The Rules

In the beginning there were the rules, and the rules were good.

WE learned the rules.

WE were taught to respect our elders.  WE were taught to respect authority.  WE said "Yes Sir" and "No Ma'am".  WE called our friends parents "Mr. Jones" and "Mrs. Smith".  WE said "Please" and "Thank You".  The Policeman was our friend and WE loved and respected our Teachers.

WE played sports and learned that even games had rules.  WE were coached by the parents of our friends and WE were taught about teamwork and sportsmanship.  WE learned that sometimes WE had to "take one for the team" and put our personal achievements behind that of the team.  WE learned that when WE lost, WE should be gracious and congratulate the winners and even when WE won WE should be humble and thank the losers for playing a good game.

WE learned rules from Scouting to "Do your best" and "Be Prepared".  WE were taught to be honest and loyal amongst other things, but always to do the right thing and be honorable and live up to what WE said WE would do.

WE learned rules from Church to "Do unto others" as WE wanted done to us.  WE learned to respect that there was a power greater than ourselves.

Even when WE played with other kids, WE set our rules before WE began.  WE made it clear where "home base" was and what was "out of bounds".  WE knew the difference between playing "two below" and tackle.  WE enforced the rules and followed them.

When WE got to be teens, WE tested the rules.  WE stretched them as far as WE could and yes, even broke a few.  WE got a little wild, but WE always knew the rules were there, and if necessary, WE paid the price for breaking them.

One thing that WE were taught, that WE always believed, even if sometimes WE said WE didn't:

If WE played by the rules and worked hard, WE would succeed.

So eventually WE settled down and played by the rules of the adult.  WE worked hard.  WE minded our own business.  WE took care of our families and expected others to do the same.  WE thought that everything was fine with the world.

But then, small groups of people began to challenge the rules.  They said that this rule wasn't "fair" because everyone couldn't play the game as well as others.  They said that this other rule was "discriminatory" because it kept less able people from playing the game.  They said that some other rule was "racist" because it kept a certain minority from succeeding in the game.  Others said that some rule was "hateful" because failure was cruel and indiscriminate.

WE didn't want to be unfair or bigots or racists or hateful, so WE allowed the people to be exempted from the rules that WE had played by all of our lives.

One morning, WE woke up and realized that WE were the only people playing by the rules anymore.  WE were working hard and contributing our taxes to a government that not only allowed people to avoid the rules, but actually encouraged them to do so.  WE found ourselves being responsible for other peoples mistakes.

WE began to wonder why.

The final straw came, after years of making exceptions for all of the people who for one reason or another, couldn't or wouldn't pay by the rules, WE began to question whether WE could continue to pay more and more of the money that WE earned to take care of a larger and larger class of dependent people.  WE expressed concern that, as a nation, WE could no long continue to borrow money to pay for all of the things that those people wanted

WE were called ignorant, stupid, close-minded, backward. provincial, uninformed, hateful, bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, islamophobic, and worst of all: racist.  Not just by the people who WE had been so understanding and tolerant with over the years, but by the political leaders that WE elected to office.

Now, WE have finally had enough.

In November, WE THE PEOPLE will have our say, and WE will begin the process of putting the rules back in place.

More about Out-liars

A little extra information regarding my post yesterday about the "weighting" of poll results by major media outlets.  The Newsweek Magazine poll released last week showing President Obama's approval rating to be 47 percent with 45 percent disapproving had some interesting "weighting" used.

Even more extreme than the CBS poll I discussed yesterday, Newsweek weighted the Democrat sample by 4 points while reducing the Republican sample by 3 points creating a false dichotomy of a 7 point spread between self-identified Republicans and Democrats.  As with the CBS News poll from yesterday, this is the exact spread from the 2008 election.  Is is really realistic to use those numbers now?

I suppose the unanswered question is WHY they would use obviously incorrect weighting to produce a poll that cannot help but be dismissed as an outlier?

Are they cheer leading, hoping to arouse the Democrat base?

Outliers or Out-and-out liars?

Many years ago at the University of Texas at Arlington, I took a senior level course in Public Opinion research.  It was one of the most fascinating classes that I took while in college, because I learned that public opinion research is subject to many unintended errors that can produce a result that falls outside of expectations or is not in line with other similar polls.  In the trade, these are called outliers.

I also learned that the opinion data may be "weighted" so as better to reflect the population as a whole.  For example, if we are trying to survey a group of people about their opinions on colored contact lenses, and we want to sample an equitable distribution of different eye colors, we would first have to determine what the percentages of each common eye color is in the population.  For the sake of argument, let us say that 15 percent of the population has blue eyes, 15 percent green and 60 percent brown.  Unfortunately, when you finished your survey, you found that you had more than 15 percent of your respondents with blue eyes and fewer than 60 percent with brown eyes.  You then apply a process called "weighting" in which the opinions of the people with brown eyes are given more value or importance than those of the blue eyed people in order to conform with the statistical distribution.  Unfortunately, if your assumptions or facts about the actual population distribution of the various eye colors is wrong, then your weighting is wrong, and your final analysis is likely to produce an outlier.

On July 21st of this year, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, President Obama's job approval numbers went "underwater".  That is to say that those who disapprove of his job performance outnumber those who approve of it. This has held steady to today, some days reaching as much as a five to six point spread.  Repeated polls from Fox News, the AP, Reuters, CNN and USA Today have indicated that the job disapproval has surpassed the job approval ratings, at least to some extent.

Then, in the last two weeks have come three separate polls from Time Magazine, Newsweek Magazine and CBS Television that suddenly show President Obama's job approval rating to be back "above water" as much as four percentage points.  I found this particularly interesting since the daily polls run by Gallup and Rasmussen Reports still show the president to be "underwater" by as much as six percentage points.

So, I decided to look into what we poll wonks call "the internals".  Those things like the breakdown of the sample including assumptions made about the distribution of the population between Republicans, Democrats and Independents.  It was interesting what I found.

The CBS poll in particular "weighted" the results to over sample persons self identified as Democrats by 1.1 percent and Independents by two percentage points and under sampling self identified Republicans by 2.7 percent.  This assumes that the political landscape of the United States has not changed since the Presidential Election in 2008.

This totally flies in the face of current polling that shows the political divide less than 3 percent.

Although I have been unable to access the "internals" of the Time or Newsweek polls, I have no doubt that their results were "weighted" in the same manner.

Did they make an honest mistake in "weighting" the numbers with outdated population distributions?

Did they deliberately "weight" the numbers to get the result they wanted?

Neither Time Magazine and Newsweek Magazine are know to be friends to Republicans any more than CBS Television.  In fact, quite the opposite.

I can't believe that these are the same people who moan and groan about how Americans don't trust the mainstream media any more.  Do we need a better reason why?