Back to the Bad Old Days

Back in the days of Jim Crow laws, African-Americans were by law entitled to vote, but were barred from doing so in many southern states by "literacy tests" and other dodges. Those laws are thankfully a thing of the past, but at least one commentator is apparently looking back on them with fond nostalgia.

Jonah Goldberg, an editor at National Review, wrote a column this week in which he decries how so many people are ignorant of the workings of government:

A very high percentage of the U.S. electorate isn't very well qualified to vote, if by "qualified" you mean having a basic understanding of our government, its functions and its challenges. Almost half of the American public doesn't know that each state gets two senators. More than two thirds can’t explain the gist of what the Food and Drug Administration does.

This is certainly a valid concern - no democracy can survive if the people aren't basically aware of how it functions. But rather than make a point about improving education, or how government should be more accessible to its citizens, Goldberg instead argues for restricting who can vote: "Instead of making it easier to vote, maybe we should be making it harder. Why not test people on the basic functions of government? Immigrants have to pass a test to vote; why not all citizens?"

I had to read it more than once just to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

Does Goldberg really understand what he's saying? Such tests were used back in the bad old days to keep "undesirables" from exercising their democratic rights. Does he really want to go back to that?

His suggestion is fundamentally un-American. In a democracy, all citizens have the right to vote. It's as simple as that. Does Goldberg really believe that a certain class of people should be excluded from any say in how our society functions, instead leaving it up to the "philosopher-kings" of Plato's Republic?

Of course, he also hates the very notion of public education, as he wrote in a June column. So the two notions actually dovetail nicely - deny schooling to all but the wealthiest to guarantee a permanently ignorant underclass, then use that same lack of schooling to keep them from voting.

It's diabolical, really. Too bad such a bright person has to be so wrong.