It’s very easy to take for granted the normal, everyday things and people in our lives. As many of us know, it can also be a terrible mistake to do so. When is the last time you told your significant other how you feel? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go do it now. This message will still be here in a couple of hours.

Welcome back. I hope you had fun. Today I am talking about something else we as Americans take for granted, and do so at our peril: our freedom.

The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, set to open this April in the historic Tribune Tower on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, Ill., commissioned a poll to see how many Americans could name all of the five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The results were shocking.

Only one in a thousand Americans could name all five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. But 22 percent could name all five members of the cartoon family The Simpsons. And 41 percent could name at least two of the three American Idol judges.

Only eight percent could name three of the five rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. And only 11 percent knew that freedom of the press was one of those five. Worse, many people think they have rights that aren’t even in the Constitution! Consider the 21 percent who think that the First Amendment guarantees the right to own pets.

And yet, most people still think we live in a free country. When most people don’t even know what that means, it’s easy for politicians to move to curtail that freedom, without most of us even noticing.

So here is your crash course on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights. Before you read this, I want you to remember that only one-tenth of one percent of people know all five freedoms listed in the First Amendment, and to raise that to two-tenths of one percent means that 300,000 people need to see this message. So before you go any further, please pop open your email and paste the link to this page to everyone you know. Ask them to come here, learn what they need to know about freedom, and pass it on to 300,000 other people. Through learning what you don’t know, and taking appropriate actions such as informing others, the tide of diminishing freedom can be reversed.

Okay, on to the Constitution. You did send out that email, right? In brief, the Constitution sets out the basic structure of the federal government. As you’re certainly aware, it consists of the executive branch, headed by the President, the legislative branch, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the judicial branch, led by the Supreme Court. It lays out what each of these branches may and may not do, and when they may or may not do it. At some point you should probably read through it to get an idea of what the government is supposed to not be doing, as there are many things the government does which it shouldn’t be doing.

A lot of people were concerned that the Constitution didn’t go far enough to protect the rights of individuals. Several states did not want to ratify it unless further protections were included. Thus came the Bill of Rights. Originally twelve proposed amendments, ten were ratified shortly after the Constitution was, and one of the remaining two was ratified in 1992.

Reading the Preamble to the Bill of Rights (yes, it had a preamble) sums up the feelings of people of the time about their new government:

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution. — Preamble to the Bill of Rights

You can read through the Bill of Rights for yourself, but I do want to give you the quick outline. The amendments were intended to enumerate rights that people already possessed, and that government, no matter how constituted, or how much the people wanted, could not take away.

The First Amendment (originally the third) guarantees the right of people to express their opinions and publish facts through speech and through the press. It also guarantees the right of freedom of religion, keeping the state out of the church. It guarantees the right of the people to peaceably assemble and associate in public with whomever they wish. And while they rarely respond, it does guarantee the right of the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances. This is why members of Congress can’t stop their free subscriptions to Hustler magazine.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Not the militia, the people. Individually. It simply acknowledges that a militia comprised of the people is the best way to maintain security against enemies, foreign and domestic. And if you don’t believe me, there’s a nice long research report from the Department of Justice which says the same thing. This is undoubtedly the most important amendment in the entire Constitution, as it protects the right of the people to maintain the tools they would need to overthrow yet another violent, oppressive government, if ever the government became so oppressive as the one the founders of this great country had just overthrown.

The Third Amendment says that the government may not quarter soldiers in private homes during peacetime, nor during wartime, except in a manner prescribed by law. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only part of the Constitution the government has actually respected completely.

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. The government must obtain a warrant by having one of its officers swear under oath that they have probable cause to believe you are involved in criminal activity, in order to get the warrant. The reason the oath is important is that if the officer lies under oath in order to get the warrant, he can then go to prison for perjury and contempt of court. Unfortunately, while they lie frequently, they go to prison far less frequently than is warranted. (No pun intended.)

The Fifth Amendment specifies in general that people accused of felonies must be indicted by a grand jury, exempting the military; that no person may be tried twice for the same crime; that no person may be forced to testify against himself, be deprived of “life, liberty or property” without due process of law, nor to be compensated unjustly for his loss if his property is seized under eminent domain.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of the accused to have an attorney, to have a speedy and public trial, and to have the trial in the same state and district where the crime occurred. The British government was famous for hauling people accused of trumped-up charges all the way back to England to stand trial, and the amendment was designed to guarantee the right to have a trial close to home.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to have a trial by a jury of one’s peers, while the Eighth Amendment says that bail may not be excessive, fines imposed may not be excessive, and cruel and unusual punishment may not be imposed. What constitutes excessive, cruel or unusual is a perennial subject of debate, though.

The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are two other very important, but often overlooked, amendments. The Ninth says that just because the Constitution spells out certain rights that people have, does not mean to imply that they do not have other rights which are not spelled out. It’s impossible to list every single right people have, and it would be senseless to even try. The Ninth Amendment is meant to protect all those other rights.

And the Tenth Amendment says that the federal government is supposed to only do what is listed in the Constitution as its duties, and whatever isn’t in the Constitution, not only can it not do, but those powers are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” That’s you. In fact, you can probably think of several government programs off the top of your head which violate this amendment. If not, then just think of a federal government program, and then go look through the Constitution to see where the authority for that program is listed.

The Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of race, and the Twenty-fourth Amendment backed it up by prohibiting poll taxes. The Nineteenth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote regardless of sex. And the Twenty-sixth Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to anyone of age 18 or older.

The Twenty-seventh Amendment, which was originally to be part of the Bill of Rights, but not ratified until 1992, says that if Congress votes to change its pay, the change cannot take effect until the next session of Congress. In theory, if you don’t like the fact that Congress voted itself a pay raise, you can vote the bastards out. The new bastards would still get the pay raise, but they’d be a lot less likely to pull another stunt like that.

This post is part of my Liberty 101 series, an ongoing series of messages intended to educate Americans on the liberties they have, the liberties they should have, and the danger they are in. Stay tuned for the next post in this series, and if you didn’t already, send the link to this page to 300,000 of your closest friends.