Do Elected Officials Have to Speak English?

[Anonymous]

http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/13/do-elected-officials-have-to-speak-english/?xid=gonewsedit

[Anonymous]

Can we require candidates to have a current high school level knowledge of history and science? if so I could live with this idea.

[takoma]

I am totally convinced by the argument in the article that it is the voters' prerogative to decide whether Cabrera can do the job. We don't have IQ tests, history tests, law tests, so why should we have language tests?

But if we have language tests, can we at least bar anyone who says nuke-you-lar?

[Anonymous]

I think you should not be able to launch any weapon you cannot pronounce.

[TheManWithAUsername]

Politicians spout incomprehensible gibberish in English all the time.

[takoma]

To get outside the box, why are there ANY qualifications for elective office other than winning the election? If the electorate feels that a 32 year old would be the best choice for president, what's the problem?

As far as age, it strikes me (despite being on the older end myself) to make more sense to have an age ceiling, rather than a floor, since that 32 year old I mentioned gets less young as the term progresses, whereas, for example, your Ronald Reagan gets closer and closer to Alzheimer's.