Most Americans don't know what's in the Constitution: "A crisis of civic education"
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
"We The People" have been talking a lot about our founding document—the United States' Constitution, a 233-year-old rule book for American life and governance that's especially relevant right now.
The inauguration process is detailed in the 20th Amendment, the impeachment of a president is described in Article One, Sections Two and Three. And the 2020 election results were certified by the states, and counted by Congress, in accordance with Article Two and the 12th Amendment. But for all its wisdom, the Constitution has a problem: most Americans don't know what's in it.
Republicans and Democrats both say they're protecting the Constitution. President Trump referenced the Constitution no fewer than 16 times ahead of the Capitol riots this month, urging supporters to fight a supposedly unconstitutional election.
"We are living in unprecedented times," Jeffrey Rosen, CBS News constitutional law expert, told "CBS This Morning" co-host Tony Dokoupil.
The Constitution is a 7,500-word blueprint for America, establishing our national government, basic rights, and a process for addressing our problems — at least in theory.
"The Constitution provides as many questions and answers, and it provides a forum or a platform for civil dialogue and debate so we can peacefully resolve those questions," he said.
Rosen is also president of the National Constitution Center where web traffic is at an all-time high — which isn't exactly a good thing.
"What does it say about us as a country that, at this moment in time, so many of us had to go to the National Constitution Center to refresh our memory of the document that undergirds our country?" Dokoupil asked.
"There's no doubt that we are in a crisis of civic education... The framers knew that the consequences of constitutional ignorance and being guided by passion rather than reason were armed mobs. Well, we just saw that they were right about that," Rosen replied.
The Constitution outlines that every immigrant to this country has to pass a civics test to become a naturalized citizen. You might assume Americans by birth might do at least as well as Americans by choice but that wasn't always the case. CBS News decided to use some basic questions from that very exam to ask people just how much they knew and get a sense of just how deep a crisis the country is in.
When asked how many people are in the House of Representatives, one woman guessed 12, another answered that she did not know. One man guessed 80 when asked the same question.
When asked to name the three branches of government, Nicole Devita did not know.
"Oh, my husband's gonna kill me," Devita laughed.
The vast majority of people were stumped when asked these questions, including Dominick Scarol who did not know Chief Justice John Roberts was the chief justice of the United States.
When asked what was the chief justice's name, Dean Gerard had a different answer.
"The chief justice? Trump," he replied.
During the questioning, fellow Americans passing by tried to help. But it was clear, most people could use a refresher.
"Who signs a bill into law? It's not officially a law until this person signs it," Dokoupil asked. Stumped Silvia Manhoa replied, "Is, what do you call his name again, oh boy."
These questions are all stuff Americans learned or should have learned a long time ago. But many people tend to forget this information and many Americans have not read the Constitution in years, if ever.
When asked if he never read it, Dominick Scarola responded: "I'm sure hardly anybody read it."
A 2019 survey by the non-profit Institute for Citizens & Scholars found only four out of 10 Americans could pass the citizenship test. Experts say that represents a larger problem.
"You could call it a scandal. I call it actually a proxy for a larger set of problems," said Raj Vinnakota, president of the institute, which aims "to reimagine and rebuild a field of civic learning" in order to reconnect America to its constitutional roots.
"You need to understand how our government works in elections and so on. But you also need to understand why we set it up that way. And if you don't understand both of those pieces, you are going to be in trouble. And you can't actually function effectively in our society," Vinnakota said.
The lack of knowledge and understanding of the Constitution is something that has experts like Rosen concerned.
"What worries me the most about constitutional ignorance is the same worry that the framers had," he said. "That without constitutional education, the Republic will collapse."
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As the lack of exposure/education regarding at least the basic tenets of the Constitution, the past few administrations have caused major blunders and we need to get back on track of how the Constitution was devised to help us govern and understand our government.
It used to be a national requirement for graduation from high school that students must pass a one semester course in American Government and two semesters of American History. I know because i used to teach it. Then, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) were considered more important and available time and funding was limited, so the requirement for high school level classes in those two.subjects was removed and watered down versions were offered at the middle school level. Even the high school level classes didn't really have enough time to do a thorough job on the subjects.
You hit the nail on the head, and now my comment below seems excessive. No Child Left Behind has fucked us as far as governance goes, our kids don't know a goddamn fucking thin about our nations history, our government, or even governmental philosophy.
Shit, look at the nonsense of people whining about the first amendment because apple and google decided not to do further business with another company. And because we have decided that knowing about our government doesn't matter, now THAT is somehow a first amendment violation. We are fucked.
Even though I grew up when we had Civics in school, IMHO, they did a piss pour job of teaching us how this shit works. Hell, School House Rock did a better job.
What's crazy about this is that the vast majority of people have all this information at their fingertips. There are a plethora of websites that have the Constitution, Article by Article, with essays that explain them and hyperlinks to further reading. There's also the availability of the Federalist Papers which give us a window into how the Founders justified the decisions made in the Constitutional Congress. There are even websites with the minutes of the debate in the Constitutional Congress and the state's debates on ratification.
It really has never been easier to educate ourselves to become better citizens. Which makes it all the more maddening when willfully ignorant arguments are made about the Constitution.
I would suggest that the moment a curious person finds that their preconceived notions about the Constitution are wrong, they go back to playing MineCraft or Candy Crush.
Just my opinion.
I guess that's were I went wrong. My curious mind lead me through the majority of the documents that I mentioned. I found the minutes of the debates very interesting. There are quite a few things that could have gone a different way, some debates were heated and some votes were close...
We almost had a very different government and nation lol
Hell, look at the Articles of the Confederation and Perpetual Union. Man they could hardly get that replaced fast enough...
Toss in the Bill of Rights. They knew their governing document was so fucked from the start they had to change it 10 times the next day lol
It could have been more. Not all of the Amendments made it through...
I don't know. I took all of the Civics, and government courses back in the 1970s as required for graduation in high school. It wasn't till sometime later when I found myself in basic training, standing at attention with 90 other recruits with shaved heads wearing the same uniform that the meaning of Bill of Rights really sunk in. From that point on, the US Constitution and my oath to it has been my life's guide.
Dad was career Army and all of my schools were DoD educational curriculum - don't really know how much different they are from "public" schools. But, government and civics classes rated high on their agenda, so I was "reminded" each year of the importance of each - the government and the Constitution.
On that we agree 100%.
But fuck social studies, history, CIVICS, etc, those aren't important.
America is starting to lick the ass it never wiped.
Very true. One of the focuses of the 1776 project is a return to studying civics, rather than following the progressive approach that minimizes knowledge and champions a diversity Olympics approach to schooling.
What a load of crap.
I have removed the nasty comments as a gift to both you and Thrawn. Next time I see an outburst like that, it will come with big tickets.
Give me the tickets and leave my comments up. I want everyone to see me calling Sean on his bullshit.
Evidently there was not a single historian on Trump's 1776 Commission.
That is a pretty damning fact in itself.
Professor Hanson is a historian who's written any number of books for one.
But, by all means, please point out one factual error. I can make a whole list of factual errors in the 1619 project.
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I could not find any pictures of the commission members en masse.
12 white conservative men, 2 very conservative women, one white, one black. apparently 4 missing/ not identified yet.
Another wasted effort by Trump's version of the GoP
A military historian with an emphasis on ancient Greece, Peloponnese and the Hopites,
unlike purely political shills like Charley Kirk and Ned Ryun who were on the commission.
The majority of the report appears to be plagiarized from earlier "academic" papers by Tom Lindsay, one of the members
Sorry, but if no one objects too loudly, I'm gonna close this for the night and reopen in the morning when I get back from my lab testing
Alright - got blood work and pee test done - huge crowd in to get shots. Now let's see if the Doc thinks I'm healthy after he reviews the test results.
There are some discussions on other threads that have a bearing on this thread - the 3/5's count, Native Americans not taxed, impeachment processes, Electoral College, Bill of Rights, immigration (naturalization) policy, bills of attainer, amending the Constitution, etc..
Example - Native American's rights are not included in the Constitution. A separate law had to be passed in for Native Americans to have "similar" basic rights as the Bill of Rights (1st 10 Amendments), and that was not included in another law making them U.S. Citizens in 1924.
The Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA), enacted by Congress as Title II of the 1968 Civil Rights Act, is the primary source for individual rights and tribal government action. Portions of the ICRA that substantially mirror the Bill of Rights are popularly called the “Indian Bill of Rights.” The Indian Bill of Rights extends most of the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights to individuals under the jurisdiction of Indian tribal governments. With the exception of actions for habeas corpus relief, those guarantees are enforceable exclusively in tribal courts and other tribal fora. In order to preserve certain aspects of tribal government and sovereignty, some portions of the Bill of Rights were modified or left out. The main differences include the absences of an establishment clause and of a right to counsel at the government’s expense.
But, the "General Public" believe Native Americans are covered by the same Constitutional Rights as they are.
I'd forgotten about those details 1st...... During our American Government class in high school, we had a guest lecturer from Haskel Junior College teach for a couple of days on the ICRA. (might have been that our regular teacher was 1/2 Potawatomi)
All of us were pretty shocked to learn that not everything put out in our US History classes was as it seemed when it came to NA tribes and the government treaties/Laws.
Actually Fly, Native Americans are not addressed in the Constitution except for "Treaties", "Trade" and "Not Taxed".
Congress has taken the portion of the Commerce Clause and inserted, through the years, their TOTAL "plenary" powers over the Tribes/Nations. 'Course, SCOTUS has helped Congress with gaining that control through their many varying opinions.
Check this out for more information - it's from the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution
https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/american-indians-and-constitution#:~:text=Indians%20are%20mentioned%20only%20three,tribes%20in%20our%20federal%20system.&text=Rather%2C%20it%20described%20the%20status,time%20the%20Constitution%20was%20written.