My first interview for the 1st amendment questions was my sister and her boyfriend who are both around 18 years of age. I also interviewed my mother and aunt who are about 50 years of age. My grandmother who is about 75 years old and, a 25 year old friend of mine who is in the US Army, were also interviewed.
After conducting my interview I noticed some major similarities and major differences. The major similarities were that the younger interviewees agreed that freedom of speech, freedom of religion, right of the people to protest, and petition of the government should be approved. The only one they felt was excessive or provided too much freedom was the freedom of press. They believe that with the freedom of press, things that are not meant to be said may be leaked out. For example a murder case under investigation. They also believed that if there were no laws on the press the paparazzi and other groups would be stalk through to the private lives of people. My mother, aunt, grandmother and friend all agreed that freedom of press and freedom of speech were some things that need to be more controlled. My mother said that the media is always putting new things out there you never know if it is true or not. My aunt believed that in the media field reporters are always trying to get their stories out first so lots of the information is false or not entirely true. Everyone agreed that freedom of speech was ok as long as there was no racism or racist discrimination because being from another country it can be frustrating dealing with racist slurs. The biggest differences I found in the interview was that being younger and born in the United States, my sister and her boyfriend did not realize that these freedoms were the 1st amendment. I find this weird because they have went to school and learned these amendment issues before. The interesting part is that my mother, aunt and grandmother realized that these were freedoms of the 1st amendment. They said that they realized this because they came from a communist country that did not allow any of these freedoms. Having lived in the United States for the past 30 years they all agreed that freedom of press is excessive but is the 1st amendment is why America is such a good place to live.
I feel that the younger people that I interviewed didn’t realize that these freedoms were the 1st amendment. The older did realize but I don’t think that it was because they were older. I think that the reason they realized it was because they didn’t have those freedoms before growing up in Cambodia.
It is funny how they all agreed that the freedom of the press was the most excessive. They all believed that without control the press could put false information out there and wouldn’t know how to act. They all Freedom of speech and religion were peoples individual choice and that it was their opinions on what they believed in. Most thought that this was ok as long as people didn’t enforce their religions or look down on others for having different beliefs. Everyone also agreed that as long as no laws were broken petition of the government and protest of the people was ok because it was the people way of getting what they wanted to say across to other groups.
My personal reaction to the 1st amendment interviews was what most people believed was very true. I personally think that many people in America take these freedoms for granted. For example people have the right to protest but nowadays protesting leads to riots and rebellions where people are breaking the laws by violent behavior.
