Americans Will Believe Almost Anything

 Over the years I have become more and more disenchanted with the state of Americans in general.

This is primarily related to their ability to understand simple concepts.

Early in my professional career I was working on some advertising contracts for Military recruitment.  The thing  that surprised me was that the contract stipulated that the ads had to be at the third grade reading level.  Well you are recruiting young men and it was explained that while many of them could read at higher levels than that many could not and they were a rich source for the recruiters.  I don't know what reading level they use now but I'm sure its not higher.

Of course many companies and even utilities added a college requirement, just some college in many cases.  I was told they did this because high schools were unreliable measures, some just passed everyone but performing in college was a better indicator.

As the years passed I had reason to look at college catalogs and realized that they all included remedial courses for reading and math that were required if you couldn't get a high enough score on entrance exams.  I just don't remember these existing in my college days, although they might have.

We have seen more and more of our fellow citizens buy into theories that really make no sense at all.  We have people thinking vaccines cause autism because of one crackpot scientist.  We believe that our rather ineffectual pubic servants are able to get together to form a complex conspiracy that actually runs things.

Do we still have people who think OJ was innocent?  

UFOs have managed to avoid all our high tech detection devices or their presence is covered up by our Government for some reason.  Before the Internet these sort of crazy stories were relegated to certain supermarket tabloids that were not in fact accurate.

I don't know if we are getting stupider over time or if our educational systems are at fault.  Our programs to equalize education may have simply leveled them off at the least common denominator.  no child left behind might really be no child can excel.

I have conversations with some people now where they buy into lies that are simply spread by media with no compunction.  The people spreading the lies almost certainly know better, but they get good ratings and make money.  Hell, the people buying into this stuff are an advertising gold mine.

Their gullibility quotient is off the charts unlike their reading level.