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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

The depressing part is that U.S. government structure and the 3 branches of government are part of the 4th/5th grade curriculum. This implies that the (presumably pre-teen/teenaged) kids who called Congress had already passed that part of their schooling, and so they're going to grow up into age 18+ voters that still don't know what Congress is.

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I recently had a conversation with a 33 year old who I would consider both intelligent and well-educated, including some college. His uncle is a lawyer (I met him at some family+friends party or another) who he spent a lo of time around.

I mentioned something about a SCOTUS opinion and he was very surprised that the court published its opinions. We delved a bit further and he also didn't realize that you could read bills or laws or executive orders.

I have never been more alarmed or scared about the future of our democracy.

Yes, I have similar experiences with people in the same age bracket. I'm not sure what the root problem is, I'm sure it's myriad in its origins, but there's some combination of individuals being fully checked-out of the democratic process taking the structure for granted and letting it kind of wash over them, and also a systematic failure of education which has completely failed to impart certain vital aspects of knowledge.

Like you I would classify most of these people as intelligent, and although literally qualified, (possession of university degrees at various levels), they are actually completely uneducated.

As a counterpoint, I know a lot of people from that age group who do know a lot about government and have intelligent conversations about it. Similar as your situation, I mostly hang out with either musicians or engineers or both as that includes my major hobbies and work crew.

Well, before everything went on the internet it was much harder to find published opinions and laws as they happened. In the 90s when the guy was a child he probably only had exposure to historical documents, not current ones. I actually don’t know where you would have found the full text of those pre internet. The public library? I also found it kind of novel to read current court opinions not too long ago. Government function stuff seems like the kind of thing you learn about as a kid and don’t really update actively.

Nah, I grew up in the 80s and 90s and you could learn a lot from newspapers, magazines, television, or a trip to the library where you could get plenty more. There's no excuse for believing the stuff was secret. Not easy to get, sure, a trip downtown, maybe, but "secret from the press" for example, that's ridiculous for anyone that's ever turned on the nightly news channel in the 70s, 80s, or 90s where I have actual pre-internet experience. Also, by the early 90s you could get it all on the actual internet, pre-web, by going to a library with an internet connection and gopher. Bills, rulings, regulations, and other government publications could be found and accessed through Gopher directories maintained by government agencies, legislative bodies, and other organizations. Being away from all of this is OK if you at least know that it does in fact exist and other people use it. But believing that it doesn't exist, that government works in secret, that's just a busted education right there.

Government isn't something that people deal with in their daily lives outside of their municipal government offices, like the DMV.

Between that and daily life being a grind for most people, it is very understandable for someone to not know that the SCOTUS does these things.

Honestly, while everyone (myself included) should be more aware and involved in government, this blissful ignorance is a testament to the stability and freedoms offered by our government.

Which part is alarming, that they did not know that court opinions are published or that they aren’t reading them?

Not knowing they're public and published is alarming. I was reading this stuff on Gopher servers 35 years ago at the library. That was pre-web internet and it was plenty good for government documents.

It didn’t really sink into my head until high school. I guess you have to have context or you are just learning facts to forget later.

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