Special Comment: Biased Questions Do Not A Survey Make.

[silveradept]

Ah, the Republican Party. You can be rather amusing at times, especially when pushing a very partisan agenda and trying to disguise it as a reasonable survey. Shall we take a swing at your latest "Obama Agenda Survey!" (lightning, lightning, thunder, minor organ chord, lightning, lightning) and see what sort of delightful biases you have in your questions before you try to get us to donate to you?

1. Do you agree with Barack Obama and the Democrats that taxes should be raised for the sake of "fairness," regardless of the negative impact it is likely to have on the economy?


Unless Chairman Steele is an economist, his ass-talking to straight-talking ratio is pretty high. First, I don't think anyone raises taxes because it's "fairness", unless they're talking about how people and corporations who make enough money to sit comfortably in higher tax brackets do their damndest to make themselves appear like they're common folk with low tax obligations and deserving of tax credits. I think, if we were talking about "fairness", we'd look first at ending tax credits and breaks for corporations and people that make profits several times in excess of a minimum wage, no-benefits salary. After that, if we still were short (and with the spending plan for this administration, we're short), we could talk about tax hikes in the name of raising more revenue to balance the budget. That's the kind of fairness Chairman Steele doesn't want.


2. Do you believe the federal government has gone too far in bailing out failing banks, insurance companies and the auto industry?


Two Republican-initiated things and one Demo...no wait...Three Republican-initiated bailouts that the Chairman is now trying to pin on the Democratic successors. They were considered necessary at the time, so score one Hypocrisy for the RNC. As for the question, it probably would have been better for everyone if all of those banks and insurance companies had collapsed, but the shocks and consequences of them doing so would have likely made for a big mess for regular people's assets and investments. Now that they're restablized, the question is how to extract their tendrils and return them to institutions that can fail without taking everything else down with them.


3. Do you support amensty for illegal immigrants?


What kind, Chairman? Blanket amnesty? Programmatic amnesty? An amnesty-type program where those here illegally pay their fines, take their courses, and then get put onto a list for potential citizenship, assuming they keep their noses clean and continue to obtain work visas and permits legimitately? Some of those are better ideas than others. Republicans should be insulted - the Chairman thinks that just the word amnesty will induce a visceral "OUT!" in you that you'll blindly donate money to them because they might oppose one form of it.


4. Should English be the official language of the United States?


Ah, finally a question that can get a straight response: No. For as much as nativists like the idea of being able to enforce "English-only" and feel like they've obtained some measure of dominion over immigrants (or the ability to deny them any sort of government services unless they speak the language), the heritage of the United States is too rich, and the idea of a democratic zone where everyone here legally can participate too powerful, to have it be arbitrarily boxed-in by a language barrier.


5. Are you in favor of granting retroactive Social Security eligibility to illegal immigrants who gain U.S. citizenship through an amnesty program?


If someone's been paying Social Security taxes, they should be retroactively eligible for all the years they've been working. If their employer has been withholding them or employing them illegally without paying the tax, that's the employer's problem. The workers should still be eligible for as long as they've been working at the point where they can pay the taxes in that they personally owe.

The question is another amnesty dog-whistle, though.


6. Do you believe that Barack Obama's nominees for federal courts should be immediately and unquestionably approved for their lifetime appointments by the U.S. Senate?


Chairman: Did you believe that Ronald Reagan's or either of the George Bushes' nominees for federal courts should be immediately and unquestioningly approved for their lifetimes appointments by the U.S. Senate? If you said "Yes", then you have no real standing to be indignant if others believe the same about Democratic nominees.

The smart and sane answer to any question about unquestioning approval to high courts is "Oh, hell no!" It does carry the caveat that objections raised must also be sane and reasonably intelligent. Saying that a lack of published work makes one unable to confirm where someone sits on the bench is sane, saying that "empathy" is a quality that justices should not have is not sane.


7. Do you believe that the best way to increase the quality and effectiveness of public education in the U.S. is to rapidly expand federal funding while eliminating performance standards and accountability?


And another loaded question. I'd like to see in what eveidence the Chairman bases his questions, because I'm pretty sure that President Obama has not spoken out in favor of reduction of accountability and performance by schools. If the Chairman bases his question on support for the elimination of No Child Left Behind, I trust the word of people actually educating that No Child Left Behind is a black hole and needed to be repealed five minutes before it was signed into law. If the Chairman is talking about the unionization of teachers and the supposed difficulty in firing poor-performing teachers, the Chairman is instructed to pay better attention to what factors actually influence school success, starting with the Infamous Brad commentary on it linked in May 2010.


8. Do you support the creation of a national health insurance plan that would be administered by bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.?


What, you mean Medicare? Already done, an as far as I recall, Chairman, most of your Republican colleagues are die-hard supporters of Medicare (not least because their constituencies would flay them alive, put them on the rack, and then re-enact the myth of Procrustes with them if they made a whisper of getting rid of it), even as they try to take all the government dollars of Medicare and force people to buy private insurance plans with it.


9. Do you believe that the quality and availability of health care will increase if the federal government dictates pricing to doctors and hospitals?


See Medicare above. Up to you to decide whether or not quality and availability increase or not when the government dictates prices, but one must also keep in mind that at the moment, most doctors compain about the red tape not being worth the reimbursement. A streamlined process for reimbursement and/or a single-payer system might make it very worthwhile.


10. Are you confident that new medicines and medical treatments will continue to be developed if the federal government controls prescription drug prices and sets profit margins for research and pharmaceutical companies?


Confident? Yes. A company that does not innovate is eaten for lunch by its competitors or by some start-up that comes out of left field with a new process of finding or manufacturing X, Y, or Zed. Even with profit margin or price controls, companies will find research tasks to complete that will earn them revenue. (And, if you want to be cynical, corporations are already good at hiding how much profit they make from the government. They will mysteriously always find a way of coming in under the cap, while their shareholders rejoice in increasing amounts of dividends.)


11. Are you in favor of creating a government-funded "Citizen Volunteer Corps" that would pay young people to do work now done by churches and charities, earning Corps Members the same pay and benefits given to military veterans?


Dog-whistle! Two of them, and at different pitches, no less! We're supposed to distrust the government reaching into our religious and charity work, because Government Is Inefficient (and worse, it might give charity to people that don't desrve it, like the poor, the brown, the black, the non-Christian, y'know, THEM), and we're supposed to be resentful at these potential citizen volunteers for getting the same pay and benefits as the people who go off to fight our wars and possibly die.

And don't we already have AmeriCorps or something like it that's a government-funded paid volunteer organization? It's pretty strange when you keep talking about these things like they're new, when they're already here and doing quite well.


12. Are you in favor of reinstituting the military draft, as Democrats in Congress have proposed?


Unlesss you can prove that someone actually is in favor of it, and ou have the legislation in THOMAS to prove it, you're talking out your sphincter again. Reinstitution of the draft is a suicide gesture for a politician.


13. Do you believe that the federal government should allow the unionization of Department of Homeland Security employees who serve in positions critical to the safety and security of our nation?


Almost a non-loaded question, but then they go and talk about safety and scurity, conjuring up the spectre of a terrorist rubbing his hands in glee and preparing to strike because "Their security people are on strike! They're defenseless!" Excepting, y'know, for the precedence in the country's history where there are unionized employees that are not allowed to strike by law because their jobs are vital to the smooth running of the country. Plus, wouldn't you want people in critical position to be paid appropriately and not burnt out? Unionization helps with that, believe it or not.


14. Do you support Democrats' drive to eliminate workers' right to a private ballot when considering unionization of their place of employment?


I'm assuming this is the EFCA option question. EFCA, which does not actually remove the right to a secret ballot, suggests that when most people say they want to put the question of unionization to a vote, it's because they want to have a union. If that's actually the case, then the secret ballot is a fairly unnecessary expense and would only give an employer time to threaten-without-threatening the employees about what sotr of consequences await them should they choose to organize, if not find cause to fire someone because they started the petitioning drive. However, if someone insists, the regular process is still followed.

It is a nicely phrased question, though, in trying to paint the Republicans, long the party of anti-unionism and union-busting, as defenders of the union and its secret ballot.

No more questions. It's been a rather bumpy ride from top to bottom, but also very instructive on how not to phrase your loaded, propaganda-style questions so that people won't notice they're responding to a tilted field. Either that, or it's instructive on what the RNC thinks the mindset of the average Republican is that they can pander in that most naked of ways to them and they'll be fired up and donate to the cause.

Comments

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

That survey instrument is nearly as toxic as the Republic-permitted debt instruments that precipitated this mess in the first place. Nice takedown there.

[silveradept]

Thank you. It's not the first time something like this has come out, either. And I expect to be seeing more of them for as long as the Republican Party thinks there's an actual Republican in my household.

[scribe-of-stars.livejournal.com]

While it would prove an immensely unpopular (and, given the nature of our current wars, unethical) course of action, reinstating the draft would make many, many more people politically conscious, which is something we need desperately.

[silveradept]

Conscious, yes, but in a way that would generate something nice and constructive, or in a way that would just reinforce all the things they think they already know?