Taking it that you aren't trolling (which I'm not certain you aren't) ignorance is an excuse. It is not a good excuse when knowledge is common but it is a great excuse when knowledge is uncommon (as is the case here, at least to Americans). Unless you expect everyone to be omniscient then this is exceedingly disingenuous and will just lead to people thinking you're being a jerk.
The other part I need to add is that this is also how we typically talk. "The British...", "The Irish...", "Americans...", etc. I'll admit that we could have more nuance and better communication by being more specific but what is stated here follows the Cooperative Principle[0][1]. It is implied in all these examples that what is meant is the government of the country and not the people of the country. Typically we'd say interpreting it as the latter would be in bad faith. Not that people don't do this (and that this isn't becoming more common) but that this is how people typically use language.
But if you're trying to just get people to yell at one another and feel angry (i.e. trolling) I'd ask that you please take your comments elsewhere because that's not the environment we are trying to create at Hacker News.
