It's official, we're screwed:
Only 19 percent of American adults know that the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights guarantees the freedom of religion, according to a new survey by the Newseum Institute.
Only 10 percent know the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of the press.
And 33 percent of Americans have no idea at all what rights the First Amendment guarantees.
CNS News posted a graph of the breakdown of results:
The graph showis that 57 percent of respondents knew that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, and then 19 percent knew that it guarantees freedom of religion, 10 percent knew that it guarantees freedom of the press and right to assembly and even less knew the First Amendment guarantees the right to petition.
The Newseum explains their methodology:
The Newseum conducted a general public survey of attitudes about the First Amendment once again in 2015. The questionnaire was administered to a national sample of 1,002 American adults by telephone. The questionnaire was developed by Dr. Ken Dautrich, President of The Stats Group and Gene Policinski, Chief Operating Officer of the Newseum Institute. The survey was conducted from May 14 through 23, 2015.
Interviews were conducted under the supervision of Dr. Dautrich. The interviewers were conducted by trained, professional interviewers through the use of a computer-assisted-telephone-interviewing system (CATI). The survey instrument and related survey protocols were field tested and refined prior to commencing the survey. Interviews were extensively monitored to ensure quality standards.
The national sample used in this survey included national phone numbers in the contiguous 48 states. The sample was stratified to ensure that broad geographic regions were represented in proportion to their share of the total adult population in the United States. Within each of these regions, telephone numbers were generated using a random-digit-dial (RDD) process thus giving every phone number a chance of being selected. Once selected, each phone number was contacted a minimum of four times to attempt to reach an eligible respondent. Within each household, one eligible respondent was interviewed. The RDD sample was supplemented with a random sample of cell phone numbers.
The margin of error in the poll was +/-3.2 percent.
The results of this Newseum poll is a good indication of why the country is declining. How do only 19 percent of the population know that freedom of religion is guaranteed by the First Amendment? And shame on the 33 percent of Americans that didn't know the First Amendment guarantees any rights.
According to CNS News, the highest amount of ignorance was when 40 percent of Americans couldn't name any rights guaranteed by the First Amendment in 2008. I guess it's slightly encouraging that society is a tiny bit more informed about basic Constitutional rights.
It really shouldn't be all surprising that only 19 percent of Americans know that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion given the recent attacks on freedom of religion such as this and this. And the Newseum poll combined with the recent video of Americans not knowing why we celebrate the Fourth of July shows the state of the education system.
We're doomed.
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