Should Presidents Be able To Spot Three Move Forced Checkmates?

[Zeno]

Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates the qualifications for the U.S. President-


No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.


Also there is this statement from Article VI:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

So no religious test can be given but perhaps an admendment can be made to allow for intelligence tests for elected offices of public trust.


However much your OP may have generated some interesting discussion, in terms of pratical or realistic application to this crazy American Democracy we live in, it is plainly silly.

China for millennia had testing qualifications for many public offices (appointed by the emperor or provincial officials), especially ones of importance and influence. This was an outgrowth of Confucianism, which is not, by the way, a religion - not in any strict sense anyway. The collapse of this testing system after 1911 exacerbated the Chaos that inflicted China in the 1920-1930's.

-Zeno

[IronUnkind]

Z:

It's obviously impractical (and probably unconstitutional) to forcibly apply such a test, but it's not a bad idea for the public to pay attention to this kind of information, insofar as it's available.

I'm personally more interested in the candidates' test scores than say, their military service. If there were a public hunger for intelligent candidates, then the parties themselves would strive to field them.

[southerndog]

I'm with ZJ.

Also, I like to hear that a presidential candidate has an impressive academic background.

It pisses me off that when a person says "X is important" someone comes up with an example to attempt to contradict it with "You can have X but suck at Y...."..

A: "Strength is an important factor for a football player"
B: "My neighbor benchpressed 340 pounds but couldn't break 6 seconds in the 40 yd dash and was a back up on his HS football team.. See, strength means nothing."

[drzen]

[ QUOTE ]
People bend over backwards to dispute my contention that those who believe that silly religious stories actually make objective sense, or that those who are weak in mathematical reasoning, are not apt to be as as good a president as the best of those who don't have these attributes.

[/ QUOTE ]

"The only thing you can conclude from Sklansky saying "Activity X doesn't
require intelligence" is that Sklansky has no skills in Activity X. The
only thing you can conclude from Sklansky saying "Activity Y requires
intelligence" is that Sklansky thinks he has skills in Activity Y."

Gary Carson FTW!

[AlexM]

No.