We've been hearing a lot lately about how world opinion favors Barack Obama over John McCain. Here's a recent Reuters story, which I came across on Drudge Report, about world opinion on another issue.
"Respondents in the Middle East were especially likely to name a perpetrator other than al Qaeda, the poll found.
Israel was behind the attacks, said 43 percent of people in Egypt, 31 percent in Jordan and 19 percent in the Palestinian Territories. The U.S. government was blamed by 36 percent of Turks and 27 percent of Palestinians.
In Mexico, 30 percent cited the U.S. government and 33 percent named al Qaeda."
Morality by Polling? Statistical morality?
No thanks, although it's likely that I'll be overruled for my belief in objective morality that's rooted in the character of God as expressed and revealed in the 66 books of Scripture.
I'm just a red-neck, doofus rube who firmly believes in Christ and as a offshoot of that rooted identity, just happens to believe in American exceptionalism which doesn't necessarily have to be in accord with popular world opinion.
I'm English, and I'm constantly amazed at the anti-Americanism prejudice that people like to express in my country. They view you as being odd, anti-intellectual, crass, unfunny, over-sensitive, jingoistic, militant, hyper-emotional and unsophisticated idiots. They really, really do.
The media coverage over here, especially on the BBC, is really biased against America.
I often feel sickened when perfectly nice, intelligent people say such stupid things about America and Americans. But I don't think it's their fault, they are just going on the "information" they get from the media, which is often one-sided. The person who argues first sounds right, until the other side speaks, as it says in Proverbs.
Since the news we get here is mostly to do with Britain, the coverage of American affairs is sketchy and inadequate, and we just get a few soundbites: "Bush is stoopid", "Obama transcends partisan politics". And no matter how hard someone like me tries to show how inept these assertions are, they are nearly impossible to uproot.
The reason non-American's opinions shouldn't influence the way Americans vote, is because they know next to nothing about US politics - they just think they do!
Is there a Macchiavellian playbook somewhere which has this golden nugget of a tactic:
Always accuse the other side first for doing the dirty, nasty thing that you originally started.
For example, if you know that you're misrepresenting and then smearing the caricature of your opponent, then you beat him to the punch and claim that you're opponent is misrepresenting you, painting a mean-spirited caricature of you, and smearing you unfairly.
So the dirty politics rule is to be the first to do the dirty character assassination, and then be the first to claim that the other side did it first.
Kevin Drum, now blogging at Mother Jones, looks ahead to a McCain administration:
"John McCain has obviously decided that he can't win a straight-up fight, so he's decided instead to wage a battle of character assassination, relentless lies, and culture war armageddon. So what happens on November 5th?
Eg.: "If McCain wins, he'll face a Democratic Congress that's beyond furious. Losing is one thing, but after eight years of George Bush and Karl Rove, losing a vicious campaign like this one will cause Dems to go berserk. They won't even return McCain's phone calls, let alone work with him on legislation. It'll be four years of all-out war."
So far, no arguments have given within the comments of this post as to why/how the individuals being polled are in error. I offer one here (by Michael Butler) which shows that they are in fact justified in rejecting the official theory:
If you go to the site mentioned within the article, this one, you'll find other relevant articles, like this article on world opinion about abortion.
ReplyDelete"Respondents in the Middle East were especially likely to name a perpetrator other than al Qaeda, the poll found.
ReplyDeleteIsrael was behind the attacks, said 43 percent of people in Egypt, 31 percent in Jordan and 19 percent in the Palestinian Territories. The U.S. government was blamed by 36 percent of Turks and 27 percent of Palestinians.
In Mexico, 30 percent cited the U.S. government and 33 percent named al Qaeda."
Morality by Polling? Statistical morality?
No thanks, although it's likely that I'll be overruled for my belief in objective morality that's rooted in the character of God as expressed and revealed in the 66 books of Scripture.
I'm just a red-neck, doofus rube who firmly believes in Christ and as a offshoot of that rooted identity, just happens to believe in American exceptionalism which doesn't necessarily have to be in accord with popular world opinion.
I'm English, and I'm constantly amazed at the anti-Americanism prejudice that people like to express in my country. They view you as being odd, anti-intellectual, crass, unfunny, over-sensitive, jingoistic, militant, hyper-emotional and unsophisticated idiots. They really, really do.
ReplyDeleteThe media coverage over here, especially on the BBC, is really biased against America.
I often feel sickened when perfectly nice, intelligent people say such stupid things about America and Americans. But I don't think it's their fault, they are just going on the "information" they get from the media, which is often one-sided. The person who argues first sounds right, until the other side speaks, as it says in Proverbs.
Since the news we get here is mostly to do with Britain, the coverage of American affairs is sketchy and inadequate, and we just get a few soundbites: "Bush is stoopid", "Obama transcends partisan politics". And no matter how hard someone like me tries to show how inept these assertions are, they are nearly impossible to uproot.
The reason non-American's opinions shouldn't influence the way Americans vote, is because they know next to nothing about US politics - they just think they do!
Is there a Macchiavellian playbook somewhere which has this golden nugget of a tactic:
ReplyDeleteAlways accuse the other side first for doing the dirty, nasty thing that you originally started.
For example, if you know that you're misrepresenting and then smearing the caricature of your opponent, then you beat him to the punch and claim that you're opponent is misrepresenting you, painting a mean-spirited caricature of you, and smearing you unfairly.
So the dirty politics rule is to be the first to do the dirty character assassination, and then be the first to claim that the other side did it first.
Kevin Drum, now blogging at Mother Jones, looks ahead to a McCain administration:
"John McCain has obviously decided that he can't win a straight-up fight, so he's decided instead to wage a battle of character assassination, relentless lies, and culture war armageddon. So what happens on November 5th?
Eg.: "If McCain wins, he'll face a Democratic Congress that's beyond furious. Losing is one thing, but after eight years of George Bush and Karl Rove, losing a vicious campaign like this one will cause Dems to go berserk. They won't even return McCain's phone calls, let alone work with him on legislation. It'll be four years of all-out war."
From The Anger Factor.
So far, no arguments have given within the comments of this post as to why/how the individuals being polled are in error. I offer one here (by Michael Butler) which shows that they are in fact justified in rejecting the official theory:
ReplyDeletehttp://butler-harris.org/archives/367