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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (38004)	10/27/2009 5:32:36 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

The words are not undefined, even if they the definitions are broad, even imprecise. A single, simple, precise, definition, (combined with evidence that the people polled where using that definition), would make the results more powerful, and also more specific. The vague definitions we have make the results less powerful and specific, but even though the terms are vague they are not undefined. Conservative doesn't really mean directly contradictory things (even if people with very different opinions can be called conservative). Liberal does mean contradictory things, but I'm pretty sure that most people are unaware of the meaning of the word that means something close to libertarian, and that most of those who know the history of the word, would also know how its used in the US today and would understand that its being used more as "progressive", or "socialist-lite", than "classically liberal". The vagueness is enough that I would say just toss out the results if the margin was small, but the margin between conservative and liberal was 20% or two to one. That's big enough to make the poll meaningful even if the concepts don't have simple highly precise definitions. Esp. since, even though the words can mean many things, most people would have a degree of understanding about what they mean in American politics. There are many active political issues, both current (the current health care insurance debate), and chronic (taxes, abortion, 2nd amendment rights) where there are clearly understood "liberal" and "conservative" positions. Those positions may be a range not a specific point, still there are clearly identified sides on these and many other issues.