A Nation Of Ignoramuses

by: Bob Livingston
The United States is devolving into a Nation of ignoramuses, its citizens increasingly ignorant of U.S. and world history and particularly uninformed regarding the Nation’s founding documents and what led to the creation of their Nation.
The government’s public (non)education system, the agenda-driven mainstream media propaganda system, Hollywood’s disinformation, campaigns promoting bread and circuses and the infusion of millions of aliens into the country are doing the job the collectivist progressive elites envisioned. The goal is to manufacture a populace too ignorant of their rights and too preoccupied to fathom even most repressive tyranny.
A recent national poll by the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center revealed that almost half (47 percent) of 18- to 30-year-olds agree with the statement that the 1^st Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.
The poll sampled 1,006 American adults from the 48 contiguous States. Its findings are astonishing and maddening.

The 1^st Amendment reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people to peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

When asked to name the five specific freedoms in the 1^st Amendment, 36 percent of those polled were unable to name any. Freedom of speech was named by 59 percent, followed by freedom of religion (24 percent), freedom of the press (14 percent), right to assemble (11 percent) and right to petition government (4 percent).
The survey found that that while the percentage of Americans who can name the five 1^st Amendment rights has generally increased since the organization began annual polling in 1997, the overall awareness of the 1^st Amendment has decreased.
Among all those surveyed, 64 percent say the 1^st Amendment does not go too far. But 52 percent of blacks and 50 percent of Hispanics say the amendment does go too far. That number drops to 29 percent of the white population.
The poll was conducted in May as stories about the government’s spying on journalists with The Associated Press and FOX News were coming out. It showed that Americans were split over whether reporters should reveal their sources if doing so made the country safer. Fifty-one percent opposed government requiring journalists to reveal their sources, while 44 percent supported it. That number is up from 37 percent in 2008.

And although only slightly more than half opposed journalists being forced to reveal their sources, 80 percent expected the news media to act as a government watchdog. How journalists are supposed to do that if they can’t keep their sources confidential was not asked. The question would probably not have been understood by the 49 percent.
The (non)education system and schools — predominantly run and staffed by socialists, progressives, collectivists and Marxists — omit teaching on the Nation’s origins and vilify the Founders and their struggle — demonizing the great explorers and the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry while glorifying Marxist criminals like Che Guevera.
Regimes — Presidential, Congressional and judicial — past and present have trampled the Bill of Rights almost out of existence. The 1^st Amendment is no exception.
Christians are a main target of the statist elected class, media punditry and Hollywood, all of which are working overtime to destroy the value system and morality that has existed in this country since its inception.
The Barack Obama regime has targeted Christian-owned businesses for special persecution by requiring, through the unConstitutional Obamacare deathcare system, the inclusion of birth control and abortion services in their employee healthcare plans in direct contravention of their religious beliefs against them.
It has foisted upon the country, through court sanction, abetted by an ongoing propaganda campaign and against the wishes of the majority, homosexual marriage: a union that is anathema to Christian teachings.
Freedom of speech, assembly and redress are under attack in myriad ways. The Department of Justice’s targeting of reporters, the regime’s persecution of whistle-blowers, attempts by the government to gain control of the Internet, the National Defense Authorization Act’s Section 1021, the creation of “thought crimes” through hate crime laws and the massive Orwellian surveillance state all bespeak of a regime that is becoming increasingly fearful, lacking in legitimacy and totalitarian.

In ways subtle and overt, Hollywood is destroying the moral fabric of society and the masses lap it up. Hollywood portrays the family matrix as dysfunctional, glorifies perversion and strips males of all dignity, portraying them as idiotic buffoons, lazy, incompetent and in constant pursuit of base animalistic pleasures.
Hollywood demonstrates a misogynistic attitude toward women. They are sexualized, often scantily clad and presented as “eye candy” and sexual objects; and if their bodies and features aren’t perfect, their characters are subject to ridicule and/or presented as inviting abuse or being either villainous or simpleton. A UNESCO report on the portrayal of women in the media describes the litany of common images of women: “the glamorous sex kitten, the sainted mother, the devious witch, the hardfaced (sic) corporate and political climber.”
The regime, aided and abetted by the mainstream media, constantly inflames passions, creates conflict and feeds the public distractions and bread and circus that serves to obfuscate and cover up its crimes.
Meanwhile, the Nation and the republican system are in a state of collapse — that collapse being staved off temporarily through welfare, never-ending unemployment benefits, food stamps, free telephones and other free “stuff” and money printing. The dumbed-down public remains unaware that the regime and its elite puppet masters are stealing its wealth and enslaving it, binding the chains tighter by the day.
The 2^nd Amendment is under constant assault. Even though it is the Amendment by which all others can be preserved, the public is increasingly buying into the lie that guns are objects to be scorned as if they’re scorpions that sting on their own. The media and the Obama Administration overhyped the George Zimmerman trial in an agenda-driven effort to stir racial conflict and create a flashpoint of violence over which it can push for stricter gun laws or, worse, martial law.

The 4^th Amendment is long gone, crushed under the so-called USA Patriot Act, NDAA, the ever-expanding Department of Homeland (in)Security and the massive National Stasi Agency spying apparatus.
Fifth Amendment rights are being eroded by the courts and the regime daily. Now Americans can be targeted for drone attacks and murdered without due process. More and more the courts are allowing the law enforcement apparatus to use all your words against you so that it’s no longer safe to even have a conversation with a police officer. And, as the ongoing DOJ persecution of Zimmerman shows, double jeopardy provisions are non-existent.
These and other rights are pushed aside and thrown into history’s trash heap. They’ve disappeared with hardly a whimper.
Important issues like the criminal “Gang of Eight’s” amnesty bill, Internal Revenue Service targeting, Benghazi terror attacks, Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal, long-term high unemployment, payoffs to and thefts by the banksters and Wall Street, ongoing money debasement and the regime’s illegitimacy are ignored while the masses occupy themselves with prescription drugs, wall-to-wall coverage of celebrity escapades, sporting events and falsely created racial issues.