Poll: Faith community against OH union/budget reforms. Not so fast!

The headline is an attention getter:

"New Poll and Petition: Ohioans of Faith Reject Gov. Kasich's Unfair Budget Proposal, Attacks on Workers"

This started appearing on Twitter feeds and Facebook pages last week and so it must be a fact, right?  If it's on Twitter, it's true.


The headline actually originated from the group Faith in Public Life (FPL), which is run by a collection of social justice gurus, community organizers, and bloggers who 'enjoy writing about the "religious right."'  Their board includes senior fellows at the leftist Center for American Progress. They tout as one of their big successes setting the 2008 post-election narrative and debunking "the false spin of the single issue “values voter.”  In other words, they want to re-frame the Christian voter as a social justice/community organizer/Democrat.  They don't like that there are sincere Christians who are genuinely against abortion and who have deeply-held beliefs in the importance of traditional marriage. These are deal-breakers,  meaning they could never in good-conscience vote for a pro-abortion candidate, whatever their party.  Never mind, FPL marches on, trying to convince the world that this is not true and that Christians are becoming Leftists at a dizzying rate.  That's their mission. 


It is in that context we take a look at their poll, taken March 25-27, surveying 2000 registered Ohio voters.  The group's press release concluded: 

"A new survey of 2,000 Ohio registered voters, commissioned by Faith in Public Life and conducted by Public Policy Polling, finds that Catholics and evangelical/born-again Christians in the battleground state of Ohio overwhelmingly reject restrictions on collective bargaining, as well as Governor Kasich's proposed budget that cuts spending on vital public services while preserving corporate tax loopholes and low tax rates for the wealthiest residents of the state."

•  Sixty-one percent of Ohio registered voters think restricting collective bargaining is the wrong thing to do, as do 57% of Catholic and 59% of evangelical/born-again Christian registered voters.
• Fifty-seven percent of evangelical/born-again Christians said 'to help make sure that citizens have a quality education and safe and healthy communities, even if it requires raising taxes on businesses and people with the highest incomes' is a more important moral responsibility for government than 'to cut taxes for all, including the wealthiest people and large businesses, even if it requires cutting education and other public services.

Wait....what?  Re-read that last bullet point.  Does it even make any sense?  It sounds like it was written by someone who does not have a good grasp of the English language.  

This is the problem with polls and surveys: they're only as good as the questions. Some questions are just poorly written and others are intentionally written to solicit pre-determined answers.  

Creative Research Systems gives guidelines for creating non-biased survey questions:

"The overriding consideration in questionnaire design is to make sure your questions can accurately tell you what you want to learn. The way you phrase a question can change the answers you get. Try to make sure the wording does not favor one answer choice over another.

Avoid emotionally charged words or leading questions that point towards a certain answer. You will get different answers from asking 'What do you think of the XYZ proposal?' than from 'What do you think of the Republican XYZ proposal?' The word 'Republican' in the second question would cause some people to favor or oppose the proposal based on their feelings about Republicans, rather than about the proposal itself."

Here are a couple of the actual questions asked by the Faith in Public Life (FPL) survey:

• You may have heard about Governor Kasich’s plan to address budget shortfalls, which involves cutting education and health care. Do you think Gov. Kasich's plan is a fair approach or an unfair approach to balancing the budget?

This was the second question in the survey.  Immediately we see the question is directing the person being interviewed toward a negative response.  It reduces and oversimplifies the debate and pits the budget shortfall against the emotionally charged issues of education and health care.  Then it asks if this is "fair."  The third question is:

• What do you think is a more important moral responsibility for our state government: to help make sure that citizens have a quality education and safe and healthy communities, even if it requires raising taxes on businesses and people with the highest incomes, OR to cut taxes for all, including the wealthiest people and large businesses, even if it requires cutting education and other public services?

Try reading that question out loud and imagining you heard it over the phone.  What are the chances you'd even understand what the caller was asking you?  There are so many odd grammatical constructs and run-on sentences that the listener would be hard-pressed to figure out how to answer, even if he or she had a strong opinion on the issue. In addition, again, it distorts the issue, as if the state can either cut taxes for the wealthiest people or have healthy communities.   Is it really accurate to assert (in a survey question, no less)  that our communities will become unhealthy if Governor Kasich's budget passes?  And to further assert approving of this budget would be immoral?  It's a fine example of the false dilemma fallacy, but it's a very poorly written survey question.  It's clear there is an agenda, designed to elicit a pre-determined outcome. 

Here's a video that demonstrates how easy it is to skew survey questions to attain a desired outcome:

Incidentally, we also find in the fine print of the survey that out of the 2000 registered Ohio voters that 45% were Democrats, 30% were Republicans and 25% were "independent or identified with another party."  I'm no expert, but I suspect that when you survey a majority of Democrats, you're going to get Democrat-leaning answers.  


As for the seemingly overwhelming number of Christians/Evangelicals supposedly opposed to Gov. Kasich's budget and union reforms?  Aside from an agenda that's clear in the questions, which seem designed to solicit certain answers,  I think many of us will agree with the great philosopher, Inigo Montoya:

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I was privileged to hear Dr. David Noebel from Summit Ministries  speak on Saturday and he said:  

"The vast majority of Bible believing Christians have no idea what a Biblical worldview really is."

He noted that 28% of so-called Evangelical Christians voted for President Obama and probably would do so again.  


Let's start to turn this around by not taking surveys like this one at face value.  Faith in Public Life's mission is to "shape the public debate." One of their best propaganda tools is a survey that makes it appear that all or most Christians/Catholics/Evangelicals are in agreement with their agenda.  Don't buy it.  

March 19, 2011

We welcomed Ryan home from Hillsdale College last night.  He sat down for a quick dinner (Bolyard Burgers, on the grill!), unloaded a carload of laundry, and headed off to Bible study with his dad.  He also left me with a reading assignment from his American Heritage Reader, compiled by the Hillsdale College History Faculty.  It's a collection (882 pages) of  important documents and writings from Colonial times thru Reagan.   Ryan was so excited about what he's been learning that he wanted to share it with me, which is music to a homeschooling mom's heart.  My assignment:  "The Great Nation of Futurity" by John Louis O'Sullivan (1813-1895).  It contains this quote about our country:

"We have had patriots to defend our homes, our liberties, but no aspirants to crowns or thrones; nor have the American people ever suffered themselves to be led on by wicked ambition to de-populate the land, to spread desolation far and wide, that a human being might be placed on a seat of supremacy."

Our nation has truly been blessed! In light of what we've seen in the Middle East in recent months and looking across the whole of history, we are indeed unique and exceptional. 


Baptist Press - Disaster pushes Japanese beyond secular thinking: 

 ...Proud of their secular society, most Japanese are not religious. But in a time of crisis, International Mission Board missionary Gary Fujino says they tend to fall back on an old Japanese expression, 'The god that you depend on in times of crisis.'

'What that means is when things are bad, you will go to the temple and shrine because nothing you've tried thus far worked,' Fujino explains. He notes that, once the crisis is over, no one goes back to the temple or shrine. 
Thousands of prayer tablets hung in one-day testify that the crisis in Japan continues to grow and people are trying to find ways to cope...

They really believe that in themselves they have what they need, which makes it very difficult to share the Gospel' Fujino says. 'What we need is for people to be shaken and realize that you need something outside of yourself -- God'...

'I learned in the Kobe earthquake that I needed God. I learned that I don't need material things. My heart opened up,' she says. 'I think God saved me back then because He wants to use me now.'...

...She explains that the Japanese government will take care of things and rebuild houses in a few months, but she can do something even bigger -- introduce people to the God who can rebuild their lives.   'I have a really strong God,' she says. 'I want those people in the disaster to know my God's strength and power.'

Dorsey cannot make it to the disaster zone yet because of radiation fears, not to mention the lack of government permits, but she's doing what she can in Tokyo. From her church just a few miles from the Shinto shrine, she prays for her country. Dorsey's prayers are different than those hanging in the shrine. Hers are not 'wishes' or 'hopes.' She knows her God personally and knows He will provide."

Somehow, I knew this was coming.  The Radiation Network has real-time updates from Gieger counters across the country. The map is refreshed every minute of the day for those who are having trouble sleeping without knowing what the radiation level is.  According to the website, "alert level" is 100 counts per minute (CPM), so it looks like we're in good shape, for now. 

Public Policy Polling surveyed 400 Republican "usual primary voters" last week and asked the following:

If the Republican candidates for President in  2012 were Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, Newt 
Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Ron  Paul, Tim Pawlenty, and Mitt Romney who 
would you vote for?


Haley Barbour  2% 
.................................................
Mitch Daniels  4% 
..................................................
Newt Gingrich 16% 
.................................................
Mike Huckabee 19% 
...............................................
Sarah Palin 15% 
.....................................................
Ron Paul  7% 
.........................................................
Tim Pawlenty  5% 
..................................................
Mitt Romney 18% 
....................................................
Someone else/Undecided 13%



Given the choices of Ken Blackwell, Drew Carey, Jon Husted, Shannon Jones, Jim Jordan, Steve LaTourette, Josh Mandel, and  Mary Taylor who would you most like to see as 
the Republican candidate for Senate next year?


Ken Blackwell 17% 
.................................................
Drew Carey 12% 
.....................................................
Jon Husted 14% 
......................................................
Shannon Jones  1% 
...............................................
Jim Jordan  8% 
......................................................
Steve LaTourette  8% 
.............................................
Josh Mandel 6% 
...................................................
Mary Taylor 9% 
.....................................................
Someone else/Undecided 25%


Drew Carey?  Really?  Did people think they were voting for John Kerry? They asked the same question again without Carey in the mix and got the following results:



Ken Blackwell 

21% 

.................................................
Jon Husted 14% 
......................................................
Shannon Jones  4% 
...............................................
Jim Jordan 10% 
......................................................
Steve LaTourette 10% 
.............................................
Josh Mandel 

 7% 

...................................................
Mary Taylor

 8% 

.....................................................
Someone else/Undecided 26%

It's interesting that Ken Blackwell, Ohio's former Secretary of State received so many votes.  He's a solid conservative who challenged Michael Steele for the GOP Chairmanship a couple years ago.  Considering his name hasn't been in the news much, it's a strong showing.  Jim Jordan has said he plans to stay in the House, where he leads the conservative Republican Study Committee.  It's notable that there are a lot of undecided votes up for grabs.

They also asked:

Would you describe yourself as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat 
conservative, or very conservative?


Very liberal 1% 
......................................................
Somewhat liberal 3% 
............................................
Moderate 16% 
.........................................................
Somewhat conservative 46% 
..................................
Very conservative 34%


80% of  Republican "usual primary voters" consider themselves conservatives.  Lawmakers and candidates, listen up!  RINOs need not apply.  


Wisconsin lawmaker hit by property damage - JSOnline: 

"The office of Sen. Dan Kapanke (R-La Crosse) said the senator has been subjected to damage of personal property and has received threatening statements in the wake of mass protests in recent weeks over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget-repair bill.

Kapanke have been unavailable, but an aide to Kapanke says that windows on Kapanke's car were broken in Madison and the senator's wife found nails strewn on the driveway of their home."

This is what democracy looks like?


Germany's Eco-Trap: Is Environmentalism Really Working? - SPIEGEL ONLINE
This article in Spiegel Online demonstrates what happens in the headlong rush into ill-conceived environmental policies:


E10 (ethanol) Fuel:

"Many haven't yet fully realized that E10 is an ecological swindle. People who want to help the environment shouldn't use it. Nine large European environmental associations recently conducted a joint study which concluded that the bottom line impact of the fuel on the environment is negative. Rainforests are being clear-cut in Brazil and Borneo to make room for sugarcane and oil palm cultivation. At the same time there's a shortage of arable land for food production, which is leading to the threat of famine in parts of the world. Last year, the price of grain rose sharply in the global market."

 Recycling:

"Under German law, only 36 percent of plastic rubbish has to be recycled. The remainder can be sold for a profit, for example to plants that burn rubbish to produce heating or power. Such facilities are everywhere in Germany. Municipalities across the country built then in response to a ban on storing garbage in landfills. Indeed, now there are far too many of them in Germany -- and there is a shortage of burnable waste.

The result is that firms are buying up as much plastic waste -- which burns well due to the high quantity of oil in plastics -- as they can get their hands on. Indeed, some companies have even resorted to importing plastic waste to burn -- hardly a contribution to an environmental utopia."

Water Conservation:

"The Germans are obsessed with saving water. You won't find many countries north of the Sahara that are as water-conscious as Germany. They save water while washing dishes (a modern dishwashing machine uses only six liters per cycle), while going to the toilet (many toilets have a setting that allows only a brief flush), and even when washing their cars....

..."And water conservation in Germany can be harmful -- particularly when it comes to the sewage systems beneath German cities. The lack of waste water flowing through the canalization means that fat, faeces and discarded food aren't getting flushed out enough, and are corroding the walls. To compensate, utilities are forced to pump hundreds of thousands of liters of fresh water through the system to keep it operable..."

Insulation:

"By rights, the venerable town of Weimar with its beautiful old architecture should be forbidden. None of the buildings meet modern standards of heating insulation. The walls are too thin, the windows aren't properly sealed, the place is a disaster in terms of energy efficiency. Politicians in Berlin have ensure that the situation will soon improve. By 2050, all buildings in Germany must be carbon neutral, according to the government's energy plan presented last year. 'If we take that legislation seriously, we would have to tear down half the town,' says Weimar Mayor Stefan Wolf....

 ...Across the country, insulating panels are going up on the outside of myriad buildings. With older buildings making up a quarter of the country's housing stock, there seems to be little other choice...

Another problems is that well-insulated buildings don't breathe -- no outside air gets in and CO2 can build up quickly inside as a result. So can mould. Installing air vents can be exorbitant."

World's Guiltiest Dog.  Poor Denver....shoulda left those kitty cat treats alone!