[Reader-list] Wash. Post.: Half of Americans poll want to restrict Muslims's civil liberties

[Isaac D W Souweine]

I don't know if the poll should be dismissed out of hand, but I think
that Oli has a point. Polls are a crucial aspect in the landscape of
news as mediatainment. They are quantitative (and thus "scientific"),
display extremely well in a graphical format and, most importantly,
helpfully divide the most complicated issues into the simplest of black
and white (or, as the recent election was constructed - red and blue)
constructions. To ask whether someone is for or against limiting the
civil liberties of Muslims seems a rather strange way to engage with
questions of public policy - it is as if one were being asked whether
they liked their eggs sunny side up or over easy (for the record, I
prefer over easy and oppose special infringement on Muslim civil rights
over and above the infringements already enabled by the patriot act and
associated legal maneuverings by our intelligence services). 

I can only think about how many times since returning to the states that
I have been told in the most superficial ways by my fellow "east coast
liberals" that Kerry's loss can be attributed to the Republican
machine's ability to turn out Christian evangelicals, a gloss that was
supported most consistently (and vapidly) by the exit poll question
which allowed voters to indicate "moral values" as their most important
election concern. Talk about a floating signifier. . . .

Again, I don't think such things should be simply dismissed out of hand,
but when one considers the relatively enlightened behavior of Americans
towards their fellow citizens of Muslim faith in the wake of 9/11, the 
         Cornell statistic almost screams for contextualization.

-Isaac


----- Original Message -----
From: Oli <oli at zeromail.org>
Date: Monday, December 20, 2004 9:28 am
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Wash. Post.: Half of Americans poll want to
restrict Muslims's civil liberties

> Dear Vivek,
> 
> how much costs a nationwide telephone poll these days?
> 
> where are the callcenter people located, who call "you"?
> 
> how many of the polls are done daily world wide?
> 
> what is their effect on "public" opinion?
> 
> who orders polls and why?
> 
> let it be done by a different company and see the difference!
> 
> Polls have become a major means to produce "public" opinions. They 
> are 
> sometimes "scientific", e.g. the one you informed us about. In 
> that case, 
> when an university is its author, they are getting more 
> credibility - as 
> science is still an authority today. Than there are lots of 
> "independent" 
> commercial institutes, who do nothing but try to find out what 
> product 
> where to sell and so on (they call you (got your number through 
> adress 
> dealers) and ask you questions). A different type is the online 
> poll, which 
> is a basic daily thing for a "serious" website these days. it is 
> almost 
> always made for a rating of the site, tracking consumers, ...
> 
> Is the Washington Post and Cornell so different to this setting? I 
> guess 
> not.
> 
> So, let's just ignore those polls unless we are doing a critical 
> research 
> on polls.
> 
> 
> Yours Oli
> 
> 
> --On Monday, December 20, 2004 14:48:27 +0530 Vivek Narayanan 
> <vivek at sarai.net> wrote:
> 
> > Terrifying news.  What can one say?
> >
> > V.
> >
> > 
>
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/>washingtonpost.com<http://www.washingtonp>
ost.com/>
> > NATION IN BRIEF
> >
> > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9289-
> 2004Dec17.html?sub=AR>
> > Saturday, December 18, 2004; Page A28
> >
> > Limit Muslim Americans' Rights, Many in Poll Say
> >
> > ITHACA, N.Y. -- Nearly half of Americans believe the government 
> should> restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, 
> according to a
> > nationwide telephone poll of 715 people.
> >
> > The Cornell University survey found that 44 percent favored at 
> least some
> > restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Forty-eight
> > percent said liberties should not be restricted in any way. The 
> margin of
> > error was plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
> >
> > Pollsters found that Republicans and people who described 
> themselves as
> > highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil
> > liberties than Democrats or people who say they are less religious.
> > Researchers also found that respondents who paid more attention to
> > television news were more likely to fear terrorist attacks and 
> support> limiting the rights of Muslim Americans.
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> 
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