Misconceptions of the Constitution

[liberal N proud]

I posted a comment last night that stated the Constitution was intended to grant people rights, I was not entirely correct in that statement. However, it is intended to protect the rights that people naturally have.

So I did some searching on the purpose of the Constitution and was amazed at the results of a survey I found, no wonder this country is so fucked up.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

What Americans Don't Know About the Constitution
A public opinion poll conducted during the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution in 1987 found that most Americans were woefully ill-informed about the content and meaning of the document. Only a bare majority knew that the purpose of the Constitution was to create a federal government and define its powers. Nearly half believed that the Constitution contains Karl Marx's phrase "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Well over half of those surveyed believed:

The president, acting alone, can appoint a justice to the Supreme Court.
The Constitution established English as the national language.
The Constitution guarantees the right to a free public education.
Here are some other findings from the survey:

Almost half of those surveyed mistakenly thought that a Supreme Court decision can never be overruled.
Nearly half believed that a president can suspend constitutional liberties in a time of national emergency.
Eighty-five percent thought that any important case may be appealed from state courts to the Supreme Court.
46 percent of adult Americans did not know that the purpose of the Constitution was to create a federal government and define its powers.
26 percent believed that the Constitution's purpose was to declare independence from England

http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/article_display.cfm?HHID=282

[shadowknows69]

1. this one is particularly scary

26 percent believed that the Constitution's purpose was to declare independence from England

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Proving my point once again that Americans are too ignorant to be

participants in a democracy. Of course, it is by choice.

[Xenotime]

3. This is why it must be rewritten. It's out of date

[sinkingfeeling]

5. You're kidding, right? Why should the Constitution need to be re-written?

[porphyrian]

4. Well, it's partly by choice.

We have been programmed by the multi-billion dollar corporate advertising industry to be Good Consumers for decades now, and one aspect of being a Good Consumer is believing that learning and thinking are hard, boring and/or uncool. Thus, the Good Consumer will be more likely to believe whatever they are told by an Authority, despite their credentials or lack thereof.