Posted on 12/19/2004 10:01:23 AM PST by chiller
What Do 44% of Americans Believe?:Newspapers and websites around the world are reporting what purport to be the results of a Cornell University poll on attitudes of Americans towards Muslims in the United States. The newspapers and websites are reporting that 44% of Americans say that they want to curtail the civil liberties of Muslim Americans.
Here is the summary from the Associated Press:
Nearly half of all Americans surveyed said they think the US government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll. . . .
The survey indicated that 44 percent of those surveyed said they favored at least some restrictions on the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Forty-eight percent said liberties should not be restricted. These are extremely disturbing figures that will be accepted by hundreds of millions or even billions of people around the world.
But there is something important that the press reports overlook: the 44% of people polled did not actually say that they wanted to curtail the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Rather, 44% of people reported views that the Cornell University pollsters themselves categorize as being support for the curtailment of the civil liberties of Muslim Americans.
I found the report on the poll here. It turns out that the pollsters asked people to agree or disagree with four statements:
1) Muslim civic and volunteer organizations should be infiltrated by undercover law enforcement agents to keep watch on their activities and fundraising.
2) U.S. government agencies should profile citizens as potential threats based on being Muslim or having Middle Eastern heritage.
3) Mosques should be closely monitored and surveilled by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
4) All Muslim Americans should be required to register their whereabouts with the federal government. For each of these statements, between 20 and 30 percent of the subjects agreed; most disagreed. Overall, the study reports, 29% of the subjects agreed with 2 or more of these statements, and 15% agreed with one of them. (Some of these numbers don't quite add up, I think, but see page 6 of the report for the figures.)
I don't want to be nitpicky, but am I right in thinking that a certain amount of spin is involved in how this poll is being reported? The pollsters made a judgment call that if you agree with any one of these statements, you are in favor of curtailing the civil liberties of Muslim Americans. Thus, the pollsters are claiming, and advocacy groups such as CAIR are trumpeting, that 44% of Americans are in favor of curtailing the civil liberties of Muslims.
But is that really what the poll shows? Most of the questions are quite vague, and use lots of buzzwords. Take the statement: "Muslim civic and volunteer organizations should be infiltrated by undercover law enforcement agents to keep watch on their activities and fundraising." There have been many press reports of Muslim civil and volunteer organizations being used as fronts for terrorist financing schemes. If you believe these reports are probably true, or just may be true, you might reasonably want the FBI to investigate the organizations. You would then answer that you agree with the statement. Does that really mean you want to curtail the civil liberties of Muslims?
Of course, this is not to say that the poll results are heartening. In particular, it is very disturbing that 29% of Americans would agree that "All Muslim Americans should be required to register their whereabouts with the federal government." I can imagine less damning explanations for this figure, but it is on the whole quite troubling. Nonetheless, the press reports around the world suggesting that 44% of Americans want to curtail civil liberties of Muslim Americans would appear to be at least misleading.
You know, I hate headlines like that. These pollsters only interview a select amount of people, and then they extrapolate the results onto the population at large. It annoys me when they such-and-such percent of Americans believe so-and-so, when really, they mean that that percentage of the people they interviewed believed that.
Sorry, off my soapbox now. FWIW, I think curtailing Muslims' civil rights is a VERY bad idea. What about the next group that offends people? Christians are a majority in this country, but hey...we offend people, and weren't McVeigh and Nichols Christian?
You see where I'm going with that.
Muslims have their civil rights as does anyone else. But we would be stupid not to profile them, we would be stupid to allow their organisations to send money to terrorists in the Middle east, we would be crazy to forget the fact that so many Muslims have already been caught aiding the enemy.
Didnt we profile Italians, Japanese, the German Bunds.
Civil rights are one thing defense is another.
Our Constitution prohibits such action. Moslem citizens enjoy the same rights every other citizen enjoys. In the USA, we treat all citizens alike. Only if a citizen breaks the law are constitutional liberties restricted, and that only after due process.
We change this at our peril.
We are engaged in a bloody World War with muslims, we got to face up to the truth that radical muslims want to kill each and every one of us. No time for foolish self defeating political correctness on our part. We gotta do what needs to be done to defeat the enemy or else lose this conflict. President Bush are you listening? Take a lesson from the history of WWII and what was done for homeland security during that war..
Agreed. Agreed. And even though my brush is way too broad; Disagree. I'm not very 'down' with this religion of peace.
Duplicate post.
Thanks for the in-depth report.
Agreed. In the immortal words of someone: 'You got to do, what you got to do'!
How 'bout curtailing their breathing. Since they like flying so much, especially on 9/11, just load 'em up into a few dozen C5s and fly 'em into buildings destined for demolition. Solve two issues at once.
Christian civil liberties are being curtailed, almost daily, in this country. It is already happening.
Our Constitution does not prohibit any such curtailment for non-citizens who are in this county illegally or on travel visas or any citizens who are giving aid and comfort to an ememy of the US.
Section. 3.
Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
Clause 2: The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.
~ and ~
Ummmm, no; no it's not. I won't go into *what it is*, as I'd probably get in trouble... aw, what the heck:
Islam, The Cult of Murder.
Islam, The Cult of Terror.
Islam, The Cult of Boy-Buggering.
Islam, The Cult of Women-Chattelling.
Islam, The Cult of Horror.
Islam, The Cult of Rape.
Islam, The Cult of Ritual Killing.
Islam, The Cult of Beheading.
Islam, The Cult of Deviants.
Islam, The Cult of Hate.
Islam, The Cult of Lies.
Islam, The Cult of Female Mutilation.
Islam, The Cult of Death.
Islam, The Cult of Christian & Jew Killing.
Islam, The Cult of Infidel Murder.
Islam, The Cult of The Mentally-Ill.
Islam, the Cult of Evil.
Islam, the Cult of Poverty.
Islam, the Cult of Illiteracy.
Islam, the Religion of Peace, and THEY'LL KILL YOU TO PROVE IT!
I'm not either. That being said, I don't think taking away civil rights on the basis of religon is good. There are lots of folks who believe that Christianity is a dangerous religon as well, even though we fervently believe otherwise. There are no doubt Muslims who feel the same way. I don't want people's rights curtailed when they haven't done anything wrong.
I agree with sgtbono who said we would be stupid not to profile Muslims (Middle Eastern people) on the basis of some seriously silly PC baloney. If they've done nothing wrong, then they should have nothing to fear, neither profiling, or that their civil rights will be curtailed.
I don't think that's right either. Two wrongs DO NOT make a right. That's what I was raised to believe, anyway.
...to complete your thought; 'because of poliltical correctness toward Muslims."
I understand your argument, however, these callings for the curtailing of civil rights has been waged against Christians already, and NONE of us are supporting the murder or takeover by violence of this country at any time.
Muslims, however, have been calling for the overthrow of this country by means of Jihad for 20 years now, and Steve Emerson proved it with his investigations into the mosques.
I absolutely believe questions 1-3 are a yes, I am 50% on question 4, I dont think we need that yet.
But questions 1-3...absolutely yes.
I'll have to agree to disagree, then. :)
Until the questions used to establish those percentages are made available, all these numbers are suspect.
Bottom line? The results do not seem to be from people who are even tangentially aware of world events (the only ones entitled to an opinion).
The figures are low by about 50%.
"Muslim-Americans"? What kind of an abortion is that?
I reject it completely and permanently.
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