Does the "average American" agree with Michael Moore?

[JellyBean]

Originally posted by Thriller
Again, with my limited experience, it seems to me that one of the pitfalls of the US system is that it has developed a distinct 2-party system. In Australia we also have 2 major political parties, one of who is always in power. However, we have a number of smaller parties, 3 of which are usually represented at least in the senate and sometimes in the lower house.

Australia's preferential voting system may contribute to this. First, a quick explanation:

In a US-style first-past-the-post voting system, each voter casts one vote for one candidate, and the candidate that gets the most votes wins. Simple.

In an Australian-style preferential voting system, each voter ranks the candidates according to which they'd prefer to see in office. If one of the candidates has a majority of the first-preference votes, they go straight in. Otherwise, the candidate with the least first-preference votes is chucked out, and the votes of those who voted for them are redistributed according to their second preferences. This is repeated until one candidate ends up with a clear majority.

Now, consider what this means to a third party trying to break into a two-party system. They campaign a bit, and find that quite a lot of people like their platform. Let's look at what happens in the US.

On voting day, someone goes to the ballot box and thinks. He'd like to vote for the third party, but he's afraid that if he does, his much-disliked major party A will beat major party B. So, he votes for major party B instead of the third party, despite the fact that he likes their policies less. Thousands of people follow the same logic, and the third party gets almost no votes.

In Australia, he votes for the third party as his first preference, and major party B as his second preference. The third party gets a whole bunch of first-preference votes, which shows up in the statistics later, and might even win a seat or two. And if they don't, our voter's vote goes to major party B instead, making sure that those evil As don't get into office.

Of course, there are downsides to preferential voting, not the least of which is voter confusion. But they don't seem to be crippling problems, even in Australia where compulsory voting presumably lowers the average commitment of the voters.

[Mr. Harley]

Ben, at least you read the words of what I said, but did you catch the context? Yes, I know about New York, though I am uncertain as to the extent with other states, and I know there are teaching programs that have attempted to institute this on the students in the medical field, and it's wrong. Period. As I stated, I vote against those extreme left wing people who stand for that, it is no different than what I accuse the anti-abortion movement of. That's why I mentioned it. I attempt consistancy.

Unfortunately, so do you. I mean that as a back-handed compliment, from you statement:

Ah, but there is a difference between forcing your morality on me, and forcing me to have an abortion. I could care less about whether you force your morality on me, as I will certainly reply in kind. I just find it curious why you are so shy to defend what you believe in, that convenience to a woman supercedes the right to life of an unborn child.

Ben, I'll ask you to do one thing. Look at what you are saying! Let's suppose in a century Islam has the majority of votes in the US, unlikely but bear with me. They decide to impose Sharia. I know you will resist, I will grant you have that level of dedication and faith. If you are so sure it couldn't happen, look at the countries where it has.

Or suppose the Catholic Church has a resurgence, and as in Ireland decides to meddle heavily in politics. In Ohio they were instrumental in defeating Living Wills in the 90's, that from the pulpit the last time I set foot in a Catholic Church. Thankfully the federal government got involved, and Ohio passed the legislation rather than give up it's Medicare money. If you don't disagree with that, find me somewhere else you disagree with Catholic canon, as a Mennonite I suspect you have some substantial disagreements.

Ben, it's not that I am arguing that the convenience of a women supercedes the right to life of the unborn child. I am arguing, if you would please see it, that morality has no place in the law, it why the United States has the seperation of Church and State, more or less, and that it is indeed a dangerous course you take.

I should know better, you are certain of the righteousness of your cause, and cannot conceive that, since God is on your side (supposition on my part, but fairly good inference from your posts), that you need to put in a place a process that protects EVERYONE form that attitude, "I could care less about whether you force your morality on me, as I will certainly reply in kind." I don't want you to need to reply in kind, I want you to be safe from what is happening in New York. I also want to be safe to practice birth control.

I asked about the birth control to make a point to other people who read this. Look at it, now birth control pills are "abortificants". It's not just Ben, I happen to have researched the issue long ago and had a strong suspicion about his stand, considering when he says life begins. Also being ex-Catholic helps a lot. So no birth control. What is the next thing that those moral zealots disagree with that they decides needs to go? Exactly my point.

On the other point, I had to go via supposition on the so-called "breast cancer" study, since you didn't have the courtesy to post the link (unless you did in a previous forum, in which case feel free to post it below, and I'll have something to do on my break tomorrow night). I'll save that for another time, my break is almost over. However, anyone who wants to can do a google search, and go to the European sites, the NIH or CDC had to pull the original rebuttals of these studies and redo their websites after the Bush administration took office. Politics trumping sound science. Sigh, making my point for me again. Oh, and there are tons of .org and .gov sites that trump those studies, Ben, I'll let the readers hunt those up for now.

[Kramerman]

Originally posted by Japher
Bi-particianship is a good thing. I don't hate Dems, I respect them, even though they're wrong... and they do the same for me

Micheal Moore is an idiot, not because he does and says what he does, but because he does and says what he does the he does... did that make sense? The moron makes a spectical of himself, points out problems with gov. and indust., and then smiles and gloats like a big fat cow. Bringing attention to an issue is one thing, exploiting the attention of pointing out an an issue is another... This is the same thing many of the conservative talk show dudes do, except that the talk show dudes attempt to hold educated conversations where as MM just yells at the issue.

so true

tho i admit i enjoyed bowling for columbine. I never knew Marilyn manson was so intellegent and articulate

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, I'll ask you to do one thing. Look at what you are saying! Let's suppose in a century Islam has the majority of votes in the US,

Or suppose the Catholic Church has a resurgence, and as in Ireland decides to meddle heavily in politics.

Irrelevant to the point at hand. I agree that we should have freedom of religion, and I fail to see how protecting the lives of unborn children has anything to do with religion. Surely one need not be religious to understand that killing a child is wrong. Just look at Dr. Barnard Nathanson.

Before you presume that my prolife beliefs come from my religion, I ask you to look at the arguments I make. None of them rely upon scripture or canon law. In fact, I was a prolifer well before I ever became a Christian.

I also want to be safe to practice birth control.

There are methods of birth control that do not act as abortifacients. Plenty of them.

It's not just Ben, I happen to have researched the issue long ago and had a strong suspicion about his stand, considering when he says life begins.

I say the same as he, that human life begins at conception. Forms of birth control that do not act as abortifacients are fine with me.

On the other point, I had to go via supposition on the so-called "breast cancer" study, since you didn't have the courtesy to post the link

Ask and ye shall receive.

http://jech.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/50/5/481

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ned


Sikander, what do you mean by this?

Simply that the U.S. is a multi-cultural state and that variances between the way the component cultures value education makes it much more difficult to devise an educational system that caters to them all equally and efficiently. Additionally, the variance in the value placed on education between subcultures ends up excacerbating (I get a thrill using that word) the economic variance between the component groups, which in turn excacerbates the variance of political power between component groups (on a per capita basis, and of course numbers and interest in politics can and do influence the final tally enormously, skewing somewhat the result).

Finally, the U.S. as a whole cannot compete with certain other nations with relatively homogeneous populations which place a high value on education (like Europeans generally) with a population that is made up of a few who value education more than Europeans do generally, many who value it equally, and some who value it less. Thus our people as a whole will score lower on tests that measure educational achievement than the people of, for instance, Denmark. This despite the fact that we spend more money on education per capita than anyone else.

Basically I'm agreeing more or less with the Wall Street Journal article that Shawn is referring to without naming names. It seems to fit my experience as well as other statistics I've seen over the years.

[Mr. Harley]

Sikander, thanks for the meta-analysis. It would be interesting to see a study done on that, and incidently to see how the popular culture in the USA, which I think I can safely state does not appear to value education, i.e. terms such as geek and nerd, has diluted that, as I mentioned about my anecdotal exposure to adolescents and young adults in the Jewish subculture. (damn, I'm sounding like one of my wife's papers, way tooooo much time spent proofreading pysch papers ).

Ben, thanks for the link. It already is linking to some of what I was familiar with. Can you get me the actual text please, that is an abstract and does not let me examine the tables and statistics - we can't have an honest debate without those numbers, and you may have a link with the full text or copy, or more know some anti-abortion sites that do. Already from that abstract it is not clear how they did their analysis, and if they compared the pregnant vs. aborted individuals. Please note I see no indications that they compared other risk factors, for example the risk of the pregnancy and childbirth vs. the risk of an abortion, which are very germane to the point, which is overall risk management.

I won't get back to you tomorrow night, but the night afterwards I will hopefully get back to you. However, before I do that, a question? If I provide a substantial amounts of studies that show the issue is still quite open to debate, and that there is still no definitive answer, will you at least start posting it as a "possible" or a "controversial" linkage between breast cancer and abortion? What's the point of showing you the fairly substantial disagreement if you aren't willing to grant the point. If at the end we disagree on the proof (and you've agreed) I propose Ned as a referee (if he agrees, I haven't asked), he's not clearly a conservative or liberal, and he has definitely been accused of conservative leanings. I have found Ned open to having a genuine discourse on the facts. How about it, and of course if the evidence proves in your favor I will start a thread on exactly that pont.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ben, thanks for the link. It already is linking to some of what I was familiar with. Can you get me the actual text please,

I'll see what I can do. I have all the information in front of me, but that comes from a book, and not from an online source.

I can retype some of his article, which includes the graphs, but I'm not sure you can look at the actual body online without some sort of subscription.

What you can do, if you have access to a library, is to go to the actual medical journal, and pull the article. That's probably the best way of going about.

Brind J. Chinchilli VM, Severs WB, Summy-Long, J. Induced abortion as an independent risk factor for breast cancer: a comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 1996 Oct;50(5):481-496.

Please note I see no indications that they compared other risk factors, for example the risk of the pregnancy and childbirth vs. the risk of an abortion, which are very germane to the point, which is overall risk management.

Not really his job to do the comparison. I will say that Brind found an average of 30% increase in breast cancer, and that he finds all but one of the American studies supporting a statistically significant increase in breast cancer.

As for childhood, it really depends on the pregnancy. Some are much more risky than others, but in general, pregnancy is very safe.

Already from that abstract it is not clear how they did their analysis, and if they compared the pregnant vs. aborted individuals.

No, unlike the Finnish study, they collected 33 other studies, and took a look at their raw data. It's rather complicated because some of the studies originally combined spontaneous abortion, with induced abortion and Brind had to sift out the differences from the raw data. Embarrasingly, many of his conclusions differ from the written conclusions of the other papers, which have tried very hard to minimalise the risk, and conceal their findings.

"possible" or a "controversial" linkage between breast cancer and abortion?

I've met Joel Brind, in November and attended his lecture. It would do him a grave disservice for me to take this approach.

[Guynemer]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb
HOWEVER, for quite some time the Democratic Party has been shoving anti-Morality down America's throat and pushing for making Christianity illegal in our country so its only fair for the pendulum to swing back to the right for awhile.

Ghengis, I'm still waiting for an explanation of your rather alarming accusation of the Dems trying to make Christianity illegal.

[Gibsie]

Damn, I went to look for that journal but it's only available from 1998 onwards (And even then it doesn't want me to actually read any part of the journal). Did either of you hear about another much more recent study that pretty much dismissed the link between abortion and breast cancer? I read of it on the TV text service a few days ago but can't find anything on it now...

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

Originally posted by Guynemer


Ghengis, I'm still waiting for an explanation of your rather alarming accusation of the Dems trying to make Christianity illegal.

I'm rather enjoying watching you run around in self denial trying to act like it doesn't exist. I'll have to work on it later, if someone requests back up I would rather take awhile to do a decent job than just throw some pathetic crap out there. Call it professional courtesy if you will.

But for now, lets do a simple connect the dots exercise.
(Disclaimer: do not assume I fully support the moral inforcement of these principals down the nations throat, I am simply making GENERAL observations here.)

Typical fundamental Christian principles:

1) Christ is our saviour, God is the creator, we should openly acknowledge our reverence for them.

There has been a dramatic increase in the pressure to purge God and Christian heritage from our schools, our government agencies (under the cloak of "separation of church and state") and from the official seals of cities. Basically it would appear a crusade to purge Christianity from our society as a whole.

These groups, including the ACLU are virtually all aligned with the Democratic party and impact and affect its national platforms. This then steers the Democratic party into positions of anti-Christianity even though many members do not necessarily support that.

2) Murder is a sin, Homosexuality is a sin, Divorce is a sin, etc.

Our society is also facing legal pressure to alter its legal stance on what Christians are allowed to do (no longer allowed to express their freedom of speech to discuss/state their freedom of religion in public events or school functions), to teach or debate their beliefs to non-members (unbelievers) while the other side is allowed to do so to stop them.

Once again, the forces behind this and the rewriting of the legal code at the Judicial level are Democratic in allegiance.

[chequita guevara]

Sikander, how can you be so smart and still be a conservative?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by GhengisFarb Michael Moore's entire career has been pandering to the Labor groups. He could write "Hi" on 650 pages, print it on toilet paper, and the Unions would go out and buy 400,00 copies to pump it on to the best seller list. 90% of the copies sold of his book will never be read by anyone, their sitting in some teamster leader's closet somewhere.

You got proof of that? You would really be surprised how popular Moore is among rust belt working people. He is so popular in Chicago it's amazing. Any rumor that he's gonna show up there guarantees a large crowd.

Ned, re corporate militaries. Generally, even large companies did not have their own militaries, but would sometimes rent private ones, like the infamous Pinkerton Dectective agency. Carnagie used the Pinkertons to break a strike at his Homstead Steel plant, killing several workers. At other times, companies wuold hire private goons, as in the Coalfield Wars in the 1920s. Generally, however, they would used the armed might of the state. The Ludlow Massacre in Colorado was carried out by the Colorado National Guard at the personal request of John Rockerfeller.

The history of labor in this country is bloody one, and more often than not, that violence was initiated on behalf of capital. This isn't to say labor was always or even largely blameless, but violence always hurt the workers most, and so they had an incentive to avoid it. One example was during the Toledo, GM sit-down strike. The National Guard was called in and an attack was expected, so the families of the strikers surrounded the plant. The commander wasn't about to order the execution of women and children (unlike in Ludlow). Later, when an imminent attack was expected, the workers announced a "Turkey shoot" for Thanksgiving, and the strikers marched through town with their guns on their way to go shoot turkeys. The NG got the point, which was that if they attacked the workers, it wouldn't be a massacre, but a battle. No attack happened.

[Mr. Harley]

Chegitz, thanks for the more detailed post. I know about some of the history, primarily the coal fields, but would have to look up who kept private guard forces (I believe Ford did), who hired Pinkerton, who hired "goons" (though remember that some of those goons had actual machine guns, which is why I compared them to paramilitaries).

You history of the US Government involvement in breaking strikes is more to the point, and I should not have glossed over it. I'd forgotten about the Ludlow massacre until you mentioned it, and had never heard of the Toledo strike. Problems of posting at work and from memory, thanks for expounding on my initial post.

What's a good, balanced book in your opinion on the history of the US labor movement that DOCUMENTS the efforts at surpression? (note, I will read academic press histories if they are accurate, and will take dull writing over poor documentation) It's nice debating here, some of the folks have some interesting sources coming from other focuses on history than my admittedly military one, I've always been a hardware, organization, logistics and operations junkie.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
What's a good, balanced book in your opinion on the history of the US labor movement that DOCUMENTS the efforts at surpression? (note, I will read academic press histories if they are accurate, and will take dull writing over poor documentation) It's nice debating here, some of the folks have some interesting sources coming from other focuses on history than my admittedly military one, I've always been a hardware, organization, logistics and operations junkie.

I'm a commie. I don't do balanced histories of labor. Seriously, I've never heard of one. I have some books at home, and I'll rattle off a list of good books later, if that's okay.

[Guynemer]

Ghengis--

Please. Once the government starts busting into churches on Sunday morning and arrests congregations of Christians, you can say that the Democrats are trying to outlaw Christianity.

Until then, curb the hyperbole. It is unbecoming.