when only responsible (productive) individuals vote, you get responsible govt...

down with democracy...up with the republic...

I'm not going to debate the merits of it, I happen to kind of agree with the premise, but implementing it is basically impossible. Unfortunately we graduate a lot of people from high school that require 'remedial everything' when they get to college.

I am also of the belief that political junkies don't have all of the answers. This smacks of the political class 'knowing what is best for you'. All I had to do to come to that conclusion was look at the source... The Blaze... aka Glenn Beck, someone that even as a right wing conservative, I can barely stomach for more than 10 minutes before I want to choke on my vomit. He's not universally 'popular', despite his own beliefs... its like saying that all liberals are in love with Howard Stearn. If either were, they wouldn't be locked up on a Sirius radio channel.

What is never suggested, is how do you implement something like this? Who gets to be the person that determines what those questions are, what if we require 25% of the questions to be about Native American history for example? Are they not just as much a part of American History as anyone else? Maybe we should require x questions on Black History, etc. you get the point.

At this point, we have heard venomous accusations about some mass left wing conspiracy invading Republican primaries and steering the vote toward Cruz... somehow, Hillary and Bernie, in the spare time between their dead-heat competition for their own nomination, are telling their voters to NOT turn out to vote for themselves, but instead turn out by the 100s of thousands in each state to vote for Trump to make sure Cruz doesn't win. Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? Particularly to someone that has a lot of experience with government types? These are people that can obviously not get to a senate vote in a timely manner, let alone organize 50,000 volunteer staffers. This is absurd.

Maybe the more 'obvious' answer is that Cruz just isn't politically and/or personally appealing to wide chunks of the American voters? There isn't enough of the 'zeros' to significantly change predicted voting patterns, obviously, there is a combination of both new primary voters, as well as established primary voters to equal a 25-35% increase in Republican voter turnout.

I have the unique distinction of having never been 'wrong' on elections in my 28 year history of picking them. It's a combination of poll research, voter moods, and the objective likability of the candidates. I picked Romney's loss at his first debate during the primary, thinking he just came across as too strange to really attract the vote. He walked like a penguin, was obnoxious to people on the campaign trail, and had the general sense of being an asshole about him. That turned out to be very true, I even held my nose to vote for him in the general and I know I'm not alone in that assessment, I was voting for the R, not the person.

Maybe many people feel like that, if someone says they are a Republican, I'm not going to argue with them about it. If they say they are a Christian, I'll take it at face value until I see them walking into satanic ritual or something.

At this point, we've heard all of the excuses... there are too many people in the contest... it's the open primaries and democrats are crossing the fence (don't we kind of want something like that to happen? Shit, it would make it easy to win an election!), so and so was once a democrat (so was Reagan), so and so changed his mind on an issue (hasn't everyone done that in their lives? - if we didn't convert college students, it would have been a 110% democrat country long ago).

Hasn't everyone kind of looked at the imagery of night vision camera video of thousands of people running drugs in backpacks across the border and thinking "we have 350 million people in this country, we defeated fascism in less than 5 years, and we can't figure out how to build a fence?" Don't lie, everyone has thought that at one time or another. Doesn't it seem like 'everything' is made in China these days? Does anyone really believe we have '5% unemployment'?

What's the competition here? A simple marketing-designed campaign message, or complex flat tax & religious patriotism arguments. Personally, I kind of like my tax deductions and depreciation schedules.. a 15% flat tax would kick my ass... That's kind of the case for a lot of Republicans that own property, etc.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one, over-analyzing voters, the competence of politicians and political campaigns, or government itself is usually a fallacy and incorrect.

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." Joseph Stalin

It was an interesting theory, I agree.

"The idea is that citizenship should be something you not only know how to wrestle with, but also earn."

Yes!

We either have restrictions (citizen, at least 18, not in prison, a resident of the precinct, alive) and verify that the person showing up to vote is who they claim to be OR we get rid of registration (surely that requirement "disenfranchises" many eligible voters) and let anyone who shows up to vote... vote.

Personally I like Robert A. Heinlein's original voting-restriction idea. In "Starship Troopers," he restricted voting to honorably discharged veterans. Except "Federal Service" had gotten way overextended, far beyond police and military--though some non-military jobs might prove useful: civilian auxiliaries to fighting forces (so that "military" means you're actually expected to fight now and again), cold-weather gear tester, worker on a major planetary-engineering project ("the Terranizing of Venus"), that sort of thing. The idea is that citizenship should be something you not only know how to wrestle with, but also earn. In Heinlein's world, to become a police officer you first had to be a voting citizen--and for that you had to join up for Federal Service and complete a term.

I have always thought that we should get one vote for every $1,000 in taxes we pay. The libs should be happy with this since they seem convinced the "Rich" pay no taxes.

LOL. Love it!

Its all in the typing inflection (grin)

Ah. That makes sense. It's hard to detect sarcasm without body language and voice inflection.

I was being sarcastic about the trick questions. That would mirror the actions of a private club controlling the economy, for example.

I don't disagree, but I don't think you need any trick questions at this juncture. Most people fail the basic questions like "How many Senators represent each State?" and "Who is the current Vice President of the United States?". Just watch any of the "Man on the Street" interviews on the nightly comedy shows to be utterly embarrassed by one's fellow Americans. :S

I also like the other idea that if you make your subsistence from government welfare checks, you are ineligible to vote. I think we ought to add one little checkbox at the bottom of the government welfare forms that says "By accepting this service, I acknowledge that I am unfit to vote and hereby waive my privilege to vote in any elections this year."

"If it’s illegal to drive while drunk, it ought to be illegal to vote while clueless."

Fifth grade civics is not an adequate understanding of government to pass a "voter IQ" test.
People are voting to unabashedly steal from others. The test must have some trick questions that expose looters and cause immediate rejection from voting.

Gotcha. Thanks.

I agree with the article and with you. I was simply pointing out the test would only be as good as the content taught. :)

Isn't that what Common Core is all about? ;)

Seriously, though, part of the author's contention is that we don't need more passive voters waiting for others to tell them what to do, how to vote, or what the answers to the test questions are. We need actively engaged voters who research the issues, look at history, and think for themselves.

Can you imagine what would happen to the makeup of Congress if not only the voters, but the candidates had to pass this test to vote today? My vote would be worth tens of thousands of votes! ;)

This is a great idea but I don't go along with passing a fifth grade civics test. That subject is not very strong in many of our schools anymore. The truth must be taught before the test can be useful.