The General US Politics Thread

It's also possible the question was worded deceptivly.

The question basically just said "Who was responsible for the slow reaction to Katrina? Obama, Bush or Other."

You'll always get some people who pick the stupid answer in a multiple choice question, and it may have been people just reacting to the name.

edited 21st Aug '13 4:19:23 PM by Zendervai

In which case, they are stupid.

New theory, the people surveyed realized the pollster was being a smug douchebag and answered with something obviously stupid out of spite.

edited 21st Aug '13 4:22:11 PM by Know-age

Chances are they were just saying it to get a reaction and not because they actually believed it.

Pay them a dollar to get the question right and see how quickly they change their tunes....

Either way that just makes them and the state look stupid.

Ok, It was a very bad question. The question is which of the two is more responsible. The options were Bush, Obama, or Not sure. I'll be blunt, that question is at the start misleading. It's one or the outher. Second the options don't include both and nether. Not sure means that you are not sure who was more responsible. If I had written this a servey question in college, I would have gotten flunked and laughed out of class.

There is one big plus side here, they included the actual servery. I almost never see this and it's vital to determining how good of research it is.

Still wouldn't picking "not sure" make more sense than Obama?

Seriously if someone came to me with a push poll this obvious I'd probably give the stupidest answer I could think of.

Edit: Misread the question.

Bush worked to defund and defang FEMA, so he was, technically, responsible for the slow response. This is fact.

edited 21st Aug '13 4:31:27 PM by Fighteer

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, on Wednesday accused the U.S. media of spreading "manufactured controversies" that pose dangers similar to the propaganda spread by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Senator Corker (R-TN): Lawmakers learn more about NSA from newspaper than briefings

Feds running out of wildfire money

GODWIN ALERT.

Indeed, there's lots of propaganda and misinformation examples that you could compare the current crop of manufactured controversies to without resorting to the Nazi thing.

You know who couldn't come up with a decent comparison without having to resort to Nazis? Hitler.

Don't be like Hitler.

Hitler couldn't come up with a decent anything without resorting to Nazis. Of course he couldn't come up with a horrible anything without resorting to Nazis either.

Back on topic, anyone point out that the NRA actually doesn't follow the majority of its members? Most of them are fine with sensible regulation, but the NRA is listening to the gun manufacturers.

Actually, gun manufacturers are terrified of the NRA. Companies that make guns tend to be pretty "meh" on gun control — it doesn't affect their bottom line all that much, so they don't really care one way or the other. The NRA, however, has an enormous amount of pull in the industry — when Smith & Wesson made some gun control changes as part of an agreement with the Clinton administration, the NRA organized a boycott that nearly bankrupted the company — they had to sell it to another corporation to recover.

Here's a few relevant quotes (source):

The Federal Reserve will appeal a judge's decision to throw out its limits on debit card fees.

Texas's request for funds from the president's healthcare law to bolster its Medicaid program "is not about Obamacare."

Court: NSA collected domestic emails, violating the Constitution

edited 21st Aug '13 8:49:31 PM by DeviantBraeburn

So, what, the NRA has extreme pull in both the political and private worlds?

How did the NRA manage to get that much pull?

Through its large membership, which was due in the beginning due to the simple popularity of hunting in a simpler time when they were merely a sportsmens' organization.

Yeah, now the NRA is mainly a gun rights group as opposed to enthusiasts, though that's more from necessity than anything. If gun rights weren't being attacked there wouldn't be anything for them to shout at...

Now I'm actually not a member of the NRA. But I will give them credit for this, they are a membership driven organization. The people pulling the strings behind the NRA financially really are their members. People often consider the gun industry to be "the man behind the curtain" or something to that degree, but that's usually not the case.

It kind of works like this: The majority of pro-gun folks who are very dedicated enthusiasts and not just dudes who own a shotgun that sits in their closet or something are NRA members. Most gun owners are relatively rational human beings who can be brought to the table to talk about gun control in a rational manner, but as opposed to political activism, most gun owners are dudes with jobs and other things to do who do care about gun rights.

So the reason they don't all go "WELL SHIT, FUCK THE NRA FOR BEING SO UNREASONABLE!" and stop paying their membership dues are because from the standpoint of a gun-owner, the large amount of power they wield and how active they are in using it does a lot of good for gun owners. Even if the people who chair the NRA and its most ardent supporters are way more extreme in the other direction regarding gun ownership than the average member, it's easy to ignore their extremism because they are closer to our side of the spectrum than the competition. I mean shit, if I'm given two extremes where one is the repeal of the second amendment and no gun ownership, or a world where Wal-Mart has buy-one-get-one-free sales on RPG's and heavy machine guns, I'm going with the latter, not because I agree with it intellectually, but because it's closer to what I want than the alternative.

So that's sort of why the NRA has so much power and repeat membership as it does(and most of its funding is yearly membership dues). It doesn't cost jack shit to have NRA membership, so if you can already afford ammo regularly then you can afford membership, but gun owners are currently so backed into a corner and scared of the Democrats since they have the white house, the senate, and are hostile to the second amendment, that we're pretty much like "OBSTRUCT THAT SHIT WITH OUR BLESSING NRA DEVILS!"

And honestly, I can't say I disagree. I think the average NRA spokesperson or fanboy is way more extreme than I am on the issue, and completely unreasonable in a lot of ways, but since neither side wants compromise, I'm sticking with the side which is closer to the one that I am on.

Barkley, I think you have described 90% of politics.

Pretty much. Granted, for a liot of us on the progressive side its more like "stick it to them less right of the two right leaning major politicial parties!"

Hah, so this is pretty funny. Louisiana Republicans are unsure who to blame for Hurricane Katrina response, Bush or Obama.

We've already heard that.