American elected officials showed a shocking lack of knowledge about government, history, and basic constitutional principles in a national survey. They scored a failing grade of just 44 percent on a basic test of knowledge of our nation in a quiz by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI). Average citizens scored 49 percent. Note: many of these people scored less than a random or blind selection of answers — quite an achievement.
How did these people inherit the government formed by such geniuses as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson?” (For any elected officials reading this blog, those guys were framers who lived a long long time ago).
Thirty-one percent of the respondents could not correctly identify who we fought in World War II with some listing Britain, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico and Spain.
Some 20 percent of elected officials believe that the electoral college as established to “supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
This would certainly explain much of the failure of Congress and elected officials to defend the constitution in the last eight years. Our elected officials have clearly decided not to be burdened themselves with knowledge in learning much about the system that we are fighting around the globe to defend. After all, this is what our boys died for in their defeat of Mexico and Spain in World War II.
If it is any solace, our English cousins appear equally ill-informed on history, click here.
For the full story, click here.
Bug,
You strike me as another ignorant Neocon sore loser. You can take your spam elsewhere. Why? Because if JT doesn’t give you the boot, I’ll be glad to chew you up and spit you out. I’ve seen me do it before. You backed CRIMINALS. THEY LOST. THEY WILL PAY FOR IT. DEAL WITH IT.
I don’t give a damn if Obama doesn’t keep one promise as long as Bush and/or Cheney go to prison and the Constitution is restored.
My basis is their violation of the Constitution and the criminal conspiracy to go to war for oil based on fraudulent evidence. Go ahead. Pick that fight. You cannot win. I’ve spent the last 3 years killing trolls as a hobby. Why? Long ago I a wrote a book on persuasive speech and propaganda. Because of that experience, I understand propaganda better and am immune to it more than most. Propaganda needs to be countered when it is covering for criminal action. And I was not alone in thinking this way. Why else do you think McSame got stomped? I’ve changed 1,000 times the minds you have in addition to troll killing in uncountable numbers. I did it with no budget and no pay other than the satisfaction of seeing bad men fail. I’ve left a trail of virtual bodies from MSNBC to the Washington Post to the L.A. Times to FOX. This is my “retirement” blogspace, so to speak. I stopped waging war on you fools the instant Obama won. But if you want to just start making it personal like you did with raff just then, be aware that others here have his back. And some of us aren’t as nice as he is. So keep it factual and civil and I won’t feed you through a verbal wood chipper (again), CCM, er, Bug. Be as ignorant as you like, but act like an ass and you’ll get treated like one. Got it, Monkey Boy?
Now go on back over to FOX and play with the other mental midgets before the adults here teach you a lesson, you condescending Neocon prick.
Unless you’re stupid enough to take the bait.
I never underestimate the stupidity of trolls.
Gaza Powder Keg Set to Explode: experts predict the end of Israel under Obama
Israel won’t sit on its hands as the Gaza threat escalates.
November 23, 2008
At least 90 rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip since the election in the United States this November 4, 2008.
According to recent analysis, terror groups in Gaza have undergone a massive buildup in training and arms, and have expanded their tunnel networks for smuggling.
One representative for the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees told the London newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that terrorists have used the tahdiyeh “to train in the abduction of [Israeli] soldiers and martial arts,” and he threatened Israel with “unpleasant surprises.”
Israeli authorities have no illusions about the tahdiyeh. They understand that Hamas is practicing the Islamic concept of sabr (patience), which permits and even recommends Muslims to suspend jihad until they are in a position of strength. As Hamas leader Khaled Mashal told one al-Jazeera journalist, “The tahdiyeh is a tactical means. It is a step within the resistance. … It is a process of ebb and flow, going up and down. This is how you run a battle.”
Hamas is now believed to have stockpiled thousands of rockets and to have trained some 20,000 fighters. It also possesses sophisticated anti-tank devices and roadside bombs to target Israeli vehicles. So, as renewed conflict draws nearer, Israel is analyzing the threat Hamas poses and evaluating three options.
rafflaw. You strike me as an ignorant obama voter.
I would like to remind you that when you get 97% of the black vote (13% of the population) and 97% of the gay vote (5% of the population) and 65% of the stupidest of the kiddie (oops, I mean “young voter) votes, you can win almost any election in America. All it means is you are indebteded to those groups beyond anything you can ever hope to pay back.
Funny how daily now we see Obama welching on everything he said in the campaign.
What a rude awakening for the stupidest of the kiddie vote.
Virus, err, bug:
You are posting to the wrong thread, i.e., your posts are not relevant to the topic.
Thanks.
The test scores are more troubling than surprising. I was a decent civics/government/history student in high school and college, although I learned the most during federal LEO training because I had a great sense of responsibility knowing that others and I in the field had the ability to deprive other citizens of their civic/civil rights and privileges.
Therefore, I assumed that our Elected Officials/Public Servants would have learned the tools of their trade by applying them while helping their employer, the people; however…
bug,
I hate to disappoint you, but Zogby has not contacted me. The good news is that Zogby had alot of Obama voters to choose from for their poll. I guess you are attacking me because I actually challenged your earlier use of false information. A more useful approach would have been to bring the evidence that you weren’t talking out of both sides of your mouth earlier. You might want to try the facts for a change. You might like being on the correct side of a discussion for a change. I am still waiting for your source.
rafflaw: I bet you were polled by Zogby….above.
Zogby poll of Obama voters released: November 18, 2008
UTICA, New York — Just 2% of voters who supported Barack Obama on Election Day obtained perfect or near-perfect scores on a post election test which gauged their knowledge of statements and scandals associated with the presidential tickets during the campaign, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows.
In addition to questions regarding statements and scandals associated with the campaigns, the 12-question, multiple-choice survey also included a question asking which political party controlled both houses of Congress leading up to the election — 57% of Obama voters were unable to correctly answer that Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate.
Obama voters did not fare well overall when asked to answer questions about statements or stories associated with Obama or Biden — 83% failed to correctly answer that Obama had won his first election by getting all of his opponents removed from the ballot, and 88% did not correctly associate Obama with his statement that his energy policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry. Most (56%) were also not able to correctly answer that Obama started his political career at the home of two former members of the Weather Underground.
Nearly three quarters (72%) of Obama voters did not correctly identify Biden as the candidate who had to quit a previous campaign for President because he was found to have plagiarized a speech, and nearly half (47%) did not know that Biden was the one who predicted Obama would be tested by a generated international crisis during his first six months as President.
Ninety-four percent of Obama voters correctly identified Palin as the candidate with a pregnant teenage daughter, 86% correctly identified Palin as the candidate associated with a $150,000 wardrobe purchased by her political party, and 81% chose McCain as the candidate who was unable to identify the number of houses he owned. When asked which candidate said they could “see Russia from their house,” 87% chose Palin, although the quote actually is attributed to Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey during her portrayal of Palin during the campaign. An answer of “none” or “Palin” was counted as a correct answer on the test, given that the statement was associated with a characterization of Palin.
Bug,
It would be nice if your claims were actually backed by fact. The suggestion that he is considering alowing the Bush tax cuts to continue is due to the horrific mess that is being left to him by that compassionate Conservative, George Bush. As to your other claim that “OBAMA HAS NOW REVERSED HIMSELF ON ALMOST EVERY SINGLE CAMPAIGN “PROMISE” HE MADE AND HE HASN’T EVEN TAKEN OFFICE YET..” is baseless. Name your source for that nonsense.
Jill,
The bible allows the reader to know the geography of the middle East during the time of Jesus, but won’t do much for current geography. But it does teach them to hate gays and to keep women as second class citizens. So in their world, as you say, everything is good.
This study is wrong. 76% of all Americans, including our elected officials are christian and have read the bible. End of story!
Our liberal messiah is sending his daughters to a ritzy private
Michelle believes very strongly in the value of public education, mind you. Just not for her kids…
We are spending almost $14,000 per student in DC public schools. For that kind of money they have to be the best educated kids in the world, right???? Well, not really. They continue to have some of the highest drop out rates and lowest test scores. But Barack says the DC schools only need more money………and has consistantly voted against vouchers.
President-elect Barack Obama will consider delaying an election promise – to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans – as part of his economic recovery strategy, a senior aide and an adviser said on Sunday.
David Axelrod, one of Obama’s closest confidants chosen to be a senior White House adviser, was asked if the tax cut could be ended later than Obama called for during the campaign. “Considerations will be made, we may just wait until the tax cuts automatically expire in 2011” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
WOW. OBAMA HAS NOW REVERSED HIMSELF ON ALMOST EVERY SINGLE CAMPAIGN “PROMISE” HE MADE AND HE HASN’T EVEN TAKEN OFFICE YET!
Interesting idea Rafflaw, but you are assuming the runner up will do any better. Indeed, I expect the halls of Congress would be largely empty as the nation searches for a member who knows that George Mason was a framer before a football team.
Bob.Esq.,
That would be a good idea to have a civic test for all elected officials. If you don’t pass it, the person who came in second takes over the position.
Regarding the general state of geographic knowledge in the US, even US geography; I bought a shirt at the airport in Milwaukee (in case you don’t know, Milwaukee is a GREAT city; visit it sometime). When wearing the shirt in the southeast, I have actually been asked, “Milwaukee–is that for the tools, or for the STATE?”
BTW, who administered the test and what elected officials (or what group) took it?
Yet another reason there should be basic competency exams for elected offices of trust.
And remember, elected office is not a right; it’s a privilege.
It does not surprise me that many people would fail this test. I run into the geography gap often when talking with people. Even US geography people have a hard time with. I think part of the problem is that geography and government aren’t stressed in the schools because they are usually not on the mandatory tests that the schools get graded on.
It would be interesting to see how Shrieking Sarah Palin would do on the test. Since Hairless Joe the Plumber has said he’d like to run for Congress, he ought to take the test, too.
I think that all of us can predict how badly Bush, mercifully on his way out, would have done.
Are we really shocked? Anthony Daniels, in his article “At Forest’s Edge,” on The New Criterion website, comments on philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset’s notion of the mass-man:
“The picture Ortega draws of the mass man is not an attractive or flattering one, but Ortega is not a snob who simply excoriates the appalling habits and tastes of those below him in the social scale. For him, mass man is the man who has no transcendent purpose in life, who lives in an eternal present moment which he wants to make pleasurable in a gross and sensual way, who thinks that ever-increasing consumption is the end of life, who goes from distraction to distraction, who is prey to absurd fashions, who never thinks deeply and who, above all, has a venomous dislike of any other way of living but his own, which he instinctively feels as a reproach. He will not recognize his betters; he is perfectly satisfied to be as he is . . . Life for mass man is not a biography, but a series of moments, each unconnected with the next, and all deprived of larger meaning or purpose.”
Can anyone think of a better description than this for our want-to-know-nothing fellow citizens and politicians.
Not that I usually answer, but to think I am often asked to explain my choice to neither practice nor go into politics.
There you have it.
9 of 10 of my former brethren are in it for one reason: $$$. And without the brains God gave a goat between the nine of the them.