Comments Posted By Toby
Displaying 1 To 3 Of 3 Comments
Before arguing about the methodology, wouldn't it be smart to ask if the findings are inherently plausible?
From Morgan at Flares: "How many car bombs were detonated in Iraq from June '05-June '06? How many people would they have to have killed, on average, for the total to have been 63,600 people? I would think that the number of car bombings would generally be accurately reported. If they killed (on average) 10 people each (which seems high based on the most recent car bombings reported by Iraq Body Count), that would mean 6,360 car bombings in 13 months, or 16 every day. Is there any data consistent with that? If not, there is reason to believe that the sample is biased."
But of course the left doesn't care about plausible reality. For them, reality is a construction of the powers that be. If we don't like this present reality, we can wave the magic wand of "resistance", and construct a new reality, just as the powerful hegemons who oppress us have constructed this reality.
Here's an example, the celebrated Harvard political "scientist" Robert Putnam: "His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor.
This is a contentious finding in the current climate of concern about the benefits of immigration. Professor Putnam told the Financial Times he had delayed publishing his research until he could develop proposals to compensate for the negative effects of diversity, saying it "would have been irresponsible to publish without that".
[...]
Prof Putnam stressed, however, that immigration materially benefited both the "importing" and "exporting" societies, and that trends "have been socially constructed, and can be socially reconstructed".In an oblique criticism of Jack Straw, leader of the House of Commons, who revealed last week he prefers Muslim women not to wear a full veil, Prof Putnam said: "What we shouldn't do is to say that they [immigrants] should be more like us. We should construct a new us."
Construct a new us? Seriously folks, a lot of these professorial people are nothing more than magicians with an adolescent whine against "anomic" reality.
And the media trust such people to take a survey of reality? Guess what the MSM must think about reality? - it's a construction of the government that it is their journalistic responsibility to deconstruct and reconstruct...
Comment Posted By Toby On 11.10.2006 @ 16:19
600 000 dead? No one can hide or ignore that number of bodies piling up. 200 000 by bombing? - where is the evidence? Where is the evidence beyond some small survey - and surveys can be molded to fit one's desired outcome as everyone knows; indeed they can be outright fraudulent - conducted by known Democrats and released a few weeks before an election? People still think that if you have Ph.D. after your name it is a mark of your truthfulness and not of membership in a victimary cult whose members have done so much to undermine their credibility with anyone who is paying attention to the universities. Did you see the scapegoating mob that went after Summers? And some group of expert survey takers has just ranked Harvard number one university in the world? Reality anyone?
People will give up their critical faculties, and they will give up a serious relationship to reality, if it fulfills their fantasy ideology which in turn mediates their existential angst that only grows with the lack of a working faith. And that is why it is only a matter of time before America really gets the kind of demon the left think George Bush is. Unless the real dragon is slain. Bring back the cross of St. George, bring back the Union Jack - America has gone bonkers!!
Comment Posted By Toby On 11.10.2006 @ 14:15
"But then being a liberal means you never have to say you’re wrong or you’re sorry. You just preach and point fingers and make outrageous claims you can’t back up."
-Damn straight Terrye. The endless search for the guarantee of one's righteousness defines the liberal. ("Original sin? Come on, you Jesus hypocrites...") Hating one's own country, hating oneself, no matter. How else to explain a study that makes claims, with no serious evidence?
Comment Posted By Toby On 11.10.2006 @ 13:17
