Purcell: Failing US citizenship

“If younger generations don’t know why and how America is such a great nation, we are doomed!”

“Ah, you speak of the recent Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation survey that finds only one in three Americans can pass the U.S. Citizenship Test.”

“You got that right. Two-thirds of Americans failed the 10-multiple-choice-question test even though they only needed six correct answers to pass.”

“That is troubling. The foundation says, ‘Only 13 percent of those surveyed knew when the U.S. Constitution was ratified.’ It says: ‘More than half of respondents (60 percent) didn’t know which countries the United States fought in World War II. And despite the recent media spotlight on the U.S. Supreme Court, 57 percent of those surveyed did not know how many Justices actually serve on the nation’s highest court.’”

“What are these people being taught in high school and college?”

“A better question is what are they NOT being taught? As the foundation notes, ‘It would be an error to view these findings as merely an embarrassment. Knowledge of the history of our country is fundamental to maintaining a democratic society, which is imperiled today.’’”

“Just for the heck of it, I took the test. The questions aren’t so difficult. How can so many Americans not answer at least six correctly?”

“The foundation reports that 72 percent of respondents weren’t sure about or misidentified the 13 original states, and just 24 percent ‘could correctly identify one thing Benjamin Franklin was famous for, with 37 percent believing he invented the lightbulb’” – the same percentage who ‘knew the correct answer as to why the colonists fought the British.’”

“Yeah, and I’m especially worried about the 2 percent who thought climate change was the cause of the Cold War!”

“The survey also found that younger generations are especially ignorant of the American system. Americans age 65 or older ‘scored the best, with 74 percent answering at least six in 10 questions correctly.’ But only 19 percent of those under 45 passed, ‘with 81 percent scoring a 59 percent or lower.’”

“That means older generations, who understand the importance of checks and balances to restrict each government branch’s power - and the triumph of our free-market system over socialism and communism - will eventually give way to younger generations who don’t understand these basic concepts.”

“Yes, that’s our greatest worry. Per Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, the University of Chicago’s GenForward Survey of Americans age 18 to 34 finds that 62 percent of them think ‘we need a strong government to handle today’s complex economic problems,’ but only 35 percent say ‘the free market can handle these problems without government being involved.’ What’s worse: 61 percent of millennial Democrats –

and 25 percent of millennial Republicans – have a positive view of socialism.”

“As I said, we’re doomed!”

“Not if we heed the words of President Abraham Lincoln: ‘America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.’ We have our work cut out for us, but we must teach the young why and how America became so great.”

Tom Purcell, author of “Misadventures of a 1970’s Childhood,” a humorous memoir available at amazon.com, is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. For info on using this column in your publication or website, contact Sales@cagle.com or call (805) 969-2829. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com.