Reflections From a Murky Pond

In the wake of the Tuscon,AZ massacre CBS conducted a poll of Americans’ attitudes to many things vaguely related to the incident including anti-government violence. Most such polls are poorly crafted and conducted bu CBS’ was, in some of its questions, far more execrable than most – though the responses were even worse.

We’ve reached a sad nadir as a culture.

Amid other things the CBS poll in question found the following:

Whether politics played a factor in these shootings or not, few Americans think it is ever justified for citizens to take violent action against the government.  Three in four think it is never justified, similar to the percentage that said so last April.

Is Violent Action Against the Government Ever Justified?

	Now	20-Apr-2010
Justified	16%	16%
Not Justified	76%	79%

The anti-American, Leftist propaganda outlet, Daily Kos was not – for rationales that largely escape me – satisfied with this already pathetic result. Supposedly the filth, kos emailed CBS to get the party affiliation breakdown of the results.

What? 16 percent of Americans think anti-government violence is justified? I emailed CBS and asked for the partisan breakdowns of that question. Here they are:

Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to take violent action against the government, or is it never justified?

Republican	28% yes	64% no
Democrat	11% yes	81% no
Independent	11% yes	81% no

Note, this poll was conducted after the Giffords shooting. Yet while a tiny (though still too large) fringe of Democrats and Independents approve of anti-government violence (likely the Alex Jones crowd), over a quarter of Republicans do so.

28 percent.

I wonder where that 28 percent gets their news. (Not really, it’s pretty obvious.)

NOTE: Markos Moulitsas aka kos is not the sort of creature whose accuracy or veracity can ever be trusted, but there seems little enough reason for it to lie to overtly about this data. I believe it’s safe enough to use these figures for now.

A Bad Question

The most egregious error or wrongdoing that CBS committed in their poll was asking an overly simplistic question with only two diametrically opposed answers, yes or no, allowed. Such XOR or binary toggle questions are almost always meant to illicit polarizing results or inflame an issue as opposed to gathering useful data.

This is made worse by asking such a question during a time of national shock and/or outrage since the results will likely be skewed and answers that are perceived as being unpopular will only lead to largely unwarranted vilification by various ideologues and agendists.

Is Violent Action Against the Government Ever Justified?

That’s just too wildly simplistic of a question to be asked in a yes or no format. Doing so ignores any form of context or circumstance and, hence, serves no valid purpose.

There’s also the issue of the missing 8% of the responses from the poll and the missing 5% of responses from the April 20, 2010 poll.

A Worse Result

Even given how piss-poor the question that CBS asked was, the results were appalling. That only 16% of respondents said that violent against the government is ever justified does not bode well for the future of our country or the liberty of our children.

In the best of a bad set of cases this is an example of sloppy thinking and answering a question that was not actually asked. If this is true, the respondents just weren’t hearing or reading the word “ever” and were thinking in terms of right then and in the current circumstances.

I have a hard time, however, in believing that a strong, much less overwhelming majority of those respondents fell into that particular cognitive trap. That strongly implies that the American people doomed to be subjected to tyranny by a government drunk on power – not today and likely not too soon, but in the not-terribly-distant future.

~*~

Like it or not, America was founded by violent actions against the government; we’d still be a British Crown Colony otherwise. The turbulent and often deplorable history of Man also indicates that it’s more than likely that America will someday have to be reborn through violent actions against the government.

To say or, worse, believe that violent actions against the government are never justified is tantamount to accepting the shackles of servitude. Worse even, when later generations seek to cast off those shackles, and sooner or later they will, a far greater level of violence will be required.

Does that mean that it isn’t or shouldn’t be a horrific thought? No. I, for one, would consider it quite horrific and hope that our politicians find the thought even more so and refrain from doing that which would cause such reprisals. Yet, horrid or not, anyone who loves America and the liberties we enjoy within it must accept that violence will one day be necessary for their continuance.

Tags: America | Democrats | Freedom | Independents | Insurrection | Kos | Liberals | Media Bias | Moulitsas | Politics | Polls & Surveys | Republicans | Revolution | Society | Tyranny | Violence | War

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 12th, 2011 at 2:20 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The Tea Parties and their supporters are much maligned by the Liberals. Those Liberals have taken great pains to paint all dissent against President Obama’s Leftist agenda as racist, but have taken especial pains to paint the Tea Parties and their supporters as a latter day Klu Klux Klan.

In truth, it’s an easy bit of rhetoric for the Liberal politicians, power brokers, and their MSM operatives such as Olbermann and Maddow, to use against the Tea Parties, since it resonates with both a large segment of the Black population and Leftist Whites as well.

It’s a simple fact that, when you’re a Liberal who is supporting America’s First Black President, who you’ve decided cannot be allowed to fail, a crowd of angry White Americans protesting his policies and agenda is both a danger and an opportunity.

After the Internet allowed the Tea Parties and alternate or citizens’ journalism outlets to largely refute the Liberals’ and their MSM operatives original tactic of only depicting and reporting upon the “lunatic fringe” of the protesters at the various rallies the Liberals fell back on a simple statement to continue to paint the Tea Parties as racists:

You never see Blacks at the Tea Party protests and rallies; the Tea Party is all White and, therefor, must be racist. No matter what the Tea Partiers are saying, it’s really all about race.

This is, admittedly, a somewhat alluring argument. The Tea Parties, after all, do seem to be a White phenomenon; one rarely, if ever, sees a Black among the crowds shown during coverage of the events. This means it’s certainly reasonable to question why there is such a seeming racial disparity between Blacks and Whites in the Tea Parties.

Is this racial disparity evidence of the racism of the Tea Party supporters or is this disparity caused by factors other than racism, prejudice, and animosity?

Tags: America | Blacks | Blogging | Conservatives | Journalism | Liberals | Media Bias | Obama | Politics | Polls & Surveys | Prejudice | Racism | Society | Tea Parties | Whites

This entry was posted on Friday, March 5th, 2010 at 4:51 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Over the last year – especially during the 2008 Presidential Elections – I’ve gotten weary of analyzing, normalizing, and aggregating disparate opinion polls in order to derive some semblance of accurate numbers. Fortunately none of us has to do that anymore on a regular basis. Pollster.com, by The National Journal, actually aggregates the results of all the major polls and surveys and presents them in a combined view that includes composite results and individual poll results.

I’ve decided to – in the wake of the recent flurry of articles about President Obama’s historical low approval rating – to start with that. Below is the aggregated national approval rating for President Obama. It’s an embedded flash application and so should reflect the most current polls and ratings at any given time.

President Obama’s Overall Approval Rating

President Obama’s Aggregated Overall Approval Rating

To provide a better break-down of the support for- and approval of President Obama I’ve also included three (3) separate limited polls: one showing Democrat approval of President Obama, one showing Republican approval of President Obama, and one showing Independent approval of President Obama.

President Obama’s Approval Rating Among Democrats

President Obama’s Aggregated Approval Rating Among Democrats

President Obama’s Approval Rating Among Republicans

President Obama’s Aggregated Approval Rating Among Republicans

President Obama’s Approval Rating Among Independents

President Obama’s Aggregated Approval Rating Among Independents

I hope everyone finds these aggregated poll results of President Obama’s approval rating useful. I believe that they show a better picture of the real situation than any one poll would do.

Tags: Democrats | Independents | Obama | Politics | Polls & Surveys | Republicans

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Politics. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.