Threats to Our Liberty
“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”
- John Adams letter to his wife Abigail Adams, 26 April 1777.
Have we made good use of that freedom?
Ignorance in the area of the foundational principles that undergird our freedoms as well as in the area of civic literacy in general are serious threats to our liberty. Ignorance in these areas make for a population that can be easily manipulated and deceived - an open door to oppression and tyranny.
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative non-profit group, surveyed 2,508 Americans about their knowledge of America’s founding principles, political history, international relations and the free market.
More than 1,700 people – about 70 per cent – failed the test:
The results reveal that Americans are alarmingly uninformed about our Constitution, the basic functions of our government, the key texts of our national history, and economic principles.
- Less than half can name all three branches of the government.
- Only 21% know that the phrase “government of the people, by the people, for the people” comes from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.
- Although Congress has voted twice in the last eight years to approve foreign wars, only 53% know that the power to declare war belongs to Congress. Almost 40% incorrectly believe it belongs to the president.
- Only 55% know that Congress shares authority over U.S. foreign policy with the president. Almost a quarter incorrectly believe Congress shares this power with the United Nations.
- Only 27% know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States.
- Less than one in five know that the phrase “a wall of separation” between church and state comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson. Almost half incorrectly believe it can be found in the Constitution.
The American citizenry has in many ways been dumbed down and become complacent. We’ve become more vulnerable to the manipulative speeches of politicians more interested in increasing their power than expanding our freedom. When we have become so intellectually anemic that our ability to carefully think through the issues is almost nonexistent, those who would deceive us don’t even have to be very clever. When we have become so ignorant that we believe as true whatever is popular or spoon-fed to us from sources we’ve never even thought to verify, manipulating us becomes child’s play.
Why should we be surprised at the corruption and ineptitude that plagues those whom we have put into office? Why should we be surprised at how the consequences now plague us all? Such consequences are why ignorance, complacency, vice and poor thinking are threats to our liberty.
Without a remedy for these, we will not, we cannot, make good use of the freedom that has been preserved for us.
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