Points well taken, and basically I agree with them. I don't know the political bent of the Milwaukee Sentinel, but I can safely bet that the Rhode Island paper is liberal. Which brings me to the cynical point of wondering if they're saying this because the majority of the gun polls favor a firearms ownership. 
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/may00/achorn21052000.asp
A dangerous trend: Polls are just a bit too democratic
By Edward Achorn
Last Updated: May 20, 2000
The idea of tyranny conjures up images of Hitler screaming from the podium, while his storm troopers smash down doors and point their weapons at cowering citizens. But if tyranny ever arrives on these shores, I suspect it will come much more subtly - dressed up as the will of the people, its perfumed path strewn with the petals of public opinion polls.
We are living in an age saturated with polls. Polls are being taken on every conceivable subject, then cited by politicians and lobby groups as if they were the final authority or the voice of the almighty God, instead of the half-digested impressions of ill-informed people who are eager to get off the phone and get back to their favorite TV show.
These days, instant polls are being used to justify virtually any political action, from drug-sniffing dogs in school corridors to the privatization of Social Security.
Politicians obviously find poll results a powerful tool for moving or solidifying public opinion. Americans seem to be adopting the mind set: If the polls support it, it must be right. It's as if the communications revolution is making us more sheep-like, more eager to cluster with the herd instead of thinking things through for ourselves.
That strikes me as a dangerous trend.
No president has devoted more time, energy and money to taking, tweaking and citing polls.
More flamboyantly, Clinton has, in times of need, boldly employed the arts of lying, smearing, obstructing justice and even bombing to divert attention from revelations that might harm his popularity. From a political standpoint, if not in the eyes of history, that approach has certainly paid off. Throughout his impeachment ordeal, he and his allies constantly argued that opinion polls trump all issues of honor or law. In the minds of most Americans, they were right.
Politicians and lobbyists would have us believe that their polls are an objective and scientific representation of how Americans really think. Of course, they are no such things. People in the polling business know well that even a slight change in the way a question is worded can produce wildly different results.
So, too, can an adjustment in the group polled - say, using registered voters rather than the narrower pool of "likely" voters, who are more inclined to be newspaper readers and better informed about the issues. In other words, someone can make a poll say just about anything he wants.
But even if perfectly objective polls were possible, would that invest the results with any great meaning?
Not in my view.
The great Oscar Wilde once observed, "To disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt."
That may be going too far - the majority, to be fair, often gets it right - but Oscar's point is well worth taking on this side of the Atlantic. America, after all, has never been about the wishes and desires of the mob. It is not just a democracy but a republic. Its representatives are supposed to think and lead, not just blindly follow the majority's orders.
Indeed, the United States was set up to frustrate the will of the majority in many ways. The federal judiciary is not elected. The Bill of Rights sets strict limits on the ability of the majority, in the form of the government, to interfere with the lives of individual citizens. The First Amendment enshrines the right of citizens to argue with and criticize the majority, even using speech that the majority might deem hateful and offensive.
This country is largely about protecting the rights of individuals to think and act for themselves.
As the founders saw their creation, popular sentiment could never be a substitute for independent thought, judgment and leadership, which sometimes requires honorable people to do things that in the short run might be unpopular. They would have viewed today's worship of polls, and politicians' slavish adherence to them, with disgust.
And they would have greeted today's growing appeals for "direct democracy" with unmitigated horror and alarm.
Of course, the will of the majority does prevail in America in the most important polls of all: on election day. All the more reason for voters to take that responsibility seriously - by questioning conventional wisdom, reading newspapers and carefully weighing the character of those who would lead, rather than choosing whichever candidate looks good or says what we want to hear.
Edward Achorn is deputy editorial page editor of The Providence (R.I.) Journal.
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 21, 2000.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/may00/achorn21052000.asp
A dangerous trend: Polls are just a bit too democratic
By Edward Achorn
Last Updated: May 20, 2000
The idea of tyranny conjures up images of Hitler screaming from the podium, while his storm troopers smash down doors and point their weapons at cowering citizens. But if tyranny ever arrives on these shores, I suspect it will come much more subtly - dressed up as the will of the people, its perfumed path strewn with the petals of public opinion polls.
We are living in an age saturated with polls. Polls are being taken on every conceivable subject, then cited by politicians and lobby groups as if they were the final authority or the voice of the almighty God, instead of the half-digested impressions of ill-informed people who are eager to get off the phone and get back to their favorite TV show.
These days, instant polls are being used to justify virtually any political action, from drug-sniffing dogs in school corridors to the privatization of Social Security.
Politicians obviously find poll results a powerful tool for moving or solidifying public opinion. Americans seem to be adopting the mind set: If the polls support it, it must be right. It's as if the communications revolution is making us more sheep-like, more eager to cluster with the herd instead of thinking things through for ourselves.
That strikes me as a dangerous trend.
No president has devoted more time, energy and money to taking, tweaking and citing polls.
More flamboyantly, Clinton has, in times of need, boldly employed the arts of lying, smearing, obstructing justice and even bombing to divert attention from revelations that might harm his popularity. From a political standpoint, if not in the eyes of history, that approach has certainly paid off. Throughout his impeachment ordeal, he and his allies constantly argued that opinion polls trump all issues of honor or law. In the minds of most Americans, they were right.
Politicians and lobbyists would have us believe that their polls are an objective and scientific representation of how Americans really think. Of course, they are no such things. People in the polling business know well that even a slight change in the way a question is worded can produce wildly different results.
So, too, can an adjustment in the group polled - say, using registered voters rather than the narrower pool of "likely" voters, who are more inclined to be newspaper readers and better informed about the issues. In other words, someone can make a poll say just about anything he wants.
But even if perfectly objective polls were possible, would that invest the results with any great meaning?
Not in my view.
The great Oscar Wilde once observed, "To disagree with three-fourths of the British public on all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt."
That may be going too far - the majority, to be fair, often gets it right - but Oscar's point is well worth taking on this side of the Atlantic. America, after all, has never been about the wishes and desires of the mob. It is not just a democracy but a republic. Its representatives are supposed to think and lead, not just blindly follow the majority's orders.
Indeed, the United States was set up to frustrate the will of the majority in many ways. The federal judiciary is not elected. The Bill of Rights sets strict limits on the ability of the majority, in the form of the government, to interfere with the lives of individual citizens. The First Amendment enshrines the right of citizens to argue with and criticize the majority, even using speech that the majority might deem hateful and offensive.
This country is largely about protecting the rights of individuals to think and act for themselves.
As the founders saw their creation, popular sentiment could never be a substitute for independent thought, judgment and leadership, which sometimes requires honorable people to do things that in the short run might be unpopular. They would have viewed today's worship of polls, and politicians' slavish adherence to them, with disgust.
And they would have greeted today's growing appeals for "direct democracy" with unmitigated horror and alarm.
Of course, the will of the majority does prevail in America in the most important polls of all: on election day. All the more reason for voters to take that responsibility seriously - by questioning conventional wisdom, reading newspapers and carefully weighing the character of those who would lead, rather than choosing whichever candidate looks good or says what we want to hear.
Edward Achorn is deputy editorial page editor of The Providence (R.I.) Journal.
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 21, 2000.
------------------
The New World Order has a Third Reich odor.