The Citizen's Test
Ranting. Panting. I have an opinion and it's always correct. I listen to NPR. I know Bush lied. I know there were no weapons of mass destruction. I know it was all to get their oil. To take care of something daddy started and didn't finish.
Or do I really? Do I know anything? Should I be entitled to an opinion when I don't have anything to back it up? Should I believe in the news I get that is filtered and stained then spoon fed to the starving uneducated American public.
I am an empty vessel.
I should have no opinion on politics, because I am uneducated on social problems, and current events. I cannot form an intelligent opinion. I am a reflection of the image of the typical American, raised by television, drive-thru's, and Nintendo, not by Shakespeare, or Socrates. We are a crowd easily incensed, easily disturbed, whose opinions are easily vocalized.
We are not well read. We are not tracking current events in Jerusalem, the former Soviet Union, or even in our own backyards. What gives us the right to voice our opinion or even to vote?
We should all have to take a test. A citizen's test. A test for all Americans who want to voice their opinion. It should be given annually and cover our country's history and the year's past current events. If opinions are like assholes we would have a lot less assholes, and possibly a more educated public opinion.
This change would be drastic, but would help to educate the public and help to enforce a standard of intelligence that could help to propagate the revolution we all yearn for. Be it to the left or to the right. Democracy has the potential to breed ignorance unless our citizens intelligence is policed.
posted by Byron @ 10:19 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Let me just say that ideas for improwing our country are great and lets have more of them. I agree it is hard living in an unequal militaristic totalitarian monarchy (that's us), but you can't take away peoples rights if they don't pass some stupid test. That's the problem with Standardized testing - they don't really measure any form of intellgence, mostly just your capacity to memorize and regurgitate the simple BS that they feed you to begin with. Your ideas about a standard of intelligence are frankly horrifying to me. though it seems you mean well, having thought police as you've described takes me back to 1984. Get it? (you should read some books on cultural literacy and standardized testing)
In my humble opinion, the revolution is not far off (I give it less than a decade) and what we need to do is take matters into our own hands - talk openly with people about how you feel, start reading groups, start movie-watching groups, start a bike riding group, start ANY kind of group - get people organized outside of the system on their own terms. And most importantly, introduce people to art. Art should be the new government - and we need an artist leader.
democracy is weak because it allows people to protest as if they're making a difference.
That is all
Ditto Vallario!!!!!
Long live the King!
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