The United States of America was founded on basic principles that continue to govern today’s society. Among them are our First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of…some other things that most Americans can’t recall.
The First Amendment Center has conducted a study every year since 1997 to gauge the average American citizen’s opinion on several different topics relating to First Amendment freedoms. Before they get to the details, the survey asks the respondents if they “can name any of the specific rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
The results were frightening. In fact, 29 percent could not even name one component of the First Amendment, The Washington Post reports.
The most hopeful statistic was the 68 percent of the 1,006 person sample being able to name freedom of speech. The next highest was freedom of religion at 29 percent, and it went downhill from there.
Freedom of the press came in at 14 percent, the right to peaceable assembly at 7 percent, and the right to petition the government at just 1 percent.
It was no accident that these freedoms were placed at the very top of the Bill of Rights. They were essential when ratified and they may be even more important today. Perhaps the most disheartening outlook on this statistic is that the information is accessible, concise, and located on one of our nation’s most important documents. Nonetheless, it seems that the uninformed American citizen chooses to ignore the significance.
