Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Where Is The Rage? Boo hoo hoo

Guns. Duh. Must stop guns. Durrrr. There are few issues that expose the inability of people to use their brains as clearly as gun control. Willful blindness and rank stupidity are the order of the day. Take, for example, an article in which the Christian Science Monitor tried to figure out why the public wasn’t outraged about the failure of the gun control bill in the Senate.

Said the article:
“Only 47 percent of respondents said they were ‘disappointed’ or ‘angry’ that the Senate last week failed to advance a bill to expand background checks to gun shows and online sales. Yet in February, a Pew poll found that 83 percent of respondents supported an expansion of background checks to cover gun shows and all private sales – measures that would actually be stricter than what the Senate rejected.

If Americans overwhelmingly support strict background checks, why aren’t they angrier that the Senate failed to pass even moderate background checks? How could 39 percent be "happy" or "relieved" by the result? Where is the outrage to which President Obama was appealing when he called the Senate vote ‘a pretty shameful day for Washington.’”
The article then goes on to look at some of the possibilities. Some apparently suggest that the reason gun control failed is because Americans have an “enduring libertarian streak.” Apparently, “Americans are loath to tell their neighbors what to do.” Maybe, but that doesn’t explain this issue. If it did, then you wouldn’t have the first poll showing that 83% of the American public support background checks, would you? Or are we to believe that people lie on polls to jack up the support for things they plan to oppose?

Others suggest that this shows that the gun lobby lies. In fact, a political scientist quoted in the article says “that’s the only way to make sense of that many people being happy with the outcome.” Idiot. This is usually how morons argue – the bad guys lied, the voters are low-information voters, etc. This is simple delusion for people who don’t like the fact that what they want doesn’t sell.

Others said that maybe the problem was the public realized that this bill wouldn’t have changed anything. Indeed, even the bill’s sponsor Dianne Feinstein “conceded that none of the proposed laws, including her assault weapon ban, would have stopped the [Newton] massacre.” Could be, but then why not be angry that Congress didn’t fix the problem?

In the end, the writer scratches his head, tries to evolve, and fails fails to reach any conclusion.

Ya know... this isn’t that hard. In fact, the answer is actually pretty obvious. When you ask a question in a vacuum, people will respond whether the issue matters to them or not. In other words, asking a question in a poll only tells you how they would answer that question, not whether they care about that issue. Thus, it’s apples and oranges to assume the 83% number in the first poll actually means anyone cares about this issue. And if they don’t care, they won't be angry, will they? This about it this way... if we asked people if they want lobster if given a choice, we may find that 90% of the public says yes, but odds are that few of those people have had lobster lately or intend to have it again in the future. It’s the same thing here. People might support background checks by 83% when asked to state an opinion, but they just don’t care about the issue when they aren’t asked. So why would they be angry if it doesn’t pass? Oh, we don’t get lobster, gee, I’m angry now.

This interpretation actually was born out by the “anger” poll, which showed that only 40% of respondents were following the vote.

IN OTHER WORDS, the public doesn’t care about gun control. We know this because six in ten weren’t paying attention even though this was an issue the media covered obsessively and which Obama talked about incessantly. Even worse for gun-control advocates, of the 40% who cared enough to pay attention, 31% said they were happy the bill failed (only 22% were angry). The rest were non-committal. That means the country breaks down this way on gun control:
That’s right: 72% of the public did not care or actively opposed the bill. 8% favored it. And 20% were open to it. That’s not a chart that’s going to change anything.

Another reason the failure doesn’t make anyone angry is that there is a huge difference between supporting something in principle and supporting the specific bill in which it’s included. Supporters admitted this bill wouldn’t solve the problems they claimed it would. So why would anyone care if it fails unless they are an ideologue who wanted this to pass on principle? Moreover, they tried to fill the bill with all kinds of things with which the public did not agree. Again, this is something only ideologues want and, apparently, there are only 8% of them.

So there’s no contradiction at all between these two polls. To me, it’s pretty obvious that what’s going on is that the public just isn’t ideological on the gun control issue. They will accept reasonable restrictions if they think they will work, but they don’t want solutions that don’t work and they don’t want ideological crap rammed through on the back of the reasonable stuff. Sadly for the ideologues, that’s not enough.

The lessons here are that the liberal media is out-of-touch with the public and this should be a huge warning bell for them -- I kind of laughed when I saw an article the following day talking about how the Republicans who voted against this are now in danger with the voters. Talk about delusional. The other lesson is that the public remains much less emotional and much less ideological than people think.

26 comments:

Koshcat said...

Great post. I guess the media makes up a chunk of the 8%. What would really chafe these guys is Obama was probably in the 60% don't care group but tried to use it as a way to look good.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Koshcat!

I think you're right about both the media and Obama. The media is definitely in the 8% group. This is one of their obsession issues. And right in line with that, I've seen several articles in the past couple days basically saying that there is no way the public won't punish those evil Senators who voted against this. They never site an evidence for this of course, just that we all know that the public is upset. Yeah, right.

On Obama, I realized a long time ago that he actually doesn't care about anything. I think he couldn't care less what happens so long as he gets to be President and is seen as important. I suspect the left is finally starting to see this even though the evidence has been there all along.

K said...

I have a hard core libertarian friend who said gun control is the left's poison bait. That was true when Gore lost his home state and subsequently the Presidency to Bush, but if you'll notice, Obama didn't say boo about gun control until he was securely into his second term.

I get the feeling that what's happening now is Obama and the Dems in permanent campaign mode. Up until the Boston attack, they had been on the offensive as a red herring to keep from having to defend things like Obamacare, jobs and the non existent budget. Even if the bills weren't being passed they were running ads hitting up Republicans about gun control as prep for 2014. Some of the stuff coming out now has been so demagogic and nasty that I'm getting violent fantasy feedback from my liberal friends about invading an NRA conference with assault weapons and wasting as many white males as possible.

Stop the H8!

AndrewPrice said...

K, I think that's true. Our side kills themselves talking about abortion, their side kills themselves talking about guns.

I think you're right about Obama and the Democrats. They have been trying to be as hardcore liberal as possible to excite their base because they know that off-year elections are horrible for the incumbent party. So they need to get liberals to turn out. At the same time, it's safe to pass these things because the general public doesn't pay attention unless something becomes law. And with the Republicans shooting everything down, it's easy to talk big since they know they will never need to defend the walk.

Patriot said...

Andrew......Those of us who are interested in the political scene, sometimes think that most Americans are as invested in what's going on in DC as we are.

The fact is, most Americans could give a shit about politicians, much less media consultants, focus group hacks and assorted decipherers of the American mood. Most Americans are too busy trying to feed their families, keep their home and make the payments on their cars, to care about all the shenanigans that the chattering class go on about.

I think your 70-80% "could give a shit" demographic could apply to just about any "hot topic" from Benghazi to abortion to whether or not 501(c)(3)'s are really apolitical!

Bottom line on these "polls," it all depends on who you ask and how you ask the question. Ex: Do you believe in aliens? How the hell does that hold ANY relevance to the majority of Americans, yet I'm sure polls report that the majority of Americans believe in alien life forms.

I'm just about done with all of this b.s.

Anthony said...

I didn't get the sense that Newton changed the gun debate in a meaningful way (everyone cited it as validation of their pet causes) so I'm not surprised nothing happened.

tryanmax said...

No, Andrew, it's the Ehn Array! It sends a beam of pure eeevil into people's brains and makes them forget how terrible guns are. It controls Republican lawmakers via high-frequency signal and it causes Democrats to cower in fear. It's probably also racist, sexist, and homophobic, but no liberal has gotten close enough to make a decisive determination. The working theory is that the Ehn Array was constructed by Fred C. Koch in the 1930s.

Kit said...

"They never site an evidence for this of course, just that we all know that the public is upset. Yeah, right."

I think Senator Kelly Ayotte took quite a hit in the polls after the vote. Of course, she is not up for re-election until 2016.

rlaWTX said...

My 2 closest female friends are practical gun-rights-ers. Their husbands are each rabid gun-rights-ers. If you asked them a general question without context, the girls would be more "centrist", but if you get specific, they are pretty conservative. Their husbands are rabid regardless. So, the girls might have said yes to generic background checks, but would not have been unhappy when the travesty of a bill failed.


Somewhat related: My mom was asked recently where she stood on some issue - how she would be voting. Her answer (and my mom has a history of being very involved, but is too busy these days to worry about it all) was, "I vote how my daughter tells me I should - mostly." I just laughed when she told me this...

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I think Newton did what always happens when you have a tragedy:

Step One: Everyone comes together and says, "we need to make sure this never happens again."

Step Two: The next day, the rabid ideologue see this as their chance to score points and they start exploiting it. "This wouldn't happen if we ___ (had prayer in schools, banned guns, banned porn from the internet, stopped bullying, stopped global warming).

Step Three: The political parties realize they can exploit this to make money on the ideologues.

Step Four: The public gets discussed with the jerks and tunes out.

Step Five: Nothing happens and no one really cares.

AndrewPrice said...

Patriot, I agree completely. The truth is that the vast, vast majority of the public doesn't care what the government does so long as it doesn't hurt them. That's the truth of it.

This is both good and bad. It's good in the sense that it means the public isn't interested in radical ideas. That means things like Obamacare will never go over well. It's bad in the sense that it makes genuine change a lot harder.

Making this even harder is the huge disconnect between the ideologues and the public. Time and again, I've seen where a rational change was eminently doable, but the hardcore nuts shot their own side in the foot because they will not let go of their obsessions. I'm glad when it happens to the Dems, but not so happy when it happens to us.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, I saw that poll and it's ridiculous. For one thing, it was done by PPP who skew way-far left. For another, it had some bizarre results in it. For example, 51% of people said this vote would make them less likely to vote her for her? That's total BS. You don't get that kind of number on any issues. Third, that poll is the same thing as this one -- it demands people to answer yes/no without any context or commitment.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, Well, there is that. The NRA does have the brainwave gun. LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

rlaWTX, That's exactly right. Most people when asked a direct, generic question in the abstract will say yes/no: "Do you like good things?"

But that in no way translates into whether or not they would support the happiness bill or whether or not they will be angry if it doesn't pass.

I think that most Americans fall into the practical camp. If it sounds like it will solve a problem they believe exists and it doesn't do a lot of bad things, then they favor it. Whether they actually care is a different matter.

Nice work with your mom! :)

BevfromNYC said...

They also publish these studies, but rarely the questions asked and to whom. And the analysis is so wide open that it can be used in whatever manner they need to to make their point.especially by the MSM and the pundit class without further explanation.

I always go back to the Time or Newsweek Magazine [I can't remember which] poll during the Bush years.

"Do you think the country is going in the right direction?"

Being a Time/Newsweek Mag subscriber, I took the poll. Now THAT"S a wide open question with absolutely no parameters for any honest results. As you would expetc, the results came back that 90% or some very large number said "NO!" leading one to conclude that a lot of people believed that the country was in the wrong direction.

The liberal press and pundits used this poll everywhere as an indictment of the Bush Administration and its policies. But look at the question, it does not state do you think the country is going in the right direction because of war policies, economic policies, social policies or even related in any way to the Administration at all.

When I took the poll, I felt this country was going down hill because of our ever declining moral and ethical standards and wasn't even thinking about the government at all.

The broader the question, the more easily the results can be manipulated to mean whatever the polls or users of the polls want it to mean.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, Very true. I've been involved in the past in creating questionnaires which needed to root out certain beliefs from people and I can tell you that designing questions in such a way to really understand what someone is thinking is very hard.

And a question like "right/wrong direction" is meaningless because it captures both people who want more X and those who want less X, it captures people who base their decisions on something other than X, and it asks for a single conclusion on an issue that really involves a great deal of subtlety... and it doesn't give you any way to distinguish any of those respondents.

But then, the MSM knows this and they don't mind questions like this because they are so very easy to spin. You can make the result look like anything you want because you can pretend the reasons were anything you want.

Kit said...

This reminds me of a scene Yes, Prime minister about poll-taking.
LINK

BevfromNYC said...

Kit - That is a perfect example. Especially, "we'll just commission our OWN poll..." to say the opposite.

"Oh, the reputable ones don't but there aren't many of those..."

It's good to know that we Americans aren't the only ones who have to suffer through this...

AndrewPrice said...

Kit and Bev, Polling lost its credibility when it stopped being about measure opinion and became about creating opinion.

T-Rav said...

Like I said not long ago, 90 percent of the 90 percent who "support more gun control" have already forgotten there was a vote on it at all.

Anthony said...

Andrew,

Nate Silver seems to know his stuff. I don't think the problem is pollsters, its people who wish to believe placing their faith in charlatans who will tell them anything they want to believe, possibly because they are trying to sell them something.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, Probably true. People rarely care about the government unless it affects them.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, A lot of pollsters are good at what they do from a technical perspective, but most of polling today is about creating opinion. They've gone from being a reporter of a fact to a salesman of what you should believe.

BevfromNYC said...

Andrew - I think you are right. Most people DON'T care about what the government does unless it effects them directly. That is why most people are more concerned about local and state government mostly. I also think that many people perceive that our Federal gov't is only interested scoring political points and no longer interested in fixing problems. Hence the low approval of Congress.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I think that's true. It doesn't really matter what the issue is, people know that Washington (1) won't fix it, (2) will only make it worse no matter what they do, and (3) will try to rob us blind in the process. It's hard to like people when that's the best you can expect from them. And why pay attention when you know it's all just for show.

Kit said...

"Kit, I saw that poll and it's ridiculous. For one thing, it was done by PPP who skew way-far left. For another, it had some bizarre results in it. For example, 51% of people said this vote would make them less likely to vote her for her? That's total BS. You don't get that kind of number on any issues. Third, that poll is the same thing as this one -- it demands people to answer yes/no without any context or commitment."

Hadn't thought about that.

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