I was reading an item on Daily Kos about how abysmally political leaders performed on a civil knowledge test. On average, they scored 44 percent and the average person’s score was 49 percent.
To be fair, the test was kind of difficult. I took it and got 26 of 33 correct (78.79%). I mostly got tripped up on the economics questions. Some questions were oddly phrased. Some pertained to concepts I only just learned this semester, so they weren’t necessarily the kind of things you learn in your standard high school civics class. So I am willing to give the folks who didn’t do so well a little slack.
I can understand not knowing what Plato, Socrates and Aquinas agreed on, but here’s what made my jaw drop:
Forty percent of respondents, meanwhile, incorrectly believed that the US president has the power to declare war, while 54 percent correctly answered that that power rests with Congress.
What? Seriously? That’s dangerously ignorant. Because if government doesn’t know its limits, and we don”t know its limits, who’s going to keep that line from getting crossed? I guess I should feel encouraged by the possibility that anti-intellectualism is on the wane, but damn! No wonder all the other countries laugh at us.
I got 94% I should be running this country!
(I missed the Lincoln-Douglas and poorly worded free-market question).
What I wanna know is, how would Sarah Palin do?
I missed the Lincoln/Douglas question too, which is pretty tragic because I’m pretty sure I knew that at some point in my life.
I missed that one too! I got one less right than you did