a new Nixon (and Vietnam) era--so I stopped listening expecially since this was about the third time I had run into this survey in a class.