85% of online voters agree civil liberties are not in danger with military tribunals.
Tell you what, Michael, let's slow this thing down a moment. Let me, rather than try to hit you with my debate point, see if we can talk a bit seriously about this issue, that is the issue of using national polls as a basis for decision making.
Let me make a few points. Then I would be seriously interested in your response.
1. Pollsters know (and I know because my profession is an academic sociologist) that slight wording changes in questions can skew responses dramatically. To seriously assess what the general population believes about the danger to civil liberties posed by the prospects of military tribunals you would need not only carefully worded questions, but an ability on the part of you and I, as informed citizens, to look carefully at the ways those wording changes, changed the response distributions. So, first point, I don't really know how many support or oppose.
2. There is a serious problem in much of the material you've sent me. I've already written about it in previous responses. But it's the personal character of Coulter and Charon's charges. If Bush is president whatever he does is okay; if Clinton is president whatever he does is deeply wrong. If Ashcroft is AG, whatever he does is okay; if Reno is AG, whatever she does must be deeply wrong. Democratic critics in the Congress must be wrong simply because they are democrats.
I bring this point up because you will recall that during the Clinton impeachment crisis, the polls all showed that the general population did not wish to see him impeached nor did they wish to see him convicted by the Senate.
So, clearly, you would not wish to say that we do only what the polls say. Whoops, left out part of what I need to say. If I understand your postings correctly, Coulter and Charon hold views you admire. Thus, I infer their positions on the Clinton impeachment to you. Perhaps I'm wrong. But if you agree with them on that, would you now not agree that poll results are not perfect bases for decision making.
3. Now to substance. Do you think the Ashcroft rules seriously pose no threat to civil liberties? Or do you believe that they do but that threat is worth the protection they provide? If it's the first, then I suspect we really don't have much to talk about. We can go back to counter posting and making debating points. But if it's the second, then I think it might prove interesting for each of us to try to make as clear as possible what it would take to change our mind. How much threat (and what sort of threat) would it take for me to say we need his rules; and ditto for you--how little threat would it take for you to say his rules are too much.
Your turn,
John |
