First off let me say I’m glad this isn’t hostile. These threads tend to run prett nasty after a few posts and that definitely isn’t my intention. I can’t speak for wempathy but i can assume his intentions of hostility are along the same line as mine; 0. just thoughtful banter back and forth.
“I’m voting for people to represent my best interests as well as the majority of the people around me. That has nothing to do with them not thinking.”
See, I think it does, depending on how well they listen to the polls. I think anyone can read a poll and then vote on a bill accordingly. These are called puppet governments. The serve a special group - that’s what it ends up as because polls are all over the place. They are simply too unreliable to go on. But we both agree they should be used as a guide.
Well, obviously a representitive is not going to vote on a bill based on one poll however he can look at other polls that are similar in nature or multiple polls on the same question and then vote accordingly. I think that has nothing to do with not thinking AND they would have a pretty wide array of info to stare at to make their decisions accroding to the will of the people, or at least their constituents so they would be voting/signing bills on polls (not poll) BUT it wouldn’t just be one poll it might be the same poll but people would’ve been polled on it mutiple times though out the life of the bill to see if the attitudes have changed. Hell now that I think about it I’m surprised elected officials don’t have a polling department that way they could better understand the trends and patterns of their voters. and while yes they would be voting off of polls it wouldn’t be that simple they would be looking at many polls of the same issue and could formulate a pretty accurate vote towards the over all attitudes instead of just trying to guess based on the climate of one poll.
“what do you suggest? The media has always been the way people gather their information. That was the whole reason behind “freedom of the press” the problem now is the press is in a limited number of hands, where, as before the press was very spread out. This is why television media does not like bloggers. The bloggers have returned the press back to the hands of the many. It’s harder for the few to kill/supress stories that don’t benefit their advertisers or their causes. Corporations want to BE big brother Not have a big brother.”
Woodward and Burnstein turned everybody with access to a typewriter into a conspiracy theorist and an overachieving journalist. Believe me, bloggers did not invent free press - it’s been going on for a long time.
the problem with that analogy is Woodward and Bernstein were RIGHT which lends credibilty to the wannabe’s that have followed after.
I’m not saying bloggers invented the free press but you definitely have stories and opinions you won’t find on regular news or even AM talk radio. I’m saying they’re keeping variety alive in a culture of mono information.
But it doesn’t matter because the bloggers and everything before that has become just as partisan and the crookedest politician. I’ve nearly seen a piece of underground news that wasn’t radically right wing or radically left wing. That’s fine, but it doesn’t serve the interest of the majority of the people any better than a politicians doing what he thinks is right.
I think that’s a hasty generalization. Bloggers have no one to answer to as far as sponsors and special interests. However, even if they are all far left or far right perhaps by viewing both the layman can get and idea where the middle is. Which is now, completely impossible in television news.
And to be honest, I don’t guess I have a suggestion about the press. I think we need the freedom of the press, but I think when the press gets so much power the government has to cater to it, now the potential for corruption in the press is just too great. You’re headed for trouble.
But the government doesn’t cater to the press… how many times and how many times in a row has scott mcllelen given a big FUCK YOU to the press corp with his answers??? too many to count. Again, where bloggers come in. doesn’t really matter if they are all Far right or far left it’s alternate info from the main stream this diffuses the power of the television press, at least a little bit.
My stance is I believe very little of what I read - yes, that makes it difficult to always form opinions, but I think opinions are a little too rampant these days anyway.
I totally agree. It’s fine to have an opinion even if your not fully informed but to shove you’re opinion out there and stand by it when you don’t have even the most remedial of facts is retarded. I think that happens all to often today. It seems this has all been boiled down to a football game, people pick sides for assinine reasons and then stick by it. Only with football it’s ok, doing that in politics is counter productive to the culture.
“…to be completely is being uninformed as to the needs/wants of the country. which leads us to what wempathy said, totalitarianism.”
I can agree with that. And I don’t think I said that politicians should be uninformed, I just don’t think they should change strategies every time somebody in the press writes a convincing article. You just can’t run a government that way.
you’re right, they shouldn’t change strategies everytime someone writes a convincing article BUT they should pay attention to the attitudes of the public based on the Many convincing articles/polls that have been written/conducted. and change or stay the same based on the over all trend.
“that’s why they are there TO represent me! not make my decisions for me but to act on my behalf. thus the whole REPRESENTITIVE style government. they represent me they don’t tell me what to do.”
There’s a fine line there. I hear what you’re saying, but it’s kind of like getting input from co-workers, but ultimately the boss needs to make the decision.
Well a good boss is going to listen his workforce and figure out a compromise if he can’t fully meet the wants of his workforce Not ignore them completely!
“How would they know what needs to be fixed unless they are paying attetnion to some polls?”
Yeah, I agree. My point is kind of along your lines I think - you want them to listen to polls as do I. I just think bashing an administration because of a perception that they aren’t listening to the polls is naive.
Perception?? Dude, W has said himself MANY times, “I DON’T LISTEN TO POLLS. heh heh”. Now, he has proven himself time and time again to be a liar, so it’s very possible that he’s been lying about this as well but judging by his decisions/actions in office probably not.
We don’t know what they’re ignoring and what they just determined that certain opinions are from an unreliable source, or even just plain wrong. It’s a tricky issue. Maybe I’m just cynical about polls because I don’t believe they’re always honest in how they’re portrayed.
well polls are always accurate IF and ONLY IF the margin of error is +/- 3% anything over that is wasted time. and the margin of error is determined by the type of questions you ask as well as your sample set - who you ask them to.- (I have a B.A. in Sociology and had to take several classes [ok only 2] on polling and stats in such a manner)
“So what makes the politician so much more informed? just a rhetorical question.”
I’m going to answer your rhetorical question anyway. I think there are matters of course that the American people don’t know about - that maybe for security reasons we can’t know about. We are at war - and when a country is at war, you can’t be open with your population about every move you make or every plan.
Yeah, bust most politicians don’t have access to that type of info either. you know W’s defense of invading iraq is something along the lines of “congress all thought Iraq had weapons of Mass destructions as well” (notice it wasn’t They’re the ones responsible for 9/11) Well that was the Info that W selectively gave to congress so of course they’re going to think that. Congress is like the general public in that respect, they don’t get the whole story either if the info is classified.
It wouldn’t be a rational thing to do. I’m not saying these people are perfect, far from it. And I’m certainly no Bush supporter, but to say we know the same stuff they do is ridiculous. We don’t.
I agree, but we should know more than we do/they let us know. Since we don’t know the whole story the only repsonbsible thing to do is base our opinions and attitudes on what are allowed to know. If the administration is unhappy with the opinons that we have formulated based on the info THEY let us have perhaps they need to be less condescending considering the’re the source of the info. Perhaps they need to let more info out and I don’t mean propaganda.
It’s not our job to know as much as they do about every angle and every person’s opinion that deals with an issue. Have you ever run a company? Have you ever run a company with as many employees as we have people in this country? Again, I’m not defending Bush, but it’s really easy to sit behind a computer and say how a country like America ought to be run. We have a pretty nice luxury to do that. But let’s face it, I doubt anybody on a Ministry web board, myself happily included, wants to try.
Yeah, but I think we could do no worse than W since he doesn’t appear to have the US in mind as much as he does his bank account. I think any of us, hell even a chimp, could do at least as well running the country with that kind mentality. Because that certainly appears to be his mindset. and if I’m wrong maybe he needs to explain himself a little more so that I’m (and certainly others are) not under that opinion
Fun stuff though.
agreed
