I Demand My 1st Amendment Right To......Uhhhhh...What Is the 1st Amendment Again?

This is simply too good to be true. As you may know, for the last few days I have been on an anti-idiot tirade. So here is a quick quiz.

1. Name all five freedoms granted by the 1st Amendment.
2. Name the characters from the hit TV show The Simpsons.
3. Who are the judges on American Idol?

If you can name all five freedoms (speech, religion, press, assembly, petition) you must be the 1 in 1,000 Americans that are not breathing through the mouth. Only 1/10 of 1% of those in the survey could name all 5. Only 25% could name more than 1 freedom. The most commonly known freedom is freedom of speech - 75% of people that could only name one picked speech. Religion came in second.

22% could name all the members of the TV cartoon family "The Simpsons" (Marge, Homer, Bart, Lisa, Maggie). 50% could name at least 2 members of The Simpsons family.

More distressing are the wrong answers for the 1st amendment question. It seems that many people thought that the 1st amendment included the "right to own a pet". How many people said this? 1 in 5.

Almost as many people that knew all The Simpsons thought that the "right to have a pet" was protected by the First Amendment.

With this level of ignorance out there, several things are clear to me now. First off, now I understand how things like the Patriot Act could get passed. If only 1 in 1000 know all five freedoms granted by the most important amendment - how many know what the 4th or 5th amendment says? This made it easy for the executive branch to push through laws limiting the right to a speedy trial, a right to trial by a jury, and a right against unreasonable search and seasure - among others.

All they have to do is utter "terrorism" and a citizen of America can be held indefinatly, in a secret jail, without access to a defence attorney, and if "classified" evidence is to be used against the accused the "judge" can be a military tribunal. And many people think this is perfectly fine. They have no problem with it.

And when people who know better said anything, all we heard was "Don't you love America?" and "Do you want the terrorist to win?" or "you communist ACLU supporting liberal weenie! Move to France if you do not like it here!".

And yes, I have had all these things said to me. More than likely the person saying it knows more about American Idol than the Bill Of Rights. The drool on the front of their shirt was a clue to their mentality.

On another side note, 53 million Americans voted for Bush in 2004. Now I do not want to suggest that all most Bush voters know about the Bill Of Rights is the Second Amendment, but I will anyway. The gun people will proudly tell you that the Second Amendment protects all the others - but this is just plain WRONG. Without the First Amendment, none of the others matter. And once enough people forget what these five freedoms are, it will be easy to take them away forever.

Works Cited:

BBC World Service
The Scotsman, UK
Washington Post
Google News with over 300 links to this story.