Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free

The title of this book makes it so obvious what you are buying that I can't believe people actually take the time to write reviews bashing it. When I bought this book, I knew I was buying a trashy book that was going to smear Conservatives. That's what I wanted, that's what I paid for, and that's exactly what I got. So, please, if you are a sensative conservative reader, prone to tantrums and an undeserved sense of victimization, then you really should NOT be buying this book (unless of course your only goal is to buy the book cheap so you can not read it, but still bash it in the comments section).

The Book is a wonderful collection of silliness. Numerous examples of how the Right has attacked everything good and educated in this world, dumbed it down, twisted it into an unrecognizable mass of bitterness and hatred, and then sold it as their own product to Limbaugh's acolytes. From the Creation Museum (terrifying to be sure) to the Conservative take-over of Talk Radio, the book is an fountain of interesting factoids and historical perspective coupled with a very sarcastic wit. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was my traveling companion as I was traveling through Utah, and I would highly recommend this to any Liberal/Progressive reader looking for a giggle inbetween conservative-bashing.

Good book. I believe this book details the decline of America.Side note, Bronson Pinchot is an awesome narrator.

Charles Pierce has given us a book citing virtually hundreds of society's foibles and foolish manifestations. It's brilliantly written, astute and very funny. Moreover, it's astute food for thought. It's well worth repeated listenings. Excellent job by Bronson Pinchot as well.
Jim Carlton

This should be a must listen for every high school senior. Want to know why the media is a mess? Your answers are here. This book made me mad, bummed me out, and broadened my view.

The stupidity it points out might bring you down, but this book is important and very good.

This book could have been much shorter. The author makes the same case over and over. It still worth reading.

I found Idiot America expressed thoughts and feelings I have had on my mind for a long time but could not articulate anywhere nearly as well as Mr. Pierce. His observations are astute and his style of expressing them clear and, at times, hilarious. It made me smile at the prose and sometimes want to weep at the lunicy running roughshod over our country. Bronson Pinchot was a perfect narrator for this work too.

I have heard a few of Bronson Pinchot's narrations and find his amazing flexability a rare treat. He can narrate both the serious and somewhat flippant, the frightning and the funny without ever seeming to have to struggle for just the right way to do it. For Idiot America he was the perfect choice.

A lot of history is wound up with the timeline of this book. Donnely's Ninenger, Parts of the life of the Founding Fathers as well as the behind the scenes personalities involved in our constitution are brought to light. These are kind of back story, but they are illuminating enough to pique curiosity on the subjects, many of which I had never heard of.

This is what was going through my head the entire audiobook. Although I agree with his premise and most of the points he makes, the flow of the book is a complete and utter mess. One minute he's talking about Glenn Beck, then about James Madison, and I really have no idea why. Once he gets on a topic (Terri Schiavo for example) the flow of the details and the descriptions are really great. It's just that he jumps from topic to topic without really any rhyme or reason.

Indeed we are becoming a country of idiots and this book points out many of the really stupid things people in this country believe.

I personally do not care if people believe that the earth is 6,000 years old. Everyone, myself included, has at least one totally irrational belief in their baggage.

My objection to the beliefs of others is inflamed when nutty beliefs are taught in schools or guide important political policies. No, a 6,000 year old earth is not a different point of view deserving equal time with evolution; it's nutty. I hate to see kids taught that nonsense by their parents but hey, it's a free country. And that, sadly, is the point.

So, like me, you'll read this to reinforce what you already believe. Or you will spit nails over your right to believe these nutty things and see it as yet another attack on god-fearing people.

If you're not in the nut wing, you'll get a few really good laughs and in the end, you'll feel a little sad.

Go for it. I highly recommend this book.

Chris Reich, TeachU

I don't disagree with the author's basic premise,.. unfortunately, this turns into a far-left 'hit piece' pretty quickly.

If you are on the far left,.. this book is for you.

This is really a very hard book to follow because the listener never knows when the reader, Mr. Pinchot, is quoting in the text another author and when he is back to reading the author, Mr. Pierce. Other readers pause or use other verbal cues to indicate the end of a quote, but this reader fails us in that respect.

Additionally being from the rural South I really disliked Mr. Pierce's putdown of rural people and their lack of intelligence in one way or another throughout. Even his political views were confused--sometimes he sounded more like a rabid conservative than a person who might question dominant fairy tales like 911 the result of some men in a plane where overwhelming scientific minds of highly reputable repute have differed. It is almost like he wants us to believe he is an original thinker and not an idiot where most of his views indicate otherwise.

In his beliefs on Kennedy, he does not state whether the lone nut job is true or not to his mind, but he says if as indicated most Americans believe it is not a lone nut job, then he states, Americans should do something about it! The overwhelming power that government now has over its people and had even in the 1960s and 1970s (the shootings at Kent State being evidence of that) means that Americans can't do anything about anything government does, short of a 100% sitdown strike, which really doesn't happen at any time in history until the masses face starvation or rebellion. Being shot in the head in a strike or dying from starvation, the shot in the head is probably the best way to go. As long as government somehow manages to convince a few of the "stupid" rural people that Pierce runs on about to grow corn or potatoes, there will be enough empty calories of one sort or another to ward off stomach pains and therefore desperation.