Everyone knows that Democrats are smarter than Republicans? Right? [Updated]
Some people are certainly going to a lot of trouble attempting to prove it.
According to a Zogby poll of Americans, about 40% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in the attacks of 9/11. Wow! Those stupid Republicans! The left-wing blogosphere is just eating this stuff up.
Only one problem. If they merely took the time to read the actual poll, they would have found some rather embarrassing beliefs in other myths, like about who was responsible for 9/11... Look at page 8 in particular; 42.6% of Democrats believe that the US government either “allowed 9/11 to happen” or they “made it happen”. In contrast, only 19.2% of Republicans and 30.5% of Independents are tinfoil hat wearers (Unfortunately, I had to link to a 9/11 conspiracy site, since they are the ones that commissioned the poll). More discussion at Hot Air here.
Incidentally, while no link between Saddam and 9/11 was found (or ever claimed by the Bush administration) I would still consider it a far more likely possibility than 9/11 engineered by the US government. Saddam did have proven links to Al-Qaeda (a run-down can be found here), and the two groups were equally united in their hatred of the US and Israel.
This is reminiscent of a public knowledge poll done by the Pew research center back in April. The poll measured public awareness on current issues across a broad variety of spectrums. However, like kids in a candy store, several left-wing web sites gleefully chose to focus on one aspect only: That "Daily Show" viewers supposedly knew more than "O'Reilly Factor" viewers (54% vs. 51%), and that CNN viewers were more knowledgeable than those that watch Fox News (41% vs. 35%).
In truth, the data was not so simple, since most people claimed they used several different sources for their news, and the margins were small. Still, here's some advice. If you want to use this as "proof" of your intellectual superiority, then it's probably a good idea to act like an intellectual and read the whole thing... If they had bothered to look a little further into the survey, they would have found this:
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.Ouch. If that double negative is confusing (it confused someone here), I will translate: more Democrats than Republicans fall into the low-knowledge group.
Moving into psychology, there have been quite a few similar attempts on the political left to diagnose conservatism as some sort of "mental illness". Check out this ludicrous piece last month in The New Republic (the same folks that brought us Scott Beauchamp), entitled: "How Political Psychology Explains Bush's Ghastly Success." (Dissected here).
Or, check out this psychoanalysis that widely circulated on the web earlier this year. In it, a Professor Allan Schnaiberg of Northwestern University, diagnoses Bush with "narcissistic personality disorder". The Professor is real, but the article might have been a hoax. If it's genuine, then someone forgot to tell Prof. Schnaiberg that it's unethical to diagnose a patient without examining him, or reviewing his medical records.
Even a dullard like myself is intelligent enough to know that.
UPDATE 17/09/2007 09:48:00:
via Little Green Footballs, here's a Slate article about how many of these intelligence studies are run by liberals and rigged in favor of themselves. Not sure if I totally agree, but if liberals disagreed, that would be rich. For decades, they have been telling us that the black/hispanic/white/asian/male/female IQ and SAT test gaps are due to testing bias. Either intelligence tests work, or they don't. They can't possibly have it both ways.
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4 comments:
I would like to know why they are combining knowledge polls about anything with political affiliation at all. Those two categories do not really have anything to do with each other and stupidity exists wherever you look. And polls can be problematic because depending on how you set the parameters you can manipulate the results. But it is amusing non the less and also disturbing that even a few people seem to believe that their own Government orchestrated a terror attack that killed over 3 000 people in order to have a justification to start a war in Iraq that has not actually gained the US anything at all besides a long time commitment to bring order into a country that apprently is not interested in just that.
Statement of Laurie Mylroie to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, July 9, 2003, “State Sponsorship: Who are the Terrorist Masterminds?:
* * *
The key point I want to stress is the identity of the terrorist masterminds, individuals like Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Their identities rest on documents in Kuwait that predate Kuwait’s liberation in 1991, and those documents are unreliable, because of the Iraqi occupation.
* * *
Indeed, Jim Hoagland has suggested the same. Hoagland asked, “How did al Qaeda, within two or three years, go from obscurity to becoming super-terrorists capable of blowing up U.S. embassies, warships, and skyscrapers with astonishing precision?” He raised the question asked here: how did a group of Baluch who grew up in Kuwait acquire such remarkable skills as terrorist masterminds, and why would they devote their lives to killing Americans? He then hinted at an answer. “Could al Qaeda have been the target of a takeover operation by an intelligence service with good legend-manufacturing skills and a great, burning desire for revenge on the United States?”
That is what happened, I think. After al Qaeda moved to Afghanistan, Iraqi intelligence became deeply involved with it, probably, with the full agreement of Usama bin Ladin. Al Qaeda provided the ideology, foot soldiers, and a cover for the terrorist attacks; Iraqi intelligence provided the direction, training, and expertise in the form of figures like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Both sides benefited: bin Ladin was able to carry out major attacks for which al Qaeda had previously lacked the skill and training; Iraq escaped detection and punishment, because every attack was blamed on al Qaeda alone.
* * *
On the contrary, the major terrorist strikes against the U.S. that were attributed to “loose networks” of Islamic militants, including al Qaeda, are much better explained as Iraq, working with and hiding behind the militants. In short, the 1991 Gulf War did not end with the cease-fire declared back then.
The failure to pursue the question of the identities of the terrorist masterminds is a major lapse in the investigation. Most likely, if that issue were pursued it would provide a definitive tie between Iraqi intelligence and the 9/11 strikes, as well as other major attacks.
It is unlikely that these Baluch masterminds are a family; it is far more likely that they are Iraqi “illegals,” given “legends” on the basis of Kuwaiti documents, while Iraq occupied Kuwait.
The principle reason this issue has not been pursued is strong bureaucratic obstructionism in the US and UK, by individuals who cannot (or will not) recognize they have made a major mistake. …
Also: “All in the Family?” by Laurie Mylroie in the New York Sun on June 26, 2004
The 9-11 Mysteries by Edward Jay Epstein:
3. The Mastermind Mystery
Although it concluded that he was the “principal planner” of the 9-11 attack, the [9-11] Commission did not interview Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM). KSM had begun his anti-US activities prior to his involvement with bin-Laden in 1996. In 1992, he helped fund the first attack on the 1993 World Trade Center. In 1994, he organized the aborted Bojinko plot to blow up US airliners. In organizing anti-US attacks, KSM was assisted by 6 relatives — Ramzi Yousef, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Abdul Karim, Abdul Monem, Dawood al-Badani, and Abdul Qadir Mahmoud — in at least 5 countries, including Iraq-occupied Kuwait, over 7 years.
Where did KSM, and his crime family get financial support for these extensive operations? Prior to his association with al-Qaeda in 1996, did KSM have any state sponsorship? If so, did this state sponsorship end after his association with al-Qaeda?
The KSM crime family also had the type of logistical support that usually requires state assistance, including at least 70 aliases, supported by fraudulent passports. Who provided KSM and his associates with these legends?
4. The CIA Mystery
KSM and at least of 5 of of his crime family are in US custody. Why did the CIA not permit the 9-11 Commission or any members of its staff access to either KSM, the 9-11 mastermind, or any member of his KSM crime family?
5. The First World Trade Center Mystery
Abdul Rahman Yasin, an indicted conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was given sanctuary by Saddam Hussein. He is not mentioned in the 9-11 Report, although he was associated with KSM member Ramzi Yousef.
Ahmad Hikmat Shakir, an Iraqi arrested in Doha on 9-17-2001, had documents in his possession linking him to the 1993 World Trade Center attack, KSM’s 1994 Bojinko plot, and KSM’s brother Zahid. He also had assisted two 9-11 hijackers — Khalid al Midhar and Nawaz al Hamzi — when they arrived in Malaysia for a planning session in January 2000. Like Yasin, Shakir was given sanctuary by Saddam Hussein in Iraq (after his release in 2001).
Why did Iraq provide this safe havens to Yasin and Shakir?
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I posted the above to demonstrate that there are unaffiliated investigators who doubt the official story that there was no link between 9-11 and Iraq.
We read The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. I wanted to know how Al-Qaeda which had been a gang of poseurs and clowns became so competent so quickly.
I think we are a very long way from knowing what really happened. But in many ways it is irrelevant. Al-Qaeda is out there and it is malevolent. We must crush it so that we can stabilize Iraq. We must stabilize Iraq, because we cannot afford to give Iran the chance to move in and use Iraq’s resources to dominate the region and establish a choke-hold over the world’s economy.
This behavior is true to form. Liberals are masters at ignoring data which doesn't confirm their belief system and then arguing for their beliefs via emotion. Once intelligence had been shrived of a functional definition, liberals could claim to be intelligent without the bother of proving it; narcissists that they are, they then advertised their newfound smarts endlessly. The problem? Even liberals weren't entirely comfortable with this self-justification and hungered for something to back them up. Enter this study. In short, liberals will grasp at whatever data point that comes along to give them a "factoid high" which reinforces their feelings about being intellectually superior, because feelings is all that they truly have.
Once again I am reminded of an episode of Penn and Teller called "Numbers" from Season 4 They made a pretty convincing argument showing that most polls are bullshit and results are determined more by the questiosn being asked than the answers being given. Check it out if you can find it.
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