Posted on 11/21/2008 8:24:46 AM PST by ChessExpert
However you regard the outcome of the November 4 election, it was heartening to watch 125 million Americans cast their ballots at precincts from coast to coast. Unfortunately, they and the many millions more who skipped the whole thing collectively know frightfully little about the government we just reaffirmed, the principles that undergird it, and the basic documents in which those ideas are enshrined. Thus, Americans slouch into the 21st Century -- a free and confident people blissfully unaware of how we got here or how we shall continue our 232-year-old tradition of limited self-government.
Consider these staggering data:
*Fully 71 percent of Americans flunked a 33-question civic-literacy survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Among 2,508 respondents ISI randomly selected, 1,791 failed this test of U.S. historical, political, and economic basics. The average score was just 49 out of 100 -- a solid F. While just 2.6 percent scored Bs on this quiz, only 0.8 percent earned As.
The quiz is 33 multiple choices. It didn't take long. If you'd like to take the quiz, go to http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/ and click on: "Take the Quiz"
I apologize for the sloppy posting. I posted an Excerpt. For more go to:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29582
I got a 28/33 and I’m disputing one answer.
Doesn’t surprise me. When you don’t teach our countries history to the kids, they have little chance of ever learning it. Our schools don’t want to teach any longer.
It long been recognized that liberal academia had a goal of removing knowledge and awareness of American government and history from the minds of our kids.
It worked. They elected Obama. Someone so anti-American, they could have not picked a worse candidate...yet the duped, ignorant liberal masses bought “CHANGE” and “HOPE” as if it has some significance other than just rank socialism and liberalism. They had no clue, and still don’t.
The mindless, ignorant kool-aid drinkers abound — these test results are just more proof.
You can tell just by speaking with people they don’t have a clue.
The sad part is that the washington types take advantage of this blissful state every day.
32/33. One I missed was one where I didn’t read it carefully.
Anyway, yes, civic knowledge is very poor in this country. There is no excuse for it. People just don’t care.
29/33
I found this part especially disturbing from the summary on the website:
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.”
I missed two that I did not read carefully.
I’m going to post this withougt prevweing it in Honnor of my slpyness.
I don't agree with their answer to #33.
I got 96.97%, missing one. I think their answer for this was simply incorrect. If income to the government in taxes equals government expenditure, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the amount taxed per person is equal to the amount the government spends per person; however, if the government doesn’t spend any more than it takes in in taxes, it’s debt is certainly going to be zero.
The election of Fauxbama is proof of the abject failure of the public school system. FOr more than 4 decades now it has been nothing more than a dumbing down indoctrination machine. With each year being worse than the prior.
We were given a Republic if we could keep it, collectively now we are far too stupid to even think of being able to keep it, and until the handout machine is shut down, this will not change.
Ping
Smarter than the average liberal :-)
I certainly believe it-they proved it on Election Day.
FWIW, I appeared as a contestant on Jeopardy in the early 90s. I watch the show-not all the time, but fairly often. I usually don’t watch the “gimmick” ones,like Celebrity Jeopardy, but I have watched some of those on occasion.
Of the Celebrity Jeopardy shows that I have watched-the dumbest celeb was, to my shock, Tim Russert-it was almost embarrasing to watch-hell, the Final Jeopardy question was about government, or Washington DC, or something akin to that-a fairly easy one, and he got it wrong.
I also got 28/33, and disagreed with maybe a couple of answers. A few seemed to have more than one correct answer or even no correct answer.
Missed number 7 and 33. 33 mainly because I was tired. Not too shabby for a young-un. Too bad for every one of me in my generation, there are probably 50+ single digit scores.
Oops, sorry for the typo on my previous post-I’m eating lunch at my desk-I meant, of course, to type “embarrassing”, as in “my typo was embarrassing”
; )
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