For that to matter you would need to show that the education level of non-voting Democrats and non-voting Republicans is dramatically opposite from the voting ones and that people who don’t vote are important enough in such political discussions to even be worth counting. You provided no such evidence.
All polls ask their questions somewhat differently and choose the respondents in somewhat different ways. You will never get the unquestionable proof as you can in hard sciences. However, we do have pretty good evidence from the best poll out there (exit polling, which has an order of magnitude bigger sample size than almost anything else out there and it identifies party supporters who matter enough to vote pretty well) that Obama supporters were better educated than McCain supporters and we do have evidence from the most recent and largest poll about the Tea Party that its supporters are better educated than other respondents (this evidence doesn’t disappear if you combine the results with the Gallup poll). This is as good evidence as you can get that the Tea Party supporters are better educated than other Republicans and I just had to show that they are about equally educated. Those multiple posters that claimed that the Tea Party supporters were uneducated were simply totally wrong. I hope they are honest enough to admit it. Der This, Lobohan, TreacherousCretin, where are you?
It’s interesting that you’re talking about using data correctly after you tried to claim that older people were better educated that younger ones, that males were better educated than females, that “older than 45” equals “middle-aged,” that anecdotal evidence is a good reason to hold assumptions about millions of people, and that a poll from 2004 is valid in 2008, even when the evidence of a significant shift in demographics of party supporters exists between these dates… It’s good to hear that you’re not among the ones making that claim anymore, though.
I already answered this upthread, in a message you ignored. For proof of Teabaggers’ ignorance, just look at their opinions. (Unless you want to misapply the syllogistic method: Teabaggers think AGW is a lie and Obama is a Muslim. We “know” Teabaggers are better educated. Therefore AGW is a lie, and Obama is a Muslim.)
The financial crisis of 2008 is generally agreed to be the worst since the Great Depression. Obama’s deficit was to counter that. Sorry for reminding you of the totally obvious, but when Teabaggers or other ignoramuses seem not to grasp even that much it seems pointless to bother with their “thinking.”
Fiscal deficits during unemployment; reverse this (as Clinton did) during prosperity. Keynes figured this out 75 years ago and, although economics science has not stood completely still, it is still correct today. (Hint: Those who say “Keynes was wrong” are … (looking for a moderator-acceptable word) … incorrect.)
So even if we do use this other survey (older and with a smaller sample size), we get the result that the Tea Party supporters are not less educated than others. If we combine both polls together, we get the result that they are better educated than others.
Cite? For example, we do know that older people vote more frequently and that they are less educated, so I’m guessing it might be difficult to prove your theory. But even if it was true, as Kimstu mentioned, the OP asked to compare two politically active groups, the Tea Party supporters and the Republicans, so it’s irrelevant.
Cite that the Tea Party supporters would lie on this questions more often than other people who were polled? If all people polled in this survey lied at the same rates (default hypothesis), then your point is irrelevant.
Oh, so when trying to find the education level of the Tea Party supporters, we need to ignore the data about how they responded when asked about their level of education and instead we should look to see what they think about Global Warming or what one of them thinks about Obama. Got it, let’s see how the Democrats fare using this rule. In a 2007 Rasmussen poll, 61% of Democrats said they either thought that Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance (35%) or that they were not sure about it (26%). On “Meet the Press,” Pelosi said “I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” and that natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels.” That was easy, most Democrats are ignorant and uneducated!
Yep, the Teatards may be well-educated but they’re still as dumb as rocks. Here’s another lovely part of the article :
But in follow-up interviews, Tea Party supporters said they did not want to cut Medicare or Social Security — the biggest domestic programs, suggesting instead a focus on “waste.”
Some defended being on Social Security while fighting big government by saying that since they had paid into the system, they deserved the benefits.
Others could not explain the contradiction.
“That’s a conundrum, isn’t it?” asked Jodine White, 62, of Rocklin, Calif. “I don’t know what to say. Maybe I don’t want smaller government. I guess I want smaller government and my Social Security.” She added, “I didn’t look at it from the perspective of losing things I need. I think I’ve changed my mind.”
They’re just a bunch of angry mainly old white people with no real unifying manifesto and no intellectual coherence.
The Bush administration prepared the budget for fiscal year 2009 ( the one that added $3 trillion in one year). Obama just happens to be in office while the debt rang up. The only money Obama has actually spent that Bush wouldn’t have was the stimulus money which is a. necessary to help the economy from falling into a deeper recession than we got and b. a drop in the bucket of the factors that make up the projected deficit over the next ten years.
This graph nicely shows the factors responsible for what will be massive deficits over the next ten years. I’d be interested to hear your comments on it :
GWB’s “waste cutting” including laying off meat inspectors and IRS auditors. Ask some 4th-graders whether emasculating the IRS is likely to increase or decrease the federal deficit.
One of the Doper’s “fiscal conservatives” posted recently to the effect that vetoing the line-item “waste” would reduce federal spending by about zero. Hmmm. Maybe Republicans who know long words really are smarter than Teabaggers, after all.
I’m afraid I’ll have to side with the Teabaggers on this. The Golden Rule does not apply to much government interaction. I might prefer humane measures that would increase the price of beef and pork, but I’ll eat meat at the lower price while I can. I might find it better public policy to increase the tax rate for my bracket, but I’m not going to pay the higher rate until it’s the law. Do you see my point? People opposed philosophically to Social Security are still going to cash their SS checks; that does not make them hypocrites.
Nope. If I’m making the point that you don’t have reliable evidentiary support for your claims, I don’t need to show that the evidence actually disproves your claims: I just need to point out the ways in which the evidence you’re attempting to use is inadequate to support your claims.
And yes, given that less than two-thirds of eligible voters vote even in presidential elections, my point about the difference in sampling effects between exit polling and direct polling of self-identified party supporters still stands. The evidence you’re attempting to use is inadequate to support your claims.
This is moving the goalposts. You’re changing your sample space from party supporters in general to so-called “party supporters who matter”. If that’s the group of people you want to draw conclusions about, fine. But it’s not the same as the group of people we were originally talking about.
They’re either hypocritical or ignorant if they’re saying their Social Security checks are coming out of the money they paid. The Social Security taxes they paid when they were working back in 1980 were used to pay people who were already retired in 1980. The taxes from those 1980 retirees had been paid out to the people who were retired back in 1950. The people who are collecting Social Security in 2010 are being paid for by taxes collected from people who are working in 2010.
Now if they don’t know this, they fall into the ignorant category. If they do know this, then they’re in the hypocrtical camp. They’re protesting government social programs as wasteful - but they want an exception for the ones that are paying them.
I’m not sure you understood my point. If someone gives me a $3000 check for my car I cash it … even if I know they could have bargained me down to $2500. One can’t carry the principle too far – there’s a point where you don’t accept “blood money” – but it seems strange to suggest that Teabaggers should destroy their SS checks uncashed.
If you vote for a sales tax increase from 5% to 6% but the measure fails, is it then “hypocritical” not to tip the government an extra 1% on all your purchases?
I understand. But the tea partiers are not saying they plan on continuing to collect social security while working to abolish the program. They’re saying they want social security to continue indefinitely.
Leaving aside the misspelled and racist signs, I think the one that said “DON’T STEAL FROM MEDICARE TO SUPPORT SOCIALIZED MEDICINE” pretty much summed up what’s wrong with the Tea Party movement.
Septimus: You have to understand how this board works these days. Let me run through the logic for you:
Everyone knows that limited government is a stupid idea.
Therefore, the teabaggers are stupid. QED.
No other facts to the contrary will be tolerated. Your well-cited facts will be met with anecdotal observations, snark, sophistry, collections of stupid signs culled from lefty cites, and the pictures of the 1% of the tea partiers who are on the fringe. This ‘proves’ their point that the tea partiers are stupid, homophobic racists.
This is the narrative that the left is desperately trying to spin against the Tea Party, because the Tea Party is a huge threat to their agenda. They need to be marginalized and triviliazed so that their actual complaints don’t have to be addressed. The leaders and opinion makers on the left are spinning it furiously, so don’t expect the lefties on this board to deviate from the party line by one iota.
Then there was the Congressional Black Caucus marching through a tea party protest, video and audio cameras in tow, hoping to catch someone attacking them, or yelling racist epithets at them that could be caught on camera so the health care bill could be turned into a modern civil rights struggle. They got bupkis, so they just claimed it happened anyway.
Later, Nancy Pelosi wandered through the same crowd with a giant gavel in her hand, a complete ‘up yours’ gesture to American citizens from a government leader. And still, no violence. But notice that neither the CBC or Pelosi felt the need to actually have any security. Notice that the Capital police didn’t try to stop her or escort her. It seems that the ‘fears of violence’ these people claim to have don’t actually translate into any kind of real-world worry.
The left has been in a full-court press to find examples of violence and racism in the tea party. They’ve come up woefully short. So now they’ve got idiots like Crash The Tea Party trying to manufacture evidence.
You are never, ever going to get the left to admit that the Tea Party represents average people who share one thing in common - their desire for smaller government. You’ll never get them to admit that they have valid concerns and that they should be seriously listened to.
“Dissent is the highest form of patriotism” was SO 2000’s. Now, dissent is racism. Dissent is stupidity. Dissent is evil. Anyone engaging in it is to be marginalized and destroyed. That’s the way the new game is played.
To the contrary Sam, I hope the Tea party doesn’t fizzle before the 2012 election. They will refuse to vote for whatever centrist the GOP nominates, and we win again. Or, the GOP gets nervous and nominates someone who meets the ideological purity the Tea Party demands, and loses the independents. In any case, you are woefully out of touch if you think the Tea Party represents more than 20% of the voters. A noisy 20%, to be sure, but hardly representative of the country.