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Monday, November 17, 2008

Do You Know Your Five Basic Constitutional Freedoms?

A recent study conducted by the First Amendment Center has found an alarmingly large number of American don't have clue about their Constitutional Freedom.

First the bad news ...No more than 3% of Americans had any idea that 'Petition' was one of the freedoms within the 1st Constitutional Right.

However the good news is, Freedom of Speech was remembered by 56% of the respondents.

15% remembered Freedom of Religion as well as Freedom of Press, yet only 14% new they had a Right to Assembly.

This survey has been conducted by the First Amendment Center for the last 11 years, and this year Freedom of Speech came in lower than it has since conducting the study.

What is most alarming in this years study is that 4 out of 10 people were unable to name any freedoms at all!

What exactly is happening in America, that young adults don't know these things?
Wasn't freedom of speech written on the hearts of all children studying American History?
Wasn't freedom of Assembly drilled into the baby boomers children's heads? What did they think marching on Washington was about? What about Freedom of Petition? How do they think anything has ever gotten done?

I find this incomprehensible, and am at loss for how this could have happened. I never want to hear another adult say that 'History is boring, I didn't do well in it" because apparently this is a feeling not just experienced by the few idiots whom I have heard say it.

History repeats itself. History is far from boring it tells of the past and is a written guide to our future.

If you have open lines of communication with young people ask them what they know about their rights and take few minutes to educate them on their Freedoms.

It is the most compelling information that one can ever possess.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Killing in the act of patriotism is not murder.

Anonymous said...

The public school system does a piss poor job of teaching anything except test procedures. In my daughters 7 years in public school, she learned little of our country's origin. Freedom of speech is not allowed in school. Ask any child about "silent lunch" where the lunch gestapo prohibits anyone to speak during the only time of day they should be free to.
We bit the bullet and fired the school system(even though we still pay for it) and went private.
Turn off the TV and teach your children these important issues yourself or it will not get done!!

Anonymous said...

So far any thing from my childrens' schools is about black history..I would love for my children to learn about the constitution, the presidents, really anything else besides black history every day when feburary is the designated month. Also I would love for my children to learn about the inventors of the world.