The Case For Literacy/Civic Tests

When I read that Tom Tancredo had recommended literacy and civics tests that people must pass before being allowed to vote, I thought YES! Finally, a way to ensure that repugs never, ever, EVER win another election. I was going to draft a sample test, but Eli at FireDogLake beat me to it:

Tom Tancredo has put his sweaty nativist finger squarely on The Problem With Democracy Today:

And then, something really odd happened, mostly because I think that we do not have a civics literacy test before people can vote in this country. People who could not even spell the word “vote,” or say it in English, put a committed socialist idealogue in the White House, name is Barack Hussein Obama.

Granted, everything after that first sentence is insane racist gibberish, but aside from that, perhaps he has a point. Would it really be such a terrible idea to administer some sort of test to ensure that only people with at least a passing acquaintance with reality can vote for the government officials who have such a huge impact on our lives?

Here, I’ll throw out some possible sample questions to get the ball rolling:

1) Was Saddam Hussein responsible for 9/11?

SNIP

5) Was Barack Obama born in the United States?

SNIP

11) Do tax cuts increase or decrease government revenue?
12) Is Medicare a government program?
13) Is homosexuality a lifestyle choice? Is it contagious?

SNIP

16) Is the Earth thousands of years old, or billions of years old?

SNIP

19) Do scientists and academics contribute anything useful to society?
20) Is individual voter fraud a widespread epidemic that is distorting our electoral process?

It’s true that many of these questions would have the entirely incidental and unintended effect of disproportionately disenfranchising conservative and Republican voters, but doesn’t that seem like a small price to pay for an electorate that makes rational and well-informed decisions about who should run the country?

Read the whole thing.

Then watch Rachel Maddow remind us what this issue is really all about: