I'll put my reply to this one since it's short. I'm replying to post 105 which is quite long and was disputing the legitimacy and value of the poll of American Muslims done for CSP. The first site you link is an opinion piece from the Washington Post. First they don't have much credibility with me. Note the last sentence you quoted of them; " In 2011, they learned that U.S. Muslims almost never consider suicide bombings to be justified." Now look at the chart you posted. 13% said that violence is justified either often, sometimes or rarely. OK I think we can safely discount the 'rarely' category as not being dangerous. I can envision rare cases in which it would be justified. That still leaves 8% of surveyed Muslims claiming violence is either often or sometimes justified. If you recall the Pew poll results I linked that's higher than the Muslims in Pakistan who answered the same question. (To be fair they were lower than other countries.) I'm sorry, but 8% is not 'almost never'! BTW look at the poll linked by them to defend their assertion. There is a question about how much support is there for extremism. IN 2011 21% of American Muslims answered a great deal or fair amount. Pew's research doesn't support the assertion they're claiming. So I moved to the other site. The first thing I noticed was they highlighted 'Islamophobia'. That tipped their bias. That's a term used to silence debate and not deal with the matter, but I was interested in what the objections were. They didn't like the way the questions were worded. I looked at the questions and they are fine so I rejected that criticism. Most questions were very similar to the type of questions in the Pew poll. There is a link to the question used in the CSP article. The other issue was the opt in process. Considering the most important poll being an election is really an opt in poll, I find it hard to be too critical of that. Besides I think people who opt in have stronger opinions and would have influence over those who don't have as strong of opinions. I think it might be a good idea to know what the attitudes are of people who have stronger opinions in this case. My conclusion; the CSP poll didn't mesh with their agenda or rose colored glass view of the world so instead of dealing with the reality of the poll even if a bit over estimated, they attacked the poll. BTW I was interested in the CSP reply to the criticism. http://drrichswier.com/2015/07/17/i...ecurity-policy-2015-poll-on-american-muslims/ The conclusion is that their poll is in line with a bunch of others. Even if their poll overestimated the threat by a magnitude, we're still talking some 60,000 American Muslims who are either terrorist sympathizers or supporters. That's not comforting. ------------------------------ I asked about your constitutional objections to Trump's idea. 5th Amendment deals with rights of the accused here in the country and really doesn't apply to people who are not here yet. Once they are here it applies to them no differently than to us. 1st Amendment freedom of religion and Congress making no law respecting an establishment of religion. Again the freedom of religion clause applies once they get here, not before because they are not here yet. The Establishment Clause is often miss used. The prohibition is Congress cannot declare a state church. We cannot under the Constitution be an Islamic State or a Jewish State for example. The religious test in Article 6 prohibits a religious test for public office or a Public Trust, not for entry into the country. Given that Congress does have authority to legislate on immigration and the Elastic Clause in Article 1, Section 8, our Founders recognized that a nation has the right to exclude people from coming into the country for whatever reason they deem appropriate. The issue of alien residents is a valid concern and has to be dealt with properly. You will note that I haven't endorsed Trump's plan. I haven't rejected the concept either.
You know what is truly interesting? Trump's level of success even though he seems to be sabotaging his own campaign. Maybe people are so sick of politicians, they'd take the devil who is honest, rather than the devil in disguise.
My top complaint with this newest Trump controversy is that, once again, the reporting is severely anemic. The body politic cannot properly function without plenty of oxygen circulating to cells and organs near and far. The vast majority of voters read 1-2 sentences, and then outrage and condemnation erupt. One should watch the unedited vid online, ponder the matter, research, watch a few times more, and then share her/his opinion with the world. Of course most media lied a lot. Of course most politicians played their theatrical scenes with aplomb. That is how they score big, fat wads of cash. Yes, Trump is and will be guilty of the same. But we, as citizens, should be informed and NOT act like a virtual lynch mob with such depressing frequency. Have a bright weekend guys. Les saludo.
I was gonna type up a detailed report about the lying and twisting and omitting that has been at the core of the reaction to DJT's Muslim immigration comments, but the following vid does a good enough job: (Also, linking this saves me precious time). [Don't get mad at a few silly barbs Molyneux throws out early, as he makes a lot of great points overall].
December 11, 2015 A new Rasmussen Poll finds 70 percent of Republican voters saying they believe Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for President. The high number is significant, because Trump has been roundly condemned over the last week by most of the media and many national Republican leaders. The White House spokesman Josh Earnest even said this week that Trump’s remarks about Muslim immigration “disqualified” him from the presidency. These criticisms are obviously not altering voters’ perception of the political landscape. Almost a third of Republicans voters, 31 percent, say it is “very likely” that Trump will be the nominee. Even among all voters, 55 percent believe Trump will be the Republican nominee and a quarter, 25 percent say it is “very likely” he will win the GOP nomination. A plurality of all voters, regardless of party, also support Trump’s security proposal by a 46 percent to 40 percent, says Rasmussen. Trump’s candidacy seems to be gaining new support as national security and terrorism move to the top of voters’ concerns. Since the terrorist attacks in Paris, the number of voters, both Republican and unaffiliated, who believe Trump will win the Republican nomination has been steadily climbing. Before the recent terrorist attacks, only a slim majority thought Trump would win the primary. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/11/poll-70-republicans-think-trump-will-nominee/ (Highlighting my addition).
December 12, 2015 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz has surged ahead to become the latest front-runner in the campaign for the Iowa caucuses, dislodging Ben Carson and opening an impressive lead over a stalled Donald Trump, a Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll shows. The firebrand junior senator from Texas is backed by 31 percent of those likely to attend the Republican caucuses that start the presidential nomination season on Feb. 1. Trump is a distant second at 21 percent, up slightly from 19 percent in October, but below his peak of 23 percent in August. Cruz's 21-percentage-point jump since October is the largest surge between Iowa Polls recorded in at least the last five presidential caucus campaigns. When first and second choices are combined, he has the support of 51 percent of likely caucus-goers. The senator’s great leap forward comes largely at the expense of Carson, as Iowa’s evangelicals appear to have picked the candidate they want to get behind. The retired neurosurgeon, now barely in third-place, is supported by 13 percent, down from the first-place showing he posted in October, when he was at 28 percent. http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...n-iowa-poll-trump-support-stays-flat-ii3p88rp
December 12, 2015 A new food cart in Portland, Oregon, El Diablito, staged its grand opening celebration by featuring dancers and a Donald Trump piñata. Little kids and adults lined up to take turns battering the effigy, which they say they were destroying to “promote peace” and “fight hate.” One little kid screams out “I want to kill him!” when he takes his turn beating the Trump piñata. The food cart owner claimed this wasn’t about politics. Of course, if it would have been an Obama piñata the media would have called this a “racist” act but since it’s a Republican it’s all good. http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...le-battering-trump-pinata-in-portland-oregon/
Upon further reflection of how Trump's idea would impact resident aliens, I'm not sure that it would since they have already immigrated. They're here legally. If I was crafting the legislation, I would make it clear so the courts couldn't or hopefully wouldn't #$% it up. I would make it clear that resident aliens who are Muslims would be treated no differently than Muslims who are US citizens.
Notice the character of the candidates who are doing well. Trump is an outsider hated by the establishment. Cruz is a senator hated by the establishment. Carson though fading is an outsider. Rubio is a senator who is not very well liked by the establishment. None of the establishment candidates are doing well. There's little support for Bush, Kasich and others any one of whom I would take in a heart beat over Clinton. Somebody better take heed!
It's frustrating to me that political discourse these days amounts largely to calling the other side biased. CSP is also considered biased but I tried to present information that was objective about their poll itself. I disagree with your assessment of Pew's research especially when combined with the other data in their report such as almost no support for Al-Qaeda. Opt-in is a big deal in a poll of this nature that is supposed to be representative. Yes, elections have the same problem in possibly not being representative if large amounts of people don't vote - which is why it's important that voting rights are expanded and voting is made easier for people instead of engaging in ways to make voting more difficult for individuals. It skews the results as you yourself noted by saying "have stronger opinions." If you want to get 'strong opinions' that's fine, btu then don't at the same time say "X % of <group>" because there's it's unlikely you got a representative sample. For example, in the Pox forums I don't consider the people who post representative of the entire player population and it would be suspect for anyone to claim "most players think X" simply based on what people say in the forums. Note that the second link also discusses various ways in which CSP has been known to be biased or complicit in misinformation in the past, including conservative groups whose "agenda" should align with CSP: "In recent years, many groups have raised questions about the objectivity and intentions of Frank Gaffney. His tendency to posit conspiracies about Barack Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood is well documented, and has earned him sharp critique across the political spectrum. The Center for American Progress labels him a “misinformation expert,” while the Conservative Political Action Committee banned him from their 2011 conference for peddling false accusations about GOP connections to Muslim extremists. It was his organization, CSP, that was behind the unfounded rumor that Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff, Huma Abedin, was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and once floated the false idea that General David Petraeus had “submitted” to shariah." If you feel WAPO and Georgetown doesn't have much credibility due to bias, why does this information not make you at least be skeptical about CSP? I suppose it's possible that everyone is lying and only CSP knows the truth.
As I said before, the fundamental difference here is that you do not believe that non-Americas are protected by the Constitution. And that's fine. However, I believe the reality is more ambiguous than that. In general, whether a particular clause applies to non-Citizens seems to have been decided on a case-by-case basis by the courts. And the lack of a definition of US Citizenship was used in Dredd Scott to deny African Americans the right to vote. Eventually, the 14th Amendment fixed that by providing a definition for citizenship. I didn't mention the 14th, but it does also state in there the following: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." (You can argue that the federal government isn't a state and therefore this doesn't apply to them, thus foreigners are not protected from the federal government not giving them due process, but that seems like a stretch to me.) Additionally, justifications for things like Slavery, Gitmo and other atrocities also can be made by claiming that the Constitution does not protect foreigners. And, of course, such justifications was used in the aforementioned Chinese Exclusion Act which I have already laid out as a historical precedent for what Trump proposes.
I looked over their "evidence" and there are several red flags: Most of the links are to blogs and articles, and not to primary sources This is a problem because it suggests they are using facevalue or second hand information, or are attempting to obfuscate what the primary sources actually say Many of sources exhibit the same types of methodology problems that their own poll has Using bad data to support other bad data seems problematic The only sources they seem to consider are those that support their own baseline Ignoring, for example, Pew's research which shows different numbers While we disagree on Pew's conclusions about the data, it has to be admitted that CSP's numbers are significantly divergent from those that Pew obtained. I wanted to look more into their notes, but unfortunately their site has been returning a 502 Bad Gateway error for some time so it'll have to wait.
As I noted with the history of the Chinese Exclusion Act, this seemed to be intended there as well, at least initially, but the scope expanded rapidly over the next 20 years. History has shown that government is not good with restraint in regards to these kinds of powers (also see Patriot Act and various other war powers types of things). For ease, here's the link again: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hres683/text
Sokolov, the objections you're listing about Frank Gaffney above deal with his conspiratorial accusations, not poll results. For his accusations I would want to see a corroborating source. I'm referring to the poll that was done by a different group for CSP. The question in my mind was were the Pew Poll and the one for CSP showing incompatible results. I know Pew is a reliable and reputable firm. I am unfamiliar with the other group. Let's look at the key results. The questions are different, but related. One is general while the other is specific. As I pointed out before in the Pew poll 21% of American Muslims say there is a great deal or fair amount of extremism. The poll for CSP showed 19% in favor of violence to impose Sharia Law which I would say is an extreme position. I don't see those results as being patently incompatible making the poll for CSP unreliable. It may be over-estimated, but the trend is there particularly when again in the Pew poll 8% say violence is justified often or sometimes. It would be interesting to see what Pew would get if they ask the same question about imposing Sharia Law. My conclusion based on these and other polls I've seen is that while most American Muslims are peaceful and non-violent, there is too many that are either terrorist supporters or are sympathetic to them. We ignore that reality at our peril. We need to focus our efforts on how do we reduce that support for terrorists and quit hurling terms like islamophobia every time any body brings up the topic.
