Poll finds majority of Americans are mindless sheep

From Yahoo/AP

Despite those other numbers that clearly state that the American people think the Administration wasn't 100% truthful about Iraq/al-Qaeda links, they still think that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. I feel sick and ashamed right now.

Oh come on. Not like the ''reality tv craze'' isn''t example enough.

A poll that offers us as ignorant. Hmmm, think I''ll start a poll to prove its sunny when the sun comes out.

68% of all statistics are made up.

It is amazing how such mindless sheep can create the worlds largest economy...

Not in a few decades anymore, start watching China, India and possibly Indonesia.

"Ulairi" wrote:

It is amazing how such mindless sheep can create the worlds largest economy...

I know you''re mad at Rat Boy for the other thread, but that was a troll of almost Rat Boy proportions. You can come up with better arguments than that, please don''t troll.

Oh come on. I think his point was it doesn''t make sense to call all Americans ignorant, when we are still a massive world power.

Really, when it comes to those kinds of polls, just tell me what results you want, and I''ll go find the right population sample to ask.

Man, I''m not joking - it''s really depressing to see that the world''s Empire has such levels of dumbness.

How bad are WE* doing, then?

*we=non-us countries.

(Then again, a case could be made that it''s not always the smartest people who become the richest... Sometimes it''s just a normal, hard working guy who took advantage of an opportunity...)

"Rat Boy" wrote:

Despite those other numbers that clearly state that the American people think the Administration wasn''t 100% truthful about Iraq/al-Qaeda links, they still think that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. I feel sick and ashamed right now.

Perhaps you should re-read the article. It states (emphasis mine):

Seven in 10 people in a poll say the Bush administration implied that Iraq (news - web sites) and its leader Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks against the United States.

I don''t believe that it said anywhere in that story that the American public themselves believe that -- only that they believe that the Bush Administration implied such a linkage.

Ohhhh Busted!!

Cup of tea with your irony anyone?

Pointing out the ignorance of Americians, while being ignorant of what the poll actually was about.

Oh, so sweet..........

"Yomm" wrote:

Oh come on. I think his point was it doesn''t make sense to call all Americans ignorant, when we are still a massive world power.

Really, when it comes to those kinds of polls, just tell me what results you want, and I''ll go find the right population sample to ask.

*edit* you know, I think youre actually right Yomm. Ive got to learn to pick my arguments better

"Rat Boy" wrote:

From Yahoo/AP

Despite those other numbers that clearly state that the American people think the Administration wasn''t 100% truthful about Iraq/al-Qaeda links, they still think that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. I feel sick and ashamed right now.

After reading that article, I don''t really see what you''re ashamed about. Nothing there strikes me as odd or out of proportion with what else has been published elsewhere.

-- Ah Rantage pointed out that you misread the article.

There are other polls that show a general belief in the American public that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11. This article shows that they have arrived to this previously documented belief based on the word of the Administration.

"Ulairi" wrote:

It is amazing how such mindless sheep can create the worlds largest economy...

I don''t believe I called the captains of industry and the heads of the Fortune 500 companies ""sheep.""

I think you do have to keep in mind that 9 of 10 people phoned for surveys hang up. What is the mental profile of someone willing to take one of these surveys?

Also I just took a U.S. Government class because state of michigan requires it for getting a teaching certification. Out of 50 people I think I was the only one who knew how the government worked, not to mention knowing little things like who is the speaker of the house, what exactly is a minority whip?

I don''t think Americans are necessarily dumb, I just think we''re in general ""fat and satisfied"" which includes being satisifed not to know much beyond our immediate needs. So things like politics, foreign policy, and anything not having to do with taxes in general just doesn''t matter to people. Doesn''t describe me, but describes about 90% of students in class i just took.

"Koesj" wrote:

Not in a few decades anymore, start watching China, India and possibly Indonesia.

Actually no. China is a manufacturing economy and cannot grow beyond that economy until the Government changes. In the 80''s people said the same about Japan. The United States will continue to lead for the foreseeable future. We design and buy the widgets that China makes. I did a paper for my econ final about China not being a huge worry to the United States.

"Rat Boy" wrote:

There are other polls that show a general belief in the American public that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11.

...and when you link to those, we can talk about that too.

From here:

Bush never pinned blame for the attacks directly on the Iraqi president. Still, the overall effect was to reinforce an impression that persists among much of the American public: that the Iraqi dictator did play a direct role in the attacks. A New York Times/CBS poll this week shows that 45 percent of Americans believe Mr. Hussein was ""personally involved"" in Sept. 11, about the same figure as a month ago.

Sources knowledgeable about US intelligence say there is no evidence that Hussein played a role in the Sept. 11 attacks

From here:

The same survey found that 57% of those polled believed Saddam Hussein helped terrorists involved with the 9/11 attacks, a claim the Bush team had abandoned. A March 7-9 New York Times/CBS News Poll showed that 45% of interviewees agreed that ""Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,"" and a March 14-15 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found this apparently mistaken notion holding firm at 51%.

Now, are you going to accuse me of bending the facts and lying or are you going to debate the fact that a majority of Americans erroneously believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11?

The other issue with arguing about that poll is that, like most polls intended to grab media headlines, it is a piss-poor example of what a poll should be.

Most media polls have extremes at either end, and the point the pollster wants to make as the ''reasonable middle'' option.

The poll that has been in the news for the last 36 hours or so, viewed objectively (my wording of their choices, with their findings):

Do you think Bush has never been misleading: 30%
Do you think Bush might have been stretching the truth: 60%
Do you think Bush is a lying piece of sh*t?: 10%

People don''t like committing to extremes usually. So of course the middle choice is the most popular, even if people don''t actually think that Bush was ever intentionally wrong about what he said.

Ah, the joys of statistics and polling.

"Rat Boy" wrote:

Now, are you going to accuse me of bending the facts and lying or are you going to debate the fact that a majority of Americans erroneously believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9-11?

Well in the first case, I''m going to accuse you of not knowing what the word ""majority"" means. 45% < 50.001%.

As for the second source....here is the survey in question that contains the 57% figure. What is interesting is what the second source omitted from the study (emphasis mine):

And fewer Americans think Hussein had a direct role in helping the Sept. 11 hijackers when compared with a Pew survey in October (66% then, 57% now).

Looks like the start of a downward trend to me. Do you have anything more recent than February 20th?

There hasn''t been one done since February 20th. The question du jour is about WMDs and Bush''s honesty.

And despite that, why don''t you think it''s appalling that at one point 60% of Americans believed a complete load of BS?

I wish the various channels would quit taking polls so seriously. They poll, what, 5000 people? What percentage of the population is 5000 people? I like YOMMs'' response the best. I''m sure if you polled 5000 people in Idaho they would agree that the Potato should become the nations'' official vegetable

You should read up on the mathematical art of making statistics work, the number of people involved doesn''t really matter when the searchgroup is sufficiently aselect.

You actually need a large enough sample so that you can ascertain standard deviation. But that sample size is a fraction of a percent when dealing with a group the size of the US population.

Unfortunately, a lot of polls are done in a non-representative manner, and are portrayed as accurate against the US or world population.

I put little faith in statistics as a rule. Not just because they can be manipulated in a thousand different ways - even those statistically scientific - but because they are a snapshot without context. They are invariably used to support an argument without necessarily participating in the argument themselves. They''re usually limited and fail to represent the nuances of a million slightly different perspectives. These are just a few of the reasons that 90% of all statistics I read are ignored.

"Rantage" wrote:

Well in the first case, I''m going to accuse you of not knowing what the word ""majority"" means. 45% < 50.001%.

Actually, 50.001% means the ''absolute'' majority. The ''simple'' majority describes the biggest faction - if there''s 98 1% parties, the one with 2% is in the simple majority.

You''re correct concerning the downward trend. It won''t make a difference, though; the Bush administration was smart enough to leave the (weak) argument of terrorist links early in favor of the (slightly stronger) WMD argument. It''s sad, but you can apparently trick most of the people all the time, provided you don''t run out of fresh lies.

Well, that and the fact that you could ask the same sample the same question under the same circumstances an hour later and get different results.

And as has been said before, the framing of the question is really important. People will undoubtedly pick the one that represents the most reasonable view and their are always circumstances and exceptions. The sample mostly wants to choose A and B or B and C because the choices given are black and white but life never is.

Yeah, I usually try to find out who''s ''sponsoring'' the ''research'' behind the polls.

I hated statistics with a pasion in school....god I hated it...but, in the classroom was a little sign above the doorway (paraphased): ""We have become profecient in the science of numbers. We are able to pinpoint, with feverish accuracy the results based upon whatever the man on watch felt like writting down.""

"Rat Boy" wrote:

There hasn''t been one done since February 20th. The question du jour is about WMDs and Bush''s honesty.

I thought it was about Americans being ""mindless sheep""...?

And despite that, why don''t you think it''s appalling that at one point 60% of Americans believed a complete load of BS?

Why do you assume that I''m not appalled by it? Because I''m turning a critical eye to your arguments?

Americans -- and people in general -- believe a lot of stupid things: Elvis lives, aliens are visiting Earth, the CIA created AIDS, <insert opposition party name here> is never right and embodies all that is wrong with <insert country name here>.