Noticedthat after I posted, my mistake.
Nice theory. If only it were true.
A theory must explain the world around us and also have predictive value.
I think that the myriads of cites of Republicans (even a House majority leader, Dick Armey) calling Democrats stupid contradicts any predictions made by your theory.
Also, the “what’s right vs what’s best” dichotomy is false, because, for example, when Democrats think that we shouldn’t let the poor starve, they’re saying what’s right, not what’s best. And when Republicans say that capitalism as a system works better than socialism, they’re saying what’s best, not what’s right.
Here is an example of what I was talking about. It contains things like this:
*The poll reflected past surveys that show large majorities of the American public believe in God, the survival of the soul after death, miracles, heaven, the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Virgin birth. Majorities of about two-thirds of all adults believe in hell and the devil, but few expect that they will go to hell themselves, Harris said.
The survey also indicated that women are more likely than men to hold both Christian and non-Christian beliefs. Blacks are more likely than whites and Hispanics to hold Christian beliefs, as are Republicans. The level of belief generally is highest among people without a college education and lowest among those with postgraduate degrees.
The 90 percent of adults who believe in God include 93 percent of women, 96 percent of blacks and 93 percent of Republicans but only 86 percent of men, 85 percent of those with postgraduate degrees, and 87 percent of political independents.
The 84 percent of those who believe in the survival of the soul after death include 89 percent of women but only 78 percent of men, 86 percent of those without a college degree but only 78 percent of those with postgraduate degrees.
The 84 of the public who believe in miracles falls to 72 percent among those with postgraduate degrees and rises to 90 percent among women and 90 percent among blacks.
The 82 percent who believe in heaven includes 89 percent of women but only 75 percent of men and falls to 71 percent among people aged 25 to 29 and those with postgraduate degrees.*"
Can we really conclude from studies like this that woman are more addle brained than men? I would suggest not. Even if the number differences were much higher. I assert that those who claim that Bush supporters are more ignorant that Kerry supporters are making the exact same mistake as the first sentence in this paragraph. Making an unwarrented conclusion too broadly based on limited evidence. Now, if you want to say that Bush supporters are more ignorant than Kerry supporters concerning the findings of the Dueffler report, I might agree. Of course, I might have to point out that the study also seems to show more ignorance on the part of Kerry suporters than Bush supporters (and growing more not less os) on the issue of whether Iraq had “any activities relating to WMD”. Or perhaps regarding the assertion that “there was not connection at all” between IRaq and Al Qaeda (although to be fair, that ignorance is about the same). Finally, it seems to me there is some hope for people at large. If you look at many of the questions asked, most of the trend is towards less ignorance no more. that is the greatest growth in responses seems to be towards the “correct” assertions.
On review, I suppose this belongs in the other thread.
you with the face, jshore partially stated what I was trying to explain about partisanship. I was suggesting that the choice of the questions was such that positions Bush supporters were more likely to answer ignorantly were chosen over questions which Kerry supporters might have been more likely to answer more ignorantly. I agree with you the way I phrased the draft question was not correct. But rephrase it to be more falsifiable. How about “Have the Republicans proposed a draft?” You know the meme I’m talking about. The last several rock the vote adds I saw ended with the admonition “It’s your life”. They seemed to me a significant effort to get draft aged people to vote against Bush. jshore proposed some economic questions. I could propose another. What about a questiion regarding the test scores of Kerry and Bush. IQ or standardized. Do you think it is possible that Kerry supporters would be more ignorant about that than Bush supporters? How about one more germain. What about a question regarding how difficult Bush or Kerry have described Iraq as being. For instance, “Has Bush ever described the Iraq war as easy or simple?” How about a question about the retirment of General Shinseki? “Was Shinseki fired because he disagreed with the administration about the number of troops needed in post war Iraq?”
My only point is that ignorance abounds. It has been the position of the left that support for Bush is only possible through ignorance. The PIPA study has been fodder for this mill since it came out. What there has never been was an examination by those on the left about the merit of such a position in the first place. This is where it becomes condecension.
Did you not finish that sentence?
Yes, but that is a half-baked way of looking at it. It is true that more Kerry supporters than Bush supporters think that Saddam had less than he did. However, if you look at the numbers on that question as a whole rather than just cherry-picking only one of the wrong responses, you find that
(1) Twice as many Kerry supporters as Bush supporters got the “right” answer.
(2) While more Kerry supporters than Bush supporters may have gotten the particular wrong answer that is biased against Bush, what is in fact true is that Kerry supporters fairly evenly straddle the truth with in fact slightly more believing Saddam had more than he did compared with those believing that he had less than he did (26% vs 22%). By contrast, for Bush supporters, there is an extremely strong bias in one direction with 72% believing Saddam had more than he did and only 2% believing he had less than he did.
I would argue that it is much healthier for a population to be distributed on both sides of the truth (and to have half the people actually believing the truth) than it is to have them strongly biased in one direction (and only a quarter of them even believing the truth).
Well, yes, that is not surprising. I would hope that at least some people would have learned from the Duelfer report. And, I am happy that they did. However, I am not particularly impressed with the number that did.
Just out of curiosity, do you really believe that this is as important an issue for citizens to know about as knowing whether Saddam had WMD or WMD programs or what his connection to Al Qaeda and 9/11 is? I mean, isn’t this sort of getting into a desperate level of detail.
It took me a few reads to understand that sentence just now, even though I wrote it. The key is to realize that the “that” is being used as a noun and refers to your characterization in the sentence I quoted. (My sentence would have clearer if I had used “this” instead of “that” or just phrased the whole thing differently.)
you find that the picture is not as silly as I painted it by looking at such a small data set. Yes, exactly my point.
I don’t think this is what you argue in the global warming threads. 
That is because you were following the issue more closely than the vast majority of citizens. By the time the Dueffler report came out, most people had tuned out on the issue. Also it should be noted that the study only went from August to October. It can take longer than that for information to percalate through the population. How long have we been fighting ignorance on other issues?
Not desperate, no. Kerry mentioned it a few times himself. He obviously thought it was important. Additionally, it goes to the belief that the Iraq war was something other than an error in judgement (which is IMHO not a trivial matter). It goes to the idea that Bush waged the war for entirely different reasons other than those in the resolution authorizing force.
Having said that, I agree it is not as important as the questions about WMD or Al Qaeda involvement.
Having said both of those, however, It was just an example. You can postulate that there are no “important” questions on which Kerry supporters are ignorant, but it seems to be an argument from ignorance.
Of course not, pervert. “Addle-brainess” is not being measured here. The belief in God, heaven, miracles, etc is. The fact that you impart your own bias (“addle brained?”) into the interpretation of the results doesn’t mean there is something intrinsically misleading about the results. It is perfectly reasonable and accurate to look at those statistics and say women are more likely to believe in God than men are, just as long as the sample is representative.
Just like it is perfectly reasonable and accurate to look at the PIPA results and say Bush-supporters are more likely to be misinformed/deluded about the Deuffler report, 9/11, etc. That’s what most people are referring to when they bring up the PIPA study.
Do you agree that the PIPA study reveals that Bush-supporters are disproportionately misinformed/deluded about facts in the Deuffler report, 9/11, etc?
And you’d probably be right that more Bush-supporters than Kerry supporters would get the draft question right. However, that aside, nothing is taken away from the observation that more Bushites harbor erroneous beliefs about Iraq. Sure, the study could have been more balanced (even though that would be difficult because the president automatically is connected to more issues, being that he is the president). But whether it is balanced or not means very little when the facts are laid on the table. If I say “Bush-supporters are disproportionately ignorant about Iraq!” and you counter with “Oh yeah? Well, Kerry-supporters probably all think Bush is pushing draft legislation!” doesn’t discredit any of my evidence.
Yes, please. Let’s work with questions that will show up on a history test one day. That one ain’t gonna.
pervert, not to be difficult or anything, but you are asking folks to speculate. Bush could have easily described Iraq as “easy and simple” over some post-coital pillow talk with Laura. People can say anything off camera. Furthermore, Bush (claims he) never said Iraq was never an imminent threat. But many people believe he said as much while making the case for war. Are they right or are they wrong? It’s not quite easy to say, is it?
The same could be said for “easy and simple”.
More speculation. He officially resigned, so he wasn’t “fired”. But that’s like saying Nixon resigned and wasn’t impeached. Who knows the true reason why he resigned, except the General himself?
I don’t know what you are really saying here. The hypothesis was generated that Bush-supporters have a “different” understanding of facts than Kerry-supporters. Where did this hypothesis come from? Presumably by listening to Bush-supporters and noticing a certain pattern. It only takes so many people conflating 9/11 with Iraq before you start thinking they are misinformed or deluded.
Thank you very much for making my point. My only quibble is that most people are not simply refering to ignorance about the Dueffler report when they bring up the PIPA study. They are bringing up the much more dubious assertions in the analysis of that study that Bush supporters are by and large more ignorant (perhaps even willfully ignorant) than Kerry supporters.
Statements like this, for instance:
Sure.
So, if you want to limit your statements to the Dueffler report and a handful of other issues, that’s ok with me. Its when you begin implying that the results of this study apply to me, for instance, or that it applies to issues in general, or even that it implies to conservatives in general that we have a problem.
Not to belabor this point, because it really was an aside, but yes, it really is easy. Do you or do you not believe that Bush made repeated assertions in public speeches that the Iraq war would be easy or simple? You don’t have to word it to include off camera remarks. There is a persistant meme out there that the Bush administration did just this. There are even web sites devoted to lists of quotes attempting to prove just that (kind of like what I just did to you above). It is also closely tied to the issue of whether or not Bush “mislead” America into a war. Finally, it is easily provable by looking at transcripts of his speeches. I think a couple questions regarding this would have balanced the study.
No, it is not speculation. General Shinseki’s resignation was anounced months before his public disagreement with the administration. It was not his decision alone, they pushed him out. but it had nothing to do with the public disagreement over post war troop levels in Iraq.
That’s one possibility. It is also possible that leftists tend to condescend to their oponents and so were very willing to think of Bush supporters as ignorant, misinformed, or suffereing from cognative disonence. This possiblity just ties our discussion back to the OP.
If you think most people are declaring when citing the PIPA study that Bush-supporters are ignoramuses across the board, then I agree with you that is wrong. I disagree that most liberals are saying that, though.
When folks say Bush-supporters are more ignorant than Kerry-supporters, in the middle of a discussion about Iraq, responding with the attack that they are making unfounded conclusions strikes me as disingenuous. It kind of comes off as way of deflecting an argument without having to respond to it directly. Like a cheap way of dodging the issue all together. I find that frustrating.
Truth be told, I’ve been feeling this kind of frustration for the last 4 years.
I think a lot of Kerry-supporters don’t understand how one can support Bush and not be misinformed/deluded. Just like a lot of Bushites can’t understand how one can support Kerry and not be a limp-wristed, immoral CommiePinko. The polarization is not a one-way street.
All that aside, though, I think the main reason why the condesending label sticks so well to liberals is because of the stereotype that they all a whole bunch of navel-gazing, fluffy haired academics who like to pontificate breezily about the “masses” and insert obscure Neitsche references into everyday conversation. “Condescending” doesn’t stick as well to conservatives because they are associated with a much different stereotype: a bunch of old fat white guys riled up about the nation’s takeover by “sand niggers” and homos.
So, what you are trying to make an analogy between is a study that you think is insufficient because it only looked at the public’s knowledge in regards to the single biggest U.S. foreign policy issue of the last few years (and a few lesser foreign policy issues) and an analysis of yours that I think is insufficient because you only looked in isolation at the percentage responses for one specific wrong choice in one multiple-choice question. Well, I guess I could see how you could try to make such an analogy, but I hope you don’t expect us to find it very persuasive.
I think that is precisely what I would argue. I am not sure what you are getting at here.
Well, if nothing else, you succeeded in making me reread my post. I’m not used to someone telling me that my theory is invalid when I haven’t claimed to have a theory. What I claimed was a “take”, which is usually interpreted as an opinion, as opposed to a theory.
Nonetheless, I’ll take the bait and make a prediction: This time next year (or 4 years from now), Democrats will STILL have a reputation for being condescending, regardless of what candidates they field or their campaigning styles. This is predicted by my “theory” that the reputation is a result of the party platform. I’ll depend on you to let me know how I do. If you upgrade it to a theory, I’ll be sure and let you know where to send my certificate. I’m getting pretty excited already!
I think not. You keep trying to prove that particular Democrats are no more condescending than particular Republicans. If you’re going to promote my opinion to a theory, please take the time to understand what it actually is–that way, you’ll at least have a chance at guessing what sort of predictions it might make.
Okay, all joking aside…
First, let’s stipulate that neither party is 100%, every-waking-moment condescending or self-righteous. So, isolated counter-examples aren’t really the point. What we’re talking about is the predominant “flavor”, if you will, of the two parties’ platforms.
The Reps are strongly based in fundamentalist Christian doctrine and are big supporters of “family values” and “spreading freedom”. Even when the links are tenuous, they like to justify many of their positions with these supposedly moral underpinnings. However, there are quite a few people that don’t agree with the moral principles that Reps rely on. Gay marriage makes a nice shiny example. We are not all agreed that there is anything sinful about it, or even that there is such a thing as sin. They campaign to set the moral compass for the country. For those of us who don’t agree, that is self-righteous.
The Dems, to their credit, appeal to more universal values that are not so deeply rooted in religious beliefs. You will find very few people who think it is a good thing when people starve or who would admit to thinking that racial discrimination is fair. They are not dictating a set of spiritual values so much as they are appealing to pretty basic “humanistic” values that a huge majority of the population already share. What they are dictating is One Best Solution for the problems that we all see. Some people are poor. Well, we’ve got the fix: We’ll tax this much and put this much here and that much there and we’ll tweak over time and use government to fix these societal ills. The example that always pops into my mind is the Health Care Plan that Hillary and company came up with a few years ago. The “flavor” of the agenda is, we are extremely smart and we can craft a very complex but nuanced policy that will rely on our brilliant experts to figure everything out and fix it for you. What are you waiting for? Hurry up and vote for us so we can get everything fixed for you. For those of us who don’t want government as an adoptive parent, that is condescending (among other things).
Which leads back to my original opinion: You’ll not stop either of these “memes” unless the parties change their platforms. And I’ve yet to see anyone come up with an argument that even addresses what I am suggesting, much less refutes it.
-VM
Fari enough. I’m not sure if “most” leftists are saying it this way or “many” ore even if I am simply over reacting. I’m not sure how I would measure the difference. I’ll agree to disagree.
I mean this in all seriousness, and as gently as I can. Even so, can you not see how the statements I quoted, while taken out of the larger context of the discussion they were posted in, were not taken completely out of context? That they could be seen as overly broad and unecessarily antagonistic? Now imagine what statments just like that look like if they are made outside a discussion of the PIPA study. Can you not recognize them from such discusions? I’m certainly not saying every discussion or every leftists makes such statements, but they do occur with reliable regularity in any of the political threads around here. No?
Absolutely not. I hope I have never said that it is one way. I think Smartass has a point that the polarization takes different forms. But I agree entirely that a dismissal of the other side is all too common in political discussions. Just out of curiosity, would this not count as the sort of evasion of the issue that you mentioned above?
That’s a good theory too.
Sigh. No, not really. I just noted a similarity between your criticism of my observation and my criticism of this study. Not an analogy really, just a similarity.
Really? You argue that as many people believe the IPCC as don’t? That is not the impression I got from reading your posts.
If I have to append a disclaimer statement that says “all comments about ignorance with respect to the PIPA study only apply to ignorance of a specific set of issues regarding Iraq, 9/11, evidence in the Deufler report, etc and nothing more” the point easily gets lost in the wordiness. But I understand perfectly well what you are saying pervert. Just keep in mind that unless its obvious someone is abusing the PIPA study by concluding that Bush-supporters are all-purpose morons, they are probably only talking about the specific issues raised in the study.
No, because I’m not evading anything. I admit that Kerry-supporters attribute a lot of negative qualities to Bush-supporters. But because we are far from unique in doing this kind of thing, it doesn’t explain why liberals get branded as being “condescending”. Hence, is why I mention my theory about the liberal stereotype vs the conservative stereotype.