14 November 2008

Can you name the five "freedoms" in the First Amendment?

The First Amendment to the Constitution is not a long document. It's one (admittedly complex) sentence, with fewer than 50 words. It guarantees certain freedoms ("Congress shall make no law respecting...") Can you name those freedoms? Most Americans apparently can't.

The First Amendment Center (history here) conducted a survey with these results:
Only “speech” was named by a majority of respondents, 56%.
Fewer than 20% named religion (15%), press (15%) or assembly (14%).
The number for speech is the lowest in the 11-year history of the survey.
As troubling: 4 in 10 could not name any freedom — the highest such result in the survey’s history.
I've intentionally left out the fifth freedom as part of your quiz. Fewer than 3% of Americans could name it. Stumped? Answer at the link. Or here.

1 comment:

  1. petition government for redress of grievances - largely viewed as constitutional protection for a right to lobby the government.

    ReplyDelete