Political Thought

I know this is not a political blog (unless you believe that the right to health care should be a political, rather then human rights, issue), but an idea has come to me since watching the debate over whether GITMO detainees should be moved to high security prisons in the United States. There has been calls by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to prevent this from happening--generating fear that some how these terrorist suspects will pose a threat on U.S. soil. The fact of the matter is that not a single person has escaped from a high security prison in the United States, and this argument by Congress is entirely irrational.

Since, it seems that both democratic and republican congressmen,and even presidents, often lack the intellectual competency to make rational decisions and statements in public office, I have come up with the following idea:

All persons interested in running for public office must pass a series of litmus tests before they are eligible. We do this with lawyers, doctors, nurses, dentists..... we should do it with our politicians. An independent body of experts from a number of fields should develop tests on the following topics:

Constitutional Law

Health care

U.S. History 

World History

Macroeconomics

Microeconomics

Environmental issues

(and probably more)

We have a representative democracy instead of direct democracy for a reason: The average individual does not have the depth of knowledge required to make fair and rational decisions for the good of our country (Case in point: California). Therefore, we most elect representatives that understand the concerns facing their constituencies, but also have the intellectual ability to develop rational  and evidence-based solutions to complicated problems; many of our elected officials lack this ability and we must rectify that.