Ignorance. America's a prime example of what happens to Democracy when people start dumbing down.
Because their founding fathers said this:
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
- Thomas Jefferson
"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.”
- James Monroe
"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives."
― James Madison
"Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights, and where learning is confined to a few people, liberty can be neither equal nor universal."
-Benjamin Rush
Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge, and its nature is sinned against when it is doomed to ignorance.
-William Ellery
"If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education."
- Thomas Jefferson
Did Americans listen? Hell no. Just look at the mess they're in now from dumbing themselves down to dipsh*t levels:
"In 2003, a US Strategic Task Force of Education Abroad report concluded that America’s ignorance of the outside world was so great as to constitute a threat to national security."
Link - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...
'The cult of ignorance in the United States: Anti-intellectualism and the "dumbing down" of America'
'Compared to Rest of World Americans Are Delusional, Prudish, Selfish Religious Nuts: Study'
'U.S. Foreign Policy Can be Only as Good as Public's Understanding of World Affairs'
'Depressing Survey Results Show How Extremely Stupid America Has Become'
'Survey Shows American People Are Super Gullible and Believe Silly Things'
'American Schools Are Training Kids for a World That Doesn't Exist'
'American Students Perform Worse As They Reach Higher Grades'
'New Poll Shows Young Americans Are Embarrassingly Ignorant'
'America dumbs down: a rising tide of anti-intellectual thinking'
'The American education system is creating ignorant adults'
'Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America | Psychology Today'
'U.S. Millennials Fall Far Behind Educational Average'
'American Education Fails Because It Isn't Education'
'Why Are Americans So Stupid -- And Proud of It?'
'US adults are dumber than the average human'
'America's Embrace of Ignorance'
'What's the Constitution? Don't bother asking 70% of Americans: Alarming number of U.S. citizens don't know basic facts'
'We The People Are Really Ignorant - "A new report on civics shows Americans know less than ever."
'Blame the childish, ignorant American public—not politicians—for our political and economic crisis.'
'American Idiots: Our Own Political Ignorance is Destroying Our Political System'
'Only 26 percent of Americans can name all three branches of government'
'Require a civics test? Americans have a long history of ignorance'
'Many Americans Don't Know Basic Facts About Government'
'Poll: Americans' Knowledge of Government, History in 'Crisis'
'Study: Americans Don't Know The Facts On U.S. Issues'
'Americans are clueless about the Supreme Court'
'Americans Struggle With Financial Problems They Don’t Understand: Study'
''Clueless About Retirement: Americans Fail Retirement Income Quiz'
'Financial Literacy: Two-Thirds of Americans Can't Pass Basic Test'
'Survey: Americans Are Pretty Ignorant When It Comes To Religion'
'How did Americans get so utterly clueless about world events?'
'America is still hamstrung by insularity and ignorance'
'2 in 3 Americans are clueless about taxes. Are you?'
'American Ignorance of Global Geography: A History'
'216 Million Americans Are Scientifically Illiterate'
'Civic Ignorance Threatens American Liberty'
'The Rapid Devolution of the United States'
'America: The Proudest Collapsing Country'
'How America Became a Third World Country'
'The US doesn't look like a developed country'
'USA: The World's Newest Third World Nation'
'America: Land of the Whipped and Whimpering'
'US has become 'third world country': Donald Trump'
'The U.S. Doesn't Look Like a Coherent Nation State'
'It's official: the United States is a Third World country'
'A Plague Upon The World: The USA is a “Failed State”
'Pentagon’s Own Study Proves US Empire is ‘Collapsing’
'America Changing for the Worse: Is It Time to Move Out?'
'10 Ways America Has Come to Resemble a Banana Republic'
'Stanford Economist: Move to Canada to Find American Dream'
'Body count': Where does America's third-world violence come from?'
'The American Dream Might Be Dead But the Canadian Dream Still Lives'
'Americans are the latest economic refugees, and they're heading to Canada'
'The American Dream is now twice as easy to achieve in Canada than in the US'
'Donald Trump Might Set a Record—for the Biggest Decline of American Power in History'
'Study by MIT Economist: U.S. has Regressed to a Third-World Nation for Most Of Its Citizens'
'How Wealth Inequality Stunts Economic Growth'
'Downward Mobility of the American Middle Class'
'The Tipping Point: Most Americans No Longer Are Middle Class'
'Sobering IMF report on US economy cites dwindling middle class'
'Income inequality has squeezed the middle class out of the majority'
'How the American dream ran out of gas'
'1/4 of Americans can't pay their monthly bills'
'1 in 3 Americans Has Saved $0 for Retirement'
'STUDY: 76% of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck'
'America, you're now Canada's Mexico - The Boston Globe'
'Nearly 7 in 10 Americans have less than $1,000 in savings'
'1 In 2 Working Americans Make Less Than $30,000 A Year'
'Kenya's middle class wealthier than American, British peers'
'Wages have fallen 43% for Millennials. No wonder they've lost hope'
'Most Americans have less than $1,000 in savings, 1 in 5 have none'
'63% Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings To Cover A $500 Emergency'
'Most Millennials Have Less Than $1,000 In Savings, Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck'
'1 out of 3 American households can no longer afford rent, food, and transportation'
'Credit Suisse Wealth Report: There Are More Poor People In America Than China'
'Goodbye Middle Class: 51 Percent Of All American Workers Make Less Than 30,000 Dollars A Year'
Sorry about America's luck, but it earned the Worldwide "Stupid American" stereotype it's had for decades.
America's a clear warning of why Education's so vital to nations hoping to preserve their democracies.
Especially in the modern, global digital information age where "Knowledge Is Power" more than ever before in Human history.