Where am I?

Half of the young adults age 18 to 24 in this country can’t locate New York State on a map of the United States. Only 37% can find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. These are the kind of results obtained by a recent National Geographic poll. As disturbing as these results may be, the results themselves are not the most alarming thing. What should alarm and concern everyone is that these people are allowed to vote and they and others like them help decide who our governmental policy makers are. The results of a similar study conducted in 2002 were also remarkably bad, so this not something new. In fact these results probably hold true for a tremendous number of people in our country.

Perhaps the inability to identify Mississippi isn’t really all that important when it comes to choosing our elected officials, but how do you think the people in Mississippi feel about that? Geography certainly isn’t the most important thing that potential voters should know, however when 30% of the population thinks that the U.S.-Mexico border is the most heavily fortified in the world, I’d say we have a problem. I find it difficult to believe someone’s opinion on national and world events has any merit whatsoever if they don’t even know what continent Sudan is in.

Maybe it’s time to set some additional conditions on the right to vote. We don’t allow the ignorant to vote on decisions in private companies and we don’t put the uneducated in charge of our armies, so why should we let them decide who our lawmakers are going to be? If you’re going to vote in a National election, shouldn’t you know something about the nation? If you don’t know where the states are in the United States, why should you be deciding who’s going to be in charge of them? Give everyone a map of the country and a list of the states when they show up to vote. If they can correctly match 45 of them, count their vote. If they can’t, then throw their ballot away. Give every potential voter a map of each continent in the world and a list of its countries as well. If they can get 50% of them right then they can vote, otherwise send them packing. If they miss Australia, I suggest completely and permanently revoking their voting privileges.

I can hear the extreme left and the media screaming already: “That’s unfairly biased against the poor, uneducated, illiterate morons in this country!” Well, they’re right. It is biased against the uneducated and illiterate people in this country. I don’t want uneducated and illiterate people making decisions that affect me, and you shouldn’t either. I want the voters in this country to know something about the country and the world in which they live, and the first thing they should know is where everything is! I don’t think that there should be an elite ruling class in this country, but rule by the uneducated masses isn’t a good idea either.

Date Added: 07-05-2006