It's Time for a National Civics Test Before Voting

Are you as amused - and disturbed - as I am by the videos showing clueless American citizens "answering" questions about U.S. history or current events?

Jesse Waters of Fox News has made a career interviewing such people, some of them (incredulously) on Ivy League campuses.

And what incredibly difficult questions are Mr. Waters and the other journalists posing to these perspective voters? Here is a small sampling...

Showing a picture of a U.S. Senator who, at the time, was a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Waters asked a young lady to identify him. When she drew a complete blank, Waters tried to help her by offering his first name.

"Marco...," Waters said.

"Polo?" the woman answered, hesitantly.

Then there was the videotape of people on a pier somewhere in California (go figure, right?) The reporter asked those being interviewed if they were offended that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin received all the credit for America's independence, while other "founding fathers" such as Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin were constantly overlooked.

Nitwit after nitwit agreed with the reporter's false premise, some of them demonstrably angry over the perceived slight.

Is it just me, or do you hear someone playing the Beatles, "Back in the U.S.S.R" in the background?

On the same pier, the journalist asked some others if it was wrong for the United States to celebrate "our independence from Mexico" on the 4th of July, because it might offend our neighbors to the South. One after another, the respondents agreed that we should cancel parades, fireworks and other public demonstrations in order to be more sensitive to the Mexicans' feelings because - after all - they lost the Revolutionary War.

Except, of course, they didn't. Somewhere, both George Washington and Santa Ana are rolling over in their respective graves.

Even Jimmy Kimmel got into the act recently, asking people on the street if they were excited by the recent announcement that Obamacare premiums were going up dramatically. When Kimmel framed his question with the obviously faulty logic that "premium is a good word, so it must be a good thing that premiums are going up, right?" the people (I mean sheep) nodded their heads in agreement.

Finally, under the heading of "personal experience", I had a lady come into the polling place where I was working several years ago, out of breath and more than a little exasperated. With just five minutes left before the polls were scheduled to close, the woman triumphantly announced that she was clueless about how to vote.

"I have no idea who is running or what the issues are," she stated matter-of-factly. "But I just thought I should vote."

As a poll worker, I couldn't say what was really on my mind, but now I can since I know longer serve in that capacity.

"No, you shouldn't, ma'am. You should go home, buy a newspaper, watch a news program on TV and then come back the next election cycle and cast an informed ballot."

In my next post, I will offer some details on how to legally and constitutionally impose that type of restriction. Stay tuned, patriots...