The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 72 - Voters Should Be Required To Take A Civics Exam

00:00:00.000 So I saw a video floating around on Facebook that I think was originally published last week,

00:00:05.500 and it was another one of those Jimmy Kimmel, dumb guy on the street segments. And yeah,

00:00:10.980 these things get old after a while, because first of all, we get it, right? I mean,

00:00:14.900 there are a lot of idiots in America. We understand. We get it. You don't need to

00:00:17.720 keep proving it to us. We're on board. We know. Yes, it's kind of depressing. So I'm not really

00:00:23.580 in the mood to laugh about it anymore. Maybe the first few times we saw it, we started seeing

00:00:27.060 these videos. It was kind of funny. Now it's just, it's not funny anymore. It's just really sad.

00:00:32.100 And, um, and that's all. And also we know that these are not exact, this is not scientific research

00:00:37.600 here because, uh, anytime you see one of these segments and the implication obviously is, oh,

00:00:43.880 we, we went down to the streets and we had this really simple question and we couldn't find anyone

00:00:47.620 who could answer it correctly. Well, no, you definitely found some people who could answer

00:00:51.440 correctly, but you didn't put them in the video because then it detracts from the humor and it

00:00:55.340 detracts from the point you were trying to make. The point is that people are stupid. Um,

00:01:00.120 so we get, so that, that all of course is true. However, as cynical as I am and as jaded as I am

00:01:06.300 by these dumb guy interviews, this one still jumped out at me and was even more depressing than usual.

00:01:14.420 In this video, maybe you've seen it. Um, people were at, they were given a, a map of the world

00:01:20.840 without any of the countries named on it. And they were asked to just point to one country on the map,

00:01:29.560 just one. And it could even be their own country. And they were able to find that Jimmy Kimmel's

00:01:35.300 producers were able to find several presumably literate and presumably educated adults who could

00:01:42.420 not point to one country on the map, not even their own country. Now they were, they did find several

00:01:47.620 people who pointed to Africa, which of course is not a country, but they were not able to find, um,

00:01:53.420 or, or they were able to find a number of adults who could not point to one single country. And that

00:01:59.140 is, that truly is incredible because if you can't point to one country on the map, that means that you

00:02:06.200 have zero knowledge of geography. That isn't, that's one of the most basic academic subjects and you

00:02:13.040 have zero knowledge of it. None. I mean, it's incredible. And it, it brings me back, back to a

00:02:23.800 point that I, I have made many times and I will now make again. And I know that this is, you know,

00:02:30.060 when you see these videos, the first thing that you think is, wow, these people vote. That's the

00:02:34.860 really scary and depressing thing is that these people can't point to a country on the map, yet they go

00:02:40.940 and vote. And my point is, and I know this scene, this seems very scandalous and it's very upsetting,

00:02:46.980 um, to a lot of Americans with their modern sensibilities, but I really believe that we need

00:02:54.720 to find some way to legally stop these kinds of people from voting. We could see so many improvements

00:03:03.900 in our system, in our culture, in our society, if we could just stop ignoramuses from voting.

00:03:11.380 Now, if you're like the majority of Americans, then you probably labor under the faulty assumption

00:03:16.440 that everybody should have the right to vote, that this is one of the most essential, fundamental

00:03:21.740 rights and everyone should be able to do it. You may even think, and I'm, I'm always shocked when I

00:03:26.960 encounter people like this, but there seems to be a popular view that somehow America is improved.

00:03:31.980 Our society is improved by high voter turnout and high voter participation. You always hear this in

00:03:39.040 the media every, every, um, every election season where we got to get the voting. We got to get

00:03:44.780 voter turnout. We got to get more people involved, more people voting. It doesn't matter. It doesn't

00:03:49.040 matter if they, if they have any knowledge, it doesn't matter. We just need to get more people

00:03:52.800 there. We just need warm bodies in the polls. We just need people voting. They could be voting

00:03:58.600 based on absolutely nothing. We just need them there. This is this idea we have that somehow

00:04:04.360 it's a, it is an objective good to just have a bunch of people voting. Even if half of them

00:04:11.180 have no idea where they are, they're just wandering in, in some kind of half drunk stupor.

00:04:17.600 It's just, it's good. It's good because it's participation. In what other context would we

00:04:24.520 suggest that participation in and of itself is like some kind of good thing. As long as you're

00:04:31.020 participating, it doesn't matter what the reason is of your participation. It doesn't matter the

00:04:34.500 quality of the participation, just participate. Um, it should be of, of interest that our founding

00:04:45.000 fathers, that would be the people who came up with our system. They never had this idea in mind.

00:04:52.380 They never, they never thought that the best way to run the country is to just have everybody voting.

00:05:01.360 Um, they only gave the vote to landowners. And of course that had the effect of automatically

00:05:05.980 disenfranchising black people and women, which was very bad. Thankfully, over the course of the,

00:05:11.120 of the, of the, you know, the, uh, the next century and a half voting has been opened up, um,

00:05:16.660 to, to, to, to those groups. And now we no longer discriminate based on race or based on gender,

00:05:23.400 which is great, but somewhere along the line, we got it into our silly little heads that

00:05:28.520 because we shouldn't discriminate based on race and gender, that means we shouldn't discriminate

00:05:34.800 based on anything. So we rightly did away with racial and gender discrimination at the polls.

00:05:40.700 We ran way too far in the other direction. And then we did away with all forms of discrimination

00:05:46.880 at the polls. And I think that's where we went wrong. We went way to the other end of the way

00:05:52.860 to the other extreme, way too far. I think it's very clear that voting should be a discriminating

00:06:00.780 process. And you absolutely should be subjected to some forms of discrimination when you go to vote.

00:06:10.700 In fact, you're already subjected to, to, to, to some forms of discrimination at the polls

00:06:15.500 that most people agree should be there. Think about age discrimination. Now, there are some

00:06:20.320 people who want to lower the voting age, which I think is a very stupid idea, but you rarely hear

00:06:24.900 anyone say that we should just get rid of the voting age and anyone of any age should vote. Like

00:06:29.580 let's have eight year olds vote. Almost everyone agrees that eight year olds should not vote. Now, why,

00:06:35.540 why do we all agree that an eight year old shouldn't vote? What's the reason for that?

00:06:39.500 Well, the reason is that eight year olds don't know anything and, um, they are not in any way

00:06:45.360 whatsoever contributing to society. They are entirely dependent on their parents. So let their

00:06:51.640 parents vote, but not them. So it's, so it's interesting. We all agree for that reason. That's

00:06:58.560 the reason that eight year olds shouldn't vote. But then we have to ask ourselves, are there in America

00:07:06.020 a significant number of people who essentially have the maturity and intelligence of eight

00:07:15.060 year olds and who are about as self-sufficient and who contribute as much to society as eight

00:07:21.160 year olds? And if those people exist, should we allow them to vote? And if we do allow them to

00:07:27.440 vote, on what basis do we stop eight year olds from voting? When they're basically the same.

00:07:31.360 Um, now remember something, our politicians, you'll never hear a politician say what I'm saying right

00:07:40.620 now for obvious reasons, be probably political suicide, but also politicians for the most part,

00:07:48.080 especially the bad politicians, they really love it. When a lot of people vote, they want to get those

00:07:54.900 numbers up. They want to drive people to the polls, right? Why is that? Because they know that the

00:08:01.680 majority that, that, that, that, um, I should say informed, intelligent, mature voters are in the

00:08:09.040 minority. And those are the scary ones to the politicians, especially the bad politicians, the bad

00:08:15.080 politicians. If you are an informed, mature, intelligent voter, the bad politicians, especially are

00:08:20.560 afraid of you and they hate you. And they would love it if they could stop you from voting, but they

00:08:24.600 can't. So instead their plan is we're going to take your vote and we're going to drown it in a sea of

00:08:31.440 stupidity. We're going to cancel it out by having a bunch of ignoramuses vote so that your vote no

00:08:37.060 longer matters. That's why they like having high voter turnout. And that's why they're afraid of low

00:08:42.620 voter turnout. Because when they know that they know that when the voter turnout is low, that means

00:08:47.720 that, that, that, um, it's going to predominantly be the really invested and interested people who

00:08:55.140 voted. And those are the scary ones. Those are the ones you don't want. They want the high voter

00:09:00.140 turnout. And that's why you'll even see like, they're going to, they're going to, you know,

00:09:04.360 organize campaigns to have buses show up and just, you know, like pick people up, people that are just

00:09:10.720 laying on their couch, watching reality TV with Cheeto crumbs on there. They're going to send people in

00:09:15.060 to, to, to, to lift them up and carry them. They can still be in their pajamas. It doesn't matter.

00:09:19.060 Keep staying in your pajamas. We will lift you into the poll, carry you. So you have to, so you,

00:09:24.860 it requires no effort from you whatsoever. And we'll just bring you in. And we, yeah, we want those

00:09:30.180 people to vote people who, who, who otherwise would, would make no effort whatsoever. We want them

00:09:34.740 from the politicians perspective. We want them in the polls because those are the ones who are easily

00:09:39.980 manipulated. And those are the people who aren't going to hold us accountable because they have no idea

00:09:44.660 what's going on. Now we may say that, uh, and, and I hear this a lot that, well, you know, it's,

00:09:50.620 it's, it's, it's our civic duty to go vote. It's a civic duty. No, not exactly. Or it is, but with

00:09:59.560 qualifiers, you see your first civic duty is to be informed, aware, invested, and contributing.

00:10:09.120 So your first civic civic duty is to be an informed, aware, invested, contributing member

00:10:15.240 of society. That is your first civic duty. If you have not completed that duty, if you have not

00:10:22.060 completed step one, then you absolutely should not graduate to step two, which is voting.

00:10:29.580 And it's crazy. I think for us to say that, well, even if you haven't done the first thing,

00:10:34.260 you should definitely still do the second thing. What, why your duty is not to just vote. Your duty

00:10:41.080 is to make informed, intelligent votes. That's your duty. Voting in and of itself is nothing.

00:10:48.900 So all these people that, Oh, they, they put on, they go vote based on nothing. They go vote based

00:10:53.100 on like whose last name they, uh, they think sounds the coolest. And then they put their, I voted sticker

00:11:00.600 on and they say, I voted. You shouldn't be proud of that. You should be ashamed. You should be ashamed

00:11:05.900 that you went and voted based on nothing. You should be ashamed that you just canceled out

00:11:10.760 somebody's informed vote just so you could get a sticker. It's shameful. It's embarrassing.

00:11:17.080 You didn't do your duty. You did the opposite of your duty. If you're not informed, if you're not

00:11:21.080 aware of anything, if you can't point to a country on the map, if you don't know anything about our,

00:11:26.160 our system of government, then your duty is to stay home and not vote and then learn something.

00:11:33.700 And then next time around, go vote. So here, I think if we wanted to correct the problem,

00:11:39.140 if we wanted to make some improvement, if we wanted to make drastic improvements to, uh, to,

00:11:42.960 to our society and our system overnight, I think we could instate three changes.

00:11:50.980 And I know that these three things will never happen, but I'm going to suggest them anyway.

00:11:56.160 The first two things I'll just say quickly. Um, the first thing is, I think we have to get rid of

00:12:02.060 early voting. You know, when we refer to voting day, in reality, it's more like voting week or

00:12:11.140 voting month because it's, it's too ambitious, I guess, to expect citizens to get to the polls

00:12:17.080 during a particular 12 hour span. And so we want to give people the chance to just leisure leisurely

00:12:23.640 kind of saunter in and vote whenever they want. And, you know, we're trying to make it as easy

00:12:28.140 as possible for everyone. I think that, uh, that that's the wrong way of going about it.

00:12:34.240 We want to make it a little more difficult. We want to require people, if they're going to vote,

00:12:39.000 they got to make some sacrifices. They got to really put it in their schedule. We got to,

00:12:43.380 we make it a little bit harder because that way only the people who really care are going to vote.

00:12:49.720 And those are the only ones we want voting. The ones who really care. So if, um, look, I don't

00:12:58.780 know, maybe, maybe we still allow a day early, two days, but, uh, if, if, if the only way you're

00:13:04.680 going to vote is if you have like a whole month to do it, well, then you obviously don't care that

00:13:09.520 much. In which case, what's the point? So I think we do away with early voting. Um,

00:13:15.180 I think the second thing is, uh, is we only allow taxpayers to vote. That would be, uh,

00:13:25.780 people who are contributing only taxpayers can vote. And I would stipulate by the way, that, um,

00:13:32.800 we would include, you know, married couples. If, if you're a married couple, then both can,

00:13:40.620 and, and, and at least one of you is working, then you can both vote. Right. Um, but the point is we

00:13:47.060 want people who are contributing or chipping in and, but more importantly is we want people who have

00:13:56.820 something at stake because taxpayers, they're the ones who are really invested and they're the ones

00:14:04.580 who can get primarily screwed. If we get bad politicians in there. I think it's, it's always

00:14:10.240 been recognized that it's a bad situation when people can go to the polls and vote themselves

00:14:16.160 money, right? When they, when they can vote for benefits and entitlements for themselves without

00:14:23.040 having any skin in the game whatsoever, that's a bad situation. So when people who aren't contributing

00:14:30.460 at all to the public treasury, when they get to go to the polls and decide what happens with everyone

00:14:37.380 else's money, I think that's a bad situation. Um, and then the third thing, and this, this to me is

00:14:43.480 the most important thing. And if we could only do one of the three suggestions that I'm making right

00:14:46.960 now, and again, I know we'll do none of them, but, um, if we could only do one, I would say

00:14:50.740 we should require every voter to take and pass a very basic fifth grade civics exam.

00:15:00.460 Just like 10 questions, fifth grade level. So you don't need to be a genius. You don't need to

00:15:06.900 be an expert. Um, it's not AP level stuff we're talking about. It's just, it's just,

00:15:12.160 do you know, um, are you smarter than a fifth grader? Basically, do you know about as much

00:15:19.340 about our system of government as we would expect a 10 year old to know? And if you don't,

00:15:25.840 then obviously you shouldn't be voting, right? If you think that airplanes fly on pixie dust,

00:15:35.280 then you shouldn't be in the cockpit. If you, if you don't know, um, the, the, the, the right

00:15:46.280 temperature for, for, for, for chicken, if you don't know what, what, what temperature chicken

00:15:51.100 supposed to be at before it's consumed, then you shouldn't be cooking in a commercial kitchen

00:15:56.300 or any kind of kitchen, uh, uh, really. And in, in a similar way, if you can't name the branches

00:16:03.120 of government, then you don't belong in a voting booth. I don't even think this is really a debatable

00:16:10.580 position. This is just right. Isn't this self-evident? If you lack even basic fundamental knowledge

00:16:17.960 about our government and about our laws and about the current political scene, um, you should not be

00:16:24.520 anywhere near a polling station on voting day. Look, nothing, it's nothing personal. I have nothing

00:16:29.460 against you. You're, you're, you are a person equal in dignity and value to all other people,

00:16:36.260 but your vote is not equal in value. Your vote has no real actual value because it's based on nothing.

00:16:44.700 Now, I'm not suggesting that every voter should have a degree in American history or political

00:16:49.980 science. I'm just saying that every voter should have a basic grasp on the system that they're,

00:16:58.260 that they are now taking part in. So I would suggest just a simple 10 question quiz, um,

00:17:06.520 covering some really basic questions. And, um, if you answer, let's say seven out of 10 correctly,

00:17:14.200 and you show your, your ID, then you can vote. Um, if you answer, if you can only answer, let's say

00:17:21.820 four to six questions correctly, then your voting privileges will be suspended for, let's say two

00:17:27.800 or three years to give you time to kind of catch up and learn a few things. Um, and if you can answer

00:17:34.400 zero questions correctly, then you should be deported to Canada. Sorry, Canada. Uh, that would be the,

00:17:41.820 that's anyway, if I were dictator of the country, that's the system I would have in place.

00:17:45.960 Maybe a more realistic goal would just be answer seven out of 10 correctly. And you can vote.

00:17:51.340 Think of now it'll never happen, but think about the changes that would occur

00:17:57.840 to our system. If just, if something as simple as this were instated,

00:18:03.860 if every person voting just had a fifth graders understanding of our, of our system and of the

00:18:11.200 world, think about the changes and all of the changes would be for the better. I can't think

00:18:16.500 of one single negative change that would happen because of this. There'd be a lot of negative

00:18:20.780 changes for bad politicians who are now being held accountable. And of course, that's the reason

00:18:25.920 why this will never happen because it would require politicians to come up with this idea

00:18:29.400 and instate it, which they will never, ever do. So we're kind of stuck with the system as it is,

00:18:34.240 but I think it's, it's helpful to have this conversation because it helps us understand,

00:18:38.200 you know, how voting is supposed to work and, uh, and, and what the point of voting actually is.

00:18:46.940 And so that even if, even if there's never a system put in place to weed out the ignorant people,

00:18:52.140 maybe at least we can encourage people who know that they are ignorant,

00:18:55.720 we can encourage them that when voting day comes around, just stay home until you have cured yourself

00:19:02.580 of your ignorance. And then you could partake in this wonderful thing called voting. That's my

00:19:09.100 suggestion. Thanks for watching everybody. Thanks for listening. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 30, 2018

Ep. 72 - Voters Should Be Required To Take A Civics Exam

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