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Test voters. And add an IQ test. An IQ of 100 to be able to vote. There would be riots.
That was my thought too. The voters are, and should be, the decider of such things.
If we implement a test to qualify politicians, so we only have sane people with some measure of intelligence running for office, I guess the logical thing would be to implement a test for voters too....so we only have sane, intelligent people voting for sane intelligent politicians. How's that sound?
If we're going to change the Constitutional requirements for elected offices...let's go for broke!
Effective government tends to be about more than IQ. Judgment might count for more. Nixon and Carter were among those with the highest IQs. The results were Watergate and micromanagement. On the other hand, Reagan may well have been in the first stages of dementia but still had the judgment to both keep a strong management team and be guided by them.
Age is statistically associated with various downward factors: dementia is one of them, decreased processing time another. Emotionally, many as they age become more stubborn and less amenable to guidance. That last may be harder to measure and not always correlated with age but it's important.
Judgement is directly related to intelligence...in fact that is exactly what it is. Proper judgement means learning from experience which only an intelligent person can do.
That's the reason why low IQ people are often serial offenders.....
Taking the POTUS as an example - he has actually LOST 10's of Billions of dollars in his life compared to what he'd have if he put his money in a mutual fund.
A normal person would learn that and not keep making cons, frauds and bad bets...because all that happens from them is lose-lose-lose.
But a person with poor judgement or low intelligence would not realize they could change course and invest a billion in a Mutual fund and then have 10 billion in two decades.
You could definitely make a case that an IQ of 140 or above is not needed for POTUS. But it's hard to imagine that anything under 120 is going to be able to do the job.
I don’t want to make this about Trump if possible. I don’t feel that this would be ageist to test future presidents or whoever is in office to have them take it every so often. If more if they are approaching 70 plus years. I think maybe having a younger president in office would quite naysayers. Or not being able to run for office at said age. we retake our eye exam at the DMV, the military requires testing, so why shouldn’t one be tested to be president??
Last question. Who would administer this test without being biased?
I'm pretty sure a test could be constructed in a way to be unbiased. But I'm not sure how necessary it would be in a normal situation, especially since our terms of office are only four years.
What would you say to a factual test, to ensure that a president has some basic knowledge? I'm pretty sure that if you caught Trump unawares, he couldn't immediately tell you the number of justices on the SCOTUS, what freedoms are covered in the First Amendment, the names of the top 2 or 3 people in the Confederacy, or the capital of California.
I don’t want to make this about Trump if possible. I don’t feel that this would be ageist to test future presidents or whoever is in office to have them take it every so often. If more if they are approaching 70 plus years. I think maybe having a younger president in office would quite naysayers. Or not being able to run for office at said age. we retake our eye exam at the DMV, the military requires testing, so why shouldn’t one be tested to be president??
Last question. Who would administer this test without being biased?
Probably unconstitutional. See article II, section 1. However, AFAIK, it would not be unconstitutional to impose a test requirement on voters, which would be an indirect way of getting at the problem.
TRANSLATION: We Democrats have to prevent the American people from voting for someone WE don't want!
If that means someone who smarter then a fifth grader I’m all for it, then again conservatives choose someone who ISNT smarter then a fifth grader.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clarallel
I'm pretty sure a test could be constructed in a way to be unbiased. But I'm not sure how necessary it would be in a normal situation, especially since our terms of office are only four years.
What would you say to a factual test, to ensure that a president has some basic knowledge? I'm pretty sure that if you caught Trump unawares, he couldn't immediately tell you the number of justices on the SCOTUS, what freedoms are covered in the First Amendment, the names of the top 2 or 3 people in the Confederacy, or the capital of California.
Many people couldn’t I know I can’t myself answer all of those. Maybe make it a once a year thing?
I don’t want to make this about Trump if possible. I don’t feel that this would be ageist to test future presidents or whoever is in office to have them take it every so often. If more if they are approaching 70 plus years. I think maybe having a younger president in office would quite naysayers. Or not being able to run for office at said age. we retake our eye exam at the DMV, the military requires testing, so why shouldn’t one be tested to be president??
Last question. Who would administer this test without being biased?
We already have a cognitive test for presidents. Candidates talk about ideas and issues, both scripted in speeches and extemporaneously in debates and interviews, and then voters decide whether they think they are smart enough to be president.
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