What Everybody Knows

The Gipper once said:

“The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”

He had a way of putting things, didn’t he?

In a previous job, I used to have a lot of time to chat with co-workers, one-on-one, which gave me an opportunity to discuss one of my favorite subjects, the Constitution of the United States.

I would take an informal “poll” of my captive listener and ask him or her questions designed to test their knowledge, or reveal their “induced ignorance” (what they “knew” that wasn’t so).

For the last four weeks, I’ve been doing the same thing with two polls on the dailydiatribe.net website.  Giving testimony to the very knowledgeable and well-read nature of our readers, they didn’t cooperate in making my point for me nearly as much as my former coworkers did.

For example, when asked “What does the First Amendment Say about religion?” easily nine out of ten of my former coworkers, and I assume the general population, would answer by producing the phrase, “separation of church and state.”  Actually, the First Amendment says nothing of the kind!

What it says is,

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishement of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

What this says to me is that Congress will not “establish” a national religion (or any other religion) and may not infringe upon the peoples’ right to exercise their religious beliefs.  Personally, I don’t see how this gives the government the authority to tell Podunk, Missouri that they can’t have the Ten Commandments on the wall of their city hall, nor do I see how this gives anyone the power to forbid a child from praying in school.

In my mind, I believe it actually forbids the government from doing either.

The other question I asked was about the Fifth Amendment and what is says you are required or not required to do when arrested by the police (or any time, for that matter).  Again, about 90% of the general population will get around to a similar answer by uttering the words, “self-incrimination.”

Why wouldn’t they?  How many times have we seen, with great drama on television, someone on the witness stand saying, “On advice of counsel, I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.” or words to that effect?

The exact words of the Fifth Amendment which apply are:

Which is not nearly the same as being protected only against self-incrimination.  It means simply you do not have to provide evidence that might be used against you in a criminal case.  The courts have decided time and again that nothing can be inferred from the exercise of this right i.e. we can’t assume someone is guilty simply because they refuse to speak.  (To do so would sort of make a lie of the whole “innocent until proven guilty” principle,wouldn’t it?) So why all the repeated use of this particular word, literally pounding it into our heads for all these years?

As a “word guy” I think the answer lies in the word!  What does incriminate mean in this case?  It means “make into a criminal.”  So the linguistic subliminal effect of the repeated use of this word is the average individual will assume a defendent is guilty if he invokes this right.  Of course the judge will instruct them, “Nothing can be inferred by the defendent’s silence…” but the prosecutor will at least imply, “If he innocent, why doesn’t he answer the question?

The answer of course is that he doesn’t have to!  But the damage is done and the assumptions will be made.

So the question is, “Why?”

Why have we learned it wrong?

Is the education system just sloppy?

My thoughts are that there are people who wish for us to be ignorant of our Constitution and our Laws, and wish to nullify the effects of the rights endowed upon us by our creator, and that the mal-education and undereducation is intentional.

What do YOU think?

Thanks for reading.