I know fully grown adults who think the constitution has never been altered, the ammendments were always there and “just what the founding fathers worked on after signing it and sending it to king George”, and that any talk about congress changing things after the fact is just 'liberal propaganda" and at least one person, when asked why they think that, responded with “well I’ve never seen an Ammendment happen in my lifetime so obviously it doesn’t happen.”
Several of these adults are related, so I can see why multiple people in the same family might hold that belief, but the fact that I know MORE THAN ONE is insane to me.
I went to school in a non-religious school that was very much a religious area. Sex Ed was basically the scene in Mean Girls “If you have Sex you WILL GET PREGNANT and DIE”
well I’ve never seen an Ammendment happen in my lifetime so obviously it doesn’t happen
The 27th Amendment was ratified in 1992
2006 was only 4 years ago, right? RIGHT?
Still though, the average age in the US is 38 so for most people, there was an amendment ratified during their lifetime.
Speaking for me personally, I would consider anything that happened in my parents generation to be a recent collective memory, at least until I get to the age my parents were when they had me. Sure I wasn’t alive during the moon landing or JFK assassination, but they’re still pretty recent events in the grand scheme of US history.
The 27th amendment was sent to the states by the first congress allong with the 10 that would become known as the bill of rights. This group also included a still unratified amendment that would increase the size of the house of representatives based on population (as of the 2020 census, today’s house would have about 6600 members).
The way the 27th amendment got ratified is a truly inspiring story of political activism. It was largely forgotten about until 1982, when Gregory Watson wrote a paper arguing that 18th century proposal could still be ratified. This paper received a C in Watson’s undergraduate political science class. This injustice led Watson to lead a 10 year campaign to ratify the amendment, which ultimately succeeded in 1992.
This scandal was so big, that Watson’s professor fled academia [0]. Eventually, Professor Waite was tracked down to her family’s farm, and in 2017 submitted a grade change revising the paper to an A. Later that year, the Texas legislature passed a resolution on the subject:
RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby congratulate Gregory D. Watson on receiving a revised grade of A in his 1982 Government 310 class at The University of Texas at Austin
Thus finally closing the chapter on one of this nation’s most infamous grading disputes.
[0] Historians dispute the fact thar Proffesor Waite’s decision to leave Academia, which occured prior to the ratification of the 27th amendment, was in any way related to this.
