This thought has been spawned by the, oh thousands of posts I’ve seen here concerning Bush-iduno and his infamous “don’t make decisions based on Opinion Polls” line.
***Disclaimer up front : I’m not a Bishite, Kerrisian or even a Nadarian. I don’t even live in the US.
(I’m for Jay Leno … 
)
I’m looking for objective answers to the concept of actually prosecuting Government Policy through the monitoring and adherence to public opinion.
What would hypothetically happen?
Personally I believe that had Public opinion been heeded in the months following 9/11 America would, in areas, have locked up any (suspicious) Arabic looking people, let them out again only to realise they let some actual potential Terrorists free, Jumped on Afghanistan, pulled out of Afghanistan, gone back into Afghanistan, pulled out of Afghanistanb (this would coincide with every single civilian casualty) , attempted to build three different monuments at “Ground Zero”, ditto with up to five replacement WTC’s (all of which would have been scrapped due to bickering) and would have culminated in so much flip-flopping, policy changing and waffeling about that the US economy would still be on some sort of downward spiral AND Sadam Hussein would have sent his Presidential Letter of Gratitude to Osama bin Working for the great sideshow. (He hadn’t had *that * much fun since the war with Iran !)
Opinion polls only matter insofar as elections are looming. If an election is imminent, then politicians pay attention to the opinion polls. Otherwise, it’s just fodder for newscasts… sort of like best-seller lists, they exist only for their own sake.
IIRC, Bush has also sponsored more opinion polls than any other president in history, so taking his “infamous quote” at face value would be like trusting him about WMDs.
In a perfect world, opinion polls would be considered, but not necessarily followed blindly. On one hand, this IS a democracy, and ideally the government would enact the will of the people. On the other hand, public opinion is fickle, and the public is largely made up of moronic numbnuts who have no clue what they are talking about (largely represented by the SDMB
For instance, famously, in Spain, when 90% of the population was against going to Iraq for over a year, I think that is a pretty clear case of an instance where opinion polls should be given some heed. These polls are conducted over long periods of time, represent a huge majority, and reflect a careful, long-term conclusion.
Kneejerk reactions, like opinion polls immediately after 9/11 or Abu Ghraib or other incidents, should NOT be listened to. They are gut reactions to traumatic events without much thought going into who, what, where, when, why, or how things happen.
We would have adequate housing for the homeless/mentally ill/handicapped only no where near anyone. We would have the greatest garbage/recycling/medical system ever, servicing everyone’s every need and we wouldn’t have to pay taxes to do it. We’d test the shit out of every drug/cosmetic/foodstuff around yet never hurt any animal or plant while doing so. We’d live in peace and harmony with our neighbors as long as they thought/acted/believed exactly like us.