50 - Hell, most can't name 25!!!!! Or the VP, Sec of State, etc. Or ANYONE on the Supreme Court! Or their congressman! OR their dogcatcher for that matter! But - Make sure you take ur hat off when the flag is in the vicinity with some particular song a band or recording is playing.....

I think a lot of this can be traced back to Mr.Swank's comments about people's minimal knowledge of "civics".

When I was in Grammar School,we had to learn all 50 states and their capitals and all the presidents.

My parents have an aide.
She's trying to become a U.S. Citizen.
I've been going over some of the sample test questions with her.

They're pretty basic.
But,I wonder how many High School seniors,or for that matter college seniors, could pass the Citizenship Test.

As far as standing for the National Anthem,I wonder how many people even know why that is done,or basic U.S. flag protocol.
We got taught that too,including why the U.S. flag never "dips".
Both in grammar school and the Boy scouts.

These are what are referred to as 'basic recall facts'. It does not take an educated person to know this stuff. It's rote memorization, among the lowest depths of knowledge. You're right, the capitals of the states may be on the backburner in a lot of schools. But you know what? That time is being replaced with more in-depth learning. Instead of being able to recall that Carson City is the capital of Nevada (please tell me the value of that...), they're learning the characteristics of democracy vs. monarchy vs. authoritarianism. They're debating the values of these, and why countries would have one over another. They're having deep discussions.

This upcoming generation may not be the best at Trivia Night at your local bar. However, I am quite confident that they'll be innovators and leaders of a very impressive world. I was at a presentation just last week and the first slide's quote was: "Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think." --Albert Einstein

Yep, he knew all about the Electoral College. And thought it was a "disaster for democracy."

I actually took the citizenship test for fun not so long ago, and it's pretty basic. I'm sure Trump would pass. A high school civics class on the other hand? Much more of a toss up.

With all due respect to Albert, you must have facts to inform your thinking. Abstract "thinking" without facts to inform your thinking is rather a meaningless exercise. As one bard once put it, "We can have facts without thinking, but we can't have thinking without facts." I believe that you have set up a false dichotomy here. What you are really questioning is what facts are most important to learn in any given length of time. I would suggest that at least some of what you call "trivia" are essential facts that a citizen of the U.S. should know. Whether you need to know the capital of every state is certainly debatable. But, knowing that each state has two senators and a number of representatives based on its population is certainly mandatory before you can logically talk about comparing our democracy with other democracies and other forms of government. There are many other such examples that could be given, but I think you get the point. I wonder how many of the current generation could tell you how Congress is setup and the original rationale for it?

Before you snap to any judgments on my generation, just remember that there are a fair amount of elected Republicans who seem to think that you must be Christian in order to serve in office. What should be especially embarassing is the interview given yesterday by Roy Moore's campaign spokesman who found out that it is, in fact, not a law that one must put their hand on a bible when taking the oath. There's a fair amount of voters from my home area that also said similar statements during the 2008 election. If you'll remember the Al-Jazeera America coverage of a Palin rally in a town called St. Clairsville, there were several proclaiming "he's not Christian, this is a Christian nation."

Yes, there's a fair amount from my generation that do not get it. But there is an equal amount from yours that also don't get it, especially when it comes to things such as Judicial Review where the Supreme Court gets to decide if a law is unconstitutional. Most from your generation also do not understand flag code as I see an awful lot rules being broken by the "patriots" of your generation from flying tattered and worn flags (any rip at all, any fading, and they need to be retired), to flying without a light on it at night, to keeping it up in inclimate weather.

Please, do tell me about how it's my generation that knows nothing.

I'm not sure that flying an unlit, tattered flag at night is exactly comparable to not knowing about judicial review, or the three branches of the U.S. government, or the concept of separation powers. I'm really not trying to get into a generational war. There are certainly uninformed and dumbass people in all generations. I do think, though, that in recent years the teaching of basic civics at the high school level has gone downhill. I will admit that I have mainly anecdotal evidence to support this contention, and I could be wrong.

Yes, I'm aware of the kind of "flag hypocrisy" you are talking about. I've witnessed it myself. So I don't have an argument with you on that point. I don't have a real strong feeling against the players kneeling during the anthem. They certainly have a right to do it, unless the NFL orders them otherwise. I do think it is basically counterproductive and is likely to not amount to much in the long run. Others on here disagree with that assessment, and I don't want to rehash the various arguments we've had before in this thread.

The NFL money is a drop in the bucket compared to the need. Many of those who know the NFL much better than I say Kaepernick would be struggling to find a team that would sign him even if none of this protest stuff had happened. I'm not saying the protest has had no positive effect, I just think on balance in the long run it's not really going to be very helpful, and may do more harm than good.

Please note that about two percent of Alabamians who would have voted for a decent GOP candidate, instead voted for a write-in. This was slightly more than Jones' margin of victory. So the deciding factor in this race was, indeed, morality over expediency.

This is, of course, under the assumption that every write-in vote was a Republican vote and otherwise would've gone to a Republican candidate. The number of write-ins was 22,819. The margin of victory for Jones was 20,715. My dad always writes in his name every election, as he says he hasn't found a candidate he could support over himself. He finds it his civic duty to vote, however. I do believe many of the write-ins were disgruntled Republicans, but if 90% of them were, Jones still would've had enough to win.

And how many people voted for that guy from Arkansas,twice,with the accusations against him,including rape ?

Sorry,but Moore,Clinton,and the Democrat and Republican legislators who have resigned recently show that,when it comes to this type of inappropriate behavior, neither side can claim the moral high ground.