Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The American government takes away between a fifth and a quarter of all our money every year. It checks the amount of tropical oils in our snack foods, tells us what kind of gasoline we can buy for our cars, and dictates what we can sniff, smoke, and swallow. #2 Government is boring because political careers are based on the most tepid form of lie: I'll balance the budget, sort of. In a democracy, government is determined by majority rule, which means that most of us will end up getting nothing out of it. #3 American ignorance of government is well developed. We know very little about the workings of Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, and so forth. We learn about these things in a high-school civics course and one spring vacation when dad took the family to Washington, DC. #4 American Civics is a textbook that teaches students about American government. It is extremely boring, and it assumes that its readers are as ignorant of everything as it is of government.