Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015
Stephan: It is a very sad day when, as this latest Gallup Survey reports, "Almost half of Americans, 49%, say the federal government poses 'an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens...'" Obviously that means different things to different interest groups, but there is one commonality: Nearly half the population of a supposed democracy, which is to say America, doesn't trust the government. A democracy cannot properly function under those conditions.
I believe much of this can be traced to the blatant ideological propaganda, and disinformation purveyed by the Fox Network. Study after study, check the SR archive, shows that watching Fox makes one more ignorant than if one didn't watch television at all, and that Fox has the highest rate of disinformation of any network. More than anything Fox reminds me of state controlled television in the old Soviet Union.
And see this in the context of public schools showing lowering achievement levels in grade school, and decreased scores on SATs in highschool. We are watching and participating in the degradation of our country.
We can put the country on a compassionate and life-affirming path through voting. It will take several elections, but it can be done. We got this way mostly in the last 16 years.
Credit: The Gallup Organization
PRINCETON, N.J. — Almost half of Americans, 49%, say the federal government poses “an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens,” similar to what was found in previous surveys conducted over the last five years. When this question was first asked in 2003, less than a third of Americans held this attitude. (emphasis added)
The latest results are from Gallup’s Sept. 9-13 Governance poll. The lower percentage of Americans agreeing in 2003 that the federal government posed an immediate threat likely reflected the more positive attitudes about government evident after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The percentage gradually increased to 44% by 2006, and then reached the 46% to 49% range in four surveys conducted since 2010.
The remarkable finding about these attitudes is how much they reflect apparent antipathy toward the party controlling the White House, rather than being a purely fundamental or fixed philosophical attitude about government.
Across the four surveys conducted during […]
I think the polling methods are inaccurate. They should poll everyone not just a very small sampling of about less than 1% of the population. Why can’t they poll all citizens? It is possible to get a better sampling if a larger base is used. It is also sad that other country’s views of American politics are not included, too. Other people view America as the biggest threat to peace in the world because of the government’s use of military force against everything. Peace in the world is what we all should want, not militarization, especially in our own cities, as well as those 800 military bases in 160 or so foreign countries. Personally, I do not want to be part of an empire controlled by the “Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex” whose only goal is self perpetuation, at any cost. We should have listened to Eisenhower.
I think the biggest threat to American democracy is Americans.