politics

Gallup doesn’t understand set theory

This entry was posted in Commentary Writing and tagged journalism politics polls on by

According to a Gallup Poll article, “Less than a third of Americans say they would be willing to vote for someone nominated by their party who is over the age of 80 or has been charged with a felony or convicted of a felony by a jury.” If that’s true and Trump and Biden are the major-party nominees in 2024, then two-thirds of Americans will sit out the election for that reason alone.

Is that what the poll actually shows? The article goes on to say, “The poll addressed the issues of felonies and candidate age with separate questions each asked of about half of the poll’s respondents.” That makes it impossible to draw the conclusion stated at the top of the article. It’s an issue of set overlap.
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A disturbing cease & desist order in New Hampshire

This entry was posted in Commentary and tagged censorship New Hampshire politics on by

A few weeks ago, the New Hampshire Attorney General issued a cease and desist order to the National Democratic Committee, claiming that it had made “false, deceptive, and misleading” statements in violation of New Hampshire law. The statements in question noted that any delegates chosen in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary won’t be accepted at the party’s national convention, and therefore the primary is “meaningless.” Violation of the cited law is a felony.

This is disturbing in at least two ways. First, the Democratic National Committee isn’t a New Hampshire organization. It isn’t subject to New Hampshire law. The AG’s office seems to be saying it can enforce its law anywhere in the country, maybe anywhere in the world.
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Book Discussion: Tech Panic

This entry was posted in Book discussion Reviews and tagged Internet politics technology on by

Robby Soave is making a name for himself among the younger generation of libertarian journalists. His Tech Panic addresses many of the overblown concerns and bad recommendations about social media. The attacks come from both the right and the left, and they’re disturbingly similar even though the two sides hate each other. They’re often attacks on free speech as such. Tech Panic cover

I should mention that I don’t like the big social media platforms very much. Rather than go off on a major rant, I’ll just leave it at that. I make minimal use of Facebook and have given up on Twitter, and I’m not biased in their favor.

Politicians often demand the repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The bulk of the CDA was declared unconstitutional, but Section 230 remains as protection for hosting companies and their users. It says, basically, that websites aren’t responsible for user-posted content. There are some exceptions; for instance, hosts have to take down child porn as fast as they can. But if a user violates a copyright or libels a person, the liability falls on the user, not the host.
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Book Discussion: Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy

This entry was posted in Writing and tagged Antifa books politics on by

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Antifa’s attempt to intimidate a bookstore gave a significant sales boost to Andy Ngo’s Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy. I probably wouldn’t have bought the book if it weren’t for that. If I’d seen it on a bookstore shelf, I would have noticed the endorsements by Tucker Carlson on the front and back covers and skipped over it.

It’s a book that I have to treat with caution. It’s hard to find any trustworthy information about Antifa, which isn’t a formal organization at the national level. Mainstream news seems to lie more about Antifa than about any other person or organization, claiming it’s an “anti-fascist” group. Every time I hear reliable reports about it, it’s trying to suppress the speech of others by tactics ranging from shouting down speakers to assault. That’s more fascist than anti-fascist. But just a few pages into the book, I started seeing indications that I should be cautious with Ngo too.

At the same time, I can’t dismiss him just because I disagree with some of his conclusions. I need to look at whether his research is reliable, he’s presenting all the important facts, he’s not using misleading words, he isn’t overestimating the movement’s importance, etc. He’s been the target of threats and physical assaults for his work on Antifa, and it’s hard for anyone to stay objective under such pressure.
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