No if the first question is accurate as you believe it to be, it shows obvious stupidity for supporters of Kerry. 80% of Kerry supporters seem to believe that Hussein never had WMD's. My point is the poll is bullshit uncredible hack crap partisan politics.

But lets pretend this poll is completly unbiased, and was actually done in a correct manner. It is still partisan bull shit. The devouted will say whatever they have to in order to make their candidate look better. For example, ask any democrat how much Clinton dodging the draft would impact their vote, when he ran against Sr. Then ask democrats today, how much Bush Jr. dodging the draft will impact their vote. 80% of the time you will see a complete 180. It has nothing to do with intelligence, it has everything to do with partisan bull shit.

Welcome to my world. Dig in David. I think it's going to be a hell of a ride.

That is not the first question as asked, it is how I paraphrased it. Read the report, and you can see how it was actually phrased. Also, the "FACT" commentaries are my own, not the researchers'. If you dispute those facts, then I don't know what I can tell you.

--PunkDavid

I don't care if for the rest of your life you walk around trying to convince everyone the world is flat, just this once I want to see some reality. I think that's all I would ever ask for. I just want to know that somewhere deep down in side you realize that the reason Bush enjoys great support for the war in Iraq is because many people are confused on the issues. Why do you care? You're getting what you want, I just want to hear someone say why it really is happening this way. It's obviously not because people "get it." In fact, it's the opposite.

I have no faith in society, at all.

Problem is, alot of those FACTS are still debatable or inconclusive. Now, I don't exactly like Bush, but to say his supporters are blind or stupid or whatever is absolutely ridiculous. Just as many Democrats are as blind and ignorant as Republicans. Whether the party they blindly follow happens to be right is irrelevant to their intelligence.

Gogol -

You ask why is this happening?

If you'll go back and read my post near the end of page 1, I've given you that answer. I realize it seems like a very simplistic response, but those are the reasons. It is no more complicated than that. We'd all like to believe that what's happening in the world is important to everyone - but I'm afraid that just isn't the truth.

You can use this board as a small example, even with the level of informed people here, how many of the members who have looked at this thread actually have taken the time to read and digest the information provided? My guess - not many.

Alot of people read page upon page about a guys assine behavior at a concert in Reading, but to them this post and this forum go unread. How many times have you seen someone respond to a post " I'm sure what you're saying is important or valid, but that's just too long to read." It's all a matter of priorities, I guess.

Still infuriates me though.

I know Iraq didn't have WMD.
I know the 9-11 commission does little to link Al Qaeda and Iraq.
I feel that even though Iraq did not have WMD, there are plenty more reasons for war.

The questionairre is obviosuly built to influence people on their opinions of each party. I'd like to see a similar set of questions for Kerry's record in the Senate, his policies, and his stance on the Iraq war.

Example:

Senator Kerry served on the intelligence oversight committee of the United States Senate. Was he correct in authorizing the President use of force in Iraq?

Was Senator Kerry justified in voting against the $87 Billion for troops in Iraq because the bill's funding was questionable?

Things like that.

PS - perception is politics.

Every single thing that I stated as a fact is an indisputable fact.

It is a fact that most experts agree that Saddam did not possess WMD immediate before the war.

It is a fact that the Duelfer Report concluded that Iraq neither had WMD nor a major WMD program right before the war.

It is a fact that all evidence has shown that Iraq had no direct hand in 9/11 and no substantial ties to al Qaeda.

It is a fact that no evidence has been found that Iraq worked closely with al Qaeda.

It is a fact that the vast majority of the world's nations, and people, oppose the US's decision to go to war in Iraq.

These facts are not open to dispute. The polls show people's PERCEPTION of these facts, and it shows that many people have a distorted view of these facts. I did not post any "facts" regarding the policy decisions, because they are opinions, and are presented as such. Which leads me to:



Obviously you know the facts and still supoort the administration's policies. I knew this about you, and I think we all did. You are not what I am deriding in this thread.



Your questions are purely opinion questions, and therefore not comparable to the questions in this study which ask about people's perception of the facts. A valid question would be, "Do you believe that John Kerry voted to authorize the use of force by the President?", or "Did John Kerry vote to pass the NAFTA agreement?" These are questions with verifiable factual answers that many people may have a distorted perception of.

It should be noted that there are a great many Kerry supporters who share the same misguided view of the facts that the Bush supporters do. Not nearly as many, but still far too many as far as I'm concerned.

--PunkDavid

"Most" is a matter of interpretation. "Immediately" is a matter of interpretation.


Again, "right before" is a matter of interpretation.


"Direct" is a matter of interpretation and is subjective. "Substantial" is a matter of interpretation.


"closely" is a matter of interpretation and is subjective. How "closely" does it need to be? How "closely" is closely?


What constitutes "vast majority"? And does "vast majority" even matter? Didn't you just say that the "vast majority" of conservatives are closed minded? Doesn't that obviously imply that the "vast majority" of the world's nations can be wrong?


Obviously, all these "facts" are still up for interpretation. Each and every one of them is skewed to support a certain position. None of them are objective as you seem to suggest. And few of them, in my opinion, really have anything to do with whether we should be in Iraq or not, given the relativity of all of them.

Iraq did not have the weapons the US government said they had when they deemed Iraq as a threat that warranted immediate action.

That pretty much is not open to interpretation, but rather is the truth.

All of the other invented reasons that have come along after that one was shot to hell are open to interpretation.

Too many quotes to fuck with here.

"Most" is generally accepted to be "more than half", and it's certainly a lot more than that, unless you wish to qualify uninformed yahoos on AM radio as "experts". And again, if you had actually read the report you would know how the questions were actually phrased. I used the word "immediately", my word, because people were previously nitpicking the fact that 15 years ago Saddam did in fact possess WMD. There is no satisfying you I guess.

"Right before", again, my words. Nitpick, it really raises your analytical abilities in MY estimation, for sure. The fact is the Duelfer Report concludes that Iraq did not possess WMD or a major operating WMD program WHEN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CLAIMED THEY DID.

"Direct hand in 9/11" is not subjective. Either Saddam and his government helped to plan and carry out the attack or they didn't. Guess what, they didn't. And no matter how you define the word "substantial", the Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda doesn't rise to that level. At the very best, there were peripheral contacts, and I challenge you to present any eveidence that there were more than peripheral contacts, much less substantial involvement.

"Closely", "substantial", in this case they mean the same thing. Again, these are MY WORDS paraphrasing the report. If you want the true wording of the questions, please take the 10 minutes necessary to read the entire report.

"Vast majority". Get your head out of your ass, man. Even if it is only a bare majority, the Bush supporters polled in this study WERE COMPLETELY WRONG IN THEIR BELIEFS. And I didn't say the vast majority of conservatives were closed minded, perhaps someone else did, but it wasn't me. And it isn't a question of whether the world's people are WRONG in their opinion. I've tried to say this calmly and nicely throughout this thread, but since that didn't work, I'm going to be an asshole now. THIS POLL DEMONSTRATES THAT THE BUSH SUPPORTERS ARE DISPROPORTIONATELY MISINFORMED OF THE FACTS. You can draw your own conclusions about people's opinions, but facts are facts, and the Bush supporters polled in this study didn't have their facts straight. Youare entitled to whatever opinion you wish to have, but don't dispute the facts, it makes your opinion laughable.

--PunkDavid

And that is the whole heart of this discussion. And that is where you are entirely wrong. I live in an area where Bush supporters are the majority, and while many are misinformed, most, and I do mean most, are completely aware of everything you said. Whether their opinion regarding the importance of those statements is accurate or not is only a matter of subjectivity. But it is simply not fair to say that they are any less informed than Kerry supporters.

Now I don't know how that poll was collected. I just don't believe it is an accurate assessment of Bush supporters whatsoever. And I'm not trying to defend Bush, as I get in arguments with Bush supporters on an almost daily basis.

The irony of the thread's question and some of the subsequent responses is overwhelming.

Hey, I don't doubt there are plenty of Bush supporters who know the facts. We both know these people. And I don't know the methodologies employed by these researchers, but I will put faith in them being at least as reliable as the pollsters I read about on a daily basis. Some liberal bias is evident by the subject matter of the questions, but I don't see any bias in the language of the questions (the questions themselves don't appear to steer towards a particular answer). I would be interested in seeing a similar poll conducted focusing on Kerry and the mistaken beliefs of Kerry supporters. However, I doubt that anyone would be able to conduct such a poll with the academic neutrality that this poll appears to have been conducted, if the "answer to Fahrenheit 9/11" films are any indication. Those pieces make Michael Moore look like a legitimate journalist.

--PunkDavid

In denial, uninformed, or just plain stupid? I feel all three are correct.

Ok, well I should have read the actual link, I was assuming you were copying and pasting. The actual first question was,

"Is it your impression that experts mostly agree that just before the war Iraq had WMD"

First off, that is a direct quote. Paraphrasing a question is never a good idea, some of the meaning may be lost. My arguement is still valid though. It is a vague question. Here is an example of a non vague question. "Currently, would you agree that most experts now believe that just before the war, Iraq had WMD's" Before the war most experts believed that Iraq did have WMD's, now after knowing what we do now, most agree that they probably did not have them. How would I answer the polling question? I would say that most experts thought we had WMD's, and I would base that on the phrasing of the question.

As for the whole question of ignorance on the issues. I think most people are ignorant on topics, whether it be left or right wing advocates. I constantly debate my friends on these sort of things, and most of their arguements are reduced to one liners that you hear on tv all the time. Bush will reinstate the draft, Kerry betrayed veterans after Vietnam, Bush is a draft dodger, Kerry is a flip flopper. This is the majority of the people who are going to vote in this election. They have no broad knowledge of the ideas at hand, they are just merely democrats or republicans, and they will refute your arguements with a partisan one liner any time you question them.

Again, as I said earlier, if a poll was taken asking democrats in 92' "does the fact that Clinton dodged the draft in anyway sway your vote," and then today "does the fact the Bush dodged the draft sway your vote," you would find the same people giving completly opposite answers. People will support their candidates whether they think they are wrong or not., and often, they will actually change their opinions because the person they support thinks differently. Humans can be very sheepish, especially those that don't do any more research then watching nightly cable news, or listening to a partisan talk radio show.

I actually agree with what you are saying, and I would go on to say that most of the people who oppose the war do it because they are confused on the issues (People with indoctrinated and ignorant opinions is not a partisan disease). Look at the news media today. The whole debate has been reduced to a WMD, and 9/11 issue. Powell's speach to the UN was the case for war, and everyone points where we missed, not what we got right. Hussein is a terrorist, but he probably was not involved with Osama. He used chemical weapons on Iraqi's, supported and funded Palestenian suicide bombings, and his violent rule was obviously in line with terrorism. He attacked Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Iran, and only one of those was with justification. He did not adhere to over a dozen UN mandates, and treaties on his country. He stole money from international food and medicine programs to help his people, and used the funds to build his military programs, and build his empire, while millions starved, and 100'000's died. He tried to assasinate a former US president. He still had WMD's in 1998 according to Scott Ritter, the International community, and Bill Clinton. He consistantly talked about the destruction of the United States. How much more justification do we need? That was what was layed out by Powell, and unless we assumed that in good faith Hussein got rid of his WMD's, it was a very good arguement. We fucked up on the African nuke thing, the Osama connections, and our wmd intelligence, (much of which was international intelligence).

Now if you take into account what I just stated, and then you still believe that war is not justified, then I would love to see that arguement. But that isn't the arguement that people who oppose the war bring up. It is all 9/11, and WMD's, which was just a part of the arguement. And if you are going to condemn Bush for these actions, you must include John Kerry, and Bill Clinton, and the majority of all democrats and experts who weighed in on the issue. We fucked up on aspects of the war, we fought this war in the same bull shit fashion that we did under Kennedy and Johnson. That is the main problem. And I believe Kerry will continue that trend, while I'm hoping that Bush will learn from his mistakes. We are unfortunatly choosing from two piles of shit, I just think one of the candidates doesn't stink quite as badly. There were three democrats you guys could have chosen out of the available candidates, that I would have gladly voted for over Bush. With Kerry though, I'm going to have to wait four more years to get the option of choosing a good pres.