That’s what I’ve been trying to say!
Although… perhaps this is genius.
Maybe we should be bombing an imaginary country.
This will keep the nutters happy, but nobody has to die.
5 Likes
I think it is a reasonable position that if you have never even heard of a country it consequently should not be bombed.
The burden of proof is on those who want to do the killing, if they have not even managed to get me to recognize the name of the place I’m against their very expensive campaign of destruction.
*not sure is a totally reasonable answer too, though
2 Likes
“Should we kill a bunch of people in a place you’ve never heard of?”
vs.
“Should we try to help people from a place you’ve never heard of try for a better life?”
I don’t always agree with the Democrats, but if this is the kind of “ignorance” they displace compared to that of the Republicans, I’ll go with the Democrats, thanks.
16 Likes
Actually, you’re missing the most trustworthy people in the lot.
The ones that said ‘no’ because they thought just bombing other countries was completely unethical, especially without a clear and well defined threat (if at all)
They’re the only ones that we should be listening to on the subject. These other guys demonstrate why democracy isn’t working.
1 Like
New Axis of Evil: Freedonia, Equestria, and Babar’s Kingdom
4 Likes
Cue Rick Mercer’s Talking to Americans
/ so glad staplers have finally been legalized.
Given the wars already declared on Christmas and terror at least they’re narrowing the focus on imaginary things to attack…
2 Likes
how many of those opposed thought it was real though.
1 Like
The issue is not “is the country fictitious.” The fictitious part is actually irrelevant - it’s there to ensure that there’s no debate as to whether it represents a threat to the US, that there’s literally no reason at all for the US to bomb the country. The issue is whether one is willing to kill a bunch of people even though there’s no reason to do so. “No” should be the default position - if you don’t know enough, then the provisional answer at the very least should be “no.” “Not sure” is only a reasonable answer if you have some evidence that it might accomplish something necessary, that there are pros and cons being weighed, not simply cons.
Comparing “yes, I think we should kill a bunch of people for no reason that I know of” to “yes, I think we should help a bunch of people whose circumstances I don’t know,” they aren’t the same - they’re the opposite.
15 Likes
A well-designed poll should not have any prompts whose responses carry tacit assumptions that the respondent may not agree with. If you doubt this, consider the response ‘not sure’ to the question ‘When did you stop beating your spouse?’
This was a worthless poll serving only to pander to those who already feel that the Republicans have a monopoly on teh stoopid— a conclusion ironically contradicted by the responses of those who identified as Democrat.
Upstarts, the whole lot of 'em.
1 Like
Umm…yes. But that has nothing to do with this situation, does it? I’d be interested in hearing more about the mental thought process that caused you to arrive to that conclusion.
This is just like all the other ‘are you okay with attacking X’ questions that have been in polls for ages.
Anybody approving the bombing of a country they aren’t explicitly interested on bombing (Republican or Democrat) is a dangerous, ignorant fool and their opinion on the subject of bombing countries probably should be discounted until they’ve overcome that weakness.
4 Likes
Well come on, when we’ve got muslims shooting people right here in America, we’ve got to bomb somebody. Here in America, only christians get to run around shooting people.
I should’ve rephrased that example to mirror the binary nature of the poll question itself:
Did you stop beating your spouse?
(1) yes
(2) no
(3) not sure
Like you, I’m terrified that 30% of the 532 self-identified Republican respondents answered ‘yes’. That doesn’t, however, refute that the prompt itself was flawed. Personally, I would’ve preferred they’d pitched it this way (text taken directly from original):
Would you support or oppose bombing Agrabah?
(1) support
(2) oppose
(3) not sure
(4) WTF
3% of those polled were named Seymour Butz.
2% of those polled were named Heywood Jablome.
And a whopping 74% were Joe Dadee.
Yeah, I’m still not seeing it. This isn’t a poll asking what people have done in the past, the answer implies only an opinion on a specific subject.
That’s what the whole ‘did you stop beating your wife’ is about. The answer to the question implies a second answer about one’s activities. That scenario really doesn’t apply here.
That in mind, I see no reason for a fancy super-special variant of the question.
And the Democrats! The most terrifying fundamental flaw here isn’t partisan, after all.
The fact that anybody could say ‘yes’ to destruction in a land without it being a difficult, agonizing decision is what’s terrifying.
1 Like
In terms of second-order logic, the place ‘Agrabah’ lacks an existential quantifier. Thus, any responses that necessarily require such a quantifier are void. This is the deliberate flaw behind many loaded questions— not all of them, but a lot of them.
Creating a poll that exposes ignorance without using these sorts of cheap tricks is possible, but difficult. PPP simply revealed that they were either not up to the challenge or didn’t care to bother with it.
FTFY. – Sen. Ted Cruz
1 Like
So what are those supposed to be in this case? One either recognizes that it’s a fictitious country or not, but, again, that’s not really relevant - people who do recognize it as fictitious go in the “no” category because, “no, I don’t support bombing a fictitious country because that makes no sense.” It’s not a problem of tactic assumptions but of ambiguity of meaningfulness for those responses because sure, the number of people in the “no” category doesn’t tell you as much as you might hope, but the numbers for the other two options still definitely do.
