I’m appalled, just appalled. Yet also strangely excited. I was flipping through the Internet looking for something interesting to write about this week and came across the results of a quiz given to 18-24-year-old Americans last November. The quiz asked these American youth relatively basic questions about geography. Where is Iraq on a map? Where is the United States? Where is New York? You get the idea. As it turns out, my peers didn’t perform too terribly well. As a matter of fact, their efforts could only be characterized as pathetic.

Let’s take a look at some of the data and figure out what it means for all of us. 87% of them couldn’t find Iraq. Well, that’s not so bad, I guess. The quiz was administered in late 2002, so it was before the real media frenzy surrounding Iraq began. Consequently, the young adults taking the quiz didn’t have the benefit of receiving the tutelage of 24-hour news coverage and the corresponding high-tech mini-maps of the Middle East. No doubt, their score would be much higher now. We can forgive them for this one.

Seventy percent of them couldn’t find the state of New Jersey. This one stings a little more, but let’s be honest, Jersey isn’t the most memorable of states. The ironically named Garden State shares with Gary, Indiana (home of the easy-on-the-eyes-and-the-environment Bethlehem Steel mills) and the Bikini Atoll (where the U.S. conducted tests of their nuclear weapons) the status of armpit of the world. We’ll just attribute the poor score to the kids’ binge drinking. There’s nothing wrong with blowing off a little steam five to six nights a week, right?

Eleven percent of them couldn’t find the United States. Whoa! Yeah, not much of an excuse for this one. I bet over half of my peer group could give you a graphic description of how Ryan and Marissa’s rendezvous on The O.C. went down this past Tuesday (for those of you too old to care, The O.C. is the Fox Network’s latest attempt to destroy the fabric of our nation). Clearly, they’re able to retain knowledge. Why, oh why, then does a healthy 10% of my demographic group drool uncontrollably and lose all cognitive function when asked to locate the United States? It’s not Ceylon, Ulan Bator, or even New Jersey, for God’s sake! I don’t know what percentage of my peers huffed glue every afternoon or consumed paint chips as daily snacks for the first 17 years of their lives, but I've a hunch it was right around 11%.

OK, let’s all take a breath and decide if we should just drink the magic Kool-Aid and get it all over with now. Here is where a lot of columnists would editorialize and decry the failure of public schools or blame society’s trend toward secularization, effectively destroying institutions like the church and family, but then this would become just another dry, soulless policy article. I have about 23 of those due throughout this semester and I have no inclination to pump one out for this website. Rather than focusing on who’s to blame for those miserably ignorant kids, lets discuss how we can all benefit from their stupidity.

First off, we young adults who can tell the difference between our right and left hands without a parent-handwritten‘L or R on top, or those of us who have been endowed with the seemingly esoteric knowledge of why "irregardless" is a word devoid of meaning have a gang of advantages going into the future. There’s literally no limit to what we can do when the future of the nation lies in the hands of gibbering, mash-headed, piles of goo. To illustrate, take a look at this story about a $200 bill that was used at a convenience store in North Carolina. Now, it’s not like the bill in question had a picture of an obscure president known only in the annals of history. Nope, it was our sitting president, George W. Note also the signs on the White House lawn; hardly something you’d see on legal tender of the United States. I guarantee the clerk who accepted this bill has eaten his or her share of paint chips through the years. As sad and unfortunate as this situation was, it’s also way cool! All of a sudden illegal antics like counterfeiting money, which were far too dangerous for people with more than a dozen brain cells remaining after constant saturation with THC or Special K (that’s street lingo for ketamine, the drug, not the cereal, folks) to participate in before, are wide open to us. Afraid you’ll get caught? Don’t be! The young gas station clerk will mindlessly take your $16 bill while humming the latest Justin Timberlake hook. By the time the manager comes in and hears the cashier asking why there’s no slot in the register for a $16 bill you’re home free. Enjoy your free Yoo-hoo and cheesewurst!

Also, let’s think about this in terms of future competition. I can really appreciate the fact that I’ll be competing against the great unwashed for my future employment. Like any healthy, twenty-something male, I firmly believe that I’m going to conquer the world. I can already see the masses lined along the streets, cheering in ecstasy as my car slowly parades down the road, followed by a wide array of tanks and missiles. Huge murals of me, reaching down to help lift the farmers and ball-bearing factory workers up to a better life will adorn the skyscrapers of all major cities. My storm troopers will enforce my tyranny and I shall make you weep with fear and love. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my delusions of grandeur are such that I should be permanently institutionalized and kept in a drug-induced coma, but are my plans to crush the human spirit from the opulence of my floating palace really all that absurd? It’s not as if these fat-brained kids have any idea what I’d be doing once I seized power anyway. Let’s not forget that a sizable percentage of American youth today don’t even know where America is located. If they have any concept of their rights as Americans, they’re no doubt totally incapable of forming an argument to defend their liberties against my attempt to mercilessly oppress them.

I realize now that I’m coming very close to harping on parents and schools for not doing a more adequate job of preparing today’s 18-24-year-olds for the challenges their generation will face. Perhaps I’m blowing the results of the geography quiz out of proportion. Perhaps there’s no correlation between knowing where New Jersey is and a young adult’s overall intelligence level. Perhaps. To me, though, the quiz speaks to the pervasive apathy and general lack of awareness that have become the norm for my generation. The quiz seems indicative of a people who don’t understand much about anything. Is it reasonable to believe that event though people can't find the U.S. on a map, they will still be able to verbalize and defend their First Amendment rights? Probably not. Considering that the 18-24-year-old demographic will be assuming control of the nation over the next 20 years, it’s probably high time we took steps to make sure the future leaders of America can find it on a map. If not, though, it’s fine with me. Everyone says I’d look great on murals.

chris@quorumcall.com

He is a political conservative currently attending school at an ultra-liberal Minnesota university, pursuing degrees in political science and philosophy. He writes satirical pieces to delay the inevitable psychosis that will leave him a bitter and broken shell of a man.