This recent Daily Kos-sponsored poll showing that large proportions of self-identified Republican voters hold irrational and extremist views has gotten a lot of attention recently. In the above-linked post, Markos Moulitsos writes that the results are “startling.”
There are some methodological problems with the survey (see here and here). In my view, the most important is that it probably oversamples the most committed Republicans. Strong partisans are more likely to hold extreme views, such as the “birther” belief that Obama wasn’t really born in the US (endorsed by 36% of Kos’ respondents). Some 83% of the Kos respondents say they are likely to vote in the 2010 elections, which is a much higher proportion than in the general population; Committed partisans are far more likely to turn out (especially in midterm elections) than lukewarm ones.
Despite such flaws, I think that many of the Kos findings are roughly accurate. The mistake is not the conclusion that partisan Republicans hold many irrational views, but the implicit assumption that this problem is confined to one side of the political spectrum.
I. Ignorance and Irrationality are Common Among Democratic Voters Too.
One can easily find parallel examples for Democrats. Thus, Kos makes much of the finding that 23% of Republicans in the survey say they want their state to secede. But a 2008 Zogby/Middlebury College poll found that support for secession was vastly more common among liberals than conservatives. In that poll 32% of liberals claimed that their state has a right to secede (compared to only 17% of conservatives), and a whopping 33% of African-American respondents (an overwhelmingly Democratic group), said that they would support a secession movement in their state. I suspect that supporters of the opposition party are always disproportionately likely to express support for secession when they are angry at an incumbent administration of the opposite party (as Republicans are today, and Democrats were in 2008). I don’t think that support for secession is necessarily ignorant or stupid. To the extent that it is problematic, it’s not a problem limited to Republicans.
Kos also points out the 36% of Republicans in his study who seem to endorse birtherism and the 22% who say they aren’t sure. Birtherism is indeed ridiculous. Yet a 2007 poll found that 35% of self-identified Democrats believe that Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance, and 26% say they don’t know if he did.
Other examples of ignorance and irrationality by Democratic voters are not hard to come by. For example, some 32% of Democrats believe that “the Jews” deserve a substantial amount of blame for the financial crisis (compared to 18% of Republicans). In November 2008, some 59% of Obama voters did not know that the Democrats then had control of Congress.
II. Voter Ignorance and Irrationality are General Flaws of Modern Government.
The truth is that voter ignorance and irrationality are general shortcomings of modern democracy, not pathologies that afflict only the dim-witted rubes on one side of the political spectrum. As I have argued elsewhere (e.g. here, here, and here), voters have incentives to be “rationally ignorant” about politics because the extremely low chance that any one vote will be decisive means that there is little payoff to acquiring additional knowledge. For similar reasons, they also have incentives to do a poor job of evaluating the political information they do have. Thus, voters tend to discount any information that goes against their preconceptions while overvaluing anything that seems to confirm them. This explains both Republican susceptibility to birtherism and Democratic receptivity to 9/11 conspiracy theories. The problems of voter ignorance and irrationality are exacerbated by the size, scope, and complexity of the modern state, which is so enormous that even the best-informed voters can’t keep track of more than a small fraction of its activities, or rationally evaluate the available data about them.
If you are genuinely concerned about voter ignorance and irrationality, the best solution is to work to reduce the range of decisions made by the political process. When people act in the market and civil society, they have much better incentives to make well-informed decisions, though of course it’s impossible to eliminate ignorance completely. Reducing the size and complexity of government would also diminish the number of issues rationally ignorant voters have to keep track off, thereby enabling them to monitor government more effectively.
For committed partisans, it’s always fun to denounce the other side’s voters. And there’s no shortage of data proving that many of them are ignorant and irrational. Unfortunately, partisan activists tend to ignore the inconvenient truth that their own party’s voters are just as bad.
zuch says:
I don’t know about polls with self-identification of “liberal” versus “conservative”, but FauxSnooze viewers are more uninformed than those watching other channels, I understand.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 5:25 pmsureyoubet says:
Do you think anyone at the Kos realizes that the whole birther nonsense was started by Democrats that were pulling for Hillary? And even if you were to conclude it was nothing more than an insincere ruthless political stunt, it was still a stunt intended to dupe what they apparently thought were a large swath of ignorant, gullible, irrational Democratic voters.
February 9, 2010, 5:30 pmzuch says:
Prof. Somin:
If they’re the ones most likely to vote, we still have a problem….
How does that cure anything? Who ends up making the decisions then? Madison Avenue?
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 5:31 pmkiwi dave says:
Ilya, I’m not sure if you’ve dealt with this issue in your previous work on rational ignorance, but a corollary of what you’re saying is that in “more intimate” political settings where individual votes are more relatively important, people have less of an incentive to be rationally ignorant. Is there evidence to support this? Do Americans tend to be less ignorant of political events at municipal/county level than at state or federal level? Is there evidence that in jurisdictions that are run by direct democracy, like old-style New England towns or Swiss cantons, there is substantially less ignorance of the issues at hand?
February 9, 2010, 5:31 pmBored Lawyer says:
Who made Daily Kos the arbiter of what is and is not “extreme” and “irrational?”
Among the questions asked is whether the person supports the death penalty and whether the person supports same-sex marriage. The “conservative” position (yes and no, respectively) is, in fact, one held by the majority of the country. (California voted down SSM by a slim majority. If you held a vote in the whole of the country, a large majority would vote against. Death penalty would probably do better.)
As for the “birther” question, I too would answer “Don’t know” for the simple reason that I don’t. I have no reason to think that the Presdient was born other than where he says he was (Hawaii), but I have no first hand knowledge of that. So I would grant him the benefit of the doubt — but that still means I don’t know.
February 9, 2010, 5:34 pmIlya Somin says:
I’m not sure if you’ve dealt with this issue in your previous work on rational ignorance, but a corollary of what you’re saying is that in “more intimate” political settings where individual votes are more relatively important, people have less of an incentive to be rationally ignorant. Is there evidence to support this? Do Americans tend to be less ignorant of political events at municipal/county level than at state or federal level? Is there evidence that in jurisdictions that are run by direct democracy, like old-style New England towns or Swiss cantons, there is substantially less ignorance of the issues at hand?
There is in fact some evidence to support it. Rick Hills of NYU summarizes it in a recent article. But even at the state and local level, the odds of any one vote being decisive are still very low (except in the tiniest of town-meeting democracies). So the effect is not huge.
February 9, 2010, 5:34 pmIlya Somin says:
How does that cure anything? Who ends up making the decisions then? Madison Avenue?
Individual consumers and others acting in the market and civil society, where knowledge incentives are much better. Madison Avenue is just one small part of that process.
February 9, 2010, 5:36 pmzuch says:
Prof. Somin:
They did? They do? News to me.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 5:37 pmkiwi dave says:
True, but a local vote is still orders of magnitude likeier to matter than a vote in a nationwide election with over 100 million electors. So we should expect an orders-of-magnitude difference in ignorance, no?
February 9, 2010, 5:38 pmRobert Bloomfield says:
These survey results (and those reporting similar zaniness among Democrats) decidedly do NOT support a theory of rational ignorance. In any reasonable model, those who choose to be uninformed would also place little weight on whatever beliefs they do hold, instead delegating decision-making to others who are more informed. These survey results suggest that the most uninformed voters are also among the most motivated and sure of their beliefs. Any theories of rational ignorance must account for this fact–which I am guessing they will do by retaining ignorance, but dropping any pretense that voters are rational.
February 9, 2010, 5:38 pmOrin Kerr says:
Like Kiwi Dave, I’m interested in the empirical evidence here. In particular, I would be interested in the empirical evidence that voter ignorance correlates with the size and complexity of government. It’s an interesting claim, and perhaps that’s true, but I can imagine the opposite being true.
February 9, 2010, 5:39 pmBored Lawyer says:
Basis for the claim?
February 9, 2010, 5:40 pmkiwi dave says:
I think you may have hit on a key difference between, say, the progressive/statist and libertarian world-views. The libertarian wants to minimize the area of political control over decision-making, on the basis that the alternative is de-centralized consensual decision-making.
The progressive, on the other hand, thinks that the alternative to centralized government decision-making is centralized corporate decision-making, the little people won’t get a look-in, so we may as well subject it to democratic control.
Fair characterization?
p.s. I see you thought better of calling Ilya a “RW authoritarian” and a Straussian. Good man.
February 9, 2010, 5:43 pmzuch says:
You assume that incentives are much better. That’s just boilerplate, though, and not an argument. But it also neglects that fact that incentives aren’t sufficient.
People that are ill-informed didn’t get that way by listening to politicians alone (or even primarily). And the same factors that make for ignorance or worse in political beliefs apply elsewhere … particularly when the same decisions have to be made by someone….
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 5:44 pmJoe - Dallas says:
The most surprising poll (though unofficial) is the number of democrats that believe Kelo was decided by the 4 right wing justices.
February 9, 2010, 5:48 pmzuch says:
See here. I note with amusement that TDS/Colbert viewers come out on top. That says something, but I’m not sure it’s good….
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 5:49 pmkiwi dave says:
I think you’re missing the point about the incentives. Polls like this prove that people are really, shockingly, abysmally ignorant about politics and world events. People simply don’t manifest that kind of ignorance with regard to the things that matter in their actual daily lives: the vast majority of people manage to do their jobs, conduct business, raise their kids, fly planes, drive places, perform surgery etc. etc. without much incident. If they displayed the kind of ignorance with that stuff that they do regarding politics, day-to-day life would be a lot more chaotic (and dangerous!). So the “incentive” point isn’t just boilerplate, it’s a (IMO pretty decent) means of explaining a manifest reality: that people seem to inform themselves a lot better about stuff that concretely impacts them than about things that are distant and theoretical.
February 9, 2010, 5:59 pmAnon says:
Interesting, I hadn’t thought of this with regard to the topic at hand. Ilya, how does this observation harmonize with your theory of rational ignorance?
February 9, 2010, 6:07 pmDeezRightWingNutz says:
Wouldn’t you be looking at the expected value of your vote, not just the liklihood that it’s determinative? So multiply the liklihood that you’ll swing the election by the value of the election to you to get the value of voting.
Not sure whether local or federal elections are of more value.
February 9, 2010, 6:14 pmzuch says:
Do you really think that people sit down themselves and make all the decision (rationally) there? If so, I’ve got a rationally irresistable option for you concerning a steel wire span in Brooklyn….
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 6:16 pmJohn Thacker says:
As long as you’re willing to read the poll results in-depth and note that Republicans in general showed higher political knowledge than Democrats. Or do you only trust the results you like from that same poll?
Republicans consistently score better in Pew’s poll of political knowledge. Even in the 2007 one you cite, Republicans scored better than Democrats. FOX News viewers score poorly, but talk radio (including Limbaugh) listeners score highly.
February 9, 2010, 6:18 pmkiwi dave says:
I’m not quite sure what your point is. Sure people make silly mistakes, but they are more likely to know what they’re doing in their own lives than when it comes to political issues.
February 9, 2010, 6:20 pmJohn Thacker says:
Do you also note with amusement that Republicans scored much better than Democrats overall? Just as they did when Pew repeated the poll in 2008 and 2009?
February 9, 2010, 6:20 pmii says:
The implication that supporting secession is inherently irrational or ignorant is moronic on its face. The non-legal posts on this site can be so preposterous sometimes.
February 9, 2010, 6:21 pmtherut says:
Go back and review the c-span coverage of the groups of lefties holding meetings about Bush causing 911 and the trials put on by the lefites for mock war crimes. Same type of people. Alot even educated at and employeed by so called elite Universities. It will make you either laugh or cry. How about watch some of the marches on Washington with the Black Panther speakers. The differnce is the MSM except for c-span does not report on these fringe groups or does so in a very, very NICE way. How about that former Attorney General for Carter. There is a good example.
February 9, 2010, 6:22 pmJohn Thacker says:
April 2009 poll, where Republicans score better.
October 2009 poll, where again Republicans score better.
It is the same poll you’re citing, zuch. If it’s so important to note that FOX News viewers scored worse in 2007 (though talk radio listeners very well), then is it important that Republicans outscore Democrats so handily?
February 9, 2010, 6:22 pmvc addict says:
[I don't mean to derail the conversation, but this thread (and many others) would be quite a bit more pleasant if there weren't so many posts by zuch.
We get that you hate Fox News and think everyone on Volokh but you is a moron. We get it.]
February 9, 2010, 6:37 pmSandy MacHoots says:
Maybe I’m confused, but I’m not sure that anyone is arguing this. I think the point is not that a smaller government makes people less ignorant, but that ignorance can do less harm the smaller scope it has to operate. Am I misunderstanding something?
An order of magnitude difference in a really really small number is still really really small. How different are your odds of winning if you buy 100 Powerball Lotto tickets than if you only buy one? Or none? Your vote is vastly more likely to affect the outcome of a Los Angeles County election than a Presidential election, but for practical purposes the odds are the same.
February 9, 2010, 6:38 pmShelbyC says:
Are you sure you understand the theory, Zuch?
February 9, 2010, 6:40 pmSandy MacHoots says:
You do understand, don’t you, that your example disproves your hypothesis. That fact that NOBODY buys the Brooklyn Bridge is pretty good evidence that people who spend their own money don’t act wholly irrationally. If you think people (yourself presumably included) are irrational, I’ve got four brand-new $1 bills that I’ll sell to you for only $10. Irrational consumers should leap at that deal.
February 9, 2010, 6:44 pmyankee says:
I find it hard to see how this poll fits into a story about voters who are “rationally ignorant.” This seems more like a case of irrational ignorance. There’s no way belief in birtherism and conspiracy theories (ACORN stole the 2008 election, Obama wants the terrorists to win) is anything but irrational.
You can tell a story in which this level of voter ignorance is (in some sense) a response to incentives, but I don’t see what purpose is served by labeling such behavior “rational.”
February 9, 2010, 6:47 pmJohn Thacker says:
Right. I think that the general libertarian argument is that people are more rational about spending their own money than with how they vote and spend other people’s money. Hence shrinking the size of the public sphere pushes more decision into the rational camp. (And federalism allows people to “vote with their feet” to get rid of mistaken policies.)
The point is that mistaken conspiratorial political beliefs don’t generally cost you that much. Sure, on a nationwide scale they can hurt, but if you personally become more or less conspiratorial, it’s not going to affect the election any more than one person’s vote tends to. OTOH, radically mistaken beliefs about things closer to home can and will cost you money, your job, etc. So since people have only a limited amount of time to learn things and dispel their ignorance, it’s much more rational to spend your time dispelling your ignorance about things where it will actually make a difference if you do.
February 9, 2010, 6:53 pmzuch says:
Really? Why do you say this? When the problem is ignorance (or worse), and the factors that lead to such ignorance are institutional, why would they be better at such?
Why would the public be better be suited to know whether 737s or A319s are safer (or more efficient), or whether nuclear power plants in their neighbourhood are a good deal for them? Would they be better suited to evaluate the perils of cadmium in their jewelry, or bisphenol-B in the plastic items they buy? Would they be better suited to choose new blue jeans or blue jeans beaten to a pulp so that the fabric is three threads short of disaster (not to mention pre-holed)? How about deciding what beer to buy based on whether the person flogging it would (purportedly) choose to blow off his girlfriend for it?
I’m not saying that a gummint elected by those people would be any better; I’m just saying that the overall performance is dismal. Your faith in humankind’s rationality is noted, but we’re not exactly pushing that virtue as a country, either within gummint or without.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 6:58 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
As noted, two can play at this game.
How Obama Got Elected
February 9, 2010, 7:03 pmzuch says:
… as opposed to two gazillions… — ummm, sorry, tens of thousands — of Tea Partiers on the mall (covered ad nauseam by FauSnooze).
Sorry to say, but beating people in detention to death is a war crime. There’s more than just that, although that is horrible enough.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 7:04 pmShelbyC says:
Well, the answers to pretty much all of these questions are unknowable or are matters of opinion. We’re all ignorant about where Obama was born, rationally or otherwise. But I can garuntee that if folks had a financial incentive to provide factually correct answers, the results would be different.
February 9, 2010, 7:06 pmzuch says:
Not exactly. Democrats beat Republicans in the “high knowledge” category (by only one point), albeit they were five points higher on the “low” end. TDS/Colbert beat FauxSnooze in the “high knowledge” category by 19% (with PBS right behind the comedy shows).
But note also what I originally said:
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 7:15 pmRPT says:
It may have missed its intended targets, but it found a target rich environment elsewhere.
February 9, 2010, 7:17 pmRPT says:
We fought that war once. South Carolina (and those represented by the modern Texans, et al) lost.
February 9, 2010, 7:21 pmzuch says:
April 2009 was asking about the Dow and economy, mostly. That was the area the Republicans did best in.
October 2009, the top three questions where Republicans fared better had to do with what the Republicans have been flogging on the talk shows and FauxSnooze ad nauseam. But it’s hard to see how knowing WTF Ben Gleck is (the one question with the greatest R/D advantage) makes you a more informed person…..
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 7:27 pmzuch says:
Feel free to traipse over to Freeperville or HotAir. I’m quite sure they would ban me there should I make an appearance. Or InstaPundit or Powerline … ummm, waiddaminnit, they don’t allow comments. Perhaps that’s what you’re looking for.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 7:30 pmRandy says:
“The implication that supporting secession is inherently irrational or ignorant is moronic on its face. ”
The issue, as RPT points out, was decided a long time ago. No state may secede — period. If you want to secede, the only way to do it is through open rebellion against the federal government and start a war and hope that the federals will either lose or give up the fight. If you lose, you will be guilty of treason; if you win, you will be a founding father of your state/nation. But whatever the outcome, you merely trade one set of problems for another, so nothing is really gained by such an action. (and if a particular county wants to secede from your new nation, I assume you will simply allow them to go? Or will that engender yet another outbreak of violence?)
But since you will very likely lose, you will be guilty of armed rebellion against the state, and the penalty for treason is death. I will leave it up to other to decide whether that’s irrational or ignorant to others, but my vote would be that it’s moronic.
We live in a democracy. You don’t like your leaders? Elect new ones. We all have to live with leaders we don’t like, and that’s the price we pay.
February 9, 2010, 7:33 pmii says:
Oh, I see, so the “rational” position is that ALL secessions are like the Confederate secession, and therefore they’re all invalid and “irrational”. Makes perfect sense, except for the fact that it makes no sense at all.
For one, losing a war does not intrinsically make the losers irrational or ignorant, nor their choice to secede and bring about war irrational or ignorant. Secondly, declaring secession ignorant or irrational without any regard for the motives and causes that impel the secession is, as I stated initially, and will continue to reiterate (because it’s true), moronic on its face. Especially when an American says such tripe considering that the nation was formed out of a secession of sorts. We just call it a revolution because we won it.
February 9, 2010, 7:33 pmzuch says:
Do you now how many people update their PayPal bank information?
Nigerian scams?
“Send this e-mail on or bad things will happen” viruses?
How’d Allen Stanford do? And Bernie Madoff? I hear there’s another one coming up too….
For that matter, how many people buy state lottery tickets?
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 7:37 pmzuch says:
Right. It’s explained here. And further explained here.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 7:44 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Zuch, the tea partiers got Obama elected?
I think you’re confused.
February 9, 2010, 7:56 pmGeorge says:
For that matter, how many people buy state lottery tickets?
Yeah, and how many people read fiction? Or go to the movies? Throwing their money away for nothing!
February 9, 2010, 8:05 pmzuch says:
No. I don’t think you looked at the links. Your — ummm, “theory” — was explained by Mr. Tancredo to the Tea Partiers, and he brought up a potential “solution”. Rachel Maddow put it into perspective.
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 8:16 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
My theory? What, that two can play at that game? You aren’t so stupid as to believe that they can’t, are you?
February 9, 2010, 8:22 pmzuch says:
You’re getting (at best) fifty cents on the dollar average for essentially all state lotteries. You might find that entertaining, but any casino that ran such odds in Las Vegas would find their Cirque de Soleil, Siegfreid and Roy, or even Pat Boone shows all of a sudden heavily overbooked. State lotteries exemplify highly irrational (and uneducated) behaviour. They get away with it in part by hiding the odds (payoffs are sufficiently infrequent that people aren’t able to properly measure wins against losses).
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 8:23 pmzuch says:
Here’s more pic’chers for ya, Laura. I have a theory…. ;-)
Cheers,
February 9, 2010, 8:26 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Zuch, why are you talking to me about tea parties?
February 9, 2010, 8:28 pmcelticdragon says:
Just Note:
Having worked on both B737 and Airbus A319/A329 aircraft as a structural mechanic, I can state that the A319/A320 planes terrified me. I have never seen primary structure members that were so demonstrably flimsy (espeically the I beams under the floorboards!)
I liked how everything on the Airbus aircraft had been cut on jigs, which made for perfect fits, but I would be scared to death to fly in them. Disposable and airplane should never be in the same sentance.
February 9, 2010, 8:34 pmRoscoe says:
Presuming the poll results are correct (and I have my doubts) they present a good argument for the present, winner take all, two party system we use. While there are disadvantages to this system (John McCain?), it does force the members of a party to caucus around one particular candidate, and more generally around a single set of policies. It tends to marginalize those with radical (well, minority radical) viewpoints.
February 9, 2010, 9:08 pmii says:
No state may secede under current legal and political doctrine. And the most recent secession was merely one type of secession, with facts inherent to its history. The Confederate secession says nothing about the moral, ethical, or rational legitimacy of any other secession in history but for its own. Therefore, the notion that secession or support of secession, by itself, is irrational or ignorant, is, on its face, absolutely moronic.
What’s more, no state may secede (period!) under current legal and political doctrine. Color me unimpressed. Legal and political doctrine often change. We are, after all, a nation that was established pursuant to a secession, only to find that a relatively short historical fast-forward later that we are now a nation that generally frowns on secession. There’s just no telling how attitudes may change yet again.
At any rate, whether something is legal or politically viable at any given moment says nothing of whether support for it is rational. See, e.g., the movement to legalize marijuana.
This is certainly not the only way to successfully secede. If political and legal doctrine changed then secession could be done peaceably (and if majority attitude changes beforehand, that could theoretically be accomplished).
Besides, again, even if it were true that secession were only possible through open rebellion, that does not inherently mean it and support of it is irrational and ignorant.
Indeed, the only irrationalism I am seeing here is the perplexing insistence that all forms of secession be branded as irrational, for no other reason than to voice some bizarre general opposition to all secessions.
If you’re convicted of treason you will be guilty of treason. Of course, none of the Confederates were tried for treason, much less convicted of it, and so therefore none of them were traitors. As such, losing an attempt at secession is not necessarily synonymous with being a traitor.
Not that that matters, because, again, being a traitor does not inherently equal being irrational.
Such is life. I buy a new car, and part with tens of thousands of dollars, and inherit thousands more in fuel and maintenance costs. More money, more problems. But your analysis leaves a lot to be desired. Some problems are worth inheriting to assume new, less burdensome ones; or, new advantages that come in tandem with manageable and acceptable new problems.
This is historically unsupportable, unless you want to suggest that the American Revolution (a secession) was not gainful.
No, of course not. Once MY secession succeeds, I will brand all those who dissent from the status quo as nutjobs, proto-traitors, and violent thugs, and have them marginalized by repeating these accusations until they are isolated on the fringe. Then, when they make a go at armed conflict, I will crush them with my might! That’s because MY form of government is obviously the best and nobody has a sound reason to dissent from it. Naturally. But that’s ME. And since I don’t support any (current) secession movements, you don’t have to worry about me doing that.
Still, I like to keep my options open, and there’s nothing irrational about that.
Wow, I’ve been tried, convicted, and sentenced already! Who would want to secede from THAT!
BTW, death is only one possible sentence for treason, not the only one. At any rate, nothing you’ve said so far logically implicates secession, or support thereof, irrational — merely that YOU would not opt for risking the death penalty in an attempt to secede. This does not mean the attempt, or support thereof, is not a rational gamble.
Some would argue that the very fact we’ve come to “live in a democracy”, of all things, is the very reason to secede away from such a development. Whether you, or I, or anyone else agrees with that or not, speaks little to whether it’s an irrational or ignorant belief to hold. I submit that, on its face, it’s neither.
February 9, 2010, 9:10 pmkiwi dave says:
The fundamental problem with your argument is that other people are too stupid to manage their own lives, but it’s ok that they should collectively (through the political process) be able to run mine as well?
If Ilya is right, and people are smart when it comes to things that impact them, and dumb when it comes to public policy, it follows we should devolve as many decisions as possible to the realm where people make their own choices.
But if it turns out people are also dumb when it comes to making decisions for themselves, all the more reason we should limit the sphere in which they can jointly use coercion to tell me what to do!
February 9, 2010, 9:12 pmGeorge says:
You’re getting (at best) fifty cents on the dollar average for essentially all state lotteries.
That’s better than I’ve gotten on the books I’ve read and my last visit to the Everglades.
You might find that entertaining,
Actually, I don’t. I don’t feel the need to judge what other people find entertaining, though, or to cast aspersions on others’ rationality because they don’t base their decisions on a purely mathematical criterion.
but any casino that ran such odds in Las Vegas would find their Cirque de Soleil, Siegfreid and Roy, or even Pat Boone shows all of a sudden heavily overbooked.
You haven’t been in Las Vegas for quite a while, have you? Neither have a lot of other people. What do casino odds have to do with lottery odds? In any case, some popular casino games (e.g., keno) have rather lousy odds, too.
State lotteries exemplify highly irrational (and uneducated) behaviour.
In your opinion, and according to your criteria. Others have other opinions.
They get away with it in part by hiding the odds (payoffs are sufficiently infrequent that people aren’t able to properly measure wins against losses).
So far as I know, odds are, by law, printed on all tickets. Do you know otherwise? Precisely how does the frequency of winning affect people’s ability to properly measure wins against losses?
February 9, 2010, 9:23 pmRoscoe says:
I buy a lottery ticket every now and again, when it gets real high. It’s fun thinking what you would do if you won. Where else can you get so much enjoyment for a buck these days?
February 9, 2010, 9:42 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Me too, Roscoe.
Although what happened to Abraham Shakespeare ought to give anyone pause.
February 9, 2010, 9:55 pmDaniel Chapman says:
“I don’t mean to derail the conversation, but this thread (and many others) would be quite a bit more pleasant if there weren’t so many posts by zuch.”
Second. A time delay between posts would go a long way toward preventing these threads from turning into back-and-forths between a few um… “dedicated” posters. I really can’t complain much, though, since I really had to know what I was getting when I clicked on this one. Why are we talking about Kos here?
February 9, 2010, 10:05 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Well, if they were TWO-DOLLAR bills, they’d be worth more.
Brand new $1.00 bills seem to be worth only $1.23 a piece on eBay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/100-NEW-ONE-DOLLAR-BILLS-1-BEP-MONEY-BUNDLE-PACK_W0QQitemZ150412623947QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item23054a804b
Free shipping – or as any economist could tell you the shipping is included in the price.
If you check completed listings, you will see that packages of bills like that have been sold.
Another seller has a somewhat higher opinion of the value of a new Dollar bill: ($1.36 each)
http://cgi.ebay.com/2006-1-dollar-bills-25-consecutive-numbers-from-Atlanta_W0QQitemZ300393391331QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item45f0d764e3
The value, of course, comes from the consecutive numbers.
It may depend maybe on how the seller highlights their value. 100 $1 bills went for $147.77 when the seller pointed out that 10 of the bills had 3 7′s in a row somewhere in the serial number, and thus were “lucky”
I’d say maybe $4.25 might be a reasonable value for the 4 $1 bills. Your problem in selling them would be:
1) Transaction costs (mailing etc) would eat up all or most of the profit or even more than the profit.
2) There are only 4 of them, and there is not such a premium for only four.
You might think there should be a higher, not a lower markup on your 4 dollar bills because of the universal law of retailing, which is that that the larger the quantity the lower the per-item price (For instance 200 new $1 bills have gone for $241 on eBay – a discount of some 5% from the 100-batch price. )
But fewer people want to buy just the 4 so they would go for less. Actually we don’t see them being auctioned off at all.
But maybe you can find some pattern in the numbers.
February 9, 2010, 10:34 pmG. May says:
“Second. A time delay between posts would go a long way toward preventing these threads from turning into back-and-forths between a few um… “dedicated” posters. I really can’t complain much, though, since I really had to know what I was getting when I clicked on this one. Why are we talking about Kos here?”
Thirded. IANAL, and that’s why I visit VC (among others). If I want partisan hackery, there are much better sites.
February 9, 2010, 11:22 pmSarcastro says:
[I admit I sometimes skip past zuch's posts. He doesn't suffer those whom he considers fools gladly, and this can make him pretty abrasive at times.
But once a diaglogue gets rolling with him, it's gonna be good.
A posting delay would upset the quickfire conversations I find more educational than just about anything anywhere.]
February 9, 2010, 11:29 pmA. Zarkov says:
This poll is poorly designed and has not been analyzed. For one thing it lacks a control group(s). They should have surveyed Democrats and independents. Without that information, we don’t know how the other groups would have answered these questions. If there are systematic errors in the survey they might cancel out or nearly cancel out for some questions. It would also be helpful to know the non-response rate. How many people didn’t answer the phone, or answered but refused to participate? How many hung up or stopped answering part way through the questions? This can introduce a large systematic error.
Many questions have very large “not sure” answers. For example the question, “Should Barack Obama be impeached or not?” get about 30% “not sure” responses. Remember the margin or error calculation is based on binary responses that should be near 50%. When you depart from 50%, the normal approximation to the binary breaks down.
Now some of the answers show an age effect, especially the ones about gay marriage. So you really need to analyze the data here to separate out age effects from being ideology. I suspect young Republicans would answer a lot like old Democrats of gay issues. That’s why it’s important to have asked Democrats and independents.
I could go on, but that’s enough. This poll is fairly worthless in my opinion. BTW I have designed and analyzed surveys including some vary advanced methods some of my own design.
February 9, 2010, 11:33 pmCareless says:
Given the lack of a working edit function, I agree, although I don’t know what sort of delay he had in mind. And say what you will about JBG, but unlike Zuch he stacks his replies nicely and his links are always (AFAIK) on target, which is nice.
But this comment system just isn’t built for quick replies and discussions, which is unfortunate.
February 9, 2010, 11:49 pmThose Nutty Right-Wingers « The Republican Heretic says:
[...] Somin of the Volokh Conspiracy offers a rather insightful analysis of this [...]
February 10, 2010, 12:22 ameyesay says:
Zuch, your comments are good, especially where you said “Sorry to say, but beating people in detention to death is a war crime.”
February 10, 2010, 12:52 amWakefield Tolbert says:
I relish the thought of an experiment of putting equal numbers (say, oh, 50 each?) of “Birthers” and “911-Truthers” in the same very large room–locked tight, with no escape–for several hours, and simply watching what happens when one group’s irrational, unreachable and ineffable “findings” about things confronts another’s.
I wanna see just what brand of “convincing” is done pulled from whomever’s nutcase blog (Daily Kos and Huffington vs. say, Phillip Berg’s stuff and the offshoots)
Heh.
Pay close attention regardless of what they do. In the end, these are the Republic’s actual taskmasters.
lol
February 10, 2010, 1:03 amzuch says:
Huh? Where did I say such a thing? Matter of fact, I think I said the pretty much the opposite:
There’s a couple more assumptions here that you’re implicitly making (even if Prof. Somin were correct, which is hardly obvious). See if you can figure out what they are.
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 1:39 amzuch says:
I think you’re just proving my point even more. May I recommend some books for you?
Yes, I have been to Vegas recently.
Keno’s nowhere near 50%. The only way you can get to such poor odds in Vegas is in games of choice, through your own bad behaviour such as hitting on 19 at blackjack. The rest are regulated and the gaming commission won’t allow such.
I have yet to see a ticket with the odds printed on it. Most state lottery tickets are printed on these rolls of paper by the POS terminal, and have little on them except the numbers chosen and security/ID information.
If you don’t win very often, it’s harder for you to keep track of how much you’ve lost in between. If you don’t win at all, it’s no biggie, because your payday is just down the pike. It’s a well-known psychological phenomenon. And exploited by the state gummints.
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 1:56 amzuch says:
“Free rider! Free rider!”
Yes, if the jackpot rolls over a couple of times, and builds up to 2-3 times the original, you get close to breaking even (because you’re playing to win money other players have already lost). It needs to be much better that 2 (the 50% doubled), because many games gave separate pools for the second (5 number) and third place (four number) prizes, which always have winners and are doled out each time around. These account for 10-20% of the expected payoff, and will never increase. Also, you will have tax liability on a big jackpot, and you’re unlikely to have millions of dollars of gambling losses that year to offset your winnings. And you don’t even get it back on tax credits for losses when you don’t win: Losses can only offset winnings.
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 2:05 amzuch says:
What makes you think that they set error bars using a binomial distribution (or normal approximation to such)? Χ² would seem more appropriate, and any statistician worth their salt would use that….
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 2:25 amzuch says:
I’m disappointed you don’t like my links. :-(
A tree-structured comment system (as some blogs such as Dkos’s have) might alleviate some of the discomfort some have. Even better if you can collapse branches you don’t want to read, once they’ve gone off track, or in a direction that you’re not interested in.
I do note JBG’s style, and my posts used to be quite a bit longer as well (in other venues). But that tends to make for pages long comments after a while, and it’s harder to find specific issues or comments within such amalgamations, so I try to keep it (usually) to one to three points per comment. That, and the fact that I think responses to different commenters should be in separate comments (just to avoid confusion), tends to shape my commenting style.
To use a form of apology now au courant: I’m sorry if any of you find my comments discomforting. ;-)
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 2:37 amjukeboxgrad says:
careless:
Thank you for that gracious compliment.
===================
zuch:
I greatly enjoy your comments (including your links), and my suggestion would be to keep doing exactly what you’re doing. I wish I could be half as quick as you.
February 10, 2010, 2:50 amjukeboxgrad says:
somin:
The question was sufficiently ambiguous to make the result relatively meaningless.
February 10, 2010, 2:55 amA. Zarkov says:
From the margin of error specification. MOE= 1.96 sqrt(p(1-p)/n). Put in n= 2003, and p= .5 and you get MOE= 2%, which matches what they give. They polled 2003 Republicans. The 1.96 comes from the 95% confidence interval. The p= .5 is what these pollsters always use because that’s where the binomial is symmetric. Of course p= .5 is plainly wrong as you can see from the cross tabs. It’s not a bad approximation for most American elections which each candidate get somewhere near 50% of the vote. But here many of the responses are somewhere around p=.3, so you can’t really use the normal approximation.
The Chi-Sqaure has nothing to do with this stuff. I think you say “Chi-Square” every time you hear something statistical hoping it might apply. It doesn’t.
February 10, 2010, 5:05 amA. Zarkov says:
The question, “Should Congress make it easier to form and join labor unions?” only 7% answered “yes.” Doing the calculation properly, I get 5.95% to 8.16% for the 95% confidence interval, which is a margin of error of 1% not 2%. This is to be expected with the usual MOE pollsters state is a worst case. They used an excessively large sample size for this poll. They should have polled Democrats and independents as their resources were ample with a sample size of 2003.
February 10, 2010, 7:13 amG. May says:
One partisan hack says to another:
As quick as him at what? Just being quick? Zuch splutters “Fauxsnooze” all over the thread, yet considers The Daily Show and Colbert report to be serious references? Are his quick displays of irony what brings you such joy?
He likes to triumphantly post pictures of a few Tea Party protesters in a thread about the ignorance and irrationality of Democrats and Republicans, as if there isn’t an overabundance of similar evidence on the side you both presumably occupy.
And concerning Dems and the other truthers, you’ve very carefully crafted your argument to be able to exclude the likes of Van Jones, NPR’s granting airtime to Dylan Avery and his legions, or any other high profile person pushing troofer nonsense. Very nice touch by the way. In that light, one need not even delve into your Media Matters source on the subject very far. [Seriously, Media Matters?? Why not toss in some KOS, DU, and HuffPo to round things out? Though I did enjoy a quick perusal of the comments. More delicious irony, given the point you're trying to make.]
Yeah, you guys are doing a bang up job not only proving the bloggers points, but stinking the place up in the process. Keep doing what you’re doing!
February 10, 2010, 9:45 amDirck Noorman says:
You mention the 2007 Rasmussen poll regarding a large portion of Dems believing Bush knew about 9/11 in advance.
Recall also the 2007 Zogby poll, which showed >42% of self-identified Dems believed either:
(C)ertain elements in the US government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic motives (26.4%)
(C)ertain US government elements actively planned or assisted some aspects of the attacks (4.6%)
February 10, 2010, 11:55 amA. Zarkov says:
A fair poll would also have included questions that are hot button issues for liberals as well. For example, “Should Bush have been impeached?”
For some reason the poll lacks a question of religious affiliation. That seems like a serious shortcoming. It also appears to have a regional imbalance because Republicans are now days more numerous in the South than the Northeast. But people’s opinions are influenced by where they live apart from their political affiliation. To disentangle this confounding of variables you need the other groups, Democrats and independents.
If this work were submitted to a political science journal it would get rejected. Of course it will go into a book and never get peer reviewed. Again this is a useless poll if you want to understand how party affiliation affects opinions held.
February 10, 2010, 12:48 pmzuch says:
If you use P=0.5, you get 2.2%. If you use P=0.3, you get 2.0%. Why do you think they used the binominal with P=0.5?:
You said further:
This is not true for large sample sizes.
What a pile’o'crapola (not to mention your sample size here is 1). 2-D Χ² ANOVA is precisely what you’d want in comparing groups (D/R[/I]) against cell frequencies along another axis. As with all ANOVA, Χ² just tells you whether there is an effect. You are then allowed to set error bars on the individual differences (the same way you’d use individual t-tests after using an F test on continuous data). You can do this for some of the comparisons using a binomial or normal approximation thereto (recognising and disclosing any limitations to such approximations). You could also do so analytically, or use bootstrap or jackstrap statistics to avoid any distributional assumptions.
IOW, what you spouted above was garbage (and based on your assumptions, not well founded, as to what they did).
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 12:55 pmzuch says:
Wow. Just “wow”.
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 12:57 pmzuch says:
I gave evidence above as to why it’s FauxSnooze. Other evidence is their making sh*te up.
And I didn’t hold TDS and Colbert out as “serious references”. In fact, I watch them most every day and find them profoundly unserious (much to my enjoyment). But the sad fact remains that, despite this proclivity, they may well be the most serious “news” shows on.
I did this (quite consistent with the thrust of the original post, which I don’t deny), in response to Laura’s clip of supposedly dumb Obama supporters. Fair’s fair.
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 1:08 pmG. May says:
Apparently your inability to differentiate between fact and opinion renders further discussion with you pointless.
Good day.
February 10, 2010, 1:15 pmzuch says:
Thank you. Less that one in twenty are “Truthers”. Compare that to DKos’s figures for the Republicans (“birthers”, etc.). It’s still quite possible that “certain elements in the US government knew the attacks were coming but consciously let them proceed for various political, military and economic motives”, particularly since they were told that attacks were being planned, and Dubya sat on his a$$ all August, and the supposed anti-terrorism group did nothing during August. I can’t divine their motives. Stoopidity, incompetence, and outright evil are sometimes hard to distinguish … and the principals in question here aren’t known for their veracity.
Then we have the PNAC (whose adherents were infesting the White House) possible desire for a “Pearl Harbor” to shake the tree a little.
Cheers,
February 10, 2010, 1:17 pmbyomtov says:
Ilya,
As I have argued elsewhere (e.g. here, here, and here), voters have incentives to be “rationally ignorant” about politics because the extremely low chance that any one vote will be decisive means that there is little payoff to acquiring additional knowledge. For similar reasons, they also have incentives to do a poor job of evaluating the political information they do have.
The trouble here is that much of the stupidity evidenced in this survey is not “rational political ignorance.”
First, it’s likely that the repondents pay a fair amount of attention to political matters, but that they are being wildly misinformed:
21% think ACORN stole the 2008 election, 55%(!!!) aren’t sure. People who don’t pay attention to politics have hardly heard of ACORN.
42% are birthers, with 22% not sure. Again, those who don’t pay much attention are likely to dismiss birtherism out of hand, as a matter of common sense.
Then there’s bigotry, again unrelated to information:
Only 8% thought openly gay people should be allowed to teach in public schools.
(I’ve chosen only what seems to be the most blatant example of anti-gay bigotry)
And of course, creationism, at 77%. That’s scientific ignorance, not political.
I understand the argument that this survey represents some extreme views that may not fairly represent Republicans in general. But the problem is that Republicans in general do cater heavily to this group, perhaps because of their importance in primary contests. Thus the influence of these opinions is much greater than one would guess by the numbers.
And yes, there are Democrats who hold silly, ignorant, bigoted opinions. But this is false equivalency. You’ll have a hard time matching this survey, and an even harder one showing that crackpots enjoy the same degree of influence in the Democratic Party as in the GOP.
February 10, 2010, 1:23 pmjukeboxgrad says:
g may:
If you’re prepared to show evidence that I’m a “partisan hack,” that would be helpful. On the other hand, someone who makes a personal accusation without presenting proof is doing a good job of identifying themselves as a partisan hack.
You’re showing Bush=Hitler references. Which of those were done by people in a leadership position? Palin just happily shared a stage with speakers who described Obama as a “totalitarian monster” who “envisions a one-world government.” And how his election was a “Pearl Harbor moment.” Show us the D leaders (as distinct from individual protesters) who spoke this way about Bush.
In what way did I ‘craft’ my argument to exclude Van Jones? I didn’t. And incidentally, the view expressed in the letter he signed is shared by 26% of Americans (pdf). If you want to show your disrespect for a group that large, be my guest. The GOP probably needs to do some additional shrinking.
Seriously, do you expect anyone to be impressed by this classic example of an ad hominem argument? If there are any errors in the article I cited, you should tell us what they are.
==============
dirck:
In this comment and in your blog post you messed up the numbers. 26.4 and 4.6 do not sum to 42. The correct numbers are 36.3 and 6.3 (pdf).
For independents, the numbers are 27.1 and 3.4. Which means that whatever problem you have with Democrats, you also have a similar problem with a large group that doesn’t call themselves Democrats.
It’s also interesting to notice the 6.3% of Ds in the “Made it happen” category, and compare this to another group that had 11.6% in that category. Who is that group? Libertarians. Then again, that may reflect a problem with the sample being too small.
February 10, 2010, 1:45 pmWakefield Tolbert says:
Heavens to Mergatroid.
Locked room, eh? More fool me.
They’re all right here, right now.
February 10, 2010, 2:36 pmWakefield Tolbert says:
Democrats who hold silly, ignorant, bigoted opinions
Indeed. The very notion of Government as a beneficent force in life, which captures the plupart of this group, is ignorant, silly crappola far more damaging to the commonweal than birterism and Creationsim.
While admittedly not generally considered a problem (in some encounters, the notion that government knows best and is the answer to every third problem in life, is JUST what the academic doctor ordered) it’s a problem nontheless for the Republic as a whole.
_______________________________________
And no, Media Matters NEVER makes things up.
Their contextless quotes indicate a higher purpose (for the deletions) and an inner wisdom most people just can’t grasp, much as Medievel scholars “rightsized” ancient texts to give the common peasant a “higher” form of consciousness avaialable erstwhile only to the elites.
February 10, 2010, 2:45 pmWakefield Tolbert says:
But….on the other hand, when you’re the personal stenographers for George Soros, the writing is damned good. That kind of pocketbook buys much.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7150
February 10, 2010, 2:48 pmA. Zarkov says:
Pollsters generally use p= .5 to specify the design of the poll (before the survey is taken) to get a worst case specification for the MOE. Moreover the binomial is exactly symmetrical at p=.5 for any sample size. The Kos pollster clearly rounded off 2.2% to 2%. Why would he use p=.3? After the poll is taken then pollsters will sometimes use the estimated p in the MOE formula and this usually works pretty well except near the end points. For large sample sizes the binomial has minimal skew and the normal approximation works pretty well. But once you get really near the end points as I have to do with compliance sampling, the approximation breaks down.
Yes sample sizes can be excessive when they waste resources for a marginal gain in accuracy. Moreover at large sample sizes, sampling error is dominated by other types of polling errors. This is one of the reasons public opinion polls use sample sizes between 500 and 1,000. The Kos poll should have sampled 1,000 Democrats and a 1,000 Republicans. That would have been a far better use of the extra 1,000 telephone calls than the small increase in accuracy. I suspect they didn’t want to know how Democrats would have answered.
That’s not the only way or the best way to compare groups in contingency table analysis. Simulation methods are generally much better.
February 10, 2010, 9:15 pmjukeboxgrad says:
wakefield:
The fact that you’re willing to make accusations while also not willing to trouble yourself to provide a single example tells us more about you than it does about them.
Here, let me show you how this is done. In your comment here, you cited discoverthenetworks.org as a purportedly reliable source. That site is a project of David Horowitz. Horowitz has admitted that he solicited advice “on how to commit treason and get away with it,” and that he followed the advice. Why would you trust a person who did such a thing?
February 10, 2010, 10:45 pmthinkstrategically says:
And here you’re being completely disingenuous.
The poll that you cited showed that Daily Show/Colbert came in just barely ahead of O’Reilly and Limbaugh (which matched the numbers for NPR), while Fox News as a channel came in just a few points behind CNN and the evening news while beating local TV news. The fact that you keep on comparing Fox News to Daily Show/Colbert is just further embarrassing yourself. (As a side note, I wonder where MSNBC viewers would have fallen on this chart.)
Also from the study:
“Republicans and Democrats are equally likely to be represented in the high-knowledge group. But significantly fewer Republicans (26%) than Democrats (31%) fall into the third of the public that knows the least.”
But hey – keep on making your apples to oranges comparison as if you’ve proved something. The rest of us know better.
February 11, 2010, 1:58 amWakefield Tolbert says:
Said person in question (Horowitz) has tracked down the funding and the Who’s who of Media Matters.
The conversation you link to is part of a narrative of other events where he makes a comparison, of which your horrid, damning detail was apparently:
“These were the same words, almost verbatim, that a Harvard Law Professor had said to me 28 years ago, in 1972. (NOTE: as of the time of the article, October 03, 2000)
Not coincidentally, he was advising me on how to get away with violating the same code of the U.S. Espionage code that Wen Ho Lee had been accused of breaking.”
So, let me show you how this works, chief:
Why should I trust a media outlet from a guy with a chip on the shoulder like mouth-drooler and former nuthouse resident David Brock. Not that THAT’s the end of the world, and perhaps he got stressed out, but his rantings on the alleged sins of talk-radio personalities on the most minute and laughable details give pause that perhaps he needs another break. This time, however, a break that does NOT include one from reality and context. Media Matters follows the nutty suit and removes or changes all manner of context on most of its stories. GO BROCK, you ROCK!
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/dncs-media-matters-wants-censorship-of-airwaves
Brock, who used to write books defending Clarence Thomas from Anita Hill and other harpies, only to turncoat on everyone and the world of rational inquiry, and who in turn gets money from a chip-on-the-shoulder internationalist like George Soros, who has nothing but disdain for this Republic, and whose radical roots far outweigh anything nefarious Horowitz has done, and serves basically as an ATM machine for all elements of the radical left?
And we thought we got rid of your mayflies in 1989? More fool us.
Besides, their errors are now the stuff of legendary status:
http://mediamatters.blogsome.com/
Further, why then shall I be more trusting of said ATM dispensary promoting active treason against the United States via more low-key means against the very notions averse to her founding on a variety of Rights issues, vs. the treason of more radical Ramparts days of David and his old hairy pals?
Soros is doing these things NOW, brother. Unlike David’s LEFTY adventures in 1972, I’d say that merits a mention of distinction with a difference. Bill Ayers gets a pass, after all, and still is in advisory mode, no?
And at that, what better evidence can be pulled than those for whom the old adage was forged from grade school onward to the effect of “It takes one to know one”, eh?
Milk and cookie time is over.
Ah–now we’re into devolving timelines or leaving them out. That magical word context once again needs an APB called out.
So in true Brock fashion: Thanks Media Matters!
February 11, 2010, 2:00 amjukeboxgrad says:
wakefield:
So what? Who cares? How does that make Horowitz anything other than a self-admitted traitor?
How ironic. Your “rantings” about Brock are long on opinion and short on fact. Likewise for the ranters you cited. When are you going to demonstrate that there are any errors in any article I cited?
Next time try English.
Horowitz was a kook in 1972, and he’s still a kook. Just a slightly different flavor. And what’s the statute of limitations on treason? And if he’s ashamed of it, why is he still bragging about it?
February 11, 2010, 2:49 amWakefield Tolbert says:
Not sure about the statutes of limitations. I’m guessing you’ll tell me it’s akin to murder, eh?
OK, blow the whistle, bud. Do it. Good luck.
And who cares, you ask, about time frames?
Well, I would think the law might care if there were some serious issue here. They’d need some records.
And in any case, people are quite often different in the past than in the present.
Your ilk should try it some time. It’s called growing up. Not being an eternal teenybopper arguing with people all the time on blogsites. (Yeah–thought your name was familiar).
Get a job, punk.
David MENTIONED the issue, yes, but in this particular article you linked, I didn’t see a “braggin” about this. He was making a point about similarities.
Be that as it may, I don’t recall a call for his indictment, or for that matter a conviction. He solicited info. But then that’s not the same thing as saying he “committed treason.”
I hope like hell you’re not a lawyer if you do have a job.
I checked the online dictionary. All those words are in standard American English.
Thanks.
And Brock did indeed have a venture in the loony bin, and Soros does indeed bankroll the Far Left’s major pet projects.
Some kooks reform, and some don’t (Soros). Such is life.
As to the “facts” of things, the MM faux moral outrage and misquotation is legendary by now. I need not piddle with that all damned night. There are only so many hours in each day, bucko.
February 11, 2010, 2:57 amjukeboxgrad says:
wakefield:
I don’t need to decide whether or not Horowitz’s self-confessed treason is “akin to murder.” It’s sufficient to know that it disqualifies him as a credible source.
I don’t need to “blow the whistle” on Horowitz’s credibility. He already did that, all by himself.
I hope you’ll be here to mention that the next time someone makes a fuss about something Robert Byrd said about seventy years ago. And the difference is that Horowitz behaved like a kook in 1972, and he’s still behaving like a kook.
He admitted that he solicited advice “on how to commit treason and get away with it,” and that he followed the advice. Why are you pretending otherwise?
Then I suggest you use your precious time to get to the point, instead of beating around the bush. When are you going to demonstrate that there are any errors in any article I cited (via Media Matters or elsewhere)?
February 11, 2010, 3:27 amzuch says:
I advert to my prior comment:
As I said, it’s interesting that a comedy show beats out what are purportedly “news” (or, when confronted, “opinion”) shows.
I mentioned that.
Cheers,
February 11, 2010, 12:29 pmzuch says:
And here’s why TDS/Colbert report beats the snowpants off of FauxSnooze.
Enjoy!
Cheers,
February 11, 2010, 1:38 pmthinkstrategically says:
What about that is particularly interesting? The typical person who watches Colbert/Daily Show is probably wealthier, younger, and has more formal education than the average person who watches most other types of television shows. Unless your point was that nighttime comedy shows attract a more intelligent viewership than daytime news programs, I’m not sure what you think this study shows.
The fact that you hold yourself out as someone who understands statistics while demonstrating a 10th grader’s comprehension of causation – that’s what I find interesting.
February 13, 2010, 1:18 amzuch says:
They may even be smarter. Which is why they get their news from TDS, you think? ;-)
FWIW, there have been other polls that show that FauxSnooze watchers tend to have a greater percentage of people holding mistaken views of specific facts (Iraq WoMD, Iraqis as 9/11 hijackers, etc.). Wonder why….
At least I understand English. Where did I say anything about causation?
Seems the only person here that has speculated (sans evidence) on this is you: “The typical person who watches Colbert/Daily Show is probably wealthier, younger, and has more formal education than the average person who watches most other types of television shows.” Are you implying that an understanding of “causation” means accepting the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, along with assuming data not in the record?
Cheers,
February 14, 2010, 12:14 pmWakefield Tolbert says:
I hope you’ll be here to mention that the next time someone makes a fuss about something Robert Byrd said about seventy years ago. And the difference is that Horowitz behaved like a kook in 1972, and he’s still behaving like a kook.
Robert Byrd’s issue for me is not his Klan past as a Grand Wizard or whatever they call the pillowcase heads with eyeholes, but rather than he’s an idiot. A situation not made any less so by the fact that every third bridge in West Virginia is named after him.
http://hotair.com/archives/2010/02/10/breitbart-tv-looks-back-on-byrd-boxer-klobuchar-blaming-lack-of-snow-on-agw/
Hope that helps. If not, tough nuggets.
In any case, it would seem George Soros’ various stenographers are busy little bees. That’s for certain. Brock and Media Myrmidons included.
Adios.
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May 10, 2010, 5:25 amAndrew Sihler says:
In 2008, “Democrats had control of congress”? Define “control”. 49 Dems in the senate, one “reliable” independent (Sanders), one narcissistic sorehead (guess). The last 18 months have shown that even having 59 or 60 Dem or Indy seats in the senate is nothing you’d call “control” of the body. Indeed, 8 Democrats and Sanders voted against TARP (which, nevertheless, I see is routinely “blamed” on the Democrats and Obama, by those who think it was a bad idea).
September 6, 2010, 12:50 pmTalking Smack Vs. Inciting Hatred and Violence | RedState says:
[...] A recent Daily Kos Poll suggests those Right Wingers, the ones Kos doesn’t exactly send Christmas and Hanukah Cards every year, have bizarre and irrational beliefs. Can you imagine a Daily Kos poll getting that result? Did you know that President Obama was a secret Muslim? Or that 36% of those whack-job Republicans believed he was born abroad and not really a US citizen? Show us the birf-surtifikate, President ObaMao! But that just describes our side’s sick puppies. [...]
September 7, 2010, 10:54 amTalking Smack Vs. Inciting Hatred and Violence | RedState says:
[...] A recent Daily Kos Poll suggests those Right Wingers, the ones Kos doesn’t exactly send Christmas and Hanukah Cards every year, have bizarre and irrational beliefs. Can you imagine a Daily Kos poll getting that result? Did you know that President Obama was a secret Muslim? Or that 36% of those whack-job Republicans believed he was born abroad and not really a US citizen? Show us the birf-surtifikate, President ObaMao! But that just describes our side’s sick puppies. [...]
September 7, 2010, 10:54 am