Re: Stupidity
"Inability or unwillingness to learn."
lvrj.com
Stupidity: We're all in this together
Glenn Cook
Posted: Sep. 9, 2012 | 2:06 a.m.
Updated: Sep. 9, 2012 | 9:32 a.m.
At last, amid the buffoonery and cacophony of the campaign season, a moment of crystal-clear clarity.
Perhaps I've been in denial all these years, but I finally understand why this country faces so many complicated, potentially catastrophic problems. Why our politicians dwell on banal talking points and get away with exaggerations, mischaracterizations and outright lies. Why governments at every level can't even address their most urgent, obvious failures.
It's not because, as a nation, we're hopelessly divided.
It's because we're hopelessly dumb.
Sharp as a marble. Stupid as a stump. All foam and no beer.
I reached this conclusion after taking the latest News IQ Quiz from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Pew periodically quizzes the public on current events to measure our familiarity with the big issues of the day.
Thomas Jefferson warned that democracy can't survive without an educated electorate: "Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that, whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." That philosophy is the main reason the First Amendment protects a free press; it's the job of the Fourth Estate to report the public's business to the pubic.
But increasingly, citizens don't pay attention to the news and, as a result, cast uninformed votes - if they vote at all. The subject of last month's Pew quiz was "Campaign 2012." As usual, the results were depressing.
Before I tell you the results, take the quiz yourself:
1. Which presidential candidate is pro-life, that is, supports restricting access to abortion in most cases?
2. Which presidential candidate supports allowing many illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children to remain in the country?
3. Which presidential candidate opposes allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally?
4. Which presidential candidate supports raising taxes on income over $250,000?
5. Mitt Romney was the governor of which state?
6. Mitt Romney was the CEO of which of these companies?
7. Who is the current vice president of the United States?
8. The Republican Party currently has a majority of seats in:
9. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States?
10. What state did Barack Obama represent in the United States Senate, before he became president?
11. What does the term "super PAC" refer to?
I'm making this quiz harder for you than it was for the 1,010 adults who took it between July 26 and July 29. How? Because it was a multiple-choice quiz, meaning participants had a good chance of guessing a correct answer.
OK, I'll throw you a few bones. For Question 6, the options were American Motors, Bain Capital, Google and Sears. For Question 7, the choices were Joe Biden, John Boehner, Hillary Clinton and Dick Cheney. For Question 11, the choices were a congressional committee on the budget deficit; a group able to accept unlimited political donations; a popular video game for smartphones; and government clean-up projects at hazardous waste sites.
The results? Just 13 percent of participants answered every question correctly; 44 percent of quiz takers got six or fewer questions right; and 3 percent got every question wrong, even though they had a 25 percent chance of answering each question correctly by guessing.
Fifteen percent of respondents didn't know Biden was vice president, including 5 percent who identified themselves as college graduates. Thirty-two percent of participants did not know Obama wants to raise taxes on incomes over $250,000. Incredibly, 60 percent of quiz takers were unaware that Republicans control the House - including 47 percent of college graduates - and 61 percent had no idea that John Roberts is chief justice.
"If you don't get 11/11 on that quiz, you have no business being within 1000 yards of a voting booth," conservative blogger David Burge, better known as Iowahawk, recently posted on Twitter.
I'll take that one step further: If you got zero out of 11, you should be sterilized.
We're 99 cents short of a dollar. We insult the intelligence of a bag of hammers.
It's worth noting that Pew's July quiz contains one significant mistake. It considers "Barack Obama" the right answer to Question 2 when the correct response is "both." In late June - more than a month before this survey was conducted - Romney released his immigration reform plan, which says "young illegal immigrants who were brought to the United States as children should have the chance to become permanent residents, and eventually citizens, by serving honorably in the United States military." I answered "both" when I took the quiz, and as a result, I initially scored 10 out of 11.
You can't blame these scores on Fox News or MSNBC. Our collective ignorance is mostly bipartisan. Republicans had an average score of 7.8, Democrats scored 6.9 and independents averaged 7.3. (Interestingly, only 29 percent of Democrats knew Republicans control the House. Guess all that anti-tea party rhetoric from Democrats isn't registering with the base.)
If we don't know which party is in power, how are we ever going to grasp the significance of entitlement reform? If we don't know the most basic policy positions of our presidential candidates, how can we understand budget deficits and the national debt? Unfunded pension liabilities and collective bargaining reform? Technology's relentless assault on our privacy? Forgetaboutit.
The worst news from the News IQ Quiz? These were adults, many of them parents. If they don't know John Roberts from a hole in the ground, do you think their kids do? Good lord, most college graduates can't even pass a basic civics test.
By and large, we don't understand how our governments are structured and how they're supposed to function, and we don't care what they do.
We get the government we deserve. It's as dumb as we are.
Glenn Cook (gcook@reviewjournal.com) is a Review-Journal editorial writer. Follow him on Twitter: @Glenn_CookNV. |
