Elected Officials Score Lower...

...than the General Public

"The ISI civic Literacy survey was not designed to test the civic knowledge of elected officials, but it did discover evidence of an interesting pattern that may merit further exploration.
"All survey respondents were asked whether they have ever engaged in any of 13 different political and civic activities. These included, for example, registering to vote, signing a petition, contacting a public official, publishing a letter to the editor, and whether they have ever been elected to a government office. [snip]
"In each of the following areas, for example, officeholders do more poorly than non-officeholders:

•Seventy-nine percent of those who have been elected to government office do not know the Bill of Rights expressly prohibits establishing an official religion for the U.S.
•Thirty percent do not know that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.
•Twenty-seven percent cannot name even one right or freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment.
•Forty-three percent do not know what the Electoral College does. One in five thinks it either “trains those aspiring for higher political office” or “was established to supervise the first televised presidential debates.”
•Fifty-four percent do not know the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. Thirty-nine percent think that power belongs to the president, and 10% think it belongs to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
•Only 32% can properly define the free enterprise system, and only 41% can identify business profit as “revenue minus expenses.” - Read entire article here: (Intercollegiate Studies Institute)

Fighting Our Worst Instincts...

"Liberty is Dangerous"

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"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." (Sherlock Holmes, "A Scandal in Bohemia")

"With these famous words, Sherlock Holmes highlights a block in the way of clear thinking that people all too commonly stumble upon in their pursuit of truth. Right now, it would not be amiss to recast Holmes' wisdom as a warning to the partisans dutifully acting their parts in the mock combats of America's sham two-party system. With their implausible mutual recriminations, they have done their best to poison what is otherwise the common sense of grief and horror most Americans feel in the wake of the Arizona shootings.

"It is scandalously self-serving for the elite's partisan media and political claques to propagandize in advance of the facts. Invidiously they seek to foment prejudices intended to interfere with the public's ability clearly to see and think through the significance of current events. They are like the wealthy widow's spoiled offspring, gathered at the sickbed of their suddenly stricken mom. The doctors have barely begun their examination. Tests have been ordered, but no results are in. The siblings put on a great show of arguing amongst themselves about the cause and best treatment for her disease, though in recent years their destructive, spendthrift behavior has caused her nothing but heartbreaking worry and grief. Noisily they trade heated accusations and recriminations, each one striving to prove they care for her more than the others. Of course, their only real purpose is to make sure she doesn't follow her decided inclination to name an interloper to oversee establishment of the medical research foundation slated to get what's left of her estate.

"The Arizona shootings are a national tragedy in the midst of a national crisis very likely to determine once and for all whether Americans continue to be a free people. Whatever the cause and explanation of the shootings, every such public assault against elected or other officials strikes a blow that could do permanent damage to the people's ability properly to exercise and defend their sovereignty as a people. Though they risk the imputation of cowardice, some legislators are already using the shootings as an excuse to propose specious legislation purporting to protect themselves against any public expressions of disfavor or resentment that can, however perversely, be understood as an encouragement to violence. Apparently they think it more important to protect themselves from the fancied resentment of their constituents than to respect those constituents' constitutional rights. Effectively deprived of the rights of speech, assembly and petition, the people will be in no position to consider and deliberate upon the choices essential to fulfilling their sovereign responsibility. [...]"
(emphases mine)  (Read entire column here by Alan Keyes, WND)

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