National survey reveals uninformed citizenry

The American Revolution Center has released results of an eye-opening survey, summing things up with this headline:

83 Percent of U.S. Adults Fail Test on Nation’s Founding

The survey, conducted via telephone, used a random sampling of men and women over the age of 18 in every region of the country.

According to the survey, respondents were given “a test of 27 multiple-choice questions to gauge their actual knowledge of key documents, events, people, and ideas from the Founding period.”

Among other findings, a survey press release, issued by ARC,  highlighted these troubling results:

Many more Americans remember that Michael Jackson sang “Beat It” than know that the Bill of Rights is part of the Constitution.

60 percent of Americans can correctly identify the number of children in reality-TV show couple Jon and Kate Gosselin’s household (eight), but more than one-third do not know the century in which the American Revolution took place (18th). Half of those surveyed believe the Civil War (1861-1865), Emancipation Proclamation (1863), or War of 1812 occurred before the American Revolution (1775-1783).

More than 50 percent of Americans surveyed wrongly attributed the quote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” to George Washington, Thomas Paine, or President Barack Obama, when it is in fact a quote from Karl Marx, author of “The Communist Manifesto.”

I suspect these results, while staggering, shouldn’t be all that surprising, considering the fact that over the last hundred or so years, Americans have allowed their voices to be silenced, choosing to place all their faith in politicians and following an almost certain path to nanny state. Not to mention that barely half of voting-age Americans actually bother to vote.

Our founders clearly enunciated our individual rights, as well as every element crucial to maintaining a free Republic. They also emphasized that each individual was responsible for the free Republic’s preservation. It appears the latter is something many Americans have passed off to someone else.

The complete survey can be found here.