This makes notions of representative democracy, at least in the USA, seem a bit silly:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/07/one-problem-wit.html
The link details evidence that most Americans have very low knowledge levels of the basics of American government.
By request of the community, an Open Thread for free-form comments, so long as they're still related to the basic project of this blog.
A word on post requests: You're free to ask, but the authors can't commit to posting on requested topics - it's hard enough to do the ones we have in mind already.