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Article: It's not what you know; How ignorant mass opinion rules in the name of democracy.(Statistical Data Included)
- Article from:
- The Report Newsmagazine
- Article date:
- June 24, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 United Western Communications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Americans are ignorant-as anyone knows who has seen talk show host Jay Leno ask some college student the name of the ship that landed at Plymouth Rock. Um, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria? No, wait, the USS Enterprise? And as we know from Rick Mercer's Talking to Americans, they are even more ignorant of Canada. "Yes, I believe the seal slaughter should be stopped in Saskatchewan," some bright spark from Harvard concurs-and oh! how we laugh. Would we be as smug if we knew that the ignorant Yanks know more about their country than we ignorant Canucks know about ours?
Last year the Dominion Institute sponsored a test of "Americans' and Canadians' knowledge of ...