So Public Policy Polling, whoever they are, do an automated phone poll. Small sample size, and I’ve never been able to figure out if people are more or less honest when they’re not talking to an actual person, but I don’t think it was a push poll or anything.
One question asked if “government should stay out of Medicare.” 39 percent said yes. Another 38 percent believe that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Hell, only 90 percent consider Hawaii to be part of the United States! So I guess maybe only 28 percent are actual birthers, the others may think he was born in some exotic foreign country called Hawaii. But still, 28-38 percent is awfully high for something that has been so thoroughly debunked as that particular rumor, don’t you think?
Oh well. At least 0% think Obama was born in France. I’m not sure if that makes me feel better about the 14 percent who aren’t sure that our President isn’t a cheese-eating surrender monkey.
I sometimes wonder what the political landscape would look like if a fair, unbiased test were required to ensure a voter had some basic critical thinking skills and at least some understanding of the issues.
I’d never actually support such a thing, of course, but it would be interesting to see what things would be like if idiots didn’t have as much a say as geniuses.
The geniuses need to be limited to their categories of excellence. They have a tendency to be… what’s the polite term here… Oh, yeah, absolute nutbars once they leave it.
Polls Also report that 78+% of Americans say that they buy into this Jesus horseshit and I suspect that this is due to the fear of the stigma that comes along with being honest with your feelings about it with friends, family, etc.
There is a bit of a sample bias in that phone polls aren’t allowed to dial cell phone numbers (I think), and a lot of people don’t even have landlines anymore. The sort of person with a cell phone and no landline would, I’d guess, sway in a certain level of intelligence.
Ya know … if I had an actual Signature instead of just a sig … this would be it.
CMC fnord!
We accept him! We accept him! One of us! One of us! Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! One of us! One of us!
Hmm, Join Date: Aug 2009, don’t embarrass me by turning out to someone’s clever sock n00b!
Also, it has come to my attention that calling someone a n00b completely fucks-up your codeing skills … and your ability to speel. :smack:
I’m quite certain that the only reason that no one voted that he was born in France was because it wasn’t one of the choices in a multiple choice question. If it had been, we’d be laughing at the (minimum) 2-5% who would have selected it.
If you’re suggesting a cell-phone only individual is smarter (or dumber) than a landline user I’d suggest you think again. The only correlation you’re likely to find there is age–older people are less likely to be cell-phone only.
Oh and also, I wonder what percentage of people think the government should “stay out of Social Security?”
I work in market research/opinion polls and I can tell you that it’s hard enough to get people to do opinion polls when they’re talking to a human being. Opinions are not, in fact, like assholes, few people have them and even fewer want to share (not that I’d want anyone to share their asshole with me, though I guess over the phone it wouldn’t be so offensive). I wonder how many tens of thousands of calls they had to make to get the 909 responders. I can make hundreds of calls in a shift and only get 2-6 “completes.”
While I don’t doubt some people are that ignorant, questions like that often get confused responses, and I’d wager good money a lot of the people who answered “No” were interpreting the question to mean that Hawaii was not part of the continental USA, not part of the continent. You’ll also have a lot of people who just hit the wrong button.
Trust me when I say this; no matter how straightforward you think the question is on a questionnaire, people will screw up the answer.
“When we get to Hawaii for our honeymoon, where do we go to get our money exchanged for Hawaiian currency?”
Also, how does Hawaii have internet? Can wifi reach that far?
Does Hawaii have “inter-state” highways?
How can you ship something to Hawaii “UPS Ground”?
When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor during Vietnam, how did we find out? Is there someone in California with a telescope pointed at Hawaii making sure it’s still there?
The answer to #3 is, of course, yes. Roads built with Federal Funds as part of the Federal Interstate Highways Program are “Interstates,” regardless of whether or not they actually, you know, connect to another state.
You also have to adjust the crazification factor by that percentage of the population that just likes to fuck with pollsters.
