>You make assumptions that Americans are ignorant. That is a fallacy. Americans do learn about Europe and European history in school.

Over the years I've been exposed to nearly extreme range of anecdotal evidence to support or defy this assumption of "ignorant Americans". It's really confusing - on one hand, I've met engineers who were nearly illiterate, and on the other extreme some cab drivers who were fairly knowledgeable.

Judging by some threads here in the chatter, however, I think Walter has a point to some extent - most of the Americans have no idea of how things work elsewhere. Note just the dispute about health insurance. Since the works thereof can't be experienced during a vacation, most of the Americans here think it actually can't work and that it must fail sooner or later, or that it's just too expensive to maintain. Another example is the US discovering cell phones (called mobile elsewhere where cells aren't in such widespread use :) nearly a decade later than Europe.

> As to current events, we have information available to us from many different news sources - not just our primary news ABC, CBS, NBC. Our news is not run by the state but rather is influenced by the political leanings of the ownership. That has been the case since our country was born. We have many news services available to us and more and more are available to us via satellite.

Although, they're owned by fewer and fewer entities, which are growing more and more powerful. The difference between the state controlled media and the corporate media is diminishing daily - they just have different agenda, the M.O. is pretty much the same. And yes, there are truly free media, which are truly powerless, being limited in reach to only those who are looking for them on the web.

>However, given that in the U.S. the closest state is further away then neighboring countries are in Europe, it is rather harsh to criticize Americans for not travelling and seeing the world or keeping up with the politics of every country.

I figure any big country has that problem - its sheer size produces so much information relevant to the local listener, that it leaves little or no time to get to know the rest of the world. That's no excuse, though, to have local sports on the news take more time than events in the rest of the world (unless at least 100 people choose to die at the same time and place).

>North Carolina never had to concern itself with whether or not South Carolina would become communist or socialist, become overtaken by a dictator, steal the jobs of North Carolina, etc.

Another case where Americans are sadly misinformed is the knowledge of socialism. It's all bundled in some grim image of the worst of the Stalinist version of planned economy and single-party rule. Ignorance is cultivated - just try to get informed on the subject, on the various ideas of what socialism was supposed to be, of various versions that were tried out. You won't find it in your local library. You will find, however, "Make your own coffins - for pets and people", or at least twenty books on Italian cuisine. Or on at least thirty odd or obscure religions. But none on the socialism. One gets an impression that capitalism has gone chicken, fearing competition on the marketplace of ideas.

>That has never been the case in Europe. In Europe, it has been a requirement to be well aware of your neighbor's politics and economic situation to survive. One had to know in which direction to flee.

:)