Polling The 47% Statement

NBC/WSJ did some polling and one of the questions was how did Mitt's 47% comment affect your view of him?

More positive ......................................................... 23

More negative ....................................................... 45 

Not much difference .............................................. 24 

Don’t know enough ............................................... 8

Despite the media's obsession with this tape and its effects this thing shows what I've been dismissing. Yeah, a 45 more negative view isn't helpful, but look at the rest of it, if you add the rest together you get 53% that aren't pushed Obama's direction. I'm more than happy to go with the idea that the statement froze some leaners in Obama's camp, but that is far from agreeing with the idea that the statement is persuading people into voting for him that weren't already there. I'd be more inclined if that "more negative" number was in excess of Obama's general polling but it isn't.

The media loves "a moment" in campaigns, the ones that change everything, so this thing takes on a life as one of them.  The slow drip drip of GOPer bullshit from the Primaries on to now as an r-Money definer seems a lot more reasonable backed up by what this poll says.  This is the guts of what I find offensive by the "a moment" theme in this case.  If the definition continues on, what will happen is that r-Money gets the blame as a clueless bumbler for a loss that was avoidable minus this particular fumble. 

If you think some really charismatic person could sell the bill of goods that Mittens has been peddling I'm really frightened for the America of that vision.

 

Specter-Sestak Guesses

It is late enough to go ahead and guess and although I don't live in PA and haven't been there gauging sentiment I have some ideas. Primary elections are usually low turn out and mid-term ones are worse, add in that it is rainy in PA and this election turn out should be quite low. How turn out will affect the two campaigns has been an ongoing question. Some have proposed that the "machine" will win out for Specter with low turn out with their expertise, some that Sestak's dedicated enthused insurgent voters will come out.

I think one thing is over looked in the machine idea, that machine has been dedicated to beating Specter for years and years. The voters that you're supposed to be enthusing are the ones you've spent years enthusing to work against that guy. People do have memories and the more politically motivated the longer those memories last. Those people are going to be tough to get all hot to vote for the GOP "maverick" whose votes during Bush/Cheney were party line despite his talk otherwise.

Sestak is the insurgent, not that he's by any stretch an outsider and he's run as a Democrat. Insurgents get anywhere thanks to the enthusiasm of supporters, without machinery or the support of national organizations they will go nowhere fast without real enthusiasm from those supporters. Sestak is in a polling tie with Specter with all of the factors worked in other than who will actually go pull a lever.

My guess is that Sestak will benefit most from the weather and low turn out in general. I have no enthusiasm for Specter though he is preferable to Toomey.

In The Spirit Of Hannity

C'mon now, 9 votes won't surpass inAnnity's poll so here's another chance

You've got to love our patriotic conservative body politic:

In the spirit of a Hannity like search for solutions to real problems we present:



I know it's not fair but you only get to vote once... But it is multiple choice.

Polls Are Odd

When you look into the details of a poll you are sometimes struck by what seem complete disconnects in answer percentages. Some pieces of CNN's pdf poll analysis offer clear contradictions from Democrats.

Most likely to keep same position on important issues: Clinton 37%, Obama 27%
Is most believable: Clinton 31%, Obama 34%

Do you find yourself asking questions about what people are thinking? These two questions are intimately related, how can you believe someone you think is a flip flopper? Or more telling, why would you think someone you don't believe would keep the same position? The believability numbers are close, within the measure of error, but they are the numbers for answers from those polled. That is not in dispute. Questions were given in random order so there is no telling how close the questions were.

Some Democratic answers run afoul of polling results, perception does not match polling data.

Which candidate has the best chance of beating the Republican nominee C 53%, E 11%, O 25%

Note that Democratic confidence in Edwards is low, oddly nationally a poll shows Edwards polling the highest margins against all Republicans and Clinton actually losing to McCain and Obama in a tie with him. Now you have to ask yourself why there is such a disconnect between what Democrats seem to believe and what national polling shows. Is this a sales job by a candidate or simply an uncritical prejudice? Of the three candidates Clinton actually polls lowest against the Republicans. I believe there are reasons that can be teased out for Clinton's lower showing versus the other two and Obama's lower numbers than Edwards, and whether those are "valid" reasons to prefer another candidate they do not change the polling. Very shortly: candidate negatives, gender, race, populism, campaign emphasis on religion, would be the heaviest weighted factors in win percentages.

The difference between the base and Democrats in general may be more extreme than generally acknowleged:

Best reflects the values of Democrats like yourself: C 38%, E 14%, O 29%

Clinton's lack of appeal to the base is on display on a regular basis on the Internet and quietly within Party activists and yet she has a 9 point lead over her closest competitor, Obama. For those touting Clinton inevitability it is important to note that Edwards and Obama together total 5% higher and neither's supporters are reasonable cross-overs for Clinton. In fact, 62% given another choice do not pick Clinton as a match. This is an important number in a Primary and Clinton has shown a slide as voters get better acquainted with her and the others.

There are Democratic opinions in this poll that are flatly against the established grain of political opinion; on the question of who will best unite America: C 30%, E 16%, O 32%. Hillary Clinton is the out and out leader of all candidates, Republican and Democratic, in negatives. Her negative polling hovers below but near 50%. This is in no possible consideration a uniter candidate. For 30% to answer Clinton is beyond wishful thinking, this approaches fanaticism. I make no statement that the negatives are deserved, they are in fact primarily stupid, as little as I like Hillary.

Taking something away from a poll like this is difficult, there is still a getting to know you phase going on in the Primary. While money is a large factor in name recognition, the actual getting of votes has much more to do with the candidate. Name recognition is about getting candidates attention, having them listened to when they make statements. The media has given the Clinton campaign invaluable free advertising and even a political boost, this will wear off as the polling narrows and it actually becomes the race they discounted. Edwards tends to poll low with Democrats nationally, but shows real strength in early Primary states, another oddity.

Edward's inability to connect with Democrats with his progressive populist message raises real questions as do his trust ratings. There is no doubt that Obama saps quite a bit of the left and populist sentiment, regardless of policy stances but this does not account for the entire difference.

I'd like to encourage Democrats to vote on policy; the facts of race, gender, last name have nothing to do with whom we need as a President. I encourage you to do what you can to raise awareness of your candidate and their policy stances. The words of a known person carry weight that no amount of advertising can generate.

Change and Polls

The other day over at Middle Earth Journal in the midst of a tirade I noted that the country was ready for some real changes..."noted" is kind of weak. Today a WaPo/ABC News Poll has some things that back my assertion. 24% think the country is on the right track (who could that be?) and 75% want a different course than Bush's. Those who feel strongly on the issue total 60% with Democrats overwhelmingly, Independents at 75%, and even 50% of Republicans. Don't get too carried away, Democrats is obvious, Independents generally aren't pleased, and Republicans may not like George II but there are a lot of issues between them that no Democrat is going to address and some that only a handful would - some Democrats are having a bit of trouble with 1/15th of our population here illegally (assuming the top illegal number of 12-20 million).

Nearly 2/3 of respondents are unhappy with the economy and nearly 70% see a recession happening within the next year. These number would seem to track with the benefits received from BushCo economic strategies over the last 7 years, and their natural outcomes.

The top issues of concern are worth a look, the top three are, in order: Iraq, the economy, and health care and the kicker is Democrats are most trusted to deal with those issues by double digits. These also are the issues that Bush and the Republicans in Congress are most in step on and least likely to change directions on. Congress has dismal favorabilities at 28% with Democrats a bit better at 36% down from 54% after 100 days. The Democrats are getting hit from both ends so the numbers aren't as electorally horrid as they appear, the base is furious over Democratic cave ins to BushCo but also have no one else to vote for - a dangerous and long term fatal circumstance. Even so, 54% prefer to see Democrats in majority after 2008

What is clear is that BushCo's vision of America is not shared by an awful large percentage of Americans, getting the mixture right to create whole sale depredation of Republicans is not a simple thing. Americans still split 50/44 on smaller government/large government and by a small majority favor immigration reform involving legal residence with fines and other conditions. The only place Republicans seem to hold ground is in an even split on terrorism.

The poll's presumptive Democratic candidate is Hillary and versus Giuliani it is close and McCain a bit wider, everybody else is stomped. That result may dovetail with other poll results, leaving an impression that Hillary is not seen as an agent of acceptable change. Worrisome if she is, in fact, the nominee. Polls are odd things in many respects, there are issues with wording, name recognition, narrowness of polling data and finally interpretation of the data.

I'm not sure that the direction of the Democratic Party Congress and primary candidates mirrors what is shown in this poll and may lead to a re-evaluation by voters before the 08 elections. Democrats have shown a distressing ability to screw things up previously.

WSJ, Business and Republicans

Rupert had better get a grip on the reporter staff of the WS Journal, these people are reporting things that are definitively unflattering to the Republicans, maybe true, but not good. How's this for heresy, business is bailing on the Republicans. I mean, really, the Chamber of Commerce calls their relationship "complex?"

For Greenspan to bail might be seen as self-serving, but this is getting right out of hand, a WSJ/NBC poll 7/07 found "best party for reducing deficit?" 43D/18R, "dealing with economy?" 41D/27R, "controlling spending?" 37D/20R, "dealing with taxes?" 37D/28R. That's tough news for the R, but it gets worse, 37% of professionals and managers identify as Republican or Republican leaning down from 44% three years ago. If money is a measure, D presidential candidates raised 70% more money than Rs - and take into consideration that 1 in 4 dollars Mitt, the big money raiser, has "raised" is his own money.

The Republicans naturally have not lost hope:

Danny Diaz, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, says, "Americans of every political persuasion that value hard work, keeping more hard-earned dollars, and economic independence and entrepreneurship will continue to stand behind the Republican Party."

Just to counterbalance that particular "spin" in 2002 party identification split 43% each, this year in July it was 50% Democratic/35% Republican. Support for "old fashioned family values has shrunk 11% since 1987, so the Republican religious right is losing sway generally.

Spending some time in the political wilderness might do the Republican Party some good, it sure would do this nation some good.

Republicans, This Poll Should Worry You

I am not a pollster and not even an analyst of polls, but I can read them and see some trends these trends should worry the snot out of Republicans regarding younger voters. The link is to the survey break down, I'd encourage you to peruse this portion as it is somewhat more illuminating than the simple 'Republicans suck' analysis. Here is something illuminating, the respondents narrowly define themselves as Conservative, but define their peers as Liberal almost 75%. This defining is odd as a demographic, it simply cannot be accurate, a poll might be skewed somewhat but not 25% so what is happening is these people are assigning to themselves an inaccurate definition. What they approve of and who they trust to deal with it are at a minimum left of center if not Progressive. They trust Democrats on health care, economy, Iraq, terrorism, and environment and on the presidential Democrat/Republican they split D55/R34 and lean pushes it to 57/36. The future looks even bleaker with bigger government 68/smaller government 28 and these are Republican ideals going under.

These folks are likely to vote, "probably" 14% and "almost certainly" 69% (83%) and they're interested with 10 "very interested" 7-10 is 78%. This is startling considering that Democratic registration with young at the bottom and seniors at the top creates an inverted triangle while Republican is nearly a rectangle. How this plays out will have a lot to do with what Democrats do with the opportunities BushCo has provided them.

Who's Ahead? Jay Rosen...

Jay Rosen over at Press Think is a writer I admire for good clear writing and a propensity to look outside the ordinary press models. His article "Who's Ahead? No, Seriously..." takes issue with the decades old horse race model of political reporting, he'd much rather have a who's ahead in ideas race or poll. He believes the model is used as both an 'objective journalism' tool and because it's easy. (there's more to it, but I'm not going to re-write his superior writing) He also believes it has outlasted its usefulness.

I happen to agree with all his reasons for distaste for the model, and another of my own, it is by definition inaccurate, especially this time around. It is a snapshot taken at a nearly meaningless moment and taken to mean considerably more than it possibly could. As an example, Hillary leads the race by having 36% (or so) among 8 candidates and this means what? Does it mean 64% do not like Hillary? Does it mean 64% just happen to like some other more than Hillary? Does it mean the Clinton name trumps "X" or that woman trumps man or that her votes and policy statements trump? If any of those are so why and by how much and what is reasonably disregarded?

Jay's proposal cuts around these questions and actually informs. I want to know what (in this case) Democratic Americans are thinking. I'm not in the least interested in a beauty pagent, I don't care if you could "land a 747" on Mitt's shoulders and I don't care that Hillary is named Clinton. Our version of political reportage has become so bloodlessly 'objective' in the sense of putting whatever knuckle head will take an opposing view that it is meaningless and talking about a physical attribute makes as much sense.

Well, there's some good writing over there and some ideas so click on over...

Fun With Polls

I don't place a great deal of stock in Presidential polls nearly a year before a vote, but they can give a sense of what's going on. The Republican picture is a mess, a few "ifs" and the thing goes all over the place. Giuliani had a 16 point lead which McCain has cut to 6 points, unless Fred Thompson or Gingrich get in, if they do, the lead drops to 3 points; 27-24. Thomson gets 11% or 12% without Gingrich who gets 8% or 10% without Thompson. Mitt would be in 4th with them at 10%. 13% have no idea who to vote for. I'm glad I don't have to pick from that mess.

Democrats are seeing some shifts, Hillary 36% - Obama 28% and Edwards at 15%, Richardson & Clark 3%; a Gore entry at 15% would cut into Clinton, Obama, and Edwards. GOP error 5% and Democratic error 4%. CNN poll through Opinion Research Corporation - D 498, R 368.

I won't pretend to understand the Republican poll, I think Giuliani is going to have problems once this goes past NYNY's 9/11 Mayor, but that presumes something like a reasonable ( not really ) response from R voters.

Hillary Clinton continues to cruise on BILL's name, that's not going to last since she will have to say what she wants said, and she's not Billary. Obama has charm, the question is whether it will generate large numbers of hardcore support or if he can produce policy points that will. Edwards needs media attention as a front runner, their validation to get his policy points to stick, Richardson is in worse condition on the media front, he needs to be taken seriously.

What strikes me as ludicrous is that the Democrats have such a strong field that the short support ones, Clark & Richardson, are head and shoulders above "the best" the R's have to offer. While I have reservations about all the Democrats (ok huge ones about Hillary) they all (except Hillary) would make good candidates. So we're clear, I didn't start to dislike her until she was Sen. Clinton, that one I don't like.

What I see from the Democrats is that there is room for several to do much better if the field shortens, I don't believe much of any support for the tier under Obama would go to Clinton. In fact, as the campaign goes forward and Hillary's "inevitability" evaporates I expect her percentage to fall, her earlier 37% may be the highest she will have and that would not carry her through. 63% if the poll is not hers at her best and I don't believe any of that 63% would go her way with a viable alternative. At a convention, those votes will go elsewhere, with this polling - as previous as it is - Edwards and Obama look to be the likely beneficiaries.

Fun with polls, we may be seeing some trends, but the serious campaigning has yet to begin and there will be some movement with policies coming out and the personalities getting more exposure.

Ideological Purity

David Sirota writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that there is a real problem with people in power not owning what they said about the Iraq War, this is certainly true. He holds John Edwards up as an example of how it should be done - I made a mistake and I regret it. He goes on to note that there definitely is a massive case of CYA going on. This is where it gets sticky, why is this going on?

We all know why the President of the US would state that he never said, "Stay the course." It's politically stupid to do it, but he does have the semantic dodge of what course he was talking about, Nostradamus works well in that respect. There is however the matter of pundits and other pols who beat the warm drum enthusiastically. It is now a generally unpopular stand to take and those who take it publicly will be held to account for that stance. There is such a thing as Conservatism that isn't about god, gays, and guns; I don't subscribe to the philosophy but one of its tenets is military adventures aren't to be done. That used to be a Republican deal, but ideological purity requirements of the past decade silenced that. The political price to be paid for opposing the Iraq adventure on philosophical grounds outweighed principle. You weren't pure in the Bush ideology.

The responsibility for this falls on Parties and voters. Politicians can count. If philosophy loses to Party line the fault is not solely the Party's. This notion of ideological purity driving political discourse is harmful to Parties and to national policy and Republicans are not the only guilty party. There are, of course, issues that in voter's mind's trump ideology. Joe Lieberman is an example, his stance on Iraq cost him the Democratic Primary despite the rest of his political stances. There does, however, remain a blindness to policy and reasoning due to ideology. I will make a personal argument in this arena, I am intimately familiar with it and thus competent. During the Democratic Primary for OR 02 CD I set up policy statements and my reasoning for them, The Oregonian took those and attributed "the most conservative" of the candidates to me. As far as I can tell, there were 3 policies that contributed to that, strong support of the 2nd Amendment, opposition to illegal hiring/illegal immigration, and a stance that one size fits all environmental regulations is doomed. Now I'd be real surprised to find that conservatives exactly agree with my rationales for those stands, they are in fact based on hard left politics. Anybody that hasn't gotten the idea that I regard the 2nd as the final block against people like BushCo hasn't paid attention - and yes, I regard that bunch as exactly that dangerous. Sounds left to me. Illegal hiring crushes labor - I oppose fervently any actions to debase labor, and I don't mean just organized labor and in the 1920's that would've gotten me arrested. I'll fight the establishment of, enhancement of, and enabling of a plutocracy in this country tooth and nail and serfs are a part of that. That's damn left. Environmental policies that are created with the one size fits all philosophy are doomed, public backlash will occur and the very people you need to be partners become enemies. I want success in that arena, long term meaningful success. Left again. That is not the measure that was taken of me as a candidate. I failed the ideological purity test on the surface. Drivng drag cars fails completely.

Reasoning and motive become buried under simplistic labels, the fact that racist xenophobic nutcases oppose illegal immigration has nothing to do with the matter as far as the health and well being of labor is concerned. It certainly is not progressive politics to oppose something on the basis of race, neither is it progressive to participate in the oppression of labor. Pay attention. The fact that the NRA seems to have fallen in bed with some of the worst aspects of the Republican Party has exactly not one thing to do with owning firearms. The fact that Sen Chuck Schumer (D) sees a difference between interfering with the 2nd and interfering with the 1st does not make it progressive to do so, it is in fact absolutely oppressive to restrict liberty. It is not reasoning to ignore contradictions in the name of ideology, it is the pursuit of ideological purity that you've been told exists.

Do the Hillary Clintons pass ideological muster? Certainly on name alone, debate ceases if the surname and (D) becomes all important. The question really should fall on the balance of policy statements, their reasoning and their motives. The timing of her opposition (post mid-term) to Iraq is suspect in my eyes, her stances on gun control have shown no reasoning in light of the Constitution, in point of fact I find her very nearly the most poll driven pol I've seen. I cannot find a single iota of respect for labor in any of her stances beyond the minimum wage and that has yet to play out. Do I find Hillary's ideological purity in question? Not really, I have no idea what her ideology is by definition of action. I don't care if it doesn't look ideologically pure, I care about the outcomes and the reasons for them. Ideological purity is all about appearances and those who'll pass its muster should be deeply suspect. If you've 'stuck your foot in it' apologize for it, state why you were wrong then and why you're right now, people will take the measure of that and make an informed decision. If you're right, stand up for it, the heck with how pure it looks.

The Decider as The Unifier

I've heard several news casts describe the President as being very alone or lonely with his escalation policy. That's not quite accurate, there are about 150,000 soldiers who'll be "with" him on this one. He won't be "with" them, he's demonstrated, quite awhile previously, he knows how to take advantage of a war and not get involved.

When Gallup looked at the question from a couple different angles, the Decider didn't seem to have a lot of company. Previous to the speech when confronted with several choices including escalation, only 12% chose it, asked as an established policy question 36% were good with the idea. As an established policy 61% opposed escalation (they named it surge, I won't use words for what they don't mean), this means the country has once again become unified, not quite as unified as post 9/11 but gaining. I believe 36% is just a little short of the Republican registration which means partisanship is dead. Ill. Ah hell, still alive and kicking for 1/3 of those polled. Darn. I really was starting to have hopes that sense and humanity might trump when I saw the 12% number.

But look at it this way, the Decider has gotten nearly 2/3 of those polled to agree about something regarding national policy and foreign affairs. That's darn near a stellar performance. Where can he go from there, even more agreement?

I Think I'll Tick You Off

I am not unhappy with the shift in approval for the War in Iraq, I may be a tad bit grumpy about its roots and motivations. One doesn't need to go far to find former Conservative backers and Neocons recanting and the general public's mind set now seems negative. This is good for getting us out of that quagmire, but the whys and where fors of it count for something.

I have a very clear memory of the emotions displayed during "Shock n Awe" and reports from embedded journalists, I think "rah-rah" best describes the scene. I also remember a sinking feeling I had, all this glitz masking the reality of what's happening on the ground and obscuring the motivations for doing it. Even really good war movie trailers paled in comparison, the night sky illuminated by flashes followed by the sound of rolling booms, ghostly images of troops through night vision, great capable machines doing their functions, what a Production, brought to you by Bushco, Inc. Maybe some reality ought to have intruded, this show meant shattered buildings and blasted lives.

I don't pretend to be a pacifist, though I may admire the philosophical underpinnings, I distrust the real world practice. I repeatedly advocated using complete military might in Afghanistan and I was horrified by the Administration's "do it on the cheap" methodology. I have studied war sufficiently to know that if you are going to use that option, it is absolutely necessary to completely break the will of your opponent. This involves the tragedy of making opposition so dangerous and so costly that even an unreasonable human will not engage in it. This means killing, injuring, and destruction on a scale we Americans cannot relate to in real life experience. It doesn't mean pretty pictures, it means the absolute horror of war. Then the victor must engage in the real reconstruction of a shattered nation, and this involves more than just buildings.

The run up to the war in Iraq involved cherry picked "intelligence" and the demonization of Saddam Hussein. Saddam was an easy target in that he was a despicable human, but pre-Gulf War, not bad enough to offend the Adminsitration's "wisemen." The reaction to the intelligence is more troubling, intelligence was not brought forward that provided concrete examples of danger to the US, instead, even all dressed up, any critical thinking would have revealed guesswork. Concrete intelligence - UN Inspectors - was dismissed, despite the near impossibility of proving a negative. The government, media, and public accepted what they rightly should have recognized as guess work. There are serious implications in this acceptance of no more than an opinion.

This indicates an acceptance of the idea that the Government is good and would not mislead us for its own ends. This indicates that the Government is so special that they are exempt from the norms of rationality, the demand that action be backed by evidence. Further this exemplifies a culture of personality rather than law. I'm afraid this also evidences a rather bloodthirsty and thrill oriented society. The polling of approval for this experiment shows huge acceptance of and approval for going to war in Iraq and those number cannot possibly only reflect nutcase Rightwingers.

Now over 60% of the public disapproves and large numbers of Congressmen and pundits rail against the very thing they boosted. The real question involves the driving force for this disapproval. The quagmire aspect is frequently referred to, as though in WWII everything went swimmingly from the outset. The Neocons are now attacking the Administration for ineptitude, the rationale seems to be that it was a good idea done in by asses. These asses were in full public view years before the War, their "ineptitude" isn't a new occurrence. The Neocons refuse to understand that this is an ideological failure, that simply knocking the head off a government does not achieve cultural change. In history books and documentaries the requirements for cultural change are sufficiently demonstrated by WWII, as are the failures of the Wars in Vietnam, Korea, Gulf, ad nauseum. For an example of how not to reconstruct we need look no farther abroad than the Civil War.

The public's reaction may be more understandable considering the role played by media, but is in the end, hugely distressing. No matter the media drumbeat or governmental lying, the public is responsible for its uncritical acceptance of guesswork. It would take a very large book to dissect this tendency, I am only calling attention to it. The question that occurs is to what extent the current dissatisfaction is exactly as poorly based. War is costly in monetary terms and in human terms, it always is, not just in Iraq and ignoring that reality makes war easier to indulge in. Is the public learning something or simply tired of it?

Corporate ownership of media and the constriction of ownership must play a large role in media's reportage and slant of facts and opinion. There is a huge effect on corporate health involved in government spending and tax policies, the more interlinked government and media ownership is, the less reliable it is as a source. The constriction of ownership leads to a less varied news and thus a more consistent view point and reportage. Turning against the war may be reflective of public sentiment but a larger effect could be the economic consequences of this administration's policies in general.

Now I'll see about ticking you off, what was your stand? If it has changed, why has it changed? Have you learned anything about Government from this exercise in neocon ideology? Or, are you simply tired of it all? Has the lack of progress, the death and destruction just disgusted you, or is it a question of what the proper actions of the United States are, its citizens and its representatives? I am not at all satisfied that a meaningful realization has occurred.

Yes, I opposed this mess from the outset and not due to my antipathy for GWB. I opposed it because history showed clearly what happens when a powerful President asks for what he wants from underlings. I opposed it on the basis of Afghanistan and the Adminsitration's reluctance to accept cost. I opposed it because it is not the function of the government of the US to engage in regime change, its warmaking capabilities are for our defense, actual defense. My opposition versus the current general opposition is not a function of being more moral or more intelligent, but it is a case of critical thinking being engaged in.