Or wrong:At Yglesis, a
post about a
poll by Pew on attitudes towards Obama (and other things). One
item that is attention-catching is this statement presented to
white Democrats:
We should be willing to fight for our country whether it is right or wrong.
The response:
AGREE: 50%
DISAGREE: 46%
Pew:
Democrats are nearly equally divided over the statement that "we should be willing to fight for our country whether it is right or wrong" (50% agree and 46% disagree). However, 52% of Democrats who have attended college disagree with this view, compared with 37% of non-college Democrats. There are no significant age differences on this question.
Got that? Even if the country is "wrong" (which could include wars that are "illegal", "unnecessary", or "mistakenly engaged") half the country's
white Democrats say we should fight it out. You know that percentage is higher for Republicans (of all colors).
posted by Quiddity at 3/28/2008 12:51:00 PM
Technically, there are only five republicans of color, so it's not something that is meaningful statistically.
"Got that? Even if the country is "wrong" (which could include wars that are "illegal", "unnecessary", or "mistakenly engaged") half the country's white Democrats say we should fight it out."
the percentages are disturbing but I am nit sure they include the other means such as "illegal" Fist of all the elites are very careful not to even ask people or let them know about the illegality. Second, I wonder what the percentages would have been if the question was asked in different ways. I think the wording could change things dramatically.
"We would do what the government wants and go fight in a war even if the government is wrong."
and
"We would listen to the government and go fight in a war even if the President lied to us."
and
"we should be willing to commit war crimes if politicians tell us to carry them out"
I would hope these questions would get a very different response.
I am not sure what "wrong" meant to these people. "wrong" could mean many things. "For our country" carries with it an connotation that the act is actually for the benefit of the country and I am not sure what "it" refereed to. Is "it" the action of fighting or the country? And what does the phrase "for our country" really mean in this question?
It is disturbing nevertheless. I would love to ask these people follow up questions. Has out education and media system made a large percentage of Americans this ignorant?
