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originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Ok. So Donald Trump has shown me an incredible weakness in our republic. You don't need to know anything about our Constitution, our laws, or our established precedents to run and hold office. You just need enough charisma and a message that resonates with enough of the base to get elected. This also applies to other offices too with such gems like Kid Rock now wanting to run for Senate. Traditionally this hasn't been TOO much of an issue. Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger were only governors of their states and Reagan did a few good things (though I still think he is one of the worst Presidents of the modern era, even worse than Bush jr, so he can even be used as an example here).
Now a solution people like to pitch is that we implement a civics test for voters, but this violates the Constitution. I cannot agree to such a thing. The smartest person in the country and the dumbest person in the country are entitled to the same vote. By that same reasoning, we should also relax taking voting rights away from felons, but that is a discussion for another thread.
So, what we need is a solution that doesn't punish the voters. So how about instead we punish the candidates? If we create a non-partisan office that implements a civics test for any candidate running federal office (this would be too hard to implement at lower governmental levels) then have the results of the test given to the voters before they vote so they can digest each candidate's knowledge base without the help of aides or prepared remarks. The non-partisan office would make the test unique each year and scramble the questions for each test given to each candidate to minimize cheating, and the questions could range from easy "name all 50 states and their capitals" to hard "Describe the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending". You could also have some questions to get an idea on how a candidate feels on issues like asking, "Define what compromise means to you and name a historic compromise that motivates you in today's politics".
Of course these tests wouldn't be able to inherently disqualify a politician for their answers. They could get every answer wrong and tell the public they want to enslave us all and it still wouldn't be enough to disqualify them. The decision would still be ultimately up to the voters on who they want to vote for, but this would give them an opportunity to be better informed on their choices. Naturally, they wouldn't be required to look at the results before voting, but any bit helps and I feel like this would be a good compromise to ensure better quality candidates in the future. After all, every other job in the world requires you to demonstrate some sort of competency in your field before being hired. Why shouldn't the most important jobs in the free world be the same?
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Ok. So Barack Obama has shown me an incredible weakness in our republic. You don't need to know anything about our Constitution, our laws, or our established precedents to run and hold office. You just need enough charisma and a message that resonates with enough of the base to get elected. This also applies to other offices too with such gems like Kid Rock now wanting to run for Senate. Traditionally this hasn't been TOO much of an issue. Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger were only governors of their states and Reagan did a few good things (though I still think he is one of the worst Presidents of the modern era, even worse than Bush jr, so he can even be used as an example here).
originally posted by: Krazysh0t
Ok. So Donald Trump has shown me an incredible weakness in our republic. You don't need to know anything about our Constitution, our laws, or our established precedents to run and hold office. You just need enough charisma and a message that resonates with enough of the base to get elected. This also applies to other offices too with such gems like Kid Rock now wanting to run for Senate. Traditionally this hasn't been TOO much of an issue. Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarzenegger were only governors of their states and Reagan did a few good things (though I still think he is one of the worst Presidents of the modern era, even worse than Bush jr, so he can even be used as an example here).
Now a solution people like to pitch is that we implement a civics test for voters, but this violates the Constitution. I cannot agree to such a thing. The smartest person in the country and the dumbest person in the country are entitled to the same vote. By that same reasoning, we should also relax taking voting rights away from felons, but that is a discussion for another thread.
So, what we need is a solution that doesn't punish the voters. So how about instead we punish the candidates? If we create a non-partisan office that implements a civics test for any candidate running federal office (this would be too hard to implement at lower governmental levels) then have the results of the test given to the voters before they vote so they can digest each candidate's knowledge base without the help of aides or prepared remarks. The non-partisan office would make the test unique each year and scramble the questions for each test given to each candidate to minimize cheating, and the questions could range from easy "name all 50 states and their capitals" to hard "Describe the difference between discretionary and mandatory spending". You could also have some questions to get an idea on how a candidate feels on issues like asking, "Define what compromise means to you and name a historic compromise that motivates you in today's politics".
Of course these tests wouldn't be able to inherently disqualify a politician for their answers. They could get every answer wrong and tell the public they want to enslave us all and it still wouldn't be enough to disqualify them. The decision would still be ultimately up to the voters on who they want to vote for, but this would give them an opportunity to be better informed on their choices. Naturally, they wouldn't be required to look at the results before voting, but any bit helps and I feel like this would be a good compromise to ensure better quality candidates in the future. After all, every other job in the world requires you to demonstrate some sort of competency in your field before being hired. Why shouldn't the most important jobs in the free world be the same?
I also don't think you should be able to vote while being on the dole like welfare
originally posted by: Bluntone22
The worst way to pick a president is by letting the American voter decide.