I'm not sure how many Americans are freethinkers. I've seen estimates ranging anywhere from 5% to 20% of the population. I don't know which extreme is closer to the truth, but for the sake of the following observations, let's use 10% as a nice round average. That would mean that 1 out of every 10 individuals in a representative sampling of American humanity would be a freethinker of one sort or another.
Looking at certain segments, I can certainly believe this figure. If I were to list ten of my favorite comedians, George Carlin would be one of them. If I were to list ten of my favorite writers, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. would be one of them. If I were to list ten of my favorite actresses, Jodie Foster would be one of them. And so on. The ten percent rule would hold true.
I can think only of two obvious exceptions to this rule. One is prison inmates. Only about 1.5% of them are freethinkers, from the figures I've read. (I'll let the implications of this be drawn by the reader, thanks.) The other is a group of people who are specifically chosen to be representative of our nation. I'm talking about politicians.
If the ten percent rule were true for them, then 10 of our 100 Senators would be freethinkers. Nearly 45 members of our House of Representatives would also be freethinkers. If these figures are true, I'll eat this website. I challenge anyone to name those fifty-plus freethinkers in our Congress.
Does this mean that the ten percent rule is bogus? No, I don't think so.
After all, if averages held true, we'd have something like 51 female Senators and over 220 female Representatives.
But more males enter politics than females (a fact that says a host of wonderful things about women, I think). And it could well be that more religious people enter politics than non-religious. And that would make sense.
Politics is about power, after all. Generally speaking, women don't lust after it the way men do. And non-religious people don't covet power the way the religious do. At least, if history is any indication, and it usually is.
It would be nice to think that ten percent of Congress was looking out for the interests of freethinkers everywhere, but I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen. Not because freethinkers don't care about making government work better, especially for non-theists, but because our political arena isn't any kinder to atheists than the rest of our country is. A self-proclaimed freethinker wouldn't stand a snowball's chance, so to speak. At least, not on a grand scale.
So it could be that there really are just as many freethinkers (proportionately) who enter politics. But I tend to doubt it. It could also be that there are proportionately as many freethinker criminals. But I doubt that, too. Far be it from me to say that the morality and ethics of freethinkers is better than that of the average theist.
I'll let the numbers do that.
