D'Oh!

While listening to the radio show Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me! this morning I heard about a survey in which 28% of the American public could name the 5 members of the animated TV series the Simpson’s but only 1 in 1000 (1/2 of 1%) could state the first 5 articles of the bill of rights.

I’m sorry to say that I’m one of the 28% who can name the Simpson’s (I know the name of just about every “regular “ character on that show) and one of the 99.5% who cant tell you what the first 5 right’s in the bill of rights are. I feel that is kinda sad so today I am posting on my blog a brief summery of the bill of rights with a link to both the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution.

I pose this question. If we as a society don’t know what our rights are, how will we know when they are threatened?

Bill of Rights - The Really Brief Version

The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are summarized below.

1Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition 2 Right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain a well regulated militia. 3 No quartering of soldiers. 4 Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures 5 Right to due process of law, freedom from self-incrimination, double jeopardy 6 Rights of accused persons, e.g., right to a speedy and public trial. 7 Right of trial by jury in civil cases. 8 Freedom from excessive bail, cruel and unusual punishments 9 Other rights of the people. 10 Powers reserved to the states.

Read the complete text of the Bill of Rights.

The Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution can be found at this and many other web sites http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/