June 13, 2012
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Voter Test
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
- Thomas Jefferson
Let’s face it, the American public is pretty damn stupid. Only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the first amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition for redress of grievances), but over half can name more than one member of the Simpsons family. Barely half of all adult Americans will read a novel this year. Barely a quarter of Americans can name two of the three branches of government. Less than one in five know how many senators America has, and the same number could name how long their term lasts. Thirty percent of Americans don’t know what the Holocaust is. Nearly half believe the president has the right to override the constitution (somewhat understandable, considering how hard he works at it). Forty five percent of people believe that revolutionary speech is punishable under the Constitution.So yes, America is full of idiots. And these are the people that are helping to elect the people that run our country (sometimes running it into the ground). So should we have a basic proficiency exam to allow people to vote? Is there any other way to do something about this issue?
Comments (20)
There would have to be Spanish translations of the words!
Where did those stats come from?
A literacy test? Really? Are we getting our ideas for improving our democracy from the Ku Klux Klan?
Are you trying to say that politics should be somehow more than what we practiced when we elected our class presidents in high school?
@Rob_of_the_Sky - The book above.
@randomneuralfirings - Wow, shooting just shy of Godwin’s law there. I was merely asking how we can do something to make sure our voters are informed.
It would help if teachers could fail kids for not knowing, instead of passing them to keep their jobs or so they can meet athletic/eligibility requirements. Me and my older brother went to public school and my little brother and sister were home-schooled. I always wondered if my mom failed them if they go stuff wrong or let them retest until they got an A or passed. Honestly, I never had the guts to ask. I did say once my kids would hate me if I home-schooled them cause I would be hard on them and if they failed, I would tell them they needed to study and try to make it up next time. And actually, there is no way I would home-school my kids past middle school. No way I am teaching them physics or algebra 2 or calculus, forget that! ha ha.
@GodlessLiberal - What’s ironic is that I have seen him make the ol’ “you need to take the Bible in its historical context!” argument elsewhere. Why do that with the Bible, but make other ideas/practice guilty by association with the parties they were involved with in earlier, more ignorant periods?
KKK members also use cars and voted for conservative candidates. Guess we shouldn’t drive or vote for Republicans either!
Edit: to contribute, I think it’s a bad idea mostly because it would hurt Democrats more then Republicans. While there are a lot of mouth-breathing idiots in the South, there are a lot of really, really, really uneducated African American and Hispanic voters. They are a much more significant portion of the Democrats’ voting base that would fail a literacy test requirement than Republicans (a much higher proportion of whites, which have generally has significant educational benefits not given to many minority members). That’s one of the things that makes the Democratic party strange: there is a much greater distribution of super-ignorant and super-educated that vote Democrat than Republican. The Republican party is like 75% average, white Joe.
A stupid American is one who thinks that their vote actually matters anyway. There is more to life than politics.
Wow, thanks for making me feel incredibly depressed.
But seriously, if these stats are accurate, that is pretty sad. I am against a proficiency test though because I don’t see how we could have one without it being abused.
choosing is always easy when one doesn’t care much for UNDERSTANDING the difference.
I’m a conservative voter, there are a lot of issues so I guess stupidity or intelligence has something to do with it, without a doubt. But I do lean conservative.@randomneuralfirings – Like that comment.@firetyger – The comment I just liked might make you laugh.@Crying_In_Color – I hope theres more then politics, but you gotta vote what if everybody thought like that? @whyzat – I know what you mean, right. @UTRow1 – I’m voting Republican no matter what but I’d also consider voting Liberatrian if there was one who could win.
@GodlessLiberal - Merely pointing out that there is a history here that is instructive. Those who do not learn from history (not merely learn it, but learn from it) are doomed to repeat it. I would offer that a competency exam might be the wrong way to go as it’s far to easy to abuse it and disenfranchise voters. It also might not yield the sort of results you might be expecting. It wasn’t voters on my side of the aisle who had so much trouble with butterfly ballots twelve years ago.
@UTRow1 - So you’re saying that when interpreting the Bible you ought to consider the historical context and when proposing sweeping changes to our voting laws you ought to consider the historical context…and this is somehow inconsistent?
@randomneuralfirings - @UTRow1 - You both seem to be thinking that I want to use this practice to make the country swing Democratic. Not so. I just want a more informed electorate. Can we at least all agree that elected officials should have to pass proficiency tests?
@GodlessLiberal - I’m not assuming that.
@randomneuralfirings - you are considering the historical context in an inconsistent manner, sweet heart. We could disregard the entire Bible based on your reasoning in the previous comment.
I’m not saying we should impose poll taxes or literacy tests, I am just pointing out how stupid your reasoning was/is.
The problem isn’t so much that basic civics
arent
taught – they are, and it seems at several levels and those who earn a four-year degree
must
take American Government courses – but that the retention level of that knowledge is abysmal.
Unfortunately, the majority of people just don’t care about politics, aren’t interested in them, and rarely see much in the way of a change in their everyday lives to warrant elections and policies much attention. The media are just as much to blame as they live on scandal, one-liners, and controversy so much that actual policy discussions are swept under the carpet or onto fringe channels that pass most of the populous by too frequently.
Until we can make politics as popular or as mainstream as say, the next season of the reality TV show du jour, the electorate is always going to be woefully uninformed.
Oh, and for the record: The US has 100 senators, with the Vice President acting as the tie-breaking vote. It’s two senators per state, and they serve for six years with a third coming up for reelection every two years. The branches of government are the legislative (Congress), judicial (Supreme Court), and executive (Presidency).
The Holocaust was the widespread, deliberate attempt by the Nazis to purge the world of Jews and other “undesirables”, including gypsies, homosexuals, mentally retarded, and physically deformed persons.
I’m English-Australian.
i take exception to one statistic. Lisa Simpson is very political and big on environmental issues. Homer ran for the Presidency. In another episode Bush Sr. moved in across the street. Bart had a run in with Bush Sr. which didn’t go well all around. then there’s the Mayor of Springfield and the breaking news that sometimesinterrupts The Itchy and Scratchy Show. people who watch The Simpsons are probably more politically aware than most other Americans. in fact unlike Mitt Romney, Homer knows what a donut is called. if Romney watched the Simpsons he wouldn’t have to refer to a donut as “i’ll take one of those. i don’t know what it’s called. that thing over there.” or some such thing he said after insulting yet another host, this one in Ohio.
i rest my case
I’m with randomneuralfirings on this one. The answer is not voter purge; that tends to favor the people who want to keep America poorly informed and make the problems that are already there much worse.
We need to get at the root of the problem, which is the idea that people should not be educated, informed, and involved. One of my classmates recently wondered whether “we are the generation to decide how it goes.” (meaning younger people). Well, let’s see. We’ve got people voting on laws affecting the internet who have never used a computer. We’ve got people making foeign policy decision who miss the cold war. We’ve got people making decisions on education who think the only book you ever need to read is the Bible. Most surveys I’ve heard of tend to agree that most people, if they voted, would vote in favor of the internet, against nuclear holocaust, and for a greater number of books. Okay, maybe not the last one. But how many Americans do you really think want to go bomb russia or iran or whoever we can find an excuse for? Perhaps those people who are the least educated have the strongest understanding of just how powerful an education is, making them more likely to vote to improve the lack of education.
I do like your suggestion that elected officials take a test. I’ll settle for term limits, though, as it seems that those would be harder to misuse.
It is awesome how smart the American people are when they support our candidate and how stupid they are when they are voting or about to vote for the other party.
@Crying_In_Color - Not to offend love, but that sounds like the answer of a quitter. It also seems that you’ve missed the point of the first quote; however, I will agree with you. There is more to life than politics, but it will be really hard to enjoy those things if your country is falling apart around you.