Americanly Yours

I came across this piece of news yesterday.  The Intercollegiate Studies Institute put together a quiz and tested the American public and elected officials.  The quiz covers basic American history, economics, and civics.  The American public scored an appalling 49% on the 33 question quiz.  That seemed really bad, until I learned that the average score of an elected official was a 44% (5 points lower than the National average)!  The conclusion here is simple:  Americans are dumb, but our government is even dumber.

I got all 33 questions correct.  What about you?

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx

If you havent taken the quiz yet, don’t read on.  If you have, then check out these examples of the stupidity of our elected officials (taken from the quiz’s website).  I think the first one is the most shocking!

In each of the following areas, for example, officeholders do more poorly than non-officeholders:

• Seventy-nine percent of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
• Thirty percent do not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
• Twenty-seven percent cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
• Forty-three percent do not know what the Electoral College does. One in five thinks it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
• Fifty-four percent do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Thirty-nine percent think that power belongs to the president, and 10% think it belongs to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Only 32% can properly define the free enterprise system, and only 41% can identify business profit as “revenue minus expenses.”

Americany Yours,

Phred Barnet