Confirmed: At least 1 in 5 Americans is an absolute idiot.
 

Pew Poll: 18 Percent of Americans Think President Obama Is a Muslim - ABC News

Is anyone really surprised? These morons are your peers in your workplace, your boss, your neighbors, your doctor, mailman, mechanic, bartender and minister. They are also voters, which means one fifth of votes cast in this country are cast by lunatics. If that doesn't get you off your ass and into the polls, to try and stem the idiocy, I don't know what will.

edit:dammit, wrong forum. Mods, move this if you would be so kind.

I don't think anybody is surprised at what people think at this point, it is pretty sad though and somewhat horrifying that these people are allowed to vote. In a way its almost fascinating how easy it was to convince so many people of a lie, but then again when so many people are that consumed by hatred for the man they will eat up anything that paints him in a negative light.

...one also has to wonder why being a Muslim would be a bad thing in the first place...

...goddamn this is depressing.

Fugly,

I believe the Muslim faith states that any child born to a Muslim father is Muslim. So, generally, Muslims in America probably do consider him Muslim. Could that account for some small percentage of the numbers?

Here's what I don't understand. This all plays out like being a Muslim is a bad thing and people incorrectly believing he is a Muslim is a negative. Sure, they are incorrect, but if he were a Muslim, I would think no differently of him.

Obama's mother was born into a Christian family, but identified as a secularist. His father was born into a Muslim and Christian family and identified as an atheist before meeting his mother.

Oh, but his middle name is Hussein!

Yeah, the oddest thing about the Muslim hangup is that I get the impression that most view it as a strike against him. Could you imagine an open Muslim as the president?

it's times like this when I feel like giving up on us as a country. Seriously, what are we fighting for when we can't even get one fifth of thee population to accept the fact that Obama isn't a Muslim? I'm not even sure if the country deserves to be saved

I hear ya kutulu, don't get me wrong I really do love living in the US but there are times I just feel like I need to say fuck it and find some other country to live in, these battles just aren't worth it. I do feel like sometimes we are dangerously close to building a christian theocracy or something worse...how many terrorist attacks or bad presidents are we away from just abandoning everything we stand for based on nothing more then ignorance and fear. Like BG wrote above, imagine what would happen if we elected a real Muslim president...the rest of the story writes itself.

Stories like this really are depressing, we're better then this.

actually, that's where you're wrong.

Islamic belief is that all children are born 'muslim'. That is, children are born with the innate nature of being born under the 'oneness of god' and that children then follow the religion of their parents.

in saying that, i dont know if it would be a bad thing if a progressive muslim was president. But it really doesnt bother me whether obama is muslim or not. it wouldnt make me vote for him if he was.

what i am afraid of is people voting for him or against him for purely that reason and not for his policies... a bit like the phenomenon of the black community voting for obama because he was black.

I think if the headline writers and sensationalism seekers didn't constantly keep raising this as an issue, it likely wouldn't even occur to as much as 20% of the population that this is even an issue. People know about it because it keeps getting hurled at them. Some are gullible, some are hardcore idiots, but I bet the hardcore is pretty small.

---------- Post added at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:37 PM ----------

And besides, I don't think Obama is much of a Christian, either. Just from observation, he strikes me as more of an agnostic. He does the Christian thing pretty well, though, because the community where he made his mark is a religious one and he needed to fit in.

What the hell is wrong with being a Muslim? They share about 95% of their mythology with Christianity and about 90% with Judaism. Most Muslims are perfectly nice people that happen to share a religious belief. There are nice people in every religion, generally overwhelmingly, and there are some assholes. If President Obama was an asshole, like, say, Bush, Bush, or Reagan (and probably a little Clinton), that would be something I'd like to know. Otherwise, why does it matter?

There's not a thing wrong with being Muslim. But in the eyes of the 1 in 5 mentioned in the poll, "Muslim" is synonymous with "terrorist."

That's the part that bothers me- Muslim=terrorist thinking. I think if you polled the average Fox News viewer whether or not Obama was trying to help the terrorist destroy America you'd get well over 80% saying he is and should be stopped.

I read recently that, from 1980 to 2005, only 6% of terrorists were Muslim. Just 6%. That means 94% of terrorists are not Muslim, which considering 1.6-1.8 billion of the world's population out of 7 billion is Muslim, means Muslims are disproportionately less likely to be terrorists.

Now Will, if you continue bringing logic to the table when discussing America's irrational fear of foreigners and non-Christian religions, we're going to have to find some other group to malign.

Like Scots.

Or the Canadians... never trusted them, never.

Source

Yes we can, Michael. :expressionless:

LOL

And, simultaneously, :sad:

We are surrounded by idiots.

In my small mid-western town, I'm surrounded by people who shun the naturally...tan.

The fear that begets loathing is palpable. It shimmers in the heat fueled for profit.

It stinks.

Hey Wil... 0% of Muslims who have a kid in High School, won the lottery, got struck by lightning, and have played professional football have been terrorists. Set the bar high enough you can skew the facts however you want.

As for the 20% believing Obama is a Muslim... 25% thought Bush was involved in 9/11. We still have an obligation to put up with the fact crazies will be crazy.

...or that polls can be worded to to say whatever the pollster wants....

Please describe in what way I've skewed facts. I'm always open to constructive criticism.

Edit: Ring's right, I misread the second part. Mea culpa.

Will, that is the most anemic strawman I have seen you concoct.

You know better.

I imagine it went something like this--

"Do you believe President Obama is a Muslim?"

Hard to take liberties with that.

I just saw a 'where's the birth certificate' bumper sticker so I'm not surprised at all...scared, but not surprised. :paranoid:

hmmmmm...example

How many independents did they poll the first time? the second time?

Polls can be skewed any way the pollster wants.

I don't understand the discrepancy here. 18% of those polled believe the president is a Muslim. Is that or is that not the result of the poll?

If you want to take issue with the pool of poll participants, that's fine; there is a margin of error in every poll. But the results speak for themselves, in the context of the poll.

And frankly, what's your point? That these poll results are skewed? Anyone who has paid any attention to the media in the last few months should not find these results to be unfathomable.

Small sample size is not to be taken as a verified experimental statistic for what the whole of Americans believe.

Fact: 1 in 8 Americans are not actually American citizens. It's up to you whether you believe this or not. I just made it up. But is it so farfetched?
It's a fact, nonetheless: totally unsubstantiated, yet not totally disproven. It's a skewed fact.

Plus, you're title is wrong: where in the article does it state that 60+ million Americans (1 in 5) believe that Obama, in is fact, a Muslim?
Are they referring to his ethnicity, or his religion? And I believe it is just a widespread inference you are touting that Muslim ~ terrorist, as that was no where stated explicitly in the poll's / article / ABCNews' findings.

Last bit: who cares? Polls suck. Polls troll.

Big Link: In short there were MUCH worse numbers on batshit crazy people on the Left not too long ago.

September 11 attacks opinion polls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If every American was asked, it wouldn't be a poll anymore, it would be a census. That's why they are "polls".

And polls are not an accurate gauge of larger public opinion? Since when? As I pointed out, you can take issue with the pool of poll participants, as to whether they are an accurate representation of the demographic, but the results are the results. Small group studies as they apply to the greater whole have been used as a basis for scientific research forever. Are you telling me they aren't a reflection of the whole? Because you've just turned the scientific method on its head, if that's the case.

And Seaver: The has nothing, nada, zero, zilch, to do with the topic at hand. But thanks for the legwork on a discussion we're not having.

they're referring to his religion.

islam is not judaism where religion and ethnicity is sometimes taken as being synonymous with each other.

Yes, I'm aware of this, but that particular question of mine was more of an existentially-rhetorical one, as I'm not sure if many other Americans can appropriately distinguish the two, or even care to... too much stock is placed on birthrites and birth nationality, as well as the ethnic ties that bind, that it sometimes obscures and prematurely labels an individual to the masses before he/she gives off one word of introductions (this is in the world of politics, mind you, where I've witnessed this moreso than anywhere else).

Don't assume people are stupid. It makes you look bad. 4 out of 5 people can keep up with you, big guy.

Based on this line of questioning, I'll say that is not the result of said poll.

What poll? Unless we are out there conducting these polls ourselves, we are meant to question its method and scrutinize them in every way possible to seek out the bias. If there is none, and it can be proven as such, only then should it be regarded as more likely that this is not a hoax.

Furthermore, I don't know why you're bringing scientifics into this matter, even if it is as lowly and broad a mention as the practice of utilizing the scientific method, because as it has been shown, there is no science to gathering opinions marked as either choice a) b) or c) (and on occasion, d)..).

Stating that 18% of (insert group here) people think that Obama is Muslim proves what? The USA is dumber than (insert rival nation here)? Do you happen to know the first sample size of the poll's pool of participants, and then the next's? It could be as low as 5 people (an extreme example) for all we know, which is basically next to nothing.

I still don't see the issue here. There's a reason we have a separation among the faculties of Church and State in government proceedings, and the moment we were exposed to the words of Bush Jr. telling the media his reasoning for invading Iraq was because God's word came to him in a dream, is when some righteous action should have been taken to prevent this unnecessary decade-long war.

- - -
Post-EDIT:
I'm not trying to provoke any sort of pissing match here, I'm just asking questions as to why you believe this poll may be relevant, and to what aim it serves to know the results. That's all.

I'm not sure why it is, but I intensly like generalizations, despite the "fact" that I use them as a crutch as much as the next guy (news outlet).

WTF?

citations please. :)

(simply: who were those 'people' polled, and from where did they stem?)

Jesus fucking Christ.

You win. Polls are shit. They have no bearing on actual public opinion, and are voodoo statistics cooked up by witch doctors and shamans. Thanks for setting us all straight.

Actually, it has everything to do with the discussion. This entire discussion revolves around a poll that shows a percentage of the public believe something about a political figure which has no basis in fact yet the belief remains.

In your attempts to proclaim how terrible this is, I was putting forth facts from VERY recent history which throws a wrench into your thesis. Next round take the time to understand a post before firing off simply because it opposes your line of thinking.

1st--tell me what you think my "thesis" is (wrong, no doubt)
2nd--tell me how you've "thrown a wrench" in my (your) thesis

I'm pretty sure that the source has been cited multiple times.

If the poll was so flawed, perhaps you could point out exactly what its flaws were instead of attempting to cast doubt via vague criticisms that might not even apply to the poll in question.

Straight from the horse's mouth:
Growing Number of Americans Say Obama is a Muslim: ABOUT THE SURVEY - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

See also: Methodology - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

Although it's difficult to wrap your mind around a "small" sample as a way of gauging the opinions of millions, there is a scientific methodology behind polling—ruling out the "polls" found on news websites for users to click on for instant results.

Of course it's not going to be dead-on with accuracy, but there is something to be said when you find results of a sizable proportion when you apply generally accepted principles of research statistics.

there have been polls the results of which were to me incomprehensible---the percentages that approved of the iraq debacle at the height of the co-ordinated manufacture of consent for example. i remember thinking: perhaps ap was calling people in rural texas...

but it's obvious: a poll is a kind of snapshot. nothing more. there seems to have been a slippage over the past decade or so as the united states has slid more and more into a soft authoritarian system of self-domination that polls indicate something like a functioning democratic system, as if the results of phonebank people calling up a sample of 1200 which has bee statistically determined to represent everybody is like having actual power. whaddya think, whaddya think: you like skippy? crunchy or smooth? aint america grand?

i connect these numbers to the past few weeks of flirtation with racism on the part of the right over this fictional "ground zero mosque" which in turn connects to the wider flirtation with racism, sometimes surrounded with plausible deniability, that has been the tea-party, which have in common this loopy construction of an "us" which is "real amuricans" and a "them" which is Other....if "real amuricans" are white and protestant, then...it's not that hard to figure out.

i'm not sure that this results speaks to idiocy. i can speak to a whole lot of things beyond that, not many of them great as indicators of political well-being.

http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/645.pdf

For the incredulous

Jetee's unfounded threadjacking aside, speaking to people around me, I can see this poll being fairy accurate. I know my last boss (and his wife) thought Obama was muslim and most of the bar flys at my favorite dive thought so too. There was that big hoopla about this picture showing how he was muslim. People are dumb and will believe anything that comes out of the horse's mouth. Especially down here in the southern part of the US.

This article on the horrible Christian Science Monitor had a quote I liked that shows how I feel.

Linky

I don't care if this man was a necromancer, if he helps pull this economy out of the shitter, I'll help him hold down the goats.

why doesn't Obama come forward to refudiate these claims of Muslamic Heritage and put this to rest !?!?

My sarcasm detector is in need of calibration; I'll just assume this is sarcastic.

yet more dumb-ass polls

Sorry for my snarky post. It's just that you are known for pointing
out strawmen, not using them. It threw me.

yes I was just joking. the key word was refudiate, sorry.

Oh, snap, I read that so quickly I automatically read "repudiate." Well played, my good man.

I think results like this really come from some combination of laziness and gullibility as much as anything else. People hear that Obama is a Muslim, or that people accusing him of being one on the news somewhere and just assume it must be true...in other words the old, why would anybody go through all the trouble if it wasn't true is at work. To some of these people it probably doesn't matter a lick that he is, they just never bothered to educate themselves and find out the truth. Once an urban legend enters the public conscience its almost impossible to completely kill it off, you throw in opportunists attempting to discredit him by keeping the rumors alive and its going to continue to grow no matter how ridiculous.

Muslamic was also a clue. :thumbsup:

the disturbing thing here is (to me) all the 'news' media has the power to present the facts about this, and the birth certificate 'issue' but they choose to let the people remain confused and further, fan their (ignorant) worries over it. it's disgraceful.

I'm not making very many things vague, though perhaps they can be confusing in the manner and order in which I've addressed them.

I'll just state I agree with Perrin's (As.Pr. UNC) stance on this:
--Quote taken directly from Fugly's initial article.


And I meant to ask this beforehand, but it slipped my mind somewhere in-between, but I think it pertains more now than before.

I'll ask now: Fugly (and others), why are you getting so bent out of shape when others take the time to question and/or disagree with your initial take on this poll's validity and/or reason for existing (really, what purpose does this poll serve the greater)?

Sure, I can easily assume that the poll has absolutely no bias, and most of what it is telling us, is in fact, truth, but what good does it serve us to know this? Does it really my make my neighbors or your neighbors (every 1 in 5 of them) stupider than either me or you? Because they don't care to inherently know or learn or seek out what religion the current President adheres to? And this somehow hurts our nation's integrity because we now have more people confused at this point in time, than there was six months ago, in regards to the ultimate question of "Obama as a Muslim, or not"?

It just seems entirely nonsensical to see this as another passing irrelevant statistic, and moreso to actually engage in some high-and-mighty faux discussion on the merits to which it supposedly enlightens us to our own folly.

well, the branch of the pew trust that sponsored/produced this poll monitors attitudes toward religion(s) in the states, so they were just doing what they do. each of their polls comes accompanies with press releases and some expectation that they'll get picked up and repeated in the larger hall of mirrors that is the press. but that's a variable. independent one. so it turns out in this case that alot of what makes the poll interesting is its timing.

and if you actually look at the report (fugly links to it above, in no. 41), you see that the business about obama's putative muslimness are but one aspect of it. it's a kind of interesting snapshot of the contradictory attitudes of a sample of the population of the united states that the pew researchers happened to contact.

you can find an overview of the project on page 25 of the report.
26 to the end reproduces the results.

personally, i'm agnostic about the value of polls in general, and found this one vaguely interesting, but for the reasons i've already outlined.

at the same time, though, there's critique and there's critique: if you have a problem with the poll itself, it probably makes sense to read it and point to particular areas that you see as being a problem. i imagine there are such---i haven't been motivated enough in this case to go through the methodology section--but it's there, in the report.

and that kind of critique is fine. it can be interesting, even, when everyone has access to the same information (which we do)..

but the vague "o what good do these poll thingies do anyway?" particularly when looped through "they just make us all judgmental" without any reference to the poll itself is a little annoying. because it's not based on anything. it's not a whole lot different from conservative complaints about their favorite collective phantasm, the "liberal press" which is something they refer to routinely without ever locating because, really, it's a phantasm. you can't really debate with the folk who accept the existence of the phantasm "liberal press" because there's nothing common to point to and no agreement about interpretation, etc etc etc.

...

Fuck it, I'm done. Sit on your ass and eat bon-bons while the boat goes down if you want to.

You know what's more discouraging than the ignorance? The apathy concerning the ignorance.

Hey... just think: If you build the bomb, you can hire an intellectual to push the button.

At the end of the day what can you really do? People are going to believe what they hear and hear what they want to believe. How do we really change public perception with that attitude? Responsible nationwide journalism would help, but that isn't sexy enough to sell ad space, people want controversy. Besides even when things like this are corrected time and time again in the national media people still cling to them like its gospel.

It is what it is...depressing and sad but...well I don't know, with so much misinformation, hatred and bigotry out there this I'm surprised the numbers aren't higher to be honest.

Perhaps this was the entire intention to this, but it wasn't readily or clearly stated by any discerning voice, neither in the article (CNN also picked up on it over the weekend) or here, really.

How to combat the perceived problem presented by the poll's findings (widespread ignorance / apathy). Sure, it's toward something I, personally, find meaning very little, which has to do with the president's religious beliefs, though apparently, other people think this weighs very heavily on the character and decisions this man makes.

There's education and righting-the-wrongs that comes from the rumor mill, but again, what can we, as individuals ourselves, do?

Teach (as opposed to slightings / ridicule) ; our best first option.

I was hoping that Weekly World News would somehow worm its slimy way into this thread but I've been disappointed thus far.

For (at least) the past 9 years, it's been "okay" to hate Muslims in this country, while it has not been "okay" to hate black people.

There are certain things people will/won't be truthful about in any poll/interview scenario. If you asked these same people "Do you dislike Obama because he's black", you would probably get a lower number, while the truth is that in most cases, Muslim is a code word for Black (it's just okay to not like Muslims).

If you read either of the Freakonomics books (or several others), they lay out pretty clearly that the reason that polls are shit is that more often than not, those answering the questions will either lie to not look bad, or lie to give an answer that they think the pollster wants.

This thread is better named "at least 4 in 5 Americans are not absolute idiots".

I wanna party with you. You're all "the glass is half full" and I like that.

I'm making friends! I'm making friends!

I figured that Tilted Politics has been pretty negative lately, so why not try to spice it up with a little number switch up?

This thread is why it's more or less pointless for anyone who thinks differently than you open minded people to post here. You've found a lovely little poll to support a number of desperate misconceptions about who Americans are and who conservatives are – racist, homophobic, backwoods, anti-muslim, anti-whatever liberals concern themselves with in the moment.

Funny thing is, this poll has nothing to do with any of it, it just leaves an incredible gap for you all with prejudiced tendencies to draw these ridiculous conclusions about people who disagree with you. Anecdotally, I don't think I've ever heard the “n” word used negatively unless it's a college liberal with his guard down.

There was nothing in this poll that suggested that those who thought Obama was Muslim had any sort of problem with it. Most American's aren't as up Obama's ass as those under the tutelage of your average American college professor. They've grown up and out of that. They aren't as concerned or involved about Obama's personal life. So when a poll like this takes place most would only have to go on what Obama has said and done - which is go out of his way to support this mosque at ground
zero. Perfect opportunity for those who haven't grown up and out of "that" to go crazy. Thread case in point.

Not so unbelievably, I recall a near communal heart attack (admittedly the fake kind that liberals have perfected) with Bush praying daily was completely glanced over in this article. Not one of you here had a problem with Obama praying to God every day. Maybe he argues with God, but I have to assume he does it for guidance, which is what you all freaked over with bush. Here, let me remind you:

"The president is, obviously, he's Christian. He prays every day," White House spokesman Bill Burton said today aboard Air Force One.

"He communicates with his religious adviser every single day," Burton said. "There's a group of pastors that he takes counsel from on a regular basis. His faith is very important to him, but it's not something that's a topic of conversation every single day."

You've got sensitive liberals here bent about a bumper sticker they saw asking "where is the birth certificate". Liberals love bumper stickers, I'm sure you saw bush hanging by a noose on 10 times as many cars. The selective offensiveness is insane. Questioning a birth certificate makes you want to give up on America? Really?

The problem with the mosque is obvious, not that hard to figure out. But it's used as another opportunity for the real “crazies” to paint people what they are not. An entire population of people. When all you're schooling and circle jerks can't justify these lame attempts to pigeonhole rationale people with real concerns, you back down and say “I like to question things, I ask questions, that's what I do. I'm thoughtful.”

Pathetic.

I had the perfect last post damn you.... I was joining those who gave up and was leaving... and you make me comeback and post one last time with a bravo, kudos and excellently said.

This is the perfect post to retire on, giving praise to someone who truly gets it.

Sad thing of it is Matthew, they will argue none of them are doing that and you are wrong and only they are enlightened.... those who disagree they find labels for whether true or not and chase them away from sites like this with their self righteous bullshit.

Just look at the title of this thread.... lol.... it's ok to call nearly 20% of Americans idiots here but a Cleveland sports fan rants on LeBoob... and the post is called racist.... that and the fact the hypocrasy and sheer one sidedness of the politics and people here is not worth coming for.

Good luck Matt.

I found this interesting graph on Reddit just a second ago and I wanted to share it because it makes an interesting comparison:
http://mylifeisnotveryinteresting.po...om/controversy

It could be a coincidence, of course, but I've been having a difficult time trying to figure out why a mosque that has been planned for quite some time (about a year, actually) was suddenly an issue with Fox News and conservative talk radio.

I agree, pan. It was a great post for the overt lack of self awareness with which it was conceived, composed and posted. Clearly, it is those dirty liberals, bursting with malicious, broad-stroked condemnation of the simple, Muslim loving conservative, who are the problem here. The best way to call them out was a broad-stroked condemnation based on irrelevant hypotheticals and anecdotal remembrances of bumper stickers.

The liberal just doesn't understand ignorant people like Matthew does.

"helpful" threadjack: You (meaning, anyone) can't hotlink to an image that has "amazonaws.com" anywhere in its originating url address because it is just a temporary placemarker to state when the file has been accessed. I (and probably others as well) see no linked image above, Will, and might suggest reddit favorite image-hoster "imgur.com" instead, to host small, disposable, (I think "hotlinkable", too) images to your fancy.

I suspect that it's suddenly an issue because it provides a convenient rallying point for a certain class of voter. I think that it will ultimately backfire. Xenophobia isn't viable as a long term, mainstream political platform (I hope).

(I think the ratio of dumbasses on TFP is closer to 2 in 5.)

Good thing you and I are the two in this thread, huh?

I reckon we'll have to call it a draw, Snarky's Machine.

Coincidence or not, it's still funny.

You know, maybe there's nothing really "wrong" with the world per se. Maybe it's just small groups of "crazies" getting too much attention.

There. Everything feels much more relaxed if we can just paint as "crazy" everyone with an opinion or belief that runs counter to the majority---or to reason.

Those crazies. :rolleyes: :shakehead:

...

Anyone who doubts the flavor of the "Obama as Muslim" misconception might benefit from viewing the YouTube video of "ground zero mosque" protesters accosting some random passerby because he "looked Muslim", or the multiple mosque protestations that are sprouting up around the nation. The anti-muslim sentiment in this country is already toxic and it's getting worse.

You mean like this?

TEMECULA: Mosque protests louder in the tea party era

Or maybe this?

Tennessee Lt. Gov.: Islam may be a 'cult' - Tim Alberta - POLITICO.com

That video further demonstrates the need for the centre to be built and to be functioning in the area. And assuming that these protesters came from outside the area, it demonstrates the need for similar centres elsewhere.


Oh, and hot Islamophobes are still hot.

My big concern is this: what happens when a moderate young Muslim man, say college age kid, who's been attending the Cordoba House...has his car torched? Or gets beaten up? Is he going to listen to the moderates anymore? Or is he going to listen to the extremists who tell him "Of course they beat you up! Of course they burned your car! They're Infidels and Jews, kid, that's what Infidels and Jews -do-! They hate and kill Muslims! See? Look what they did to -you-! Didn't anybody tell you we're at WAR with these people?"

And the next thing you know, another Neo-Islamic Totalitarian Radical is borne. And guess what? This one -is- Americanized, this one speaks with no accent, this one has an intense personal grievance and a very good cover for whatever nastiness Usama et al decide he's best for.

And these anti-Mosque demonstrators will have nobody to blame but themselves and their more violent hangers-on for whatever that formerly moderate kid goes and does.

Islamofascists don't typically recruit moderate young Muslim men from Islamic "YMCAs" or mosques or other Islamic cultural centres; they recruit them on the Internet and from high schools.

This is a real problem and a valid point but I'd like to counter with the fact that The Base (Core) has had minimal (if any, I haven't heard of it) with direct domestic recruitment. You may have been speaking in general, but taken literally? It just doesn't happen. According to the classes I've taken and those that I know in the field, it doesn't occur because the group with the brains in the formal organization is fragmented and they've all been too busy running for their lives to be a cohesive unit capable of the organization required to train or even provide funding for an internal recruitment staffed operation.

I realize I'm speaking about this as if it is fact. In reality it's probably just DoS's and the Agency's best guess. Who knows?

"Propaganda with instruction" domestic terrorism events will continue (perhaps escalate) but I think it's inaccurate to suggest that our boy Usama and his crew will be at the reigns. It's a little like saying that Richard Bachman told all those kids to shoot up their schools by writing a fiction novel that appealed to them because they could relate to the main character. The Base (Core) uses their their propaganda tools, including their dumpy white spokesman, YouTube videos, and really bad "Jihad Rap" songs, to indirectly inspire anti-Western activities. This isn't like that Lackawanna boys situation where you have a The Base dude on the ground in the US urging kids to buy a ticket to Pakistan and go play army in the desert for Allah.

The terrorist attacks of the future will be perpetrated by young male US citizens that were recruited and trained via YouTube and Web forums.

/threadjack

...

why oh why did I click that link?

About the video (I didn't watch it): The idea of the child soldier is one of the most reprehensible in my mind. And the recruiting of impressionable minds in America will be doused by such cultural centers as this one in Lower Manhattan. That's the fucking irony of this whole thing (which now extends well beyond Lower Manhattan). The people are resisting the very thing that will combat what they're more concerned about: the same very forces behind 9/11. I just wish they'd open their eyes.

Anyway, I suppose I should reserve these thoughts for the thread on this topic.

Yes and no. The anti-Mosque demonstrators may be a contributing factor but the kid made his own choice and it was the wrong one. Ultimate blame still lies with the person committing an act.

As for that video, I didn't watch it but reading about things like that makes me die a little inside. When I was 12 I was playing with GI Joes and being a kid. I wonder if that was the first time he killed someone, how many people has he killed or witnessed being killed?

How many americans are indoctrinating their child soldiers?

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...ngabortion.jpg

http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/h...rotestkids.jpg

What type of informed choice, will guide their hand?

i will refrain from posting something about ms palin...

I look past people who use their children as a vehicle to further their own cause, whatever that may be. They hide behind little kids and give them smart ass signs to show how "innocent" their struggle is.

I think it's just the political extremists using their kids like that. Well, that's obvious, we all know that. So I don't think many Americans are "indoctrinating their child soldiers." I don't like the term "child soldier" being used to describe unknowing kids holding up signs. They aren't fighting for anything, they just sit around with their parents holding up a piece of cardboard.

I think whatever happened in the video (I didn't watch it) is an isolated incident, not a sign of greater happenings or negative trends.

Ring: I figure there is a slight difference between the ignorant spawn of a middle class moron simply holding a sign (that they can't read or, if they can, understand) at a protest and a 14 year old boy in Africa or the Middle East AK47ing his neighbors because of their ethnicity or religion. Just a smidgen.

Maybe you should.

I mean, the topic debated in this thread can't get any more retarded, can it? That and she's real popular with those Birther types, dontchaknow?

Anyone catch The Post's follow-up? I am shocked, SHOCKED, to learn that retarded beliefs aren't limited only to vegans and Republicans.

"Much attention has been paid in recent days to a poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life showing that 18 percent of Americans incorrectly believe that President Obama is a Muslim. But the results of another Pew poll on religion released last December were far more shocking. It turns out that 36 percent of Democrats claim to have communed with the dead, and that 19 percent believe in casting a curse on someone using the "evil eye." Think about that: According Pew, more Democrats believe in the "evil eye" than Americans believe Obama is a Muslim."

washingtonpost.com

um...you can actually read the poll results above. it says alot of things. it's actually kind of an interesting project that goes well beyond the nitwit usage being made of it in this thread and elsewhere. but hey, why bother to actually read it when you can bite summaries by other people who have and repeat them?

seriously.

http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/645.pdf

This thread is incomplete with a picture of said evil eye. Is it the Dark Tower evil eye perchance or is more like the eye described in The Lord of the Rings?

Mathew
heh, seems to me you generalise liberals pretty freely yourself. if you think I'm gonna apologise for having a college education, sorry buddy, you seem to have quite a chip on yer shoulder about educated folk...maybe you should try getting one ?
I wasn't 'bent' on the sticker, I found it somewhat amusing and not having much to contribute here I thought I'd mention it, it seemed related.
yeah I've seen some Bush/Cheney bumper stickers. I don't have a problem depicting Bush/Cheney hanging from a tree seems to me they kicked off an illegal war that so far as brought death to over 1,000,000 people ? or don't you give 2 shits about that ?

Pan
c'mon Pan it's a discussion, not a pissing contest of who can 'out snark' who.
say something worth saying or troll somewhere else.

This is of little consequence with regard to this topic. And it should be noted that communing with the dead isn't a far reach from communing with a deity. The U.S. is a relatively religious nation, so it's not a surprise that many believe in an afterlife and spirits. Furthermore, beliefs surrounding the "evil eye" appear even in the Old Testament. Republicans are not spared from these either, where 21% and 12% share the same beliefs, respectively.

Regardless, Islam is a real thing, whereas spirits and evil eyes aren't so much. Even if you account for degrees of error, it appears that many Americans believe that the president is something he's not---and this is something they can find out fairly easily using the Internet or a library. Of course, those who think he's a Muslim may think he's hiding it, which is another thing all together. This brings up the concept of the paranoid Christian.

Or, it brings up the concept of the paranoid (insert religion here). I don't know why you keep singling out Christianity. There's no Christian conspiracy against the president or anyone else for that matter.

Well, if you swing a dead cat in America, most of whom you'll hit will be Christian. Also, the vocal opposition to Islam I've heard recently has been coming from Christian groups and figures, so it's been on my mind.

But I'm sure there are also Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists, and agnostics, etc., who are paranoid about Obama being in office and hiding his Islamic faith. I stand corrected.

An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but for the record I'm not 'sure' there are also Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and agnostics paranoid about President Obama being Muslim. There could be, of course, but I'm certainly not aware of any.

Well, I suppose I should have said "there could very well be."

Speaking of polls ...

The Onion News.

Hahah... they've been hitting it out of the park recently.

Nice, Xerxys! :D