Why not an IQ test for public office?

[wtmusic]

One thing both parties can agree on: they think THEIR leaders have more foresight--and are just plain smarter.

Dubya's idiocy has killed too many people. Why not a public agency which creates a test (from which questions are drawn at random) to ensure that whatever the president's ideological convictions, he/she will at least be able to tie his/her own shoes?

Could this ever work?

[mondo joe]

1. An IQ test for voters would be more useful. n/t

[mdmc]

2. I would prefer to let the voters decide in a fair election

[BlackHeart]

3. Or maybe a

literacy test before voting rights are allowed, yeah that'll work.

[Poppyseedman]

9. A literacy test sounds like a poll tax

Even people who don't read very well should be able to understand what makes a good leader.

[BlackHeart]

19. FYI-

literacy tests and poll taxes are tactics that were used in the 1800's to keep blacks from voting. ( I was being sarcastic)

[Poppyseedman]

23. Really ?

I didn't know what a poll tax was since I brought it up. "rolling eyes"

I missed your sarcasm icon.

Hey, you never know what people mean. I have seen some pretty goofy ideas around here.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. The critical issue is not usually IQ. Certainly not with Bush.

The critical issue is diabolical intentions.

If you could develop a scale of malevolence, it might be to the point. TRhe closest thing we have, of which I'm aware, is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, widely used by forensic psychologists. Unfortunately, it doesn't work on high-functioning psychopaths whose daddies have kept them out of trouble.

And another problem with a malevolence scale if there were one--the Puggies would just use it to identify potential candidates.

[wtmusic]

44. I believe there is an inverse correlation

between intelligence and "diabolical intentions"-- people who are labeled "evil geniuses" for their ability to sway the populace are actually severely lacking in basic reasoning skills.

"identify potential candidates"--LOL, good point :thumbsup:

[Ilsa]

5. Who is going to "grade" the test? Neil Bush's company?

It's too easy to manipulate results of some of these tests and discriminate using them.

[acmejack]

6. Brave New World, ever read it?

[Poppyseedman]

7. Some of the smartest people I know, I wouldn't trust to watch my

dog for more than 2 minutes.

IQ is a very poor qualifier for running a country. Certainly you don't want morons running the country, either.

Leadership, ethics, judgment are not tested by IQ.

[populistdriven]

15. a card carrying mensa friend of mine can barely tie his shoes

[BlackHeart]

21. That's common

with morbidly obese people. (that's what mensa means right?)

[populistdriven]

26. The word "Mensa" means "table" in Latin.

The name stands for a round-table society, where race, color, creed, national origin, age, politics, educational or social background are irrelevant.

Membership in Mensa is open to persons who have attained a score within the upper two percent of the general population on an approved intelligence test that has been properly administered and supervised. There is no other qualification or disqualification for membership eligibility.

[BlackHeart]

30. Now I thought

the word mesa meant table in Spanish.

[Taxloss]

8. "It is not necessary for a King to be a philosopher ...

... and may even prove to be a disadvantage. Instead, the King should surround himself with philosophers."

- Aristotle. I'm quoting from memory, so I might have got the wording wrong, but the sentiment is exact.

My first question about this idea is "who gets to administer the test?". Secondly, I fear it would create horrible public unrest if a popular candidate was ruled out on this basis. So I fear it wouldn't be a good move in a democracy. Also, as with most parts of America's so-called meritocracy, it would be an illusion favouring the wealthy. Anyone could be coached through it.

I think that an eschatological worldview should be a bar to public office, which would have barred Reagan and GWB, but that would be unConstitutional.

[mondo joe]

11. Are you saying you'd have a problem with the Bush appointee who oversees

the testing?

;-)

[Taxloss]

18. Well, yes! A rather big problem!

If they could only involve touchscreens some way ...

[mondo joe]

22. There you go. The Diebold IQ test.

Hmmmmm........ I wonder if Karl has considered this.

[kevinmc]

10. I would prefer a Lie Detector on them when ever they speak n/t

[Blaze Diem]

12. Maybe a Lie Detector Test would suffice

They'd probably ALL fail!

[Another Bill C.]

13. "Do Dim Bulbs Make Better Presidents?"

http://www.slate.com/id/1003943/

A Slate article from 1999

[populistdriven]

14. how about a morality test - leave em a stack of bills signed 'the mob'

[FatDave]

53. Michael Moore did something like that once

He opened bank accounts in the names of phony political organizations and sent campaign contributions to presidential candidates from them. The contributions always came from an organization that the candidate would surely oppose. IIRC, the only one that didn't get cashed was from "Abortion Doctors for Bob Dole". Unfortunately, that's the only one I remember, but they were all funny. Think this was in '96, probably on TV Nation.

[RBHam]

16. Evil people can have very high IQ's...

And they usually set the policies their dumb ass figure head politicos push.

[tsuki]

17. No, the Republicans would cheat.

[boobooday]

20. NO TESTS

If you create tests, for running or voting, then you no longer have democracy.

And who writes the tests? Who scores them?

It is elitism. If you aren't going to trust the people to choose their leaders then we might as well just give up the idea of democarcy.

[wtmusic]

45. Not elitist at all

You could also say the age limit of 35 for a president is "elitist".

The public has a right to expect a fundamental level of reasoning skills in their leaders. It would have to be carefully constructed to attempt to eliminate bias against any social or economic group.

And, it wouldn't be perfect. But neither is democracy.

[K-W]

59. There is nothing elitist about wanting competence.

It is tremendously elitist to say that people who score high on intelligence tests are more competent than others.

[BlooInBloo]

24. Um Why not let THE PEOPLE choose their own d@mn President?

Sheesh - DU getting more and more anti-American by the minute it seems....

[thinkingwoman]

25. An IQ test wouldn't have stopped Bush

He's not stupid, he just plays stupid on TV. He's corrupt, selfish, and mean. There's no test for that.

If there was, it would still be unconstitutional.

Let's just work on fair elections instead.

[Zensea]

27. By definition 50% are below IQ of 100

So if you made that the demarcation point, you've just eliminated 50% of the population from holding public office.

The idea behind a representative democracy is that it is representative of the populace as a whole, right?
If your idea was adopted we wouldn't be living in a representative democracy anymore.

IQ is overrated anyway and I say that as someone who has an IQ of around 150 and who scored 99th percentile on the SATs back in the early 70s.

[wtmusic]

49. It would be representative by virtue of the fact

that the president is still selected by the public.

I would have no problem eliminating 50% of the population. The public has a right to expect only the very best.

[Zensea]

56. I'd rethink my word choice if I were you

I wrote "you've just eliminated 50% of the population from holding public office.
You wrote "I would have no problem eliminating 50% of the population."
Period. Full stop.
Really?
I don't think that's what you meant, although I'm not sure actually.
These days you never know.

[KyuzoGator]

28. Better yet, Dems should volunteer to have their IQ tested...

...then in the campaign bully the Republicans into doing the same.

[rpgamerd00d]

29. NOTE: There is ALREADY an IQ TEST for holding public office! (read)

You ask someone: "Do you want to run for public office?"

- If they say "Yes", they fail the IQ test.

:rofl:

[Zynx]

31. Smart people are capable of huge mistakes as well.

During Vietnam we supposedly had some of the smartest people in the country working on it.

[Retired AF Dem]

33. That was the problem

Vietnam should of been a four month war. But we let the "smart" people run it.

[Zynx]

35. Let us also not forget how many intellectuals supported the Iraq War.

A lot of high-minded academics supported the idea of spreading democracy in the Wilsonian tradition(such as that is).

[wtmusic]

47. But I would bet that if you tested hard-core proponents

vs. detractors the ratio would be severely lopsided "against".

There will always be anomalies like Wolfowitz, who apparently is highly regarded in the academic community.

[Zynx]

54. You had a bunch of normally left-leaning columnists and authors also

support the war. I knew lots of friends who were left leaning and very intelligent who initially supported the war as well. The war was, and I will emphasize "was", very popular among many academics.

[Marie26]

51. Most of the neo-conservatives currently ruining our country

have glittering doctorates from Yale, U. of Chicago, Harvard, etc. Intelligence is no substitute for common sense.

[ryan_cats]

32. How about drug testing?

How about drug testing? I would like to see every politician have to be drug tested. They think it's so go for schools, let see them participate. Too bad it'll never happen since they're good at making laws for the little guy that they themselves don't need to adhere to. Wouldn't you like to have the retirement plan members of Congress have?

[wtmusic]

46. Good point nt

[K-W]

34. Because IQ tests provide only limited information

about a person and thier intelligence. Useful for classifying students in schools, not useful for telling you which people are 'smart' and completely and totally unable to tell you who is most competent for office.

[tjwash]

36. That's because IQ tests are BS.

I worked with guy that used to wear his little "mensa" pin, and brag about how he was a member--blah blah blah...

He had zero common sense whatsoever, and kept getting fired from jobs because in actuality he was more of a hindrance than a use. He got laid off from the place I worked with him as well.

Some people just take tests well.

[K-W]

41. Indeed, its just an educational skills test

it shouldnt even be called an IQ test, real intelligence and IQ have little to do with each other, and adults who brag about thier scores on such tests are betraying not intelligence but elitism and insecurity. No offense to any mensa members on the board :/

[wtmusic]

48. When you look back on the best presidents

the nation has ever had there can be no doubt that they were more literate and more adept at critical thinking.

Maybe it wouldn't be an IQ test. Reasoning skills are fairly easy to identify and quantify, and I truly believe Junior would fail what most high school seniors could pass today.

[K-W]

58. No, it isn't easy to quantify such things, it is virtually impossible.

You cant put intelligence and reason in a cup and measure them. As much as we may wish we could reduce such things to numbers on a chart we cant. Tests like IQ are extremely useful as long as we can keep things in perspective and avoid treating the score on a test of educational skills as the quantification of the extremely complex and nuanced concept of intelligence.

Of course when deciding who to vote for we should look for people with knowledge, people who can think critically etc, but these are judgments that we must make for ourselves based on all of the information we have available about a person. No test can tell us these things and ceding such judgments to a test is tremendously foolish for a number of reasons.

[Joanne98]

37. Because all the Republicans would flunk!

They'll never go for it.

[Retired AF Dem]

38. None of the positions would be filled? (nt)

[Booster]

39. I want an IQ test, a lie-detector test, but most of all, a mental test.

[Zynx]

42. Mental illness is very pervasive among the "great minds".

Usually the higher the IQ the higher the risk of severe mental illness.

[Booster]

50. Ok then, we can skip the mental test for Bush since his IQ

isn't high enough to worry about it.

[Marie26]

52. Does anyone actually know Bush's IQ?

I suspect it'd be pretty high.

[Booster]

57. Someone on DU posted a list of Presidents and their IQ's and

Bush's was kinda low - I don't remember what it was but it was much, much lower than Clinton's.

[Marie26]

60. Was it this list?

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/presiq.htm

[Booster]

61. Why, I believe it was. ha So much for that story.

[shance]

40. The amount of your financial portfolio.

n/t

[Rocknrule]

43. Republicans would never get elected again

unless Diebold graded the test

[Hubert Flottz]

55. I agree plus lie detector tests and random drug testing!

What's fair for the goose is fair for the gimp duckies!

EDIT...Bush never has passed the smell test! And Bob Dole couldn't pass a slump test without his dope!

[kurth]

62. Many criminals have high IQs

[sakabatou]

63. I would think that there would have to be a mental exam as well

as a physcial (which they give). Because with Bush, he's way, WAY out there.