Yet another great article by Andy Rooney - A Political Aptitude Test:

(CBS) No one but the candidates really paid much attention to the elections this year. Fewer than 40 percent of eligible Americans voted. There's something wrong with that, and I have an idea: Forget voting.

Make everyone running for office take a written test. Never mind the political speeches. Students take SATs - Scholastic Aptitude Tests to get into college. Every candidate would take a PAT - a Political Aptitude Test to get into office.

It would test them on their knowledge of the issues and on their intelligence. The candidate who got the highest score on the test would win.

Voters have been getting turned off lately because there are a lot of things wrong with our elections. To begin with, the average voter doesn't pick the candidates. We get them handed to us by professional politicians. In the primary election, we choose between several candidates we didn't pick. That's wrong.

This year 98 percent of the candidates already in the House of Representatives were re-elected. They won because they can do favors for people and for businesses who give them money. That's wrong. Unknown challengers don't have anything to offer.

In New York State, three candidates spent $140 million trying to get to be governor. You wonder what's in it for them. One business tycoon spent $65 million of his own money trying to buy the election. That's wrong.

The President didn't go into work 56 times this year because he was out making speeches for Republicans. He raised $140 million for them. Wrong. Not what we elected him to do.

It's not a party matter. President Clinton did the same thing in 2000.

We don't really know what the candidates believe and if we gave them a test, maybe we'd find out. They hate to answer YES or NO to anything so this Political Aptitude Test would have maybe 50 YES or NO questions.

I put down just a few sample questions.
• If you thought it was necessary, would you raise taxes?
• Should we attack Iraq?
• Should there be prayer in schools to God or Allah?
• Should we spend less on education and more on the military?
• Should we spend less on the military and more on education?
The test would have questions like those. You can make up your own.

Someone asked me who would mark the tests and give the politicians their score.

Well, I'll do that.

- A weekly commentary by CBS News correspondent Andy Rooney.

I look forward to these Aceweb =)

Our entire election system is horribly inaccurate. Read here:

http://www.sciencenews.org/20021102/bob8.asp

HAT's host apptitude tests also?

ahh.. such a great idea, as I get sick to my stomach when I have to listen to the BS politicians are always spewing, the stupid commercials, and the ungodly amount of money they spend :angry:

Originally posted by Samuel
I look forward to these Aceweb =)

This will never happen.

Originally posted by AceWeb
This will never happen.

Even if the Constitution would allow such a thing, it would be very suspectible to corruption. First off, you'd have to choose a company to administer the tests. Then you'd have to have safeguards to make sure there's no software in their scanners that skews the results. Barring all forms of manipulation by the test company, there would probably be a book or two on how to take the PAT, meaning the rich people who could afford private tutoring would still be able to get in.

I prefer a voting system where you rank all the candidates from most favored to least favored. If your most favored isn't in the top two, your second favored candidate would be your main vote and so on. At least it'd give third parties somewhat of a chance.

Originally posted by mind21_98
First off, you'd have to choose a company to administer the tests.
No you wouldn’t. Believe it or not, companies don’t have to run our nation.
Originally posted by mind21_98
Then you'd have to have safeguards to make sure there's no software in their scanners that skews the results. Barring all forms of manipulation by the test company, there would probably be a book or two on how to take the PAT, meaning the rich people who could afford private tutoring would still be able to get in.
Welcome to our current electoral system.
Originally posted by mind21_98
I prefer a voting system where you rank all the candidates from most favored to least favored.
Go IRV (Instant Runoff Voting)!

Originally posted by Dogma
No you wouldn’t. Believe it or not, companies don’t have to run our nation.
True, but some people seem to have an aversion toward government running everything. And government seems to spend way more money than they should on things.

Welcome to our current electoral system.
What would be the best way of getting rid of the money factor? McCain-Feingold seems like our best chance, but analysts seem to think it won't help the situation a bit.

Originally posted by mind21_98

True, but some people seem to have an aversion toward government running everything. And government seems to spend way more money than they should on things.
Sure, government doesn't allways do the best job, but to turn to companies all the time is idiotic. Look at what happened in California when corporations were allowed to freely control energy. They made off with $40 billion (which they then moved into their tax shelters). Edison Schools, Inc. said that they would run schools and now they have to force their students to work in the school office to make ends meet. Hell, they moved their corporate office into one of their schools because they (the company) is failing...

Just a disclaimer: I'm not anti-business. I'm against business that abuse their workers, get federal subsidizes, and then move all their money into tax shelters not to mention how some will do anything for profit (the US military has invaded countries at Pepsi's behest).
Originally posted by mind21_98

What would be the best way of getting rid of the money factor? McCain-Feingold seems like our best chance, but analysts seem to think it won't help the situation a bit.
While M-F law is a step in the right direction it does not solve the problem. Total public funding of campaigns and IRV. But I'm not sure even that would work. We have a culture that accepts all this **** from politicians, corps, etc. We need to be the check and balance and we're not.

Let me go off on a tangent, thanks.

No, I don't hate America. No, I don't want the terrorists to win. No, we do not live in a democracy (it's a friggin' federal republic, even according to the CIA's World Factbook).

I just heard an interesting question from someone: why did we fight to "free the oppressed women" in Afghanistan yet still contain to oppress women and gays in the military?

Originally posted by Dogma
Sure, government doesn't allways do the best job, but to turn to companies all the time is idiotic. Look at what happened in California when corporations were allowed to freely control energy. They made off with $40 billion (which they then moved into their tax shelters). Edison Schools, Inc. said that they would run schools and now they have to force their students to work in the school office to make ends meet. Hell, they moved their corporate office into one of their schools because they (the company) is failing...
That's an unfortunate effect of capitalism. The whole idea is to make money, in whatever way possible. It's kinda like Darwin's theory of evolution applied to business. The odd thing is that Europe seems to be doing fine with government services like free health care, free college, etc.

While M-F law is a step in the right direction it does not solve the problem. Total public funding of campaigns and IRV. But I'm not sure even that would work. We have a culture that accepts all this **** from politicians, corps, etc. We need to be the check and balance and we're not.
Why not even a total ban on advertising? That would force people to actually research who they're voting for (although that may just increase straight party line voting too and may perhaps reduce the number of people who vote).

I just heard an interesting question from someone: why did we fight to "free the oppressed women" in Afghanistan yet still contain to oppress women and gays in the military?
Rumor has it we did it for the oil companies who wanted to build a pipeline through Afghanistan (http://www.mujahideen.fsnet.co.uk/afghanistan-oil.htm), although I don't know if that's a conspiracy theory or if it's really true.

Originally posted by mind21_98

Why not even a total ban on advertising? That would force people to actually research who they're voting for (although that may just increase straight party line voting too and may perhaps reduce the number of people who vote).
Maybe a ban or reduction in advertising coupled with an increase in real media coverage. I heard on NPR that the majority of media stories about politicians have to deal with their ads, so if a politician doesn't have ads the media is a lot less likely to mention them.
Originally posted by mind21_98

Rumor has it we did it for the oil companies who wanted to build a pipeline through Afghanistan (http://www.mujahideen.fsnet.co.uk/afghanistan-oil.htm), although I don't know if that's a conspiracy theory or if it's really true.
Of course they did! The Caspian Sea was just discovered to have incredible resources that we want. We didn't give the Taliban $24 million (or however much it was) in aid for nothing...

Originally posted by Dogma
Maybe a ban or reduction in advertising coupled with an increase in real media coverage.A ban on advertising would likely have at least one negative effect in common with the current overly-monetized system: it'd be good for incumbents. Not only would they, already having a degree of name recognition, have less need for advertising than their "outsider" opponents, but in the case of some offices they'd still be able to advertise. Think how many "public service announcements" featuring your state's governor talking up tourism, or industry, or education, as the personal pitchman you see in the months before an election. It's not classified as political advertisement but its purpose is the same.

Besides, you'd need a change in the Supreme Court's view -- that an individual can spend as much of his own money on his own campaign as he wants, as a matter of freedom of expression -- before you could effectively ban or drastically limit advertising.

An increase in "real media coverage" would be ideal, but how do you pull that off? "Equal time" regulations were supposed to help in that vein, but the fact remains that the mainstream media is just very bad at reporting issue-based factual material about candidates... probably simply because it doesn't "sell." Report on the candidates' extramarital affairs, alcohol or drug use, and campaign mudslinging, the view is, and you'll get ratings -- report boring dry facts and you won't. And if you get past that, which media sources can you trust not to skew the point of view to particular candidates?

JayC, great points on advertising...

Originally posted by JayC
An increase in "real media coverage" would be ideal, but how do you pull that off? "Equal time" regulations were supposed to help in that vein, but the fact remains that the mainstream media is just very bad at reporting issue-based factual material about candidates... probably simply because it doesn't "sell."
Maybe if we remind them that we own the airwaves and they don't. But this would have to happen on a more local level.

It's time for the revolution!