Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

Only 43 percent said they approved of Bush's performance as president. But a majority believe Bush's policies have made the US more secure. -- Why is it surprising that people would approve of a specific facet of someone's performance, more so than the performance as a whole? (Hell, people could think Bush's policies make the US more secure, but not as much more secure as they want.)

Sixty-four percent of the respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53 percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants "in order to reduce the threat of terrorism." -- I.e., they're concerned about losing civil liberties, but for whatever reason they think warrantless spying might be a reasonable compromise on that front -- isn't this totally in keeping with the way most people just trust Bush's judgment on these issues? (Hell, they can support it and still be "concerned" about it.)

The US comes less than halfway up the Rational-Secular axis on the Inglehart Values Map, far behind the nations of Protestant Europe and Confucian Asia. It may just be that rationality is not a very "American" value. Other things, like religion and the quest for power and domination (not itself a rational value), get in the way of understanding. The famous Bush aide quote suggests that understanding is for mere journalists:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out."

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.

that justly famous quote from the bush aide is really stunning, even now, and not something to just cringe at, i think. neocons bringing trotskyist idealism all the way across the aisle is like THE story of the past i don't know how many years.

According to a Time magazine poll, 59% of Americans believe that John’s apocalyptic prophecies in the Book of Revelation will be fulfilled, and nearly all of these believe that the faithful will be taken up into heaven in the ‘Rapture.’

The University of Connecticut's State of the First Amendment survey found:

34 percent of Americans polled said the First Amendment ‘goes too far’.
46 percent said there was too much freedom of the press.
28 percent felt that newspapers should not be able to publish articles without prior approval of the government.
31 percent wanted public protest of a war to be outlawed during that war.
50 percent thought the government should have the right to infringe on the religious freedom of ‘certain religious groups’ in the name of the war on terror.

These poll results are collected in Gore Vidal's article President Jonah. Vidal also reports that only 12% of Americans own a passport, and that at the time of the 2004 presidential election 42% of voters believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11.

"Between 1992 and 2004, for example, the percentage of people who said they agree that “the father of the family must be the master in his own house” increased ten points, from 42 to 52 percent, in the 2,500-person Environics survey. The percentage agreeing that “men are naturally superior to women” increased from 30 percent to 40 percent. Meanwhile, the fraction that said they discussed local problems with people they knew plummeted from 66 percent to 39 percent. Survey respondents were also increasingly accepting of the value that “violence is a normal part of life” -- and that figure had doubled even before the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks."

Also, I don't really know how reliable this stuff is, since I'm not a statistician and don't care enough to examine the details closely.

um, xpost?

This is painfully OTM.