Future of Politics

[RyanA]

Your Ass = War Forever? :?: :wink:

 

[Your_Ass]

uh no, Your_Ass = me
for more on me, go to www.gamebutt.com (im the hawt one)

 

[cableguy]

arg!!!! i do know what exit polls are... my point, and i will try again, is that the assumption you are making about the "new" "evangelicals" is that had they voted this election and not last, AND that had they not voted for President Bush, they would have gone kerry... what i am trying to say is that if you subtract said group from the vote total (subtract from President Bush), the result of the raw popular vote is the SAME... the margin narrows, but is not overcome... President Bush STILL wins the popular vote, even without them... those voters, had they NOT voted for the President, would NOT have cast votes for kerry...

AGAIN, exit polls consist of a limited number of questions, made up by the sponsors of said poll... the sponsors of said poll determine what the possible results can be... ergo, it is quite possible that the number one reason for someone voting is not among the offered list... if any signifigant number of voters fall into this category, the results are skewed toward meaningless...

anyway, if you fail to grasp what i am trying to say this time, i will not waste time trying again to repeat myself... as i have stated before, please continue to believe that the result was because of evangelicals, anti-gay rights people, or whatever the hell else you can cook up... this will ensure an ever increasing majority for those in line with my ideals, even though religion is not among them... the dems in this country learned nothing from the 1994 election, the 2000 election, the 2002 election, and it looks like this one will also fall in that category... fine by me... i will look forward to a court system that goes back to reading the law rather than creating it from whole cloth, a tax system that truly is fair, not confiscatory and punishing of success, and a military able to kick whatever ass needs kicking, should circumstances dictate... oh, and an economy that is truly robust... sadly, as you reap the benefits of said reforms, you will still cry out against them...

still no takers on france and its illegal unilateral intervention in the ivory coast??

 

[war|forever]

Welcome Your Ass, hopefully it won't be grass soon. Get IT!??!?! GET it!?!?

Oh man, I'm hilarious.

 

[oscaraustin]

No see my numbers covered that. The total increase in voter turnout is 9%, the increase in total evangelicals voting for Bush is 17%. So they did increase their advantage.

You still are not understanding what I am saying. Total turnout increased by 10 million voters. 115m-105m = 10 million. 'Evangelical' voters by your numbers increased by 5 million voters. 29m-24m=5 million.

10 million new voters. 5 million new 'evangelical' voters. This is unrealistic, but assuming that all new Evangelicals voted Bush and non-eva's voted Kerry, that means there are 5 million new Bush voters and 5 million new Kerry voters. I do not care about percentages.

In 2000 Eva's comprised ~22% of the vote. in 2004 they comprised ~25% (24/105 and 29/115 respectively). But these percentages do not matter, since we are talking numbers that are tallied and decide the electoral votes. Other considerations, scattering of the 5 million new voters, and not all new eva or non-eva voters voted for the candidate we are assuming.

I know many young ardent christians, Evangelical by these constraints, who in this their first presidential election voted for Kerry. As with the rest of the country i would assume it was nearly a 51/49 split, maybe slightly better odds for Bush because of issues like abortion.

The new voters for the most part did not make any real impact on the outcome of the election. Only two states flipped from the 2000 election. Kerry gained one Bush had won in 2000 (Vermont? I do not remember off the top of my head, and Bush took one Gore had one out west (either Nevada or New Mexico). So all the new numbers did was bolster up the popular vote without making any difference on the electorate.

The main reason Bush took the electorate by so much is that people are moving out of the Midwest and Northeast into the "Slave states" as referred to on here of the West and South. Blame the warm weather/ sun worshippers for Bushes "runaway victory" over the Jesus-worshippers.

 

[war|forever]

Duke & cable... I feel like we should all retire... it appears there is a new generation of exp0sed political junkies ready & willing to take the pundit helm. 8)

 

[Stingray]

Jesus....did ya leave me with a lot to read here or what? Just gonna throw out a couple comments though....

“MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE
22% Moral Values

Let's not confuse Moral Values with religious values. Even Athiests have moral values. And "Moral Values" are subjective to the individual. Most everyone believes that walking up to some guy you don't know and shooting him because his hair's parted on the wrong side of his head is wrong. That's a moral value, not a religious one.

please [sic] enlighten us on who those same exit polls showed as the CLEAR winner of the office of President of the United States of America...

The exit polls show President Bush as the clear winner of the election. Did you read them?

Actually, cableguy's right. They were reporting for the first 2 hours of election coverage on both ABC & NBC that exit polls showed Kerry as winning.

Damn, That is a lot of fucking debt. Thanks Dubbya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, it's not even remotely accurate to put even a majority of the debt on George...or his dad. The debt/deficit tripled while Reagan was in office, and has grown steadily since then due to the 80's recession & various inflation rates that followed. Now, if ya wanna blame the party....that'd be more accurate.

 

[RyanA]

Actually, it's not even remotely accurate to put even a majority of the debt on George...or his dad. The debt/deficit tripled while Reagan was in office, and has grown steadily since then due to the 80's recession & various inflation rates that followed. Now, if ya wanna blame the party....that'd be more accurate.

Finally, someone who will admit Reagan did something wrong!

How many pages was the political opinions thread?? Well on its way!! :wink:

 

[Da' Pimp]

Welcome to the Nobody is Right, Nobody is Wrong 40+ Pages Thread :roll: :lol:

 

[Stingray]

Duke & cable... I feel like we should all retire... it appears there is a new generation of exp0sed political junkies ready & willing to take the pundit helm. 8)

nah...I'd have jumped in on the last thread, but...well...the sheer size of it scared me off. Too much readin' for my lazy ass....

Actually, it's not even remotely accurate to put even a majority of the debt on George...or his dad. The debt/deficit tripled while Reagan was in office, and has grown steadily since then due to the 80's recession & various inflation rates that followed. Now, if ya wanna blame the party....that'd be more accurate.

Finally, someone who will admit Reagan did something wrong!

LOL I'll call it 60/40, in favor of Reagan...and that's mostly because I was REALLY 'lil for the majority of his time in office, and won't pretend to know MUCH about it. Based on the things I do know, he wasn't a great president, but he was far from the bottom of the list.

Welcome to the Nobody is Right, Nobody is Wrong 40+ Pages Thread :roll: :lol:

yeah...but that's good. Healthy debate keeps the wheels turnin' & all that.

 

[Your_Ass]

First of all let me compliment cableguy and oscaraustin, these posts gave me the most trouble and caused me to reconsider quite a bit of my math and beliefs. That being said let ruin your parade.

@cableguy

my point, and i will try again, is that the assumption you are making about the "new" "evangelicals" is that had they voted this election and not last, AND that had they not voted for President Bush, they would have gone kerry... what i am trying to say is that if you subtract said group from the vote total (subtract from President Bush), the result of the raw popular vote is the SAME... the margin narrows, but is not overcome... President Bush STILL wins the popular vote, even without them... those voters, had they NOT voted for the President, would NOT have cast votes for kerry...

You are right, however it doesn’t change my argument.

In essence this is a straw man attack ( http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#Strawman ). It is a straw man attack because my argument isn’t that the change in Evangelical Christians single handily won the election for Bush.

My argument is that religion had a very noticeable impact on the election and more importantly that Right-Wing Evangelical Christians are the single most influencal group in American politics (since they consist of 25% of the electorate). Saying that the 2.7 million extra Evangelical Christians had they not voted wouldn’t have affected the results, isn’t a counter to my argument. In order to counter my argument you have to prove that religion didn’t have a substantial (I know it’s a subjective word, but cableguy originally said that this election wasn’t about religion, which it clearly was) affect on the election and this argument does not do that.

Besides, your argument is based on the SPECULATION that 2.7 new evangelical Christians would simply not vote instead of voting for Bush, a speculation which is supported by no facts. Again, it doesn’t really matter and shouldn’t be further commented on since even if you are right it doesn’t actually change or weaken my argument.

AGAIN, exit polls consist of a limited number of questions, made up by the sponsors of said poll... the sponsors of said poll determine what the possible results can be... ergo, it is quite possible that the number one reason for someone voting is not among the offered list... if any signifigant [sic] number of voters fall into this category, the results are skewed toward meaningless...

I would agree that it is a possibility but the answers to the questions try to be as “mainstream” as possible to assure the results are as accurate as possible. Just because something is possibly inaccurate doesn’t mean we can never trust their results.

as i have stated before, please continue to believe that the result was because of evangelicals, anti-gay rights people, or whatever the hell else you can cook up... this will ensure an ever increasing majority for those in line with my ideals, even though religion is not among them...

I wouldn’t say that I’ve “cooked” this up I would say that my opinions are based on facts, facts you still haven’t managed to properly overturn.

@oscarman

You still are not understanding what I am saying. Total turnout increased by 10 million voters. 115m-105m = 10 million. 'Evangelical' voters by your numbers increased by 5 million voters. 29m-24m=5 million.

10 million new voters. 5 million new 'evangelical' voters. This is unrealistic,

Well, if it’s unrealistic you should be able to find a clear flaw in my math or logic and present it in a simple way to easily disprove my conclusions, something you haven’t done here.
Golden Mean Fallacy ( http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#GoldenMean )You are saying that half of the new voters can’t be evangelical only because that SOUNDS too extreme. Which is a logical Fallacy.

but assuming that all new Evangelicals voted Bush and non-eva's voted Kerry, that means there are 5 million new Bush voters and 5 million new Kerry voters. I do not care about percentages.

The 10 million new voters were not ALL new evangelical voters. 5 million new ones were evangelical Christians that voted for bush, and the rest were a hodgepodge of every other group. That’s why I think they have so much power, since they represent such a huge gain (8 points higher than the rest of the electorate). And btw, I think its obvious you don’t care about percentages…

In 2000 Eva's comprised ~22% of the vote. in 2004 they comprised ~25% (24/105 and 29/115 respectively). But these percentages do not matter, since we are talking numbers that are tallied and decide the electoral votes. Other considerations, scattering of the 5 million new voters, and not all new eva or non-eva voters voted for the candidate we are assuming.

Fine point, however I already made it…

A county by county examination would be required to conclusively tell if this would have swayed the results of the election in the other direction. However I am confidant it would have, given the closeness of the previous election with the difference of only 500k votes.

It’s largely speculation until more data is available. But it doesn’t affect my argument too much as they still retain a very large percentage of the total electorate.

I know many young ardent christians, Evangelical by these constraints, who in this their first presidential election voted for Kerry. As with the rest of the country i would assume it was nearly a 51/49 split, maybe slightly better odds for Bush because of issues like abortion.

I fear that like cableguy you didn’t read the exit polls.

Of the people that CONSIDERED themselves evangelical Christians (a couple percentage points lower than my definition) 78% voted for Bush. So those “slightly better odds” amount to astonishing 27 point increase from the average of voters.

The new voters for the most part did not make any real impact on the outcome of the election. Only two states flipped from the 2000 election. Kerry gained one Bush had won in 2000 (Vermont? I do not remember off the top of my head, and Bush took one Gore had one out west (either Nevada or New Mexico). So all the new numbers did was bolster up the popular vote without making any difference on the electorate.

This is the leap in logic fallacy and the strawman fallacy( http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#Leap http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#Strawman ) You have two parts to your argument, 1) that not many states changed teams from 2000, and 2) that the new voters therefore didn’t have any real impact. However you didn’t link these parts in a logical way. I honestly don’t know if the new voters had a substantial impact in this election. But it doesn’t matter since I am arguing that religion influenced this election. I would have to do some calculations to figure out if I agreed with you or not (although preliminarily I tend to agree).

The main reason Bush took the electorate by so much is that people are moving out of the Midwest and Northeast into the "Slave states" as referred to on here of the West and South. Blame the warm weather/ sun worshippers for Bushes "runaway victory" over the Jesus-worshippers.

Yeah I head something about this, a source would be cool so I could check it out.

@stingray

Jesus....did ya leave me with a lot to read here or what? Just gonna throw out a couple comments though....

Haha, sorry, the title of this thread should be, “Your_Ass is a long winded asshole”

“MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE
22% Moral Values”

Let's not confuse Moral Values with religious values. Even Athiests have moral values. And "Moral Values" are subjective to the individual. Most everyone believes that walking up to some guy you don't know and shooting him because his hair's parted on the wrong side of his head is wrong. That's a moral value, not a religious one.

Oh don’t get me wrong, I am a champion of atheist morality, being an atheist myself I don’t believe that morality is something only for Christians. That being said you pointed out a bit of speculation on my part. I largely speculated (because cross referenced exit polls between “what mattered the most” and “are you evangelical” don’t exit) that Evangelical Christians are the majority of the people who would vote for morals. While everyone votes based somewhat on their morals, I think mostly Evangelical Christians would say something like this, again its just speculation.

please [sic] enlighten us on who those same exit polls showed as the CLEAR winner of the office of President of the United States of America...

The exit polls show President Bush as the clear winner of the election. Did you read them?”

Actually, cableguy's right. They were reporting for the first 2 hours of election coverage on both ABC & NBC that exit polls showed Kerry as winning.

Right, I covered that, those were results from the survey BEFORE it was finished. Now that it is finished they fall inline with the national election numbers


p.s. stingray, what is the code to have the “Your_Ass Says” style quotes. I tried .

but that didn’t do it, any ideas?

Wow that was a long post…. sorry

 

[cableguy]

after looking at the exit poll data, i am left thinking that one could, with the proper time and inclination, make the results say nearly anything they want.. i am left with very few conclusions, all are as follows, and are breaking news to no one...

-the more property acreage one owns, the more likely they were to vote for President Bush
-the more dense the population is, the likelihood for kerry votes rises
-single women and homosexuals are most likely to vote for kerry
-christians are more likely to vote for President Bush
-jews are more likely to favor kerry
-non whites favor kerry
-the very young favor kerry
-people with jobs favor President Bush
-gun owners vored for President Bush
-almost everyone had made their mind up long before the election
-the entire "most important issue" question should be tossed, as it doesnt include which side of said issue the pollee is on

THE END

without cross correlation, extrapolating meaningful results is impossible... you have a number of percentages, with nothing linking them... what you require to make the numbers mean anything beyond what is plain to see, you require an occurrence of the phrase "of those" or something similar... there is no breakdown of union households with guns who have a homosexual family member... likewise, there is no connection between evangelicals and how often one goes to church... you may have something, but you may also have (more likely) correlation without causation... IF your data conclusions are correct, it is because you made some correct assumptions, NOT because thats what the data shows... nice effort, though... i hope you convince the entire democrat party it was the evil christians that won this election for President Bush

i believe i speak for most folks here when i say we can live just fine without the debate terms lessons...

war, retire??? when there are so many out there with so much to learn?? nah... i hope you stick around here, too, as this is one of the FEW places i have found where reasoned discussion takes place, rather than puerile name calling... i have enjoyed sparring with you, and look forward to more in the future... if cman doesnt blow a gasket again... :lol: :shock: :lol:

 

[Your_Ass]

Another great post cableguy.

after looking at the exit poll data,

Glad you finally looked at it.

i am left thinking that one could, with the proper time and inclination, make the results say nearly anything they want..

I completely agree, and as I said earlier this may be what happened here. I am certainly biased against Christians. If you want to not accept anything I say simply because of that than you would be guilty of the ad hominim logical fallacy. ( http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#AdHominem ). Essentially you would be saying that since I’m a biased asshole (which I ABSOLUTELY am) than my data is fucked (which you haven’t proven). The only way to include bias in this argument and not commit a logical fallacy is to disprove my data. If you don’t care to do that, then that’s fine, but you probably shouldn’t continue this argument if you don’t care enough to. I implore you to examine my data, and attack it based on something concrete.

i am left with very few conclusions, all are as follows, and are breaking news to no one...

-the more property acreage one owns, the more likely they were to vote for President Bush
-the more dense the population is, the likelihood for kerry votes rises
-single women and homosexuals are most likely to vote for kerry
-christians are more likely to vote for President Bush
-jews are more likely to favor kerry
-non whites favor kerry
-the very young favor kerry
-people with jobs favor President Bush
-gun owners vored [sic] for President Bush
-almost everyone had made their mind up long before the election

Ok, does this have any relevance to the argument at hand? I don’t understand where you’re going with this.

-the entire "most important issue" question should be tossed, as it doesnt [sic] include which side of said issue the pollee [sic] is on

Well, that is a good point (actually one of your best yet), but I don’t agree. My data doesn’t require cross correlation. You need to prove that my interpretation of that ‘incorrect’ data affects my conclusions.

without cross correlation, extrapolating meaningful results is impossible...

Essentially I need to prove 3 things to prove my point that religion affected this election
1) That religious people voted [done so by the “Evangelical Christian” question on the questionnaire].
2) That they voted in one direction [they largely supported Bush, as shown in that same question].
3) That religion influenced their choice.

#3 is where is gets sticky, and where your argument is most effective. The most important national issue was “moral values” and since moral values need to come form somewhere (this is another argument entirely; “are morals universal”) I wouldn’t say it’s terribly difficult to link “moral values” with Religion (namely Christianity since it’s the most represented religion in this country). If you accept that (which you may or may not) than all that is left to prove is whether or not the sub-group “Evangelical Christians” have the same reasons as the rest of the country, here’s where most of the speculation comes in. I would argue that they probably have the same spread as the rest of the nation, with a greater leaning towards moral values. But this is purely speculation. However in order for me to be wrong, “moral values” would have to slide down considerably. Among the self-righteous “Evangelical Christians” I don’t think that it would slide down a bit. But again, this is speculation and requires cross correlation to prove or disprove. (Please note, I am not saying that I’m wrong, just a portion of my research requires more data, something I am working on, however even if I was wrong that does not make cableguy right as he has provided NO PROOF of his claim and therefore still has the burden of proof.).

The rest of my argument (where speculation is more rampant; namely calling people who go to church once a week or more Evangelical) is based on trying to figure out how MUCH their turnout increase influenced the election. By disproving that they substantially influenced the election you still don’t disprove that they influenced it. In fact, in order to prove or disprove how much of an affect they had on the election, you must first accept that they did have some affect, which is the core of my argument.

you have a number of percentages, with nothing linking them... what you require to make the numbers mean anything beyond what is plain to see, you require an occurrence of the phrase "of those" or something similar... there is no breakdown of union households with guns who have a homosexual family member...

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that. I thought I properly linked the percentages with the point I was trying to make, maybe an example would work?

likewise, there is no connection between evangelicals and how often one goes to church...

Your streak continues, this is a really good point, another one that I covered initially but still an essential assumption I made to determine how much their influence increased. That is absolutely true, since the was no “Evangelical Christian” question on the 2000 exit polls I was forced to use my own definition of Evangelical Christian, I chose, “those who go to church at least once a week” (I believe about 1/3 go more than once). This is purely my subjective definition of what Evangelical Means. So my data regarding how much they influenced the election is largely speculative as a result. Less speculative data could be obtained by simply changing “Evangelical Christians” to “people who go to church at least once a week”. To me, it is just as bad, to you, it shouldn’t matter since you are trying to prove that religion had no place in this election (I think you said it was about honesty and something else).

you may have something, but you may also have (more likely) correlation without causation... IF your data conclusions are correct, it is because you made some correct assumptions, NOT because thats [sic] what the data shows... nice effort, though...

Yeah, this was my basic opinion of my data when I completed it (I said a lot of what you said in this post initially). Its largely due to having incomplete exit-poll data (I only used the CNN public results) and the exit polls not containing the “Evangelical” question on the 2000 questionnaires.

i hope you convince the entire democrat party it was the evil christians that won this election for President Bush

Me too, even if we lose the next 50 years I’d rather be right and lose than be wrong and win.

i believe i speak for most folks here when i say we can live just fine without the debate terms lessons...

You quit making the logical fallacies, ill stop pointing them out, deal?



Note: while trying to find raw exit poll numbers I found this on a GOP website ( http://www.gopusa.com/news/2004/november/1104_moral_values.shtml )

“In the so-called swing states, Bush received three times as many votes as Kerry did from people who identified themselves as evangelical Christians. Exit polls show that one in five voters were described as people of faith, a strong conservative voting bloc that undoubtedly assured Bush of his reelection.”

This is the logical fallacy Appeal to Authority ( http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#Authority ). Saying that something is true just because someone one the opposing side or in a position of authority says it is. None the less, it is quite persuasive to tow-the-line republicans.

Also found this one, that confirms some of my speculation, but doesn’t provide the raw data required to prove it completely. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/news/epaper/2004/11/04/a1aa_morality_1104.html

 

[ononoma]

Sad Observations

* Every vote dosen't count. If your a dem in a red state or a rep in a blue state, you really don't have a voice under the current system. If states would adopt a system where a proportional amount of the electoral votes go to each candidate, more people might vote and we might have a true winner (I know one state has this system, just 1). Also, this might open the door for candidates that aren't blue or red, becuase this our 2 party system could use a shot in the arm/kick in the ass.

* At age 41 I've only voted FOR a candidate twice in my life. The rest of my votes have been against the bigger of the two talking sphincters. Is this the best we can do? Are the choices offered in 2000 & 04' the best the donkeys and elephants can do? Why does it seem that the brightest and smartest stay away from higher office? As an independent who has never voted for a republican, I would have voted for McCain in a heartbeat. Nobody owns this guy. Not big buisness, not special interest.
Again, the 2 party system is failing us, yet it keeps out any other potential party due to money. When we do get a third party candidate he is usually seen as a fringe/nut candidate and a spoiler for one of the two big boys. I don't think the founding fathers had this in mind.

* Polirization. No body listens/reads/analyzes anymore. 60 sec. sound bytes, flags, crosses and protests seem to be the deciding factor of the day. We are divided into camps, sad. Either your viewed as an arrogant elitiest, atheist snob or a small minded, mega christian redneck. No wonder there so much hate to go around.

* Dumb and Dumber. The less educated/informed we become about the issues, the less are politicans have real sulotions.

Hey, just my opinon. I may be wrong (God I miss it when Dennis Miller used to say that and rip everyone instead of being a Bush monkey boy). I'm outta' here!

 

[Supafly]

i am left with very few conclusions, all are as follows, and are breaking news to no one...

-the more property acreage one owns, the more likely they were to vote for President Bush
-the more dense the population is, the likelihood for kerry votes rises
-single women and homosexuals are most likely to vote for kerry
-christians are more likely to vote for President Bush
-jews are more likely to favor kerry
-non whites favor kerry
-the very young favor kerry
-people with jobs favor President Bush
-gun owners vored [sic] for President Bush
-almost everyone had made their mind up long before the election

Ok, does this have any relevance to the argument at hand? I don’t understand where you’re going with this.

Here's what he's trying to say.

Example:

in 2000 48% of non college graduates voted for Bush (50,556,636)
in 2004 53% of non college graduates voted for Bush (61,379,235)

Voter turnout was up 9%

While the number of voters without college degrees who voted for Bush was up 18% (50/61)

So I say it wasn't the christians that won the election for bush but the people without Bachelor degrees. :roll:

The numbers can tell you whatever you want them to tell you.

 

[Texan]

Exit polls themselves are a fallacy. So what if Christians share the beliefs of conservatives and then themselves become conservative. This is an issue only due to the far left having the largest mouths.

CNN exit polls were a sampling of 13666 voters out of 115 mil, that is roughly one ten-thousandths of a percent of the total voter turnout. To say that is extremely small percentage accurately represents the pulse of America is ridiculous.

Cable, I love the way the the French just took it upon themselves to launch an airstrike and deploy 4000 troops without UN approval. I just hope they dont get themselves into a quagmire and need the US to bail them out again. But armed soldiers against stick weilding men should be fairly easy, atleast they dont shoot back.

 

[oscaraustin]

This is a bit of a step backwards but i justed wanted to clear one thing up with Your_Ass, I was not saying that 1/2 the new voters being Evangelical was unrealastic, what I was saying was that

[It is] unrealistic, but assuming that all new Evangelicals voted Bush and non-eva's voted Kerry, that means there are 5 million new Bush voters and 5 million new Kerry voters. I do not care about percentages.

I say this is unrealistic because i know many who fit your specifications of Evangelical but voted Kerry, and that there are more dynamics to people than just whether or not they go to church. /Note: most of these people i know were women, college aged women, primarily concerned about their being able to have sex and not have to deal with the possible consequences of this//

I will not talk in regards to exit polls, their accuracy is too 'iffy', like any poll it depends on who was randomly selected, where they were, and in the end there are not enough numbers compared to the total population to be sure of their accuracy.

A county by county examination would be required to conclusively tell if this would have swayed the results of the election in the other direction. However I am confidant it would have, given the closeness of the previous election with the difference of only 500k votes.

I didn't say this, but it was under the section directed at me.

You have two parts to your argument, 1) that not many states changed teams from 2000, and 2) that the new voters therefore didn’t have any real impact. However you didn’t link these parts in a logical way.

I thought the connection was obvious between the two, however... For your argument we must assume that those who voted Bush in 2000 would do so again in 2004, and that those who voted Gore would vote Kerry in order to accurately apply the 5 million and 5 million new voters. If they all voted the same, the 5 million new Eva voters were unnecessary for victory in 2004, and therefore their votes had only minor impact in raising the numbers. So as the new Eva voters did not impact the result, there religion did not either.

Even total exit poll numbers are not entirely accurate, not every location is polled, not every person leaving is polled, in fact no one i have talked to had been or had seen anyone being polled, which is odd since Ann Arbor is the hub of political unrest in Michigan. I'm sure this fits one of the logical fallacies, but i don't care, I think it is a valid point... exit polls are like any other poll, they have significant margin of error.

And a source for moving south... i don't feel like searching, but the Census would do it for ya, I'm sure CNN would say something about it, MSNBC or Fox as well. It is common knowledge for a person who knows much about U.S. social patterns that people are moving in hoards South and West.


Anyway, onward and forward... can we move back into making points instead of this stagnating in this state of constant refute now?

 

[Your_Ass]

@supafly

Your_Ass wrote:

i am left with very few conclusions, all are as follows, and are breaking news to no one...

-the more property acreage one owns, the more likely they were to vote for President Bush
-the more dense the population is, the likelihood for kerry votes rises
-single women and homosexuals are most likely to vote for kerry
-christians are more likely to vote for President Bush
-jews are more likely to favor kerry
-non whites favor kerry
-the very young favor kerry
-people with jobs favor President Bush
-gun owners vored [sic] for President Bush
-almost everyone had made their mind up long before the election

Ok, does this have any relevance to the argument at hand? I don’t understand where you’re going with this.

Here's what he's trying to say.

Example:

in 2000 48% of non college graduates voted for Bush (50,556,636)
in 2004 53% of non college graduates voted for Bush (61,379,235)

Voter turnout was up 9%

While the number of voters without college degrees who voted for Bush was up 18% (50/61)

So I say it wasn't the Christians that won the election for bush but the people without Bachelor degrees.

The numbers can tell you whatever you want them to tell you.

It’s important for you to realize that the numbers can’t tell you whatever you want. What you just did, was pull a logical conclusion from the numbers. You couldn’t for instance, pull the opposite conclusion from the same numbers without changing the source data.

That being said, I’m less worried about your stat than I am about my stat. Simply because there is no leadership among the non college graduates. There isn’t, for instance, a book or person dictating to them their vote. They more or less make up their own mind; they just do it with a slightly less informed brain (which isn’t terribly bad, not as bad as someone voting with a book for instance).

@Texan

Exit polls themselves are a fallacy.

I assume you think they are a fallacy because of this…

CNN exit polls were a sampling of 13666 voters out of 115 mil, that is roughly one ten-thousandths of a percent of the total voter turnout.

and because of this.

To say that is extremely small percentage accurately represents the pulse of America is ridiculous.

If you are, in fact, of the belief that exit polling is simply inaccurate because they sample such a small percentage I have the following arguments.

1) Why conduct them? They cost money to take, are heavily reported on, and are used in future campaigns. If you’re right, that’s a lot of people using inherently inaccurate polls.
2) Statistically, you never need to get a sample of a large percentage of the group to come to a sure conclusion.

Essentially, you need to somehow prove that this low sample rate is inaccurate. I don’t know how you would do that, I imagine you would have to do your own polling and compare results. But its important to realize that pre-election polls essentially called the election right and post election polls called the election right.

So what if Christians share the beliefs of conservatives and then themselves become conservative.

Well, it bothers ME because they don’t actually think about the election in humanistic terms. They think about it in biblical terms, “Would god be ok with my voting for this or him or whatever?” This, I think, is a step in the wrong direction. Not to mention my personal dislike for Christians and Christianity or really any group so irrational that it bases their life on such bullshit. This is why it matters to ME. If your asking why it should matter to you, it shouldn’t. Unless you agree with cableguy that religion didn’t play a part in the election. But if you don’t care about that, then you shouldn’t need to continue to argue.

@oscaraustin

This is a bit of a step backwards but i justed [sic] wanted to clear one thing up with Your_Ass, I was not saying that 1/2 the new voters being Evangelical was unrealastic, what I was saying was

[It is] unrealistic, but assuming that all new Evangelicals voted Bush and non-eva's voted Kerry, that means there are 5 million new Bush voters and 5 million new Kerry voters. I do not care about percentages.

I say this is unrealistic because i know many who fit your specifications of Evangelical but voted Kerry, and that there are more dynamics to people than just whether or not they go to church. /Note: most of these people i know were women, college aged women, primarily concerned about their being able to have sex and not have to deal with the possible consequences of this//

Well, there were a lot of people who are evangelical and voted for Kerry, but I account for their existence. I would say that exit polls are a better tool than your personal friends to see how Evangelical Christians voted in the whole.

It’s a hasty generalization.
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#Hasty
you are using a small sample size to draw conclusions, its actually what you are accusing the exit polls of doing.

I will not talk in regards to exit polls, their accuracy is too 'iffy', like any poll it depends on who was randomly selected, where they were, and in the end there are not enough numbers compared to the total population to be sure of their accuracy.

OK, but I think you need to support your claims, saying that any survey is incorrect is a pretty big jump, considering how often they are used.

A county by county examination would be required to conclusively tell if this would have swayed the results of the election in the other direction. However I am confidant it would have, given the closeness of the previous election with the difference of only 500k votes.

I didn't say this, but it was under the section directed at me.

I know you didn’t say that, I said that, I was saying that I already brought up your argument, and included it in my initial numbers (about the spreading out of the votes not making them valuable).

You have two parts to your argument, 1) that not many states changed teams from 2000, and 2) that the new voters therefore didn’t have any real impact. However you didn’t link these parts in a logical way.

I thought the connection was obvious between the two,

Nope, please complete your argument.

For your argument we must assume that those who voted Bush in 2000 would do so again in 2004, and that those who voted Gore would vote Kerry in order to accurately apply the 5 million and 5 million new voters. If they all voted the same, the 5 million new Eva voters were unnecessary for victory in 2004, and therefore their votes had only minor impact in raising the numbers. So as the new Eva voters did not impact the result, there religion did not either.

I really don’t understand what you are talking about, I still think you are trying to say that the 5 million new evangelical voters are canceled out by the 5 million new non-evangelical voters, but that’s not the case, the non-evangelical voters are just a hodgepodge of the rest of the nation, and their votes probably split 51-49. they would have to split 00-100 in order to cancel out the evangelical votes.

Even total exit poll numbers are not entirely accurate, not every location is polled, not every person leaving is polled, in fact no one i have talked to had been or had seen anyone being polled, which is odd since Ann Arbor is the hub of political unrest in Michigan. I'm sure this fits one of the logical fallacies, but i don't care, I think it is a valid point... exit polls are like any other poll, they have significant margin of error

You’re right! That is a logical fallacy
http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Debating-1.html#Hasty
It’s a hasty generalization.
It’s funny; because that is the logical fallacy you are accusing the exit polls of making. I would agree that a margin of error exists, but it would have to be so substantial to weaken my argument that the polls would in effect be useless.

And a source for moving south... i don't feel like searching, but the Census would do it for ya, I'm sure CNN would say something about it, MSNBC or Fox as well. It is common knowledge for a person who knows much about U.S. social patterns that people are moving in hoards South and West.

ok, if you don’t want to find a source then I wont talk about it.


People, c’mon you can do better than this, essentially your big argument for “religion didn’t have an affect on this election” is that say that all surveys are shitty because they don’t ask everyone. That’s just a really bad argument. Why would surveys exist if they served no purpose? Why continue to dump money into them if their results are not accurate? Surveys are used in the following: TV ratings, Exit Polls, Pre election polls, nearly every scientific study that has ever happened. If you say that surveys are useless you need to support it with something. Since it isn’t obviously true.


[I didn't read this over before i posted it, if i made any obvious mistakes, please forgive me, ill do my best next time, got a 10 page paper to write]

 

[Supafly]

@supafly

Your_Ass wrote:

i am left with very few conclusions, all are as follows, and are breaking news to no one...

-the more property acreage one owns, the more likely they were to vote for President Bush
-the more dense the population is, the likelihood for kerry votes rises
-single women and homosexuals are most likely to vote for kerry
-christians are more likely to vote for President Bush
-jews are more likely to favor kerry
-non whites favor kerry
-the very young favor kerry
-people with jobs favor President Bush
-gun owners vored [sic] for President Bush
-almost everyone had made their mind up long before the election

Ok, does this have any relevance to the argument at hand? I don’t understand where you’re going with this.

Here's what he's trying to say.

Example:

in 2000 48% of non college graduates voted for Bush (50,556,636)
in 2004 53% of non college graduates voted for Bush (61,379,235)

Voter turnout was up 9%

While the number of voters without college degrees who voted for Bush was up 18% (50/61)

So I say it wasn't the Christians that won the election for bush but the people without Bachelor degrees.

The numbers can tell you whatever you want them to tell you.

It’s important for you to realize that the numbers can’t tell you whatever you want. What you just did, was pull a logical conclusion from the numbers. You couldn’t for instance, pull the opposite conclusion from the same numbers without changing the source data.

True, but I can imply what these numbers mean. Just like you did.

The facts for my theory are correct, but the theory in it's self is far from logical. The point of my demonstration was to show you that you can infer a lot from these polls.

My theory is backed by the numbers just like yours. So it holds the exact same weight as yours, as ridiculous as it is.

 

[Texan]

Well, it bothers ME because they don’t actually think about the election in humanistic terms. They think about it in biblical terms, “Would god be ok with my voting for this or him or whatever?” This, I think, is a step in the wrong direction. Not to mention my personal dislike for Christians and Christianity or really any group so irrational that it bases their life on such bullshit. This is why it matters to ME. If your asking why it should matter to you, it shouldn’t. Unless you agree with cableguy that religion didn’t play a part in the election. But if you don’t care about that, then you shouldn’t need to continue to argue.

Religion did not play a role in the election, polls are bullshit, and they proved that this year, they are in no way scientific and you should not place any faith in them.

I am sorry that you poses such a dislike for christian and christianity, just be thankful you live in the United States of America, but you are now walking on my fighting side.

Due to rules of this forum I will leave it at that. GOD knows what I want to really say.