Remember my modest proposal about voting? Forget the specifics for a moment and concentrate on what I was really getting at: if you're going to vote, you should be at least minimally competent. I saw the objections to my proposal in the comments appended to that blog post, but here's Vivek Ramaswamy offering a proposal that, in spirit, really isn't much different from my own:
Perhaps the objections to my proposal also apply to Vivek's. I think he sees a way around those objections although, realistically, I don't see a majority of the country getting behind the idea of a basic knowledge test. Too many people prefer to remain stupid, and they're too fucking lazy to do the necessary work to educate themselves. (And deep down, Vivek probably knows this, which makes all of this amusing.) Still, I'd love to see this gain traction.
That's a scary level of ignorance out there. Having said that, I wonder how many stupid people bother to vote. Not that it matters until we reintroduce election integrity procedures, starting with voter ID and in-person voting.
ReplyDeleteThe basic knowledge desired was instilled in high school civics at one time. The students had to learn it to pass. Sad to say there is no clear payoff for making the effort to learn.
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