Don't Know Much About Government

I like to think I know more than the average bear, but that clears a rather low bar. Here's an article from George Korda bemoaning the fact:

There’s a problem when American citizens are asked such questions as who was the first president of the United States, who won the Civil War, or are asked to describe ISIS; and the answers come back along the lines of Abraham Roosevelt, the French, and a British rock group.

Americans’ obliviousness of their governmental institutions and their country’s past runs deep, as illustrated by a survey conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. It was unveiled in Sept. 2014 with a news release titled "Americans know surprisingly little about their government, survey finds.

Part of this I think comes from Americans deep-seated distrust and dislike of government in general which leads us to equate studying government to becoming an expert on say tapeworms. The problem here is that if you don't know at least a little about tapeworms, you won't know when you have a problem with them and need treatment.

The other part of the problem is that the tapeworms control the educational system and have an interest in the public knowing as little as possible about them.