Friday, June 29, 2012

One Of These Is Not Like The Others

Today's diversion involves a simple quiz on your knowledge of grade school civics. Well, actually, it's a quiz on your critical thinking skills* disguised as a civics quiz. There are no right and wrong answers, only good and bad reasoning.

After the jump, a few simple questions.



Please answer the following questions, giving your opinion of how things should operate in your ideal world, not necessarily how current practice or law causes them to operate in today's world.
  1. How should the captain of a football team be chosen?
    1. By vote of all fans of the team
    2. By appointment by the coach
    3. By vote of the members of the team
  2. How should the foreman of a jury be chosen?
    1. By vote of all citizens of the city or county where the trial is held
    2. By appointment by the plaintiff, the defendant, or both
    3. By appointment by the trial judge
    4. By vote of the members of the jury
  3. How should the Speaker of the Texas (or US) House of Representatives be chosen?
    1. By vote of all citizens of Texas (or US)
    2. By vote of the members of the Texas (or US) House
  4. How should the presiding officer of the Richardson City Council be chosen?
    1. By vote of all citizens of Richardson
    2. By vote of the members of the City Council
  5. If you answered "a" to any of the questions, explain how that situation differs from the situation in the questions for which you did not answer "a."
Take your time. Your promotion out of grade school depends on your answers.
* If you think teaching critical thinking skills is a plot to challenge students' fixed beliefs and undermine parental authority, you are excused from taking this test. Instead, recite ten times in rapid succession the times table up to twelves. Repeat until you can complete it in one minute.

7 comments:

dc-tm said...

To carry your musings a bit further, and following the same line of reasoning, would you also arguing that the voters should not elect the president of the US and we can do away with presidential elections? After all, if the congress selects the president from among their own, the president and congress would most likely end up working better together and get along much better.

Mark Steger said...

dc-tm, good question. Having Congress choose the President would make the US system more like a European parliamentary system. Given the dysfunctional nature of our current federal government, a parliamentary system might be an improvement. But I like the checks-and-balances our system offers, so I would reform the US federal government in other ways instead.

By the way, "dc-tm" I can't find any place where you identify yourself, either in your comments, your profile or the blog your profile points to. That's a violation of the commenting rules on this site. This is a warning that your comments may be deleted in future because of this.

dc-tm said...

By all means, if I am in violation of your rules for your blog and you wish to delete my comment, do it to it. Your blog and your rules rule the roost.

Nathan Morgan said...

Well, then. I guess you think it's time to amend the Texas Constitution, not the Richardson City Charger...? That is done by a vote of the people, right?

Nathan Morgan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nathan Morgan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Nathan Morgan said...

What happened Mark? Did I offend your sensibility?