Thursday, December 03, 2009

Elected Officials Flunk Government Quiz

Elected Officials Score Lower than the General Public

The ISI civic Literacy survey was not designed to test the civic knowledge of elected officials, but it did discover evidence of an interesting pattern that may merit further exploration.

All survey respondents were asked whether they have ever engaged in any of 13 different political and civic activities. These included, for example, registering to vote, signing a petition, contacting a public official, publishing a letter to the editor, and whether they have ever been elected to a government office.

Among the 2,508 respondents, 164 say they have been elected to a government office at least once. This sub-sample of officeholders yields a startling result: elected officials score lower than the general public. Those who have held elective office earn an average score of 44% on the civic literacy test, which is five percentage points lower than the average score of 49% for those who have never been elected. It would be most interesting to explore whether this statistically significant result is maintained across larger samples of elected officials.

The elected officeholders come from the ranks of Democrats (40%), Republicans (31%), Independents (21%), and those who say they belong to no party or indicate no affiliation (8%). None were asked to specify what office they held, so the proportion in which they held local, state, or federal positions is unknown.

Not all officeholders do poorly, of course. Some elected officials rank among the highest scorers. But the failure rate on the test among those who have won public office is higher (74%) than among those who have not (71%). Officeholders scored lower on all sub-themes of the test: political history, cultural institutions, foreign relations, and market economy.

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.”

On some questions, Americans who have held elected office do better than Americans who have not. They are a little more likely, for example, to recognize the language of the Gettysburg Address (23% to 21%) and to know that the question of whether slavery should be allowed to expand into new territories was the main issue in the Lincoln–Douglas debates (25% to 20%).

Officeholders and non-officeholders find it equally difficult to identify the three branches of government. Only 49% of each group can name the legislative, executive, and judicial.

TAKE THE QUIZ HERE

Obama Ectasy Finally Hits Street


Funny, the media has had them much longer.

The Climategate Hypocrisy As Exampled By Barbara Boxer

Yep, she shows her transparent support of her personal agenda and that she's dumber than a boxer of rocks.

Boxer: Climategate Email "Theft" Is A "Crime"

SEN. BOXER (D-CA): "I've been looking at these e-mails, even though they were stolen, they are now out in the public and we are now out looking through these e-mails...This is a crime, and I would ask unanimous consent to place into the record section 1030 of U.S. Criminal Code:

'Fraud and related activity in connection with computers having knowingly accessed a computer without authorization' it goes on, calling it a crime, so part of our looking at this will be looking at criminal activity"

Babs can really work herself up sometimes, especially when an ox she supports gets gored. Oh, show'em some rightous indignation Babs. Unfortunately, Babs isn't consistent.


Recap: It's only a crime when Mizzzzzz Boxer says it is a crime. Otherwise not.


What The Health Care Bill Has Become


Living in Manhattan, I would walk to and fro to work in the dark, very late or very early, and would come across huge swaths of posters attached to any available surface.

Sometimes they were ads for products such as LancĂ´me, sometimes for clothes, sometimes for bands or clubs such as Blondie, the Ramones or CBGB's and Max's Kansas City and some political or appealing for support for some issue.

They became even more art when graffiti was added though some thought them an eyesore.

The mindset behind the process and application is back with Planned Parenthood posting cityscape applications on web sites. The effort is telling because CBGB's posters sold revolution and the de jour band was just the conduit, fashion sold sex through clothes and graffiti bought turf through urban art. All messages within messages.

Health reform has become abortion retention because of endangered specie members such as Stupak. Planned Parenthood is using abortion to support government health care and a vehicle to codify abortion as a fait accompli though government health care. Even without the graffiti these visual vehicles sell and retain as the physical swathes come upon in the dark and do have a cerebral impact in a historical as well as current sense.

It is telling.