patrick.net

Dan8267 says

Who, or what, created these machines?

Nature

And who created nature?

God.

P N Dr Lo R says

Dan8267 says

Who, or what, created these machines?

Nature

And who created nature?

God.

And who created God?
Man.

marcus says

1) Just like everyone else, they are susceptible to big money advertising

and the effect of big money in general in politics.

Big money and advertising has been with us for more than a century at least.

(Dan Smoot and HL Hunt are very interesting; most of their nonsense is repeated today - But it is more popular than ever before, esp. in the Tea Party contingent, which is most certainly not a Youth Movement by Composition. Needs a thread of it's own)

If anything, this argument would go better for X and Y, because they've lived in the era that epitomizes Soft Money, the end of the Fairness Doctrine, Think Tanks, Fox News, etc. Yet the voting record does not support this.

marcus says

2) Just like every other age group, there are plenty of fundamental Christianists and others who are either highly gullible or below average intelligence or education level or all three.

NOT like every other age group. The rise of Christian Right is a Boomer Story. Sure, there were snake handlers before, but the membership boomed with boomers in the late 60s to early 80s. The Jesus People/Jesus Freaks are the source of voting power (and donation money) for the Christian Right.

This deserves it's own thread sometime.

marcus says

3) Just like every other age group, they are especially vulnerable to propaganda about taxes and government spending and war and race, and "family values" and guns, just like so many people in other groupings are manipulated in politics.

This answer to this is in #1.

marcus says

But bottom line: if it's a total of 53% or something like that that ended up on the conservative (fuck you I've got mine) side of the spectrum, there is no generalization that particularly makes sense or is interesting about this age group. Were talking about a handful of people out of 100 being a reason to generalize about the 100**, when there are all kinds of factors influencing the people, 30% or more of whom are idiots.

marcus says

(**and really we're talking about a handful of people out of 200 and generalizing about the 200 based on that, since half didn't vote. Sure that says something about the group too, but it's not different than any other group.)

It's absolute nonsense to dismiss exit polls on those grounds. As somebody who is a teacher - a math teacher - you should certainly understand that generally speaking, the larger the sample size less the margin of error. You'll see that the source features an average sample number much higher than 100-200 people.

Since personal characteristics including race, gender, age, income, etc. aren't collected from the voter while they are in the booth, this is the only reliable proxy we have. I'll repeat that they are primary tool used to adjudicate the fairness of elections, and I believe that if professionally run exit polls off by more than a small degree, it's a sure sign of voting fraud.

National exit polls consist of presidential and/or congressional vote questions in addition to questions on gubernatorial races, important issues affecting the vote decision, presidential approval and a number of current national issues. With the exception of the 1972 CBS News Exit Poll, all include basic demographic variables such as gender, race, education, income, and age, among others. Sample sizes for these studies usually range from 8,000 to 20,000 voters, with the largest samples coming from the 1986 and 1988 ABC News Exit Polls which consist of over 50,000 interviews.

Please email Data Services at DataServices-RoperCenter@uconn.edu for information concerning fees, other studies, or to answer any questions you may have.

By all means write the University if you have questions or doubts about their methodology.

More later.

marcus says

The biggest reasons I can think of:

I agree, but I should be more clear with what I'm trying to pose:

Why has the politics shifted so that Progressive positions are untenable? Why have the democrats believed they have to shift so far to the right?

I think, to convince people, propaganda has to appeal to concepts already held by target of the propaganda, and demonstrate how those held beliefs mean the target should embrace the POV of the propagandist.

thunderlips11 says

It's absolute nonsense to dismiss exit polls on those grounds. As somebody who is a teacher - a math teacher - you should certainly understand that generally speaking, the larger the sample size less the margin of error. You'll see that the source features an average sample number much higher than 100-200 people.

Why craft a response to some imaginary straw man bs ?

Did you miss it WAY earlier when I pretty much conceded the numbers ?

How can you so totally misinterpret what I said. You're nonsense about me being a teacher etc., I guess I struck a nerve about you being a history major ?

Let me try again.

Accepting that in the Reagan election, the boomers between 16 and 21 didn't vote, and the ones between 21 and 30 slightly favored carter, and the ones between 31 and 34 favored Reagan.

Also TOTALLY accepting that in later elections anywhere from 50 to 54 percent of boomers voted for republicans (given all the propaganda, and self interest reasons I mentioned)

This still means that you are talking about making generalizations about
each 100 boomer voters (and the other 100 that didnt vote), based on what a few people did. If 4 of those 100 voters voted the other way, you would not be making this generalization.

So, yes, I basically just repeated what I said before. IT's doubtful that you are going to get it. I am not challenging the exit polls, although I did at one point (a little - 1988 an extremely low turn out election, but evidently the bible belt came out in full force.

But I'm not talking about that

Those 4 people out of 100 (really out of 200) are only statistically significant relative to an election, the outcome of which is determined by majority of the people that actually vote.

IT's not an indictment of the entire group, and it's not information upon which an interesting generalization cane be made, nor does it make sense to talk about blaming boomers collectively.

It's disappointing, but not surprising at all, given all the reasons I've already spent too much time spelling out, probably the biggest being that at least 25% are really stupid. That and all the conniving republicans have been doing the last 50 years.

25% or more of the boomers are idiots, but you aren't going to generalize about boomers being idiots (which makes sense) because it's the same for all the other groups.

But oh no, 3 percent more are republicans than democrats, even with the Christian right etc, they get it up to just a few percent more than democrats in some big elections, and you you say boomers as a group need to own up to that.

You're fucking retarded.

thunderlips11 says

Why has the politics shifted so that Progressive positions are untenable? Why have the democrats believed they have to shift so far to the right?

I've repeated myself enough. I answered this already. Politics is a battle for the minds of the voters, especially the minds of the less intelligent folks. But a lot of this appeals to normal family types, hard working folks trying to live decently in times of slowly decreasing standard of living.

marcus says

1) The middle became more and more important politically (it always is), as claims that the left were soft on defense and that they were all about "tax and spend."

2)The lies about welfare (welfare queens), but also the justified perception that welfare was not totally good in the way that it impacts communities, and individuals. Welfare was and is necessary, but there were some negatives that come with it.

3) The "starve the beast" strategy of running up deficits (Reagan lowering taxes while increasing spending (esp military)) based on the machiavellian plan that this would preempt liberals from being able to bring home the bacon so to speak, and that the resulting high debt could be used to argue against "tax and spend" liberals.

4) The southern strategy, which was put into motion before the boomers were nearly as big a part of the electorate. But we see the aftermath today: Guns, gays and god.

5) The amazing but believed lie, that if lowering taxes, when taxes are above a certain level can cause tax revenues to increase, because of how stimulative it is to the economy, that therefore even when taxes are relatively low that this effect holds.

A lot of people are selfish enough about their taxes that they don't even want to think this through they just take it on faith. Combine this with #2 and #3 above and you have a powerful issue.

marcus says

Roger Ailles, Rupert Murdoch, Newt Gingrich, and all the founding members of the Heritage Foundation were born before the baby boom, as were countless other lapdogs of the people who pull the strings of the American right wing. The Koch brother were born in 1935 and 1940.

Bad people in all generations
Mistake to blame generations not individuals
Like blaming all americans for bush or obama
Or all people of a certain racial group for crime

marcus says

IT's not an indictment of the entire group, and it's not information upon which an interesting generalization cane be made, nor does it make sense to talk about blaming boomers collectively.

Not this strawman again. The debate is whether boomers share responsibility for where we are.

marcus says

This still means that you are talking about making generalizations about

each 100 boomer voters (and the other 100 that didnt vote), based on what a few people did. If 4 of those 100 voters voted the other way, you would not be making this generalization.

The thing is, there is no evidence offered. You're assuming that the non-voters would have voted against Reagan or Bush the First. If the margin of victory among boomers was much narrower, I'd be more inclined to believe that was a possibility.

Assuming your assumptions are correct, then it doesn't absolve responsibility for the outcome, because not voting changed the outcome.

marcus says

But oh no, 3 percent more are republicans than democrats, even with the Christian right etc, they get it up to just a few percent more than democrats in some big elections, and you you say boomers as a group need to own up to that.

A few big elections? There was a damned big election recently with an extremely high turnout. Bush-Gore 2000.

This actually doesn't help your case, because you've been arguing there is a large non-voting contingent of boomers that leans left. High turnout elections have traditionally favored the democrats in the past century.

What was the result of that election?