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D'Oh!; or, How's your civic knowledge?
Can you name the freedoms protected by the First Amendment? Go here to see.
Then behold your place in a disturbing demographic trend in which more Americans are up on the finer points of popular culture than they are on their basic civics. A study recently conducted by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that while 22% of all Americans can name all five members of the animated family Simpson, only one in a thousand knows all five freedoms protected by the First Amendment. Other scary findings: More people can name the three judges on American Idol than can name three First Amendment protections, about 20% of people think that there is such a thing as the right to own a pet, and 38% of people think that the Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate yourself is actually a First Amendment protection. In sum, we are one ignorant democracy when it comes to actually knowing something about how our democracy works.
The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum is hardly the first to document such a pattern. In 2000, ACTA conducted a survey of high school seniors to see what they did and did not know about U.S. history. The results were dismal--65% failed a basic high school-level history test; while only 23% could identify James Madison as the "Father of the Constitution," 98% knew that Snoop Doggy Dogg is a rapper, and 99% could identify Beavis and Butthead. More recently, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education conducted a study of American college students' and administrators' knowledge of their constitutional rights, and found, essentially, that American undergrads, not to mention college admins, cannot be said to know much at all about their rights: More than 66% did not know that the Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of the press; more than 25% did not know that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech; more than 75% did not know that they had the right to assemble or the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
As Bart himself might say, cowabunga!
Posted by acta online at March 2, 2006 08:04 AM
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