Education Requirements for Congress

There are a countless number of members of Congress who are intellectually bankrupt. As these men and women control trillions of dollars of money and our livelihood each and every year, they should be held to a high standard. Yes, they have to be elected and re-elected by their constituents - however, as everyone knows, elections are generally popularity contests and the electorate is generally dumb as well. Therefore, there should be an education requirement to run for Congress. Rule 1 - You must have at least a Masters degree. I was thinking about making it mandatory to have a doctorate, but I think anything greater or equal to a Masters degree is good enough - MA, MS, JD, PhD, MD, et cetera. Rule 2 - You must have an IQ of at least X. I haven't determined what X would be, but maybe somebody here could give me some input. Rule 3 - You must pass a Test. This Test would be similar to something like the SATs, except with questions on topics such as government, economics, politics, et cetera. If the Congressperson does not meet all of these rules, then they can not run for Congress. Constructive criticism and any new rules would be appreciated. Thank you.

This is a bad idea. It stinks of intellectual elitism, and there is already elitism coming out from Congress, except it is just economic.

Just because you don't have a Master's Degree, or don't have a certain IQ level (IQ isn't a very good way of determining intelligence anyways), doesn't mean you should not be allowed to be a legislator. There have been many good legislators and leaders that don't have university degrees and I'm almost certain probably don't have tremendously high IQs. It goes to show that you don't need to prove how "smart" you are in order to lead.

Besides, are you willing to marginalize millions of Americans for the sake of maybe getting smarter Congressmen? You'll find it doesn't have very good traction among voters.

This doesn't really seem like a Nags post, though. Where is the spacing?

lolgovernmentmeasuringintelligence

At 10/19/2009 1:12:49 PM, Volkov wrote:
This doesn't really seem like a Nags post, though. Where is the spacing?

Haha, I'm not sure if I really support this, I don't think I do. I just wanted to get some opinions. And about the spacing - I was also thinking about when to hit the enter key the whole time I was typing that, I'm not really sure why I never did. I'm suprised you noticed that, lol. So yeah, I'm just looking for opinions right now.

This is a horrible decision, that our country was never meant to go down.

Look at it like this, the only US President to have a Master's Degree is President George W. Bush.

At 10/19/2009 1:23:55 PM, comoncents wrote:
This is a horrible decision, that our country was never meant to go down.

Reasons?

Look at it like this, the only US President to have a Master's Degree is President George W. Bush.

I doubt this. Also, there have been numerous Presidents with JDs, which meets the degree requirement.

At 10/19/2009 1:28:09 PM, Nags wrote:

Look at it like this, the only US President to have a Master's Degree is President George W. Bush.

I doubt this.

Actually, I looked it up, and he's right. George W. is the only one to have had a Master's Degree.

At 10/19/2009 1:37:29 PM, Volkov wrote:

At 10/19/2009 1:28:09 PM, Nags wrote:

Look at it like this, the only US President to have a Master's Degree is President George W. Bush.

I doubt this.

Actually, I looked it up, and he's right. George W. is the only one to have had a Master's Degree.

Yeah, but there have been numerous President with JDs and one with a PhD - which meets the degree requirement.

Here is the List of United States Presidents by college education:
http://en.wikipedia.org...

Well, I'm definitely in favor of only the (proven to be) most intelligent people running our nation; I'm not certain as to whether a degree would be the best way to measure it, though.

I see where it is you are coming from, but i can not agree b/c america was set up, allowing anyone to run for office.

Arguably, they had people with less education and ability to make educated decisions then we do now.

Still, our Founding Fathers did not find it necessary to put an educational limit on the presidency. It is the reason why America is great, it allows for freedom to run for the highest office with a 1st grade education.

Some would argue that it is Americas down fall, but if our down fall in freedom, i'll fall as hard as i am required too.