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most lol link of the month I think:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/05/armed-rebellion-poll.php?ref=fpb

Hey! It's Dragonman! Mel is actually a really nice guy, he just plays the crazy for fun. (That's my local Class III dealer)

Any way this article's hilariously stupid. Come back with a more reliable source like the National Enquirer.

it's just the usual press blurb about a study or poll, actual poll contents are in the link

Yeah, when those overweight, old, comfortable white folks talk about rising up to take down the government, its on the condition they can still go home to watch their regular tv shows, have pizza delivered to the freedom fighters and that the terrible evil government will still ensure a supply of electricity, clean water and heating are all provided, likely along with wifi.

I've seen a tea party gathering, the only thing that frightened me about it was the cholesterol level.

Wait the sun reflecting off so many untanned faces didn't blind ye?

They're just mad cause a democrat is in office but once Romney get's elected next election they'll calm down again.

I higly doubt we can afford a civil war with our selves...we be down to throwing rocks....unless China calls in their debt and start claiming US landmarks then game on....or mexico cartels go nuts and lose the frame of mind and start taking out Border Patrol agents to incite a hostile border....

I loled about how it was higher among "Less educated voters"

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

I've seen a tea party gathering, the only thing that frightened me about it was the cholesterol level.

They are the thin, red, 2nd amendment line that stands between us and a dystopic cyberpunk future stompa.

Only them.

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait the sun reflecting off so many untanned faces didn't blind ye?

Heh, no, wife and I were sat in a bar across the way, exchanging bets on which bloated 60something in a tricorn hat/reenactment uniform would suffer a rage induced seizure first. Half the meeting were busy arguing among themselves over various issues, half the time the speakers were getting booed by part of the audience. It really reminded me of the 'angry outraged mob' from the simpsons, or an entire herd of Dale Gribbles from King of the Hill. If they do go after Obama, he should just turn a few signs around so they end up in a less friendly neighborhood in Philly or Baltimore. They'd vanish without a trace or at least, vanish faster than they've been vanishing for the past couple of years.

One of my crazy coworkers damn near had a heart attack in 2010 during a Tea Party rally. She was at work and was getting texts from people at the rally and she was just sure that any second they will storm the capitol and have a revolution. She was really really hoping that they would.

And this is why I view any statistics from any side with a massive grain of salt.

For example, they only polled 834 people there.

Margin of error 3.4% my arse, that's a tremendously small part of the population.

I wouldn't trust any poll as a "comprehensive view of Americans" unless a 100,000 or more people were polled, and that's still a drop in the bucket. And that would still be open to misleading questions, using biased areas (for example, putting a gun control related poll in New York would be just as pointless as putting it in Texas, both are going to be tremendously biased) or just picking a certain population type to poll like only polling students at a college or guys they see walking out of a gun store (this poll seems to have avoided that pitfall at least)

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
And this is why I view any statistics from any side with a massive grain of salt.

For example, they only polled 834 people there.

Margin of error 3.4% my arse, that's a tremendously small part of the population.

I wouldn't trust any poll as a "comprehensive view of Americans" unless a 100,000 or more people were polled, and that's still a drop in the bucket. And that would still be open to misleading questions, using biased areas (for example, putting a gun control related poll in New York would be just as pointless as putting it in Texas, both are going to be tremendously biased) or just picking a certain population type to poll like only polling students at a college or guys they see walking out of a gun store (this poll seems to have avoided that pitfall at least)

You do know that most polls only talk to a couple thousand people at most. Even properly set up polls can be made with small sample sizes.

That said, I don't usually trust polls on contentious subjects. They're usually done with bias one way or another.

The problem with asking about beliefs that are believed by some people, but are completely and outrageously ludicrous to many others is that your response is likely to be swamped with smart arse responses. It's like when they ask if a person believes if Obama is Satan, and you see like 15% saying yes. Now, of that 15% maybe 1 point at most actually believes it, the rest are just giving a smart arse answer because, well, that's what people do when they're asked a stupid question.

Exactly what portion honestly believe something incredibly stupid, like the US collapsing in to armed revolt in the next few years, and how many are just responding with a smart arse answer to a question they consider stupid is up for debate. But looking at the polling, where 18% of Democrats and 27% of independants said it was likely, I'm inclined to put the smart arse respondents at somewhere around 15%. And then you could probably double that number for Republicans, who would likely feel patronised by being asked a question that plays on one of their worst stereotypes.

That leaves you with about 14% of Republicans thinking it's likely, which is still very high, but that can probably be put down to the heightened political climate, and the vagueness of the question, particularly the weasel words 'might be necessary in order to protect'.

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
And this is why I view any statistics from any side with a massive grain of salt.

For example, they only polled 834 people there.

Margin of error 3.4% my arse, that's a tremendously small part of the population.

You need to take a course in statistics. Increasing the polling group beyond 800 would barely impact the margin of error. Once you get past about 100 people any error due to sample size has basically disappeared, leaving only the error due to systemic issues (relying on landline calls excludes people who only have mobiles... which means you accidentally bias your sample towards older people etc).

I wouldn't trust any poll as a "comprehensive view of Americans" unless a 100,000 or more people were polled

Polls haven't ever, and won't ever work on that scale. They don't have to. Again, and I say this honestly, study statistics - watch how the sampling error drops away so much quicker than you'd ever just assume.

Isn't it?

10,000 random sample size population = 1% margin of error
2,000 random sample size population = 2% margin of error
1,500 random sample size population = 3% margin of error
500 random sample size population = 4.5% margin of error
100 random sample size population = 10% margin of error

 sebster wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
And this is why I view any statistics from any side with a massive grain of salt.

For example, they only polled 834 people there.

Margin of error 3.4% my arse, that's a tremendously small part of the population.

You need to take a course in statistics. Increasing the polling group beyond 800 would barely impact the margin of error. Once you get past about 100 people any error due to sample size has basically disappeared, leaving only the error due to systemic issues (relying on landline calls excludes people who only have mobiles... which means you accidentally bias your sample towards older people etc).

I wouldn't trust any poll as a "comprehensive view of Americans" unless a 100,000 or more people were polled

Polls haven't ever, and won't ever work on that scale. They don't have to. Again, and I say this honestly, study statistics - watch how the sampling error drops away so much quicker than you'd ever just assume.

Have you taken a middle school science class? Because in there I'm pretty sure we learned that the larger the sample pool, the smaller the margin of error.

The problem I have with your statement is the underlined portion. In a country like Germany or England, where the population is a lot more homogeneous, I can see your point making a bit of sense. Maybe in a single city, or at most a state, yeah, ok. But in the USA, that will never work. Look at just how different California is to Texas, New York is to Alaska, Colorado is to Hawaii, etc. The difference between some states may as well make them different countries. That's not just geography, but how those cultures are as well. On top of that, sentiment in a state will vary wildly depending on where you go. For example, if you were to use Kentucky as an example, people in Lexington and Louisville are far more likely to be a Democrat and have more "liberal" values. Drive 20 minutes outside the city limits in any direction, and you can't walk ten feet without seeing a Republican bumper sticker.

America is too friggin big for any survey under at least 20-50 thousand be anywhere near comprehensive. You want to tell me that 34% of all Americans think armed rebellion is imminent, I better see that you polled thousands of people in every state, in ever possible region. I want to see a guy's name from Manhattan next to a guy from Alaska, followed by a little old lady from texas, followed by a soccer mom from Kansas, followed by a 21 year old factory worker in California. etc. etc. you get the idea. It says in the article that they randomly selected voters across the country, so at least they've got that right, but I still think roughly 800 people is far too small a sample size to start saying things like what this article was implying. Dividing 834 or so survey takers by 50 states you get 16-17 people, per state. To put this in perspective, Kentucky, a relatively low population state, has over 4 million people living in it. That's a 1 in 235,294 (approximately) that would have been reached in the poll. Those 16-17 people could easily have all been drunk hillbillies from the East, or college kids from Lexington or UK, or been some rich horse farmers living around Lexington. That means that the sentiment in Kentucky was decided by roughly 16-17 people for the purposes of this poll. Now think about states like California. California has 38 million living there. Now think about all the different kinds of people that live there. that's a little over 13% of the entire population of the USA. If they tried to get a poll by how the population is split up (aka 13% of the polled people were Californians), the sentiment of California was decided by roughly 64 people on that survey. 64 people out of 38 million. Do you not see how that could lead to some extremely off kilter statistics?

Hence why I think any survey that makes sweeping statements like this should be far more comprehensive. It's why I said the 90% background checks was bullcrap, and it's why a lot of other surveys tend to be bullcrap as well. These companies are taking incredibly small samples that just don't make sense in a situation like this. With such a massive population size, you need more data if you want to truly get a result that means anything. Imagine if the EU did a survey about whether Europeans thought the EU was going to dissolve within 5 years, and then only polled 40 people in each country. That's how ridiculous this survey comes across to me. I don't know an Australian equivalent for this, so forgive me, hopefully the EU comparison works. I know full well you'll never get every voting american to participate. If we can barely get 40% for the Presidential voting, there's no way we can get 100% to participate in random surveys like this. Heck, I would be amazed to see 20% participation. I'm just saying trying to have 834 people count as an average for a country with over 300 Million people is a little crazy.

On a completely unrelated note, I could see an armed rebellion happening in our future, but I wouldn't say within the next 5 years, unless the government REALLY screwed up. I'm talking like they tried to go full 1984 overnight or something, but even they aren't that stupid.

EDIT: Just realized for those stats I was throwing out I was using plain old population numbers, not the number of registered voters. That's what I get for typing at 5AM. I'll try and correct all that this evening, just take that into account when reading this. My point still stands, although the numbers aren't quite as impressive now I'm sure

Seems a bit odd...

I highly doubt that this poll is particularly credible

I'll leave this here

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
Wait the sun reflecting off so many untanned faces didn't blind ye?

Heh, no, wife and I were sat in a bar across the way, exchanging bets on which bloated 60something in a tricorn hat/reenactment uniform would suffer a rage induced seizure first. Half the meeting were busy arguing among themselves over various issues, half the time the speakers were getting booed by part of the audience. It really reminded me of the 'angry outraged mob' from the simpsons, or an entire herd of Dale Gribbles from King of the Hill. If they do go after Obama, he should just turn a few signs around so they end up in a less friendly neighborhood in Philly or Baltimore. They'd vanish without a trace or at least, vanish faster than they've been vanishing for the past couple of years.

They had one across the street. The difference between them and the OWS protests later were numerous:
*They had jobs
*They were clean
*They were pasty
*They didn't trash the place
*They didn't try to get city hall to subsidize their protest with free water and power
*Did I mention they were clean?

None of them come close to the weekly protests we had in college. My undergrad in school would have aprotest march and assembly every week. Depending on the makeup of that protest I'd join in or sit on the side with some Freedom Fries! You want to get the bystanders involved? Have the protesters be made up of California Coeds.

Additionaly the problem with polling is the questions. Push polls come up with the "results" the guys paying for the poll want it to say.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
And this is why I view any statistics from any side with a massive grain of salt.

For example, they only polled 834 people there.

Margin of error 3.4% my arse, that's a tremendously small part of the population.

I wouldn't trust any poll as a "comprehensive view of Americans" unless a 100,000 or more people were polled, and that's still a drop in the bucket. And that would still be open to misleading questions, using biased areas (for example, putting a gun control related poll in New York would be just as pointless as putting it in Texas, both are going to be tremendously biased) or just picking a certain population type to poll like only polling students at a college or guys they see walking out of a gun store (this poll seems to have avoided that pitfall at least)

You do know that most polls only talk to a couple thousand people at most. Even properly set up polls can be made with small sample sizes.

That said, I don't usually trust polls on contentious subjects. They're usually done with bias one way or another.

Yes but these are likely to be 834 people from Hicksville USA and they were asked seeded questions. I can believe the poll results are accurate in that they were not forged, but are still nonsense.

A poll whose result Republicans don't like and whose methodology they question?

This seems so familiar...

 Frazzled wrote:

They had one across the street. The difference between them and the OWS protests later were numerous:
*They had jobs
*They were clean
*They were pasty
*They didn't trash the place
*They didn't try to get city hall to subsidize their protest with free water and power
*Did I mention they were clean?

None of them come close to the weekly protests we had in college. My undergrad in school would have aprotest march and assembly every week. Depending on the makeup of that protest I'd join in or sit on the side with some Freedom Fries! You want to get the bystanders involved? Have the protesters be made up of California Coeds.

Additionaly the problem with polling is the questions. Push polls come up with the "results" the guys paying for the poll want it to say.

You must have a better class of fringe lunatic down there Fraz. The ones I saw in central PA were a mix of lardy, cud chewing suburbanite man with mustache and permanent look of 'I trod in dog gak', with a 30% chance of costume, scary pearl necklaced (not in a good way) Jesus bothering housewife and that peculiar breed of Pennsylvanian who is short, thin, wiry, has a huge scrappy beard, aviator shades, baseball cap and smells like diesel and BO and can't wait to tell you the lizard people have bred Obama to conquer the white American in the name of the Illuminati, ususally shows up to anything including children's nativities,armed to the teeth.


As to polling and questions.

I once did a project where I asked my fellow students about fox hunting in the UK. I polled 2 groups of 100.
First group I asked: 'Do you agree with controlling vermin in farming to protect produce?'
Second group I asked: 'Do you believe foxes should be painfully torn apart by dogs for entertainment?' with a picture of a fox cub on the questionnaire.

Guess what my results were...?

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

As to polling and questions.
I once did a project where I asked my fellow students about fox hunting in the UK. I polled 2 groups of 100.
First group I asked: 'Do you agree with controlling vermin in farming to protect produce?'
Second group I asked: 'Do you believe foxes should be painfully torn apart by dogs for entertainment?' with a picture of a fox cub on the questionnaire.

You know the exact questions are in the results listed as a link in the story right?

 Grundz wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

As to polling and questions.
I once did a project where I asked my fellow students about fox hunting in the UK. I polled 2 groups of 100.
First group I asked: 'Do you agree with controlling vermin in farming to protect produce?'
Second group I asked: 'Do you believe foxes should be painfully torn apart by dogs for entertainment?' with a picture of a fox cub on the questionnaire.

You know the exact questions are in the results listed as a link in the story right?

You know the results are not at all what the title you typed inferred right?

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

They had one across the street. The difference between them and the OWS protests later were numerous:
*They had jobs
*They were clean
*They were pasty
*They didn't trash the place
*They didn't try to get city hall to subsidize their protest with free water and power
*Did I mention they were clean?

None of them come close to the weekly protests we had in college. My undergrad in school would have aprotest march and assembly every week. Depending on the makeup of that protest I'd join in or sit on the side with some Freedom Fries! You want to get the bystanders involved? Have the protesters be made up of California Coeds.

Additionaly the problem with polling is the questions. Push polls come up with the "results" the guys paying for the poll want it to say.

You must have a better class of fringe lunatic down there Fraz. The ones I saw in central PA were a mix of lardy, cud chewing suburbanite man with mustache and permanent look of 'I trod in dog gak', with a 30% chance of costume, scary pearl necklaced (not in a good way) Jesus bothering housewife and that peculiar breed of Pennsylvanian who is short, thin, wiry, has a huge scrappy beard, aviator shades, baseball cap and smells like diesel and BO and can't wait to tell you the lizard people have bred Obama to conquer the white American in the name of the Illuminati, ususally shows up to anything including children's nativities,armed to the teeth.


As to polling and questions.

I once did a project where I asked my fellow students about fox hunting in the UK. I polled 2 groups of 100.
First group I asked: 'Do you agree with controlling vermin in farming to protect produce?'
Second group I asked: 'Do you believe foxes should be painfully torn apart by dogs for entertainment?' with a picture of a fox cub on the questionnaire.

Guess what my results were...?

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

Yes, our fringe lunatics look like bald middle aged white guys in Bermuda shorts. Then again, here, everyone wears shorts during the summer - OR YOU DIE.

 Grundz wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

As to polling and questions.
I once did a project where I asked my fellow students about fox hunting in the UK. I polled 2 groups of 100.
First group I asked: 'Do you agree with controlling vermin in farming to protect produce?'
Second group I asked: 'Do you believe foxes should be painfully torn apart by dogs for entertainment?' with a picture of a fox cub on the questionnaire.

You know the exact questions are in the results listed as a link in the story right?

Indeed:

'In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties'
Which is suggestive as it could be argued that 'might' and it's setting in the future and use of term liberties are all painting a nondisclosed time ahead of us where a deterioration has started or continued to degrade current situations. As a question, it could be said to lead to a hypothetical doomsday/critical mass. I might consider answering the question with a yes if I considered the rising power of corporations and the loss of individual veto weight vs the wants and wishes of the megacorps, if we continue down that road for several years.

'Some people are hiding the truth about the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in order to advance a political agenda'
This does not point the finger at the government, or Obama, but at the potential for various bodies or persons to slant the incident or leave inconvenient parts out for gain and partisan leverage, whether left or right wing, pro or anti firearms legislation. This is not 'Do you think Obama was responsible for the murder of those children in Sandy Hook' or 'Do you think the liberals constructed the whole sandy hook incident as a means to disarm the nation ready for it's assimilation into a communist state?'.
I would be entirely likely to agree that certain parties have obfuscated facts from the Sandy Hook tragedy, on both sides of the floor, for their respective agendas.



The Tea Party is dying off, the current elected 'tea party ticket' folks are talking about trying to take down the Republicans by force in both houses and 'eat' the Republican party or split from it, traditional conservatives are fed up of them and want them out of the Republican party, convinced they and their extreme rhetoric lost them the last election and has alienated ethic votes.

The right wing, across the board, is in utter disarray and chaos, the tea party elements are trying to conduct RINO witchhunts and dethrone Boehner and the current command structure of traditionalists.

As I said, witnessing a tea party meeting, it was made up of varying groups who were themselves at each others throats, libertarians for drugs, extreme religious theologists, aggressive hawks and those calling for removal from the world military stage, people with a bizarre hard on for the wild west, people who think every man is an island, people who just hate Obama because of birther/muslim/communist/fascist/racist concerns. But most of all, people who don't know how to remain a cohesive force.

When I first moved to the states a couple of years back, at the height of Glenn Beck, Palin and Trump all going at it 24/7, I was concerned, but it lost impetus as quickly as it found it and the Tea Party will go extinct again over the next few years, hopefully by splitting from the Republican party and going it alone as a 3rd party choice, freeing the Republicans and Democrats to try and heal some of the partisan damage done over the last few years and work on rebuilding America, whilst the Tea Party sits gibbering in a corner like a senile relative at Thanksgiving.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

As I said, witnessing a tea party meeting, it was made up of varying groups who were themselves at each others throats, libertarians for drugs, extreme religious theologists, aggressive hawks and those calling for removal from the world military stage, people with a bizarre hard on for the wild west, people who think every man is an island, people who just hate Obama because of birther/muslim/communist/fascist/racist concerns. But most of all, people who don't know how to remain a cohesive force.

Isn't this the basis of this country? Getting a group of different minded people to unite for a just common cause, and then drive the bus off a cliff while trying to stab eachother in the back for personal gain.

 Grundz wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:

As I said, witnessing a tea party meeting, it was made up of varying groups who were themselves at each others throats, libertarians for drugs, extreme religious theologists, aggressive hawks and those calling for removal from the world military stage, people with a bizarre hard on for the wild west, people who think every man is an island, people who just hate Obama because of birther/muslim/communist/fascist/racist concerns. But most of all, people who don't know how to remain a cohesive force.

Isn't this the basis of this country? Getting a group of different minded people to unite for a just common cause, and then drive the bus off a cliff while trying to stab eachother in the back for personal gain.

Yepper.

If the elections had occurred in 2010 instead of 2012, we'd have likely ended up with something further right and a bit wacky for our president, like Palin, Bachman or Pizzalord.

But two years later and the crazy is dying off. I hope.

I'd really like the Republicans to get back their fiscal drive and sensible spending rep and become more socially libertarian. Less obsessive gibbering about abortion and gay marriage and more concentration on economics and business, only way they can do that is driving out the influx of loony tunes tea party types with their insane agenda of tiny government unless it's for the creation of a federal bureau of witch hunters to destroy women seeking abortion or same sex couples daring to ask for equal rights.

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:


I'd really like the Republicans to get back their fiscal drive and sensible spending rep and become more socially libertarian. Less obsessive gibbering about abortion and gay marriage and more concentration on economics and business, only way they can do that is driving out the influx of loony tunes tea party types with their insane agenda of tiny government unless it's for the creation of a federal bureau of witch hunters to destroy women seeking abortion or same sex couples daring to ask for equal rights.

You and me both

I've always wondered how crazy, someone would have to be to /not/ get the vote of a modern republican.
Candidate R: declare war on china, put Mexicans in concentration camps, burn all libraries, , disband stock market, whatever other crazy stuff you can think of
Candidate D: might take yer gunz

 Grundz wrote:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:


I'd really like the Republicans to get back their fiscal drive and sensible spending rep and become more socially libertarian. Less obsessive gibbering about abortion and gay marriage and more concentration on economics and business, only way they can do that is driving out the influx of loony tunes tea party types with their insane agenda of tiny government unless it's for the creation of a federal bureau of witch hunters to destroy women seeking abortion or same sex couples daring to ask for equal rights.

You and me both

I've always wondered how crazy, someone would have to be to /not/ get the vote of a modern republican.
Candidate R: declare war on china, put Mexicans in concentration camps, burn all libraries, , disband stock market, whatever other crazy stuff you can think of
Candidate D: might take yer gunz

Misrepresent much?

Oh wait... yes you do.