In a room full of college educated people this afternoon, I made the statement that to begin solving our country's problems we needed to repeal the 17th Amendment. That the states needed to regain their "representatives" in Congress. We needed to go back to the state legislatures electing our Senators. You will not believe what transpired next.
The first outburst was from a fellow about my age. "Wow! What civics class did you take?" And the avalanche fail. To a person, they were making fun of me, stating that my education was sorely lacking, and repeating the statements regarding the civics class.
I calmly responded, "You're kidding, right? Originally, the states legislatures elected the Senators. And that was changed with the 17th Amendment."
Again, the guffaws fell.
I calmly type "17th Amendment" into the good ol' trusty Google search engine and hit "Enter", relishing the coming serving of crow. Wikipedia was my target. And there it was, the first entry on the page. I began reading aloud...
"The Seventeenth Amendment (Amendment XVII) to the United States Constitution established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. The amendment supersedes Article I, § 3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the Constitution, under which senators were elected by state legislatures. It also alters the procedure for filling vacancies in the Senate, allowing for state legislatures to permit their governors to make temporary appointments until a special election can be held. Under the original provisions of the Constitution, senators were elected by state legislatures; this was intended to prevent the federal government from indirectly absconding with the powers and funds of the states."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
If only you could have been there. It had to be the closest thing to a sound-proof booth used for hearing tests. I thought that they had left the room.
And they wonder why we seldom take their arguments and debating knowledge serious.
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