WASHINGTON ‚Äö√Ñ√Æ Martin Luther King Jr. made the cut, but Patrick Henry didn’t when immigration officials narrowed the list of questions for a new citizenship test. Citizenship and Immigration Services today released the pool of 100 civics and history questions that could be asked of people wanting to become naturalized citizens. They will begin using the new citizenship test Oct. 1, 2008. Just as with the current test, applicants will have to correctly answer six of 10 questions asked orally and pass the English proficiency portion of the exam. About 42 civics questions were dropped or revised to reach the final 100. Among those that were dropped was, “Who said ‘give me liberty or give me death?’ ” The answer is Patrick Henry.
One of the things that’s always amazed me is how much Americans take their country and their history for granted. It’s as if America’s always been here, a historical constant that always was and therefore always will be. Meanwhile, we can be a truly collectively stupid aggregation. If citizenship was something that you had to requalify for every few years, most Americans would now be living elsewhere, because they’d be unable to pass the very same test that immigrants striving for citizenship must pass.
On average, Americans are a well-meaning if generally disturbingly ignorant and self-absorbed lot. Not only can most Americans not find major cities and countries around the world on a map, they cannot even do the same thing with a map of the US. I grew up being proud of the fact that I can identify all 50 states and their capitols, but then I just assumed that everyone knew the same thing. Man, I can be SO naive sometimes, eh? Most Americans could find Vermont on a map if you held a gun to their head. This is why I laugh when I hear people pissing and moaning about our public schools. Most of the people doing the whining never bothered to take advantage of the educational opportunities they were presented in their younger days, but they feel perfectly justified in teeing off on a system from which they expect nothing less than perfection on the cheap for their own children.
Perhaps we should be looking at mandatory regular citizenship tests. If nothing else, it sure would clear up Houston traffic in one Hell of a hurry….
