The Importance of "Stunts"

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

For all the talk about how our schooling is poor and our children being left behind, it's almost shameful how much worse off our current/former politicians are regarding information related to a topic they supposedly care about. Check this out regarding our past/current politicians and their civic literacy:

Included in the adult sample was a small subset of Americans (165 in all) who, when asked, identified themselves as having been "successfully elected to government office at least once in their life" -- which can include federal, state or local offices.

...

Elected officials at many levels of government, not just the federal government, swear an oath to "uphold and protect" the U.S. Constitution.

But those elected officials who took the test scored an average 5 percentage points lower than the national average (49 percent vs. 54 percent), with ordinary citizens outscoring these elected officials on each constitutional question.

I know I have a reputation of very strict Constitutional adherence in these parts, but when I say that I'm not sure that many in Congress actually understand the document that they're governing from, I find this fairly validating.

Is there a way we can improve the Constitutional literacy of our elected officials? I suppose the reading of the Constitution, derided by many as just a stunt, might get one or two elected officials to take a look or a two at it again - Pete King and Bob Brady could probably use another refresher course - can't hurt, but surely we can expect more than that, no?

Comments

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

We have a decent public system here. In 7th grade there is a detailed unit on the Constitution including why it was written and what it contains.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Is there a breakdown of the participants? I'm not sure this is actually evidence that Congress doesn't know the Constitution. If they are outweighed by board members of the local PTO or zoning board, then it may not be representative. Still, definitely interesting.

The interesting thing about King is that all his bill does is add threatening *symbols* to an already-existing bill banning threats against Congress. Threatening speech is an odd middle ground in free speech jurisprudence, technically governed by the "clear and present danger" test, but not generally enforced under that standard. There's more of a bad-tendency test, which allows for constructive intent (i.e. "what else could these words mean but that you want to shoot a Congressperson?") and the like, that actually gets applied. It's a pretty awful test that's supposedly dead, but you see it crop up from time to time, and threatening speech is one area where it seems to be alive and well.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

The fact that there are people out there trying to ban free speech is evidence that they either haven't read or don't understand the Constitution.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

100% here.

The problem isn't that they don't know, the problem is, whether or not they know, they don't care.

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

Anyone want to give me the cliff notes version of the above silly? I can't even be bothered to start to read it.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

It's three paragraphs and a block of quoted text.

Are you on fire or something?

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

This sheds some interesting light on the question of who should be the final expositors of the Constitution, the Supreme Court or Congress, seeing how our justices would probably score high.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Unlike Congress the SC has to cite the Constitution in their decisions.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

The Constitution is like the Bible. You have "literalists" who smuggle in baggage under a false rubric that rests upon extra-Biblical assumptions. You have others who get what they want out of it. You have others, who like many citizens, claim they believe in the Bible but never actually read or study it. You have scholars, who spend too much time on it and no one knows what they're talking about anyways, because people just aren't interested in reading the Bible from a pre-CE or first century CE mindset. So you know... the world turns and people have arguments.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

There is absolutely no reason that a comprehensive education in civics cannot bring the Constitution into the curriculum as early as 4th grade. The Bill of Rights is written in fairly easy to comprehend language, and while the rest of the document has more complicated syntax for the age group, study of the branches of government and their powers plus the concept of co-equal branches of government is totally appropriate for grades 4-6.

More in depth examination of the document itself is entirely possible from grades 7 on.

[devil-ad-vocate.livejournal.com]

Most politicians would also heartily endorse Mom and Apple Pie, even those who hate their mothers or prefer rhubarb pie.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

How could anyone prefer rhubarb pie?

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

One of the drawbacks of a free society with open elections is that the people can choose to elect idiots.

It doesn't help that we have a large segment of the media assaulting the people who speak the truth and covering for the idiots.

The financial crisis is a perfect example. You have people on video trying to forestall problems with the institutions involved and people on the other side claiming nothing is wrong and it's just racist to claim that there are problems. Yet this video isn't shown by large segments of the media who cover for those politicians (and who even go as far as to promote those very politicians as knowledgeable and the people who have the answers to the crisis).

Such an alliance of misinformation is hard to beat.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

It doesn't help that we have a large segment of the media assaulting the people who speak the truth and covering for the idiots.

You mean like a handful of TV talking heads who regurgitate falsehoods and talking points and who regularly use hyperbole to push their narrative? ("This is a commufascinazi tyranny and they're killing our babies and grandmas; here, I have it written on my drawing board so it's true").

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Maybe they should have a seminar with a Constitutional Scholar. Gee where might Congressional Republicans be able to find one of those?


Oh, right.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Certainly not in the White House, given his record.

[bord-du-rasoir.livejournal.com]

"Pete King and Bob Brady could probably use another refresher course"

Do you honestly think that if they studied more, their proposals would change?

Amendment 1 - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment 2 - A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

"In the context of the Constitution, phrases like "shall not be infringed," "shall make no law," and "shall not be violated" sound pretty unbendable, but the Supreme Court has ruled that some laws can, in fact, encroach on these phrases. For example, though there is freedom of speech, you cannot slander someone; though you can own a pistol, you cannot own a nuclear weapon." http://www.usconstitution.net/glossary.html#INFRINGE

What laws Congress establishes and does not establish depends on what the Supreme Court rules.

It seems you view the Constitution in black and white. It seems the Supreme Court does not agree with you.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Do you honestly think that if they studied more, their proposals would change?

I do think that people can be educated about being right or wrong.

It seems you view the Constitution in black and white. It seems the Supreme Court does not agree with you.

The difference being that I see that as a problem with the Court, and you see it as a problem with me.

[caerfrli.livejournal.com]

If it wasn't a stunt, why didn't they read the whole Constitution? If Republicans cared about pledging to uphold the Constitution, why did two of them skip that part to go to a fund raiser?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

They should've read that part about the slaves. It's the most fascinating one.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

That is a bit worrisome, but I see no way to tell if those 165 people are a representative sample - or how much Congress was represented.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

So what's the constitutional issue with not being able to have a gun around 1000 feet of a member of Congress? What right is being infringed on?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The right to bear arms, specifically, not to mention that there's no real way you can police it while keeping that right intact.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, to me you have an extremely inconsistent adherence to a strict interpretation only when and if it's convenient, otherwise you want it either ignored outright or as loose as possible. Which would fit you right in with the people in Washington and most people in the US full-stop, albeit.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

What's inconsistent?

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

I would happily bet $1000 that if you gave this ridiculously simple quiz to sitting members of Congress, the average score would be well above 80%.
The quiz doesn't specify what kind of offices these alleged answerers held. For all we know most of the people who selected for that section of the survey had simply misunderstood the question.

[politikitty.livejournal.com]

165 is a fairly small sample size. The margin of error there is about 10%, while the margin of error of 2000 (the poll's whole sample) is less than 2%.

That means that elected officials could range from 39-59, while the population at large is about 52-56.

Plus the sample size of 165 is fairly meaningless. You're potentially placing a Senator in the same sample as the cranky leader of the local School District. Local elected officials are fairly notorious for their wacky opinions, but their reach in policy is pretty much non-existent, and unconstitutional policies are fairly easy to be quashed at this level.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I got 9/10, didn't know #6 6) The phrase that in America there should be a "wall of separation" between church and state appears in:.

[onefatmusicnerd.livejournal.com]

Well, we could amend the constitution to require candidates for congress or the presidency to pass a test of constitutional knowledge.

Nothing would ever go wrong there... Can I administer it?

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

10/10. That's such a simple quiz that anyone who can't get 100% on it should be barred from any public office. Heck, they should probably have their high school diploma revoked.

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

The only problem I see with enforcing Constitutional knowledge is that if you get 10 people educated on the Constitution in a room, you will have about 20 different interpretations of what the Constitution means. Hell, not even the FFs themselves agreed on Constitutional interpretation. So until all those people can robot themselves recite the same interpretation of the Constitution without variation or dissent, I fail to see this as a big problem.

OTOH, we could always replace all government with computers programmed with the same interpretation of the Constitution. Since we'll have the computing power to successfully emulate the human brain by 2050, that's feasible.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

So instead of dictatorship by 1 human, dictatorship by 1 computer that thinks exactly like a human?

I, for one....

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

Sheesh, those questions were so basic a high school dropout should have been able to answer all 10 correctly.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

10 for 10!

[montanaisaleg.livejournal.com]

I don't think Constitutional literacy is always the main issue. Anyone elected to uphold it should know it better than most, sure, but most politicians are first and foremost politicians, so they do all sorts of things to win political points. Conveniently interpreting the Constitution is just one of many ways that they do this. Call me cynical, but I doubt there's a member of Congress who hasn't bent his/her interpretation of the Constitution for some political purpose.

It should be noted that I'm not defending these practices, but they're a fact of elected life.