Bill Maher thinks it's a stupid country

and guess what? He's right:

[B]efore I go about demonstrating how, sadly, easy it is to prove the dumbness dragging down our country, let me just say that ignorance has life and death consequences. On the eve of the Iraq War, 69% of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in 9/11. Four years later, 34% still did. Or take the health care debate we're presently having: members of Congress have recessed now so they can go home and "listen to their constituents." An urge they should resist because their constituents don't know anything. At a recent town-hall meeting in South Carolina, a man stood up and told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare," which is kind of like driving cross country to protest highways.

I'm the bad guy for saying it's a stupid country, yet polls show that a majority of Americans cannot name a single branch of government, or explain what the Bill of Rights is. 24% could not name the country America fought in the Revolutionary War. More than two-thirds of Americans don't know what's in Roe v. Wade. Two-thirds don't know what the Food and Drug Administration does.
...
Nearly half of Americans don't know that states have two senators and more than half can't name their congressman.
...
Sarah Palin says she would never apologize for America. Even though a Gallup poll says 18% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth.
...
The average voter thinks foreign aid consumes 24% of our federal budget. It's actually less than 1%.
...
[D]id you know only about half of Americans are aware that Judaism is an older religion than Christianity? That's right, half of America looks at books called the Old Testament and the New Testament and cannot figure out which one came first.

I'm sorry, folks, but this stuff is simply pathetic. I mean really, really, really pathetic.

You can read the rest of it over on The Huffington Post.
~~~
UPDATE: This was also blogged over on AMERICAblog. And here's a comment that I thought you needed to see:

The United States of America - the only country on earth where people protest to support their right to be screwed over by corporations.

Pathetic. Truly pathetic.
~~~