For one thing, the internet, in theory at least, could make people want to read more, and also generally has renewed interest in writing. That said reading and writing are often bad is true, but at least it gets people to practice.

Also, I disagree that the problem is inherently a generational one, so much as that it is a created problem. In other words, I have noticed that in the past 20-25 years, there has been a systematic effort put forth to not only discourage learning, but to elevate the status of the “common man” and that this effort has ironically been made by many people who belong in the so-called elite class they rail against, such as Rush Limbaugh.

If you can stomach it, watch/listen to them. Rush and his ilk have successfully gotten people to distrust information sources which are not propaganda sources. They rail against universities, science, and educated politicians to create an atmosphere where no one will trust those sources because of their alleged bias.

The void created thus is then easily filled with propaganda such as is found on the only “fair and balanced” TV news channel. I have encountered more ignorance not from any one generation as much as I have from people who watch and listen to this skewed media which seldom bothers to fact check or correct errors.

I’m not saying this is the only problem, because as noted the ignorance problem persists across things like party lines, but I do find it created a fertile bed for the bounty crop of ignorance which we are now experiencing.

Not that this solution is any better, but for me, I’d rather have mandatory voting than voting based on an exclusionary test.

You also seem to preclude the possibility that one can be both intelligent and religious. This equating of religion with stupidity is simply incorrect and is as insulting as when religionists equating atheism with immorality. Atheists can (and often are) moral. Similarly, religionists can be intelligent (and often not idiots). Making the assumption that they are all dumb also creates the danger of underestimating your advisories.

So, despite all the problems that result from unintelligence and irrational thinking, I will still fight for religinist’s suffrage and idiot’s suffrage.

Just cast your vote, then answer 5 short questions about the party/person/rule/law you’re voting on. That will at least prevent people for something “that sounds neat” or someone who looks good.

Also, I wouldn’t include anything about religion in my weight test. It would be about economy, foreign policy, general healthcare policy etc. Things that matter for the vote, I don’t care about their religion, mathematical skill or whatever, as long as the voters are competant and know what they’re doing.

The US education system is, for the most part, in terrible shape. There are a few good districts scattered about, but not many. Because teaching is a low paying job, you typically don’t get the cream of the crop as teachers. Think back to high school. The kids you knew who got C grade averages are the next batch of teachers.

I was unhirable as a Band teacher because of my degree in Chemistry. Teachers can not negotiate salaries, as they are set by state and local laws. You have a chart with your education level as columns and years of experience as the rows. Because of my second degree I was in the “Bachelor’s Plus” column, meaning I would be paid about the same as someone in the “Bachelor’s” column with 5 years experience. Because of strained funding in most districts, this made me too expensive to hire as a new teacher. 3.6 GPA from a demanding school? Not important. Desire and talent? Not important. Letters of recommendation from teachers, administrators, parents, and students from the school I did student teaching at? Not important. A lousy extra $2,300 a year to hire me? Denied.

I wrote an about this back in 2003 on my business partner’s site here:
http://www.shawnolson.net/a/220/how-to-get-better-teachers.html
The statistics are a bit old, but they haven’t changed much since then.

back on topic though.
I don’t even think the problem lies with TV, or lack of reading. The problem is that people just don’t absorb any information, and aren’t even trying to learn anything.

I can’t count how many thing I’ve learned here and there, from tv, wikipedia, games, random books, people and what-have-you (the english lanuage for one), I consider myself pretty all-round, knowing at least a bit of everything. Lacking such a broad basis of knowledge, and the will to get one, the situation is not going to change any time soon.

The net has succeeded in giving morons more of a voice, thats for sure.

New One:
You might have something there, but as someone who has lived in both the USA & the UK as well as extensively travelled the world, in my experience, the pride-in-ignorance thing is running rampant in the US, notably more than in europe, australia etc. Its just scary that this is the same country with ‘the finger on the button’ in escence.