Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / American Citizenship Test from June 11th, 2026

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American Citizenship Test from June 11th, 2026 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I was looking through some news items yesterday and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: where did this come from. I think it came from NPR.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: If you want to become an American citizen, you have
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to take a test and demonstrate your knowledge of the
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: United States. And I've heard people say that most people
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: who are citizens couldn't do well on that test. I
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: don't think that's true because I'm looking through these questions.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: There are a hundred of them, and what they do
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: is as you to pass. You know, if you're an
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: immigrant you want to get citizenship, they will ask you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: ten of these questions. They'll just pick out of the hundred.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: They'll ask you ten, and you have to get six
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: of them right in order to pass the Civics test
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: for citizenship.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Six of the randomized ten.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of the hundred. Now, and to me, they seem
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: really easy. Sure, so you want to try it. Hit
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: me with one, you want to hear it.
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Let's see if I can make being a citizen of
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: the United States of America.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War?
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: Well?
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, And they give you choices.
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: Oh they do, Yeah, they make it easy, multiple choices,
• 1:14
  Speaker 5: always easy.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: They give you a choice of France, Canada or England.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: England, that's just too easy.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I would hate for them to be like
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: the United Kingdom.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: What's what's the name of the ship that brought the
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: pilgrims to America?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, give me, then give me the answers.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Can you answer it without the choices.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Any other time? I'm sure I'm on the spot, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: I'm kind of getting nervous.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: You can't the ship the one ship, the ship that
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: brought the pilgrims.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: There was like three.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I want to say the Mayflower, but that's correct, the Mayflower.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's not Old Ironsides, and it's not the Santa Maria
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: or the No.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Because that's Columbus.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is what made you hesitate? Yeah, all right, this,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: let's see another one. I'm to see if you can
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: find one. This kind of hard, okay. When President Lincoln
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: issued the Emantimate Emancipation Proclamation in eighteen sixty three, it
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: brought about enormous social changes. Whose rights are guaranteed by
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Is it Who's rights?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Is it? A? Citizens of the United States, B people
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: living in North America or c everyone, Citizens and non
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: citizens living in the USA.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Ah, I know it's everyone, right, I'm.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Not sure I know the answers of that exactly. My
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, what was the question is? I'm sorry,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: I've scrolled down. Oh okay, okay, now I've got okay, I.
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Was trying to fix this computer, so I wasn't that.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I've got I got it back. So whose rights are
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Citizens
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of the United States, people living in North America or everyone,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: citizens and non citizens living in the US. Yes, yes,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: what see see, yeah, you're right. See. Yeah, that's the
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: that's the one and that's what Nick said, And that's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: what kind of what I thought.
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: And that's one that most Republican politicians don't understand.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: And they would like to maybe do away with. Yeah,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: let's see, Uh, what's the minimalium the minimum voting age?
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We know that? Um, where does freedom of speech come from?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: A the Ten Commandments? Be the fourth estate? Or see
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights? The Bill of Rights?
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: This is this is too easy.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: I've flubbed on the Mayflower one though.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Silence, although I guess if you, if you, if you're
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: from another country, it may not be so so easy.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: This is stuff that's ingrained in US. Uh. In what
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: month is the new president of the United States inaugurated? Well? January? Yeah, yeah,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: let's see who wrote the star Spangled banner? Betsy Ross
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to Francis Scott Key or John Phillips SUSA. It's too easy,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: too easy. I'm trying to see if I can find
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: one that's really hard, Okay, and I don't see any
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: who who elects? Who elects the president of the United States?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Is it the people? Is it the Electoral College or
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is it Congress?
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately? Is the electoral College?
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Yes it is. I mean, yeah, I knew that.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: I was trying to think of a funny Joe Cancer.
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: Whoever has the most money?
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And uh, let's see who can vote in
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the US presidential election. All registered citizens eighteen years of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: age or older. All citizens twenty one years of age
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  Speaker 1: or sixteen years of age with a valid driver's license.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Hey, anyone with a cell phone.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. These are basically Yeah, there are people who would
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: like that to happen. Yeah, you'd be able to.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Just vote with the American idol style. Yeah, I mean.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Seriously, there are people who would like that rig Yeah,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: it's rigged. The Electoral College is something that keeps it
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: keeps bugging me, and I don't know what if anybody
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: will ever do something about it.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: No, because it kind of seeds both parties in the
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: foot in one way, shape or form.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: It should just be the most popular.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: Bout of course. You know, yeah, that's what we say
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: all the time.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: But except the uh, you know, the Constitution of the
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: United States. It's well, it's not when you say majority rules, well,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: we should do whatever majority rules, But they're about the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: constitution and their laws of place to protect the rights
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of the minority, to protect the rights of people who
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: don't go along with the majority. If everybody you know, uh,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that's what the Constitution is for us, to protect the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: rights of people of people who are not in the majority.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: But shouldn't the majority just be the people who.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: Well, if if the majority rules, they could say, we
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: we just don't want we don't want you to be
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: able to say anything bad about the government. Ever. Do
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: we all agree on that? Do we all? Yes, we do? Well,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: what about the people who don't agree with that?
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I I'm not without touching that isn't a true democracy though,
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: like always taking in favor of what the majority votes
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: for in a true, actual non electoral college majority, that'd
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: be a dark day.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: But I think that's what the see. I think that's
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: what the electoral college was a design to do, was
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: to not.
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: I thought that the electoral college was designed because of
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: slave owners in the South, felt like they needed that
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: ability because then because black people were going to be
• 6:44
  Speaker 5: able to vote. I'm trying to remember, Well, it seems
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: to me that it's I mean, that's it's screwed up.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: They don't they they didn't trust them. They didn't trust
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: majority rules. Essentially what it is. The founders didn't trust majority,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: the people who put it in. They didn't trust the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: majority to rule correctly. They said that it would be
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: subject to abuse because because people they I mean, that's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: what they didn't trust. They didn't trust the people's intelligence,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: They didn't trust their instincts.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: Founding fathers established it in seventeen eighty seven as a
• 7:25
  Speaker 5: compromise between letting Congress pick the president and using a
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: direct national popular vote.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: According to Google, Okay, so what that means, I don't know.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Well, they it was going to be. It was going
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: to be Congress would would put an install the president,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: people would vote for the members of Congress and then
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: trust them to pick the president of the United States.
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: Sure, but they also vote son Southern states were enslaved
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: people made up a large portion of the population.
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  Speaker 4: Oppose the popular vote.
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: Because enslave people could not vote, The electoral College incorporated
• 8:03
  Speaker 5: the three Fifth Compromise, granting Southern states additional electoral power
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  Speaker 5: based on their enslaved populations.
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  Speaker 4: See that's what I was thinking.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, each slave was not a full vote, it was
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: three fifths of the Yeah.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: And I knew that.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: I didn't know it tied to the electoral electoral College, which.
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: Is why I think it should go away make a
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: popular vote.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've talked about this before with many things
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: that the Founding fathers brought up. It was a different
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: time then than it is now. It should just be
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: one person, one vote with everything anyway, it's stupid. The
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: whole thing is stupid.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Well, there's your Civics lesson for the day.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: It's stupid, and this is stupid.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: I'm just happy to know I'm not going to get
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: sent back.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: To your home country of Salem of Ireland. I guess
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: it would Ireland. It would be Ireland. Never been there.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I don't speak Irish.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, or Gaelic for that matter.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: I've been reading about what's happening in Belfast and it
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: makes me sad.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Way, what's happening in bill Fast Race Riots? Really? Yeah?
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Two nights in a row. I didn't know that.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: Thanks Elon Musk look into it.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I will