From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon Jun 07 2004 - 20:35:16 BST
Hi Adam, JohnnyM, and all,
This is a push over from the Splendid Chap thread.
Thanks, Adam, for your insider's look at polls, and your estimate of
their value as evidence of anything; it's one of the reasons I never
use polls to support my arguments, (at least I think never; if I have
somewhere I'm sure someone will tell me). Your post, and this one,
and JohnnyM's, will save me a lot of time in my reply to DavidR.
I would like to add two things. First, I believe polls COULD be
useful in gaining some insight into a population's general trend of
thought if the fear and tone-of-voice factors, and other factors you
mention were accounted for or eliminated; and if questions were
presented in a multiple choice fashion, covering a range of options,
such as:
In bringing democracy to your country, which of the following
courses of action do you support?
a) Superpower invasion and occupation, w/o UN/world support
b) Multi-lateral invasion, with UN and world support
c) Outside support for internal democratic movements, no direct
military intervention and occupation by foreign forces.
d) Write in your own suggestion...
The second point is that, even if we have useful polls, there's no
reason to believe that states would change their policies in response
to them. I mean, even if we got a positive response to the single
question: "Should US forces be replaced by UN Peacekeepers?", I
hardly think Rumsfeld would slap himself on the forehead and say
"Well, I guess that's that. Let's pullout."
Thanks to all,
msh
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Jun 07 2004 - 22:12:03 BST