General Discussion

kpete

(71,996 posts) Tue Sep 23, 2014, 10:43 AM Sep 2014

Irony! Elisabeth Hasselbeck Demands Voters Pass 'Citizenship Test' To Make Sure They're Not Stupid

Elisabeth Hasselbeck has a brilliant idea: every one of voting age should have to pass a Citizenship Test, since she apparently wants to curtail the number of teabagger voters.

..... she advocated for the idea that all Americans of a voting age should have to pass a citizenship test before they're eligible to vote. She seems to think that when you're able to identify at least one branch of government and how many senators we have instead of, you know, the major issues, voting becomes "more meaningful."

Maybe if your definition of "meaningful" is "utterly devoid of contextual utility," but she doesn't stop to think about the harm to her own movement this would cause. After all, the fullest extent of Teabagger knowledge about the Constitution begins and ends with "I'm pretty sure it exists, and it was written by Jesus."

.................

TEST: What are the three branches of government?
TEA PARTIER: the Republican Party, the Tea Party, and guns

TEST: What freedoms are guaranteed by the First Amendment?
TEA PARTIER: All the guns I want!

TEST: What is important about the Thirteenth Amendment?
TEA PARTIER: All the guns I want, so I can overthrow the government!

TEST: What are the constitutional requirements for the office of presidency?
TEA PARTIER: White, male, conservative, and approved by right-thinking real Americans like me.

..............

If history is any sort of teacher, the idea of "literacy tests" at the polls was employed in the South from the 1880s to the 1960s in an effort to disenfranchise Black voters.

Here's a 1964 Louisiana literacy test given blacks that Hasselbeck couldn't pass today!: