Rules? What rules?

I suppose this helps explain why our elected leaders don't follow the Constitution -- they don't even know what's in it:

- Only 49 percent of elected officials could name all three branches of government, compared with 50 percent of the general public.
- Only 46 percent knew that Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war -- 54 percent of the general public knows that.
- Just 15 percent answered correctly that the phrase "wall of separation" appears in Thomas Jefferson's letters -- not in the U.S. Constitution -- compared with 19 percent of the general public.
- And only 57 percent of those who've held elective office know what the Electoral College does, while 66 percent of the public got that answer right. (Of elected officials, 20 percent thought the Electoral College was a school for "training those aspiring for higher political office.")

You can take the quiz here. For the record, I scored 100.

This goes back to something I've touched on numerous times: we value citizenship far too lightly. There are natural rights that accrue by virtue of drawing breath -- but positions of responsibility are not one of them. Those must be earned. No person should be allowed to vote who cannot pass the quiz at the link above. You drive, you have to take a test. You vote, you should have to take a test. And no person should be allowed to serve in any Federal office, elected or otherwise, unless they could ace a quiz like that. (Where's the challenge???)

We live in a country where the average person knows the rules of NFL football or the latest 'reality' competition show better than they do the document that is supposed to enable our governance -- and the latter is a shorter document! Is it any wonder the system no longer seems to work?