In the months leading up to the 2008 election, as it became painfully clear that America was preparing to elect the most unqualified Commander-in-Chief ever to seek the Oval Office, I jokingly pondered how many current members of congress could pass a basic civics test.

Then 52% of Americans cast their ballot for a man who has done absolutely nothing to qualify himself for the highest office in the land and America’s mass ignorance was coming into focus.

Two weeks after the election, we now have more valuable insight into the intelligence of the average American and it seems to confirm the world wide notion that Americans are the dumbest people on the planet.

As Seattle guest columnist Deroy Murdock explains, “Thus, Americans slouch into the 21st century -- a free and confident people blissfully unaware of how we got here or how we shall continue our 232-year-old tradition of limited self-government.”

How Ignorant Are We?

In Murdock’s column Americans in need of civics lesson, it’s clear that the average American is no longer qualified to self-govern. As our nation’s most prolific founder put it, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” Thomas Jefferson

Yet a recent study conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute shows that Americans have forgotten how we got here and what it takes to remain.

• 71 percent of Americans flunked a 33-question civic-literacy survey. The average score was just 49 of 100 -- a solid F. While just 2.6 percent scored B's on this quiz, only 0.8 percent earned A's.
• Just 49 percent of Americans were able to identify the legislature, executive and judiciary as our three branches of government.
• Forty percent of college graduates have no idea that corporate profits equal revenues minus expenses.
• Only 24 percent of college grads realize that the First Amendment forbids the establishment of an official U.S. religion.
• 164 self-identified elected officials know even less than laymen. They averaged only 44 on the test.
• Among office holders, 30 percent did not know that the Declaration of Independence heralds "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
• Only 21 percent of respondents correctly identified Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address as the source of the words "government of the people, by the people, for the people." But 56 percent properly named Paula Abdul as a judge on the karaoke sensation "American Idol."

Released at Washington's National Press Club, "Our Fading Heritage: Americans Fail a Basic Test on Their History and Institutions" is available online at www.AmericanCivicLiteracy.org.

This Explains a Lot

68% of America’s “youth vote” went to Barack Hussein Obama. College students still eating, sleeping, studying, partying and obviously failing on their parents’ nickel, voted overwhelmingly for the most unqualified individual to ever seek national office.

This should come as no shock since this is the same group who scored an “F” on a simple basic 33 question civics test. What are we teaching the next generation?

We are not talking about 6th grade dropouts here. We are talking about college students...

Education is Only Information

As I recently explained to my son, contrary to popular belief, education is NOT knowledge or wisdom. It’s only “information.” There is no escaping the “garbage in, garbage out” theory.

Not all information is equal. We don’t just live in an “information age,” we live in an era of “misinformation.” We don’t teach true history anymore because true history is full of politically unacceptable lessons, such as there ain’t no free lunch. Not the kind of message a young voter can benefit from, while being sold a pig in a poke (socialism) under the guise of progress...

If academia simply fills young heads with garbage, then only garbage will come back out of those minds, and that is exactly what we are witnessing today. When a majority of college students can’t pass a simple civics test, they are ill-equipped to make decisions that will affect the running of a nation. Yet, make them, they will... and they did!

A Nation of Ill-informed Experts

Gross American ignorance is glaringly obvious today. But even worse is the arrogance that comes with it now. They aren’t just dead wrong in their belief systems, they are damn sure of themselves too.

Dead wrong, but damn sure, is a lethal cocktail in any society responsible for governing itself.

Jefferson said “Information is the currency of democracy.” And he defined what he meant by saying “It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”

Information is the currency of democracy in that only a well informed society is capable of self-governance. But as Jefferson pointed out, there is a huge difference between right information and wrong information, truth and ideologically driven fiction.

Today, thanks to a leftist press, leftist academia and leftist Hollywood, too many Americans are well educated in falsehoods. As a result, they are dead wrong on almost everything, but damn sure of themselves just the same.

The High Price of Arrogant Ignorance

• The greatest act of “racism” in America today is the fact that 95% of the black community votes strictly on the basis of racial interests. One of many sad facts demonstrated in the 2008 election cycle.
• Despite the historical truth that 65% of Democrats and 81% of Republicans supported the Civil Rights Act of 1964, more than 90% of black voters have voted Democrat for years because they simply don’t know any better. They don’t know truth.
• 
  College students who have yet to make their first car payment or hold down their first job, embrace socialism today because nobody has taught them how many times socialism has been tried and failed around the globe.
• Most Americans embrace the concept of redistribution of wealth and socialized medicine without ever connecting the dots to communism or Marxism, “from each according to his ability; to each according to his need.”
• The average American does not know that their federal government is bankrupt, let alone why. So they vote for the same people who bankrupted it and ask them for more of the same.
• The people have become accustomed to bad government and they have no foundation upon which to reform the nation to sound self-governance. So they seek a magic messiah instead of taking matters into their own hands.

When Obama supporters were interviewed leaving the polls, here's how they explained their support.

As Jefferson said, “It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” Only those who have failed at freedom, demand the personal support of their government.

But who cares about Jefferson or his notions of individual liberty anymore? He’s just some old white dude whose ideas are outdated. He’s just some crusty old white guy who stands in the way of progress now, right?

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.”

No quote on earth better describes current events in America circa 2008. Yet this is just another Jefferson quote, wherein America’s most prolific founding father was able to see the writing on the wall almost two hundred years ago.

Barack Obama was elected on the basis of how much more the federal government (consolidated power) would do for the individual, rather than on the basis of reducing an already oppressive over-bloated and ineffective federal monstrosity, freeing the people to do more for themselves.

In short, the people must be restrained by over-taxation in order to free the wheels of the central power in Washington DC. People cannot be allowed to prosper too much, while others prosper too little, according to those seeking the political power inherent with controlling economic equality for all.

Jefferson said that “Power is not alluring to pure minds.” This is true, but it sure is intoxicating to those who are void of any moral character, which should be the definition of today’s politicians, especially those on the progressively anti-American left.

Yet in the end, it is an immoral and ill-informed society which is to blame for all that is ill in America. At all times in history, Americans have enjoyed or endured the fruits of their decisions. Knowing what we know today, why are we still sending our children to be programmed for failure at our left-wing universities? High school dropouts have better natural instincts, work habits and common sense.

At all times, we have the government we elect and on this basis alone, the buck stops with us.

America has slowly voted itself back into tyranny under an oppressive central power. Americans have forgotten that the cost of free-stuff is freedom itself. They didn’t forget; they have been counter-indoctrinated.

“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.” Thomas Jefferson

Americans who have wasted their freedom now look to the new “messiah” to deliver them from their own failings, and thus, history is about to answer the question Jefferson asked so many years ago.... A question I’m sure he knew the answer to, before he asked...

But then, who cares about Jefferson?

In case you are wondering how I scored on the test, the survey said... “You answered 32 out of 33 correctly — 96.97 %”

American history is my thing! Those who fail to know their history are doomed to repeat it...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JB Williams is a political writer and the owner/author of JB-Williams.com.