The uncivil debate over civic illiteracy ~ By Tom Tancredo

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

The potential for "elected despots" was well understood by our nation's founders, and they devised mechanisms in the Constitution to reduce that danger. They understood that throughout history, democracies had followed certain patterns and cycles, cycles ending in tyranny. So, instead of a pure democracy, they designed and established a republic organized as a representative democracy, with checks and balances and other innovations to help safeguard our liberties.

By Tom Tancredo

Posted: February 13, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

After 35 years in politics, I am seldom surprised by the venom that flows from the mouths of liberals when one of their sacred cows is criticized. But the "fan mail" following my speech a week ago to the tea-party convention in Nashville has been truly amazing.

I spoke to the opening session of the event about why it is a good thing that John McCain was not elected president. I expected those remarks to be controversial in some quarters, but the only controversy in the news coverage of my speech was about my suggestion that we need a civics literacy test for voters.

Evidently, you cannot question the value of universal suffrage, and in the liberal lexicon, universal suffrage means not only that there should be no unreasonable or discriminatory bars to voting, but that all adults should be forced to vote, no matter how ignorant or disconnected to the civic affairs of the community.

I did not say in Nashville that all 67 million Obama voters are illiterate rabble who would fail a civics literacy test. What I did suggest and what I believe is that in the 2008 presidential election, the margin of victory for Obama was provided by people who would not be at the polls if we had meaningful civics literacy requirements for voting. Hence my statement that the lack of a civics literacy requirement is one reason we have a committed socialist ideologue in the White House today.

That statement provoked a stream of angry e-mail messages from outraged Obama voters, many of whom proudly proclaimed their advanced degrees in art history, Egyptology and political science. The message was as consistent as it was strident: What an ignoramus I must be to question the educational level of Obama voters!

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