24% of Republicans think Obama is the AntiChrist? If that number is accurate, and I were a Republican, I would be terrified for the future of my party. I appreciate the idea of dealing with them...and with all people, with love and respect. Not because "it drives them crazy" but because it is the right, as well as most effective, thing to do. We can disagree without being disagreeable. It is hypocritical to criticize a tactic and then use it yourself.
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Sunday, March 28, 2010
Sunday Roundup
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13 comments:
"I appreciate the idea of dealing with them"
Everyone must be dealt with. IMHO, the best way to deal with those 24% CRAZIES (the only term applicable for anyone who REALLY thinks the President is the Devil) is to dissenpower and marginalize them.
Love and respect are more selective. I respect those whose beliefs and behaviors are fundamentally rational, and who champion desirable and ethical ends. I hold enormous respect for traditional Republican Conservatives such Jerry Pournelle and Colin Powell, whose essential focus is liberty. It's beyond my power to respect those who ground their political views in the most grotesque fantasy, and who strive to obliterate freedom. Honestly, what does the reactionary fundamentalist view offer that merits respect? Respect denotes concurrence and agreement on some level. It's simply impossible to respect those who seek to obliterate all you hold dear. One can feign respect vis-a-vis fashionable PC. This only masks enmity with hypocrisy and merely ends by confusing. Rationality and integrity demand I openly admit my disrespect and hatred for the backwards-thinking fanatics who have hijacked and contorted the Republican Party and seek to do so to the entire Republic. Only by owing my animus can I rationally understand its justification and actively decide if it's warranted. If my hatred's delusional and simply a "mask for fear", reason's light will dissolve it; if it's a siren warning of real danger, awareness will assist in devising the means to neutralize the threat.
Problems with the poll;
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704094104575143713101937570.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a16:g2:r1:c0.311519:b32250808
These kinds of polls are really meaningless. As I have said before what you ask and how you ask it are huge factors in any opinion poll. As I have posted before in one case in which I was involved the first survey using a scale from 0 to 5, 0 acceptable and 5 for terrible resulted in demonstrating that my company's had an unfavorable effect on fish taste in the river and a second survey using a scale from -5 to 5. where -5 was terrible and 5 was great concluded we had improved the taste of the fish.
These kinds of polls are really meaningless. As I have said before what you ask and how you ask it are huge factors in any opinion poll. As I have posted before in one case in which I was involved the first survey using a scale from 0 to 5, 0 acceptable and 5 for terrible resulted in demonstrating that my company's had an unfavorable effect on fish taste in the river and a second survey using a scale from -5 to 5. where -5 was terrible and 5 was great concluded we had improved the taste of the fish.
35% of Democrats think Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance? If that number is accurate, and I were a Democrat, I would be terrified for the future of my party.
Or, as Larry Niven once put it: "There is no cause so right that one cannot find a fool following it... Ad hominem argument saves time, but it's still a fallacy."
--Erich Schwarz
Actually, Erich, you're right. As everyone knows, it was Cheney who set up 911, not Bush.
But actually, with the lack of evidence, or evidence thrown away, we don't know who did 911. We'll never know.
Here's another criticism from a professional pollster
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/po_20100329_2710.php
n the subject of crazies, it is truly in the eye of the beholder. I have just returned from a two and half week vacation. During that time we spent sometime with my daughter in law's parents at their condo in Florida and had occasion to visit a nature center and walk some nature trails with our in laws. Most of what we saw were a lot of scraggly looking vines, but at one point in the trail you could a patch of pine trees. we were informed that the pine trees, which were the prettiest things on the trail were to be cut down and replaced with more vines because the pine trees were not indigenous to Florida. Replacing pleasant to look at pine trees with more scraggly vines so that everything is indigenous strikes me as one kind of environmental fanaticism.
By the way sorry for the double post, but one time it told me my request to post couldn't be completed.
"As everyone knows, it was Cheney who set up 911, not Bush.
"But actually, with the lack of evidence, or evidence thrown away, we don't know who did 911. We'll never know."
Thank you for reinforcing my point for me. Sigh.
--Erich Schwarz
Mike and Frank, thanks for the links about the poll-- a lot of the people I know online were dubious about it simply because they didn't know how the questions were phrased.
Wording and methodology matter a lot, of course, as Marty says, and I don't rely too much on any particular poll result till I know them.
On the other hand, I've heard so many different reports of different polls in which large minorities believe manifestly nonsensical things (Bush planned the 9/11 attacks, Obama isn't really a citizen, Obama's the anti-Christ, whatever), that I have to wonder if there isn't some hard core partisan set of people who will always pick whichever answer sounds as if it says the worst thing about the other side, no matter what, maybe without even seriously thinking of what it means for that thing to be true.
After all, I'm not sure all of the polls showing that appalling numbers of people are truthers or birthers or whatever actually get those results by bad methodology.
>I have to wonder if there isn't some hard core partisan set of people who will always pick whichever answer sounds as if it says the worst thing about the other side, no matter what,<
I've never doubted that, myself.
Also keep in mind the 10% rule;
1 out of 10 of the population will always be in the bottom 10% of intelligence.
1 out of 10 of the population will always be in the bottom 10% of critical thinking.
1 out of 10 of the population will always be in the top 10% of most paranoid.
1 out of 10 of the population will always be in the top 10% of most crazy.
1 out of 10 of the population will always be in the top 10% of most racist.
Etc etc etc.
re 1 in 10:
Well, sure. But wouldn't it be nice if the overall standard were raised to the point that the bottom 10% weren't dumbasses?
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