In the modest and unassuming manner natural to this column, I
advance a small proposal for the emendation of such tatters of the
Constitution as can be found: For voting in federal elections, we should
employ a literacy test to disenfranchise the majority of the
population, to the infinite betterment of the country. This wise move
should be accompanied by an increase in the voting age to twenty-five.
The necessity cannot be denied. Consider the following:
Forty-three percent of Americans think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11.
Sixty-four percent cannot name the three branches of the federal government.
Fourteen percent are illiterate.
Twenty-six percent think the sun goes around the earth.
These numbers may be understood in various ways. To a
curmudgeon, who obtains a sour satisfaction from the endless repetition
of human folly, they provide the satisfactions of confirmation. We
all enjoy being right. In practical terms, they mean that democracy,
or our mild approximation thereto, is a sham, a fraud, an
impossibility, and a bad idea. No one so blankly ignorant, so mentally
without furniture, so muddle-headed, limited, and barren, should be
allowed within hailing range of a voting booth.
