posted
OK, Census bureau voting statistics based on race for the 2000 and 1996 elections can be found at this link.
In 2000, 59.8% of eligible voters reported voting, 61.8% of eligible white non-hispanic voters reported voting. Combining this information with the numbers for total eligible voters and total white non-hispanic voters I gave earlier, I get the 79.4% of the voters in the 2000 election were white non-Hispanic.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I would love to hear more about what you think the implications of the survey results are and why you think they are terrifying.
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quote:It's a fact that I suggest the opposite. It doesn't make it true.
What you suggest doesn't prove anything, because any given person can suggest any given thing. Surveys, in contrast, can only say what the evidence supports.
The results of the survey are the thing that makes it true. It asked them about Iraq and Bush's stances, and they were misinformed.
Certainly, when students are taking a test in college on Iraq they don't claim the test questions are unfair because it didn't also cover John Kerry in Vietnam, do they?
quote: Certainly, when students taking a test in college on Iraq they don't claim the test questions are unfair because it didn't also cover John Kerry in Vietnam, do they?
But the survey isn't claiming to be a survey of "Bush supporters vs. Kerry Supporters on Kerry's views on Iraq".
posted
What does this survey have to do with Kerry's opinions on Iraq? This survey doesn't mention Kerry's views on Iraq. It's about the facts of Iraq, and Bush's policies.
Or are you saying the facts in Iraq and John Kerry's position are the same thing?
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
The 61.8% refers the percentage of whites who voted. The 82% refers to the percentage of everyone surveyed. The percentages can't be directly compared.
I've found it's best to ignore these kind of surveys and the posts about them. If Bush voters are more uninformed, then I'm just greatful their misinformation isn't preventing them from voting for the right candidate.
posted
Xapo, then every survey is true, regardless of the bias? I've seen some pretty biased reports (this one included) that if you accept the data as generally true of all US society, would be false.
I seem to remember e-mails of "data" collected from the 2000 elections that painted a very negative view of the IQ's of Democrats vs. Republicans. Was it true? The data was, the assumptions they made weren't.
quote:What does this survey have to do with Kerry's opinions on Iraq? This survey doesn't mention Kerry's views on Iraq. It's about the facts of Iraq, and Bush's policies.
Or are you saying the facts in Iraq and John Kerry's position are the same thing?
No, these are facts that are main talking points of Kerry. There are other facts as well that he ignores (as well as many Democrats).
I've stated how that is dishonest with the analogy above.
This survey doesn't cover "every" fact of Iraq. It covers facts that are important for Kerry and his supporters. Just like there are facts that are important to Bush and his supporters.
I agree with Dagonee. Let those who want to believe in these survey's as "Gospel", be my guest.
Posts: 1533 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Wanting questions about different topics is not the same as having biased questiosn.
If you want a survey to ask who thinks Kerry voted for what, by all means make one or find one or suggest that somebody do one. But that doesn't change the fact that on these issues - whether or not Saddam had WMDs, whether the U.S. is engaged in certain treaties, how the Bush administration has stood on certain topics - on these issues Bush supporters are misinformed.
And unless you think the lack of WMDs in Iraq is an unimportant fact that wouldn't change anyone's position on the war itself, that's some pretty significant misinformation.
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posted
"But, but, if you asked different questions with different meanings, you'd get different answers!"
No duh (and its definitely warranted here). The only question important for bias is, if different questions were asked with the same meaning, would different answers be given. You haven't shown any such thing.
Saying that a survey is biased because it asks questions regarding bush and the administration and not Kerry (when the survey is, *gasp*, about finding people's conceptions about the administration's approach to the Iraq war) is like saying a survey trying to ascertain people's knowledge of the ingredients in peanut butter is biased because it doesn't have questions about jelly.
Just because two things are commonly matched together doesn't mean one can only ask questions about both of them at once.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
What kind of person looks at a poll like that and immediately thinks, "Gasp! Most of the people who hold the political view that opposes my own are complete MORONS!" What kind of opinion would you have to have about humanity to think that?
Rather than jump to the conclusion that your many millions of opponents must be absolute dolts (while those that agree with you are obviously much smarter and, by the way, much more good-looking), wouldn't it be more rational to look for explanations in real, human terms? As in, "Why would a person think this way? Why might they have answered this question this way?"
Naw, too reasonable. Much better to focus on their inferiority.
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posted
But going back to the question of WHY these people would still hold such conclusions, even after all this evidence to the contrary... Is someone to blame?
Is Bush still succeeding in misleading people, even though he admits there are no WMDs? Or is Kerry failing to inform them? Or is it the media that is failing?
I suspect the last is the most true. The media has covered this race very heavily, but has shown a surprising lack of facts on the real issues. Those facts have been drowned out by issues of "performance" - who is scowling, who is too boring, what the spinmasters are saying, what the parties are doing to manipulate us, who is winning in the polls today, and so on. The debate is all about the debate itself, rather than the issues that should be debated.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:What kind of person looks at a poll like that and immediately thinks, "Gasp! Most of the people who hold the political view that opposes my own are complete MORONS!" What kind of opinion would you have to have about humanity to think that?
Nobody has said that. Rabbit did ask if Bush supporters were naive, but that's about it.
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quote: What kind of person looks at a poll like that and immediately thinks, "Gasp! Most of the people who hold the political view that opposes my own are complete MORONS!"
Apparently and suprisingly, quite a few people.
And I was wrong in thinking a poll titled: Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters.
Would be about the differences of both evenly questioned.
posted
In the category of "dumb reasons to vote for someone," one of my friends was talking to someone at her school today, and she basically says "I'm voting for Bush because he only got to serve two years since he took over after Clinton was impeached out of office, and I think everyone should get to serve their full term."
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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C--This reminds me of the ABC Bias thing, where they put out a memo basically stating--"Bush is stretching the truth farther than Kerry, so spend more time researching Bush's comments than Kerry's." and the rightist Radio mafia screamed, "Thats biased. If you disprove 10 of Kerry's lies, you have to stop at 10 of ours, no matter how many we tell, or that is just biased reporting."
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Exactly Dan... the media has a responsibility to correct falsities in proportion to the amount that those falsities are told and in proportion to the importance the campaigns are giving them. When one side is more misleading than the other, refuting equal numbers of both gives the public a false sense that the candidates are equally untruthful. If this isn't done, truth falls by the wayside, because both sides are encouraged to out-lie the other. (The side that lies less is not penalized.)
posted
The survey doesn't ask a single question about either Bush's or Kerry's history. It doesn't ask a single question about Bush's or Kerry's campaign platform. It doesn't ask a single question about Bush's or Kerry's proposals.
If questions on Kerry's history had been included in the report without including questions on Bush
The survey asks questions about the war in Iraq, the economy, and various international treaties.
There is no significant difference between Kerry and Bush voters in their attitudes toward the various international treaties.
The largest and most consistent differences observed were between the understanding of Bush and Kerry voters on the Iraq war.
There is also a difference between the Kerry and Bush supporters in their view of the economy. Kerry voters were more than 3 times as likely to say that the economy has gotten worse in the past year, which is not consistent with most economic indicators. It's unfortunate that there were not more questions asked on this issue.
It is more reasonable to claim that this question was slanted toward Bush voters. If the question had been asked is the economy gotten better or worse since Bush took office, the economic indicators would tell a different story.
I am curious as to why Kerry voters are more likely to believe that the economy has gotten worse in the past year. I can see 3 reasonable possibilities.
1. Kerry voters are less likely to believe economic reports coming from the Bush administration because they don't trust Bush.
2. People who have been adversely impact by economic changes such as job loss, higher gas prices and higher food prices, are less likely to be Bush supporters and more likely to have a negative opinion of the economy.
3. Kerry voters are ignorant of the recent economic reports.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Rabbit, All other considerations aside, you could have set this up in such a way that it wasn't a blatant attack on people who support George Bush. You didn't. I actually think that the issues raised here are important, but I found your framing of them very poor.
I'm also getting tired of having to play this role. If you think your evidence is really damaging to the other side, you don't need to introduce it in such a loaded way. The evidence will speak for itself. If it needs you to punch it up with accusations, it's probably not all that compelling.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:But going back to the question of WHY these people would still hold such conclusions, even after all this evidence to the contrary... Is someone to blame?
The answer to this is much more complicated than you think. The author of this study made a comment that gets at the issue when he said--
quote:“To support the president and to accept that he took the U.S. to war based on mistaken assumptions,” said Kull, “likely creates substantial cognitive dissonance and leads Bush supporters to suppress awareness of unsettling information about pre-war Iraq.”
This is a psych phenomenon that is very well known among educators. Once a person has accepted a particular position on how the world works they view all new information through that lens. When they are presented with data, theories and explanations that counter their position, it causes cognative dissonance and they tend to discount the new information in a variety of ways. For example, they often completely forget they heard the new information, they twist the new information so that they can't see any contradication between the new and the old information or they reject the new information as faulty. As a result, if people have learned an invalid model of how the world works, it is very difficult for them to unlearn that model and accept a new one. Anyone who has taught science or engineering for very long can testify to this. Sometimes scientific ideas are counter intuitive at first (for example consider the idea that it is possible to be accelerating in a southerly direction while moving at high speen in a northerly direction). You would be astounded at how hard it is to teach students that concept.
The most viable explanation for why so many Bush supporter have views of Iraq that are contrary to accepted data. For a variety of reasons, these voters decided sometime ago that Bush was trust worthy. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, I heard many people say "Bush is a great man with high integrity, He wouldn't be leading us into Iraq if it weren't absolutely necessary." Now when they are confronted with evidence that the war was absolutely not needed for our defense and has in fact made America less secure by many measures, it causes cognative dissonance. They either have to reject their original belief and conclude that Bush isn't a great or honorable man (in which case they are probably Bush voters) or they reject the new data in one way or another. The more heavily invested the person was in the original position the harder it will be to get them to accepted the validity of the new evidence.
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quote:All other considerations aside, you could have set this up in such a way that it wasn't a blatant attack on people who support George Bush. You didn't. I actually think that the issues raised here are important, but I found your framing of them very poor.
You are very correct. I apologize. My framing of the issues reflecta my level of exasperation with the current state of American politiics. My apologies to any Bush supporters who I unjustly offended.
On the other hand, I doubt anyone would have read the thread at all if I had entitled it "Results of latest survey from University of Maryland". It's always so difficult for me to decide how to name a thread. Name it something too innocent, and no one read it at all. Pick something to inflamatory and it turns into a flame war.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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I supported the war in Iraq because I believed (wrongly I guess) that no president, be he Republican, Democrat, or Communist, would ever intentionally mislead us to achieve objectives that would negatively affect the country.
When Bush said Saddam had WMDs, I believed him.
That is also the reason why I don't believe Bush deserves a second term. His word means nothing to me now.
posted
Also, it's generally unfair to assume someone is untrustworthy and lacking integrity until they do something to prove it. Prior to his election, he had done little to prove it.
When Bush was elected, I defended him because people were assuming he would make a bad president based on some perception they had of him prior to even seeing what he could do. I pointed out that there was no reason to believe he, any more than any president prior to him, would ruin the world if elected - as some liked to claim. (Looking back, that prediction doesn't sound quite as good, though.)
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I just wanted to point out there are actually conservatives out there who concede some of these points and will still vote for Bush.
(I remember Scarborough after the Cheney/Edwards debate. He was laughing while repeating Cheney's claim that he'd never tied Iraq to 9/11. Or George Will berating this administration as one that never punishes failure or incompetence.)
There are Hatrackers here who are like that as well. It's not that they don't have problems with Bush and see significant problems. They see Kerry as presenting another set of problems that they find even more troubling.
The study is focussing on something different, though. People who deal with problematic aspects of the administration by ignoring or shifting facts to fit their support for Bush.
It's a more significant phenomenon with Bush due to the country having 4 years to "know" him, and to rely on him in a time of national crisis. Kerry was on the radar screen of relatively few people outside of Massachussetts in a significant way until he pulled ahead in the primaries.
quote:I just wanted to point out there are actually conservatives out there who concede some of these points and will still vote for Bush.
Yes, according to the survey about 1 in 4 of the people who support Bush concede these points and will still vote for him.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote: quote: 61.8% of eligible white non-hispanic voters reported voting.
Vs. 82% of those "surveyed"? That's 21% difference.
CS, This is exactly the kind of illogic that has me concerned.
I gave you all the numbers and thought you could follow the arguements. Let me explain one more time.
According to the 2000 census report there were 193,376,975 americans eligible to vote in 2000 (citzens over 18 and 59.8% of them said they voted. Of those who were eligible to vote, 147,768,945 were white non-Hispanic and 61.4% of the white non-Hispanic citzens of 18 said the voted. If you do the math, you find that 79.4% of the voters in the 2000 presidential election were White non-Hispanics.
The speed at which you jumped to the conclusion that this report was biased before even bothering to look at the details is exactly the kind of biased reasoning that terrifies me.
[ October 22, 2004, 09:44 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
With every passing day, I get the impression that the reason that we have such a deadlocked election is not because we disagree about what to do about the facts, but we don't seem to know what the facts are.
The debates didn't help this any. Quite often, one canidate would say one thing, another would say "that's not true" or something similar, and neither would justify their position. One of them was usually right and the other was wrong, but neither supported their "facts"-- and naturally, Kerry supporters are more likely to believe Kerry, and Bush supporters are more likely to believe Bush. A similar problem arises with the media: is CNN liberal? FoxNews, conservative? If so, how can one trust information from either side?
I saw a Doonesbury strip recently where one of the characters was wondering how there could possibly be any undecideds left in the country, with all the information available; I think the reason is that the undecideds aren't quite sure who to believe, and if/when they discover the truth, quite often are disgusted by what they find out: that one canidate was just flat-out wrong, while the other didn't tell the whole truth. One isn't easily persuaded to vote for either.
Thank goodness for factcheck.
--j_k
[ October 22, 2004, 10:03 PM: Message edited by: James Tiberius Kirk ]
Posts: 3617 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
So far, all the undecideds I've met have their heads so far up their rear ends, that they don't know who the candidates are.
I don't think we have undecideds because of a problem with facts, I think in this election, people are undecided because they don't care enough to make a decision.
Posts: 4112 | Registered: May 2001
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quote:I would love to hear more about what you think the implications of the survey results are and why you think they are terrifying.
I've been thinking for sometime about how to explain my response to this survey. The study confirms something that I've been concerned about for sometime. To a greater and greater extent, America is becoming a society with two different realities. The major divisions between Americans on important issues like the Iraq War, the economy, justice and so forth no longer seem to be based on difference in values, but instead on differences in how people perceive the facts. If we can not come to some sort of agreement on the facts, I can't see how we can even begin to heal the divide that is growing in this country.
When study after study concludes that there were no WMDs in Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003, and so many people still insist that there were it demonstrates that many individuals have abandoned rational investigation as a means to determine the facts. When people reject rational investigation as a means to determine the facts, we have lost the primary common ground that holds together a democratic society.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
I hear that 9 out of ten partisans will consider the other party supporters complete and total morons. This thread seems a good indication that what I heard was true.
Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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quote:With every passing day, I get the impression that the reason that we have such a deadlocked election is not because we disagree about what to do about the facts, but we don't seem to know what the facts are.
I don't think that is it either. I think it's that people decide on their view first and afterwards pick whatever facts will support it.
And I think the notion that this is acceptable stems from philosophical relativism.
Posts: 2432 | Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
"I am Alucard, I am stupid, and I support this message."
. . . . . . . . . . note: this message has been brought to you either partially or in full by the Friends of Alucard-Friends of Stupidity Election Committee.
Posts: 1870 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I see it every day, too, and I'm scared. When asked to back their arguments, some people in my office prefer "Well, I believe..." over "Well, I read..." When I show them places like factcheck.org and spinsanity.com they shy away from me like I've got the plague or something. What scares me is, the people I'm referring to aren't idiots, they're smart.
Maybe I was asleep when this happened, but could somebody please tell me when exactly did the American public suddenly start making decisions based on faith over hard facts? I don't recall this being the case in Clinton's time. Then again, Clinton didn't preside over the most catastrophic breakdown of intelligence in U.S. history. Could that be it?
What I'm afraid of most is this: Bush has made it clear to his constituency that it's perfectly alright to make decisions based on "gut", "instinct", and "faith". If it's OK for the president, that makes it OK for his constituency. And that scares me.
posted
Give me a break. I see examples of outright wrong "facts" from the more left-leaning crowd here at Hatrack very frequently.
Off the top of my head:
That the corporations do not have to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax any longer.
That the activitiy related to replenishing local draft boards means that the Administration wants to reinstate the draft.
That Scalia is in favor of limiting the protection against compelled incriminating testimony.
That Fox news called the state of Florida for Bush before the polls closed.
That Republicans opposed legislation allowing any child born in the U.S. to be a citizen (or that Democrats supported such legislation).
That the U.N. has declared the invasion of Iraq somehow "illegal" or contrary to international law.
These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, and these are the ones made here, where debate is generally better informed than in public. The ones I hear outside are even more obviously wrong.
So please don't try to couch this as a conservative or Republican issue. The electorate is ill-informed as a whole.
posted
Dag, I'm agreeing with you, it's not a partisan problem. In fact I've heard those comments in my office as well. I presented the resources to both sides, and both sides were guilty of refusing to check their facts. It could mean they were just lazy, or maybe they were just desensitized by all the political advertisements, speeches, debates, and spin alley to realize there is actually a resource for learning the truth behind all that crap.
Or, maybe, and this is what I was referring to, maybe it's a symptom of a larger problem that transcends the partisan divide. Are people losing faith in facts? Is it wrong for our president to reinforce the notion that faith is a viable alternative to the truth?
Posts: 236 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
It's interesting. I think some folks are purposely ignoring facts in this election, on both sides. An entertaining example:
I am taking a class titled Elections '04. The class is entirely about this years senate races and presidential election. We cover all the information to get an unbiased view of what is going on. My professor is the former chief legal advisor for Senator Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) but he does a pretty good job of keeping things unbiased.
Despite the fact that we cover all the information to ascertain the truth of what is going on, a gentleman in the class (he is probably 45 or so) remains certain that the following are true:
George Bush has a law sitting on his desk ready to be signed that will allow a draft of all men and women age 16 to 45.
George Bush is currently being sued by the US military for not completing his national guard duty.
Barak Obama is a republican.
John Kerry is related to Ted Kennedy.
John Kerry wants to immediately pull all our troops out of Iraq.
And finally, there is no such person as Osama Bin Laden.
No matter what facts are shown to this man, he will not alter his views on these things. I know this is an extreme example, but there are other students in the class with ridiculous views on current events as well, who behave with the same attitude. (this guy is just the funniest to me, theres no tellin what he will say next)
I don't know, it just seems that you would have to either be incredibly stupid, or purposely blind yourself to facts, in order to believe some things I have recently heard people saying.
posted
Misinformation helps conservatives. If you are chalk full of lies about the government. You are going to be distrustful of everyone and just want to keep everything exactly how it is, especially if you personally are in a stable situation.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Man, that guy sounds familiar. Holding to the same ideas no matter how ridiculous or unfounded, and unchanging in light of new information. And yet, he's taking the class! He's certainly no dummy, he's certainly interested in educating himself. And yet, he's got this strange dichotomy of character that keeps him rigidly believing those ideas, to his core. That's what I see, day in, day out. Bush's acting on faith doesn't do anything to make me feel any better. He's downright condoning this behavior. But, as Dag presented earlier, this isn't a problem caused by any political party. Seems to be across the board.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Sep 2004
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