An aspect of modern media today is that with so many platforms out there, it’s easy for talking heads — people with lots of opinions about this or that issue — to speak their peace before plenty of people.
The size of their platform grants them some sort of “expert” status.
In fairness, I could add myself to that list of so-called “experts.” I write this blog and offer my opinions to those who care to read them. What they do with these thoughts, well, depends on whether they agree.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck is a Fox News Channel host who, I guess, has a forum to say things that are patently ridiculous. However, because she’s on a network “news” channel, her statements carry some extra weight.
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/22/elisabeth_hasselbeck_it_is_more_meaningful_if_citizens_have_to_take_a_test_before_voting/
Her latest ridiculous rant suggested that citizens should have to pass a citizenship test before they vote or before they graduate from high school.
Hasselbeck endorsed the idea of a citizenship test in a morning discussion on the “Fox and Friends” show she co-hosts. But according to Salon.com, Hasselbeck missed a history lesson of her own.
According to Salon.com: “The problem is one that Fox completely omitted, an argumentative tactic that has served the network well. There actually has been such a test, a so-called literacy test, which was eventually banned by the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The test was theoretically to be given to people of all races, but was disproportionately given to black potential voters in order to disenfranchise them. A few of the tests are available, and the wording of the questions are deliberately confusing and obtuse in such a way that even highly educated people would not necessarily do well.”
As a former colleague of mine is fond of saying — usually in support of right-wingers’ view of constitutional issues — the Constitution doesn’t say a word about requiring such tests as a condition for voting.
Therefore, Hasselbeck has just flunked her own test of civic knowledge.