Archive for Public opinion

You are browsing the archives of Public opinion.

Fixing Mistakes: The failing war on drugs

“Fixing Mistakes” will be a new series where I talk about how our society can learn from its mistakes and correct its own problems… but we can only do it if we’re willing to think outside the box.
We have spent countless amounts of money, manpower, and resources in an attempt to fight the drug trade… […]

Popularity: 28% [?]

The President pretends to care

Many of you may have heard that President Bush recently stated that he has stopped playing golf in solidarity for the soldiers in Iraq. His rationale:
I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the families to be as — […]

Popularity: 19% [?]

SUNDAY REWIND | Ignorance: The Pitfall of Democracy

Sunday Rewind is a new feature where I re-publish an old post that I first put up back when nobody was actually reading.  Hopefully, there will be some actual readership this time.
I came across an interesting article today. In short, it is about a study proving that the world’s most incompetent people are typically unaware […]

Popularity: 18% [?]

Politics and semantics: “working class”

Isn’t it about time that we stop getting angry at people for stating the obvious?
After “Bittergate,” I think I might have lost hope in our ability to ever recover from our tendency to make a big deal every time somebody says something rational that might just be politically incorrect.  Recently, the popular political blog Crooks […]

Popularity: 14% [?]

What is ‘Elite’?

This is the second guest post by Kola. He will be a more regular writer in the future, so we won’t need to use the term “guest post” anymore for him.
What is this magical word that conjures up feelings of resentment in the American people? It didn’t sound connotatively negative until the media […]

Popularity: 16% [?]

Is Jeremiah Wright worse than Pat Robertson?

Everybody involved with American politics has been hearing a lot recently about Jeremiah Wright, the radical leftist pastor at Barack Obama’s church. What I ask is this… why is it that these sorts of statements are a major issue, but we don’t care about the fact that John McCain (among others) vies for the […]

Popularity: 21% [?]

Examining causality: why are conservatives happier than liberals?

I recently read (in The Economist) about a study showing that over the course of the last 30 years, conservatives have consistently claimed to be “very happy” more often than liberals. Many people try to use this data to say that conservatism directly causes happiness… but before arriving at a conclusion like that, we […]

Popularity: 27% [?]

How NOT to treat your enemies

Today, Israeli forces attacked a Hamas leader’s house and killed his 14-year old daughter, among other civilians. This is a few days after Hamas offered Israel a 6-month cease-fire, which Israel is planning on rejecting because they don’t want to talk to Hamas. What I’d like to know is this: what exactly is […]

Popularity: 26% [?]

“Support our troops” vs. “Support the war”

Many people in the US say that you should “support our troops” so that they don’t have to use a more controversial phrase like “support the war.” This leads to a sort of emotional connection between a person and the war in Iraq, and we tend to think something along the lines of “well, […]

Popularity: 30% [?]

Parsing a Country Song - “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” #2

This is a continuation of the “parsing a country song” series, which I started a couple of weeks ago; click here to see the first article. Here is the third stanza and the chorus:
Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack.
A mighty sucker punch came flying in from somewhere in the […]

Popularity: 22% [?]