I am not an American. Maybe neither are you. But I feel compelled to contend with the fact that many Americans are right on the edge of abandoning their democracy. In these circumstances knowledge is not neutral. My aim here was simply to not permit that tiny chunk of non-neutral knowledge to go without context, and I think I have succeeded.
Edit, to put this slightly better: there is a huge difference between keeping something a secret and saying “before I teach you this, I think you should learn these things first”. If the first thing you learned about American civics was that it’s all an illusion and anyone can do what they want, the lesson has utterly failed. You’ve not learned any civics at all.
That’s elitism and is actually an undemocratic ideal. The freedom of ideas is paramount in a Western democracy. And what I was trying to teach others is that the State’s monopoly on violence is what keeps the whole thing running smoothly. For example, the Magna Carta would have meant nothing if it was not backed by the armies of landowning noblemen.
Edit, to put this slightly better: there is a huge difference between keeping something a secret and saying “before I teach you this, I think you should learn these things first”. If the first thing you learned about American civics was that it’s all an illusion and anyone can do what they want, the lesson has utterly failed. You’ve not learned any civics at all.