'Newsweak' poll suggests some pollsters are racist.

I found a new poll today published by “Newsweak” , well it didn't really publish the poll- it published a short analysis of the poll along with some short interviews. The poll they reference is more an aggregate of many polls and it suggests that the people who wrote the poll questions think minorities should be coddled like children who need taken care of because they can’t do anything on their own. Well, if you disagree with Newsweek and the pollsters, then you must be a racist. Newsweek and the pollsters exercised some English acrobats in the questions so that anyone who doesn’t attempt to read between the lines or people who don’t believe in the same narrative- offends everyone who makes a living off of the assumed narrative. Unlike Newsweek, I won’t hide the actual poll questions I am going to talk about behind a link. (I'll embed the full pdf page at the end of the post). The context of the questions are from the point of view of people who buy into the idea that history is something you carry in your DNA and that behavior isn't something you learn but something you inherent. The questions are from the humanitarian progressive view point. Unlike Margret Sanger, the humanitarian progressive believes society should be changed so as to compensate for the inherent disabilities for non-whites. The Tea Party rejects the idea of inherent disabilities based on ethnicity or race- disabilities and talents are individual traits. The people polled agreed to take part in the poll- and so they answered the questions as presented. If you've ever been polled by phone you know that you can't change the questions to fit your answers.

Questions:	True Believers of Tea Party
Question 1: Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without special favors.	88%
Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class. (Disagree)	72%
Over the past few years blacks have gotten less than they deserve. (Disagree)	83%
It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites. (Agree)	73%

I suppose the pollsters and Newsweek believe people should get special favors because of their ethnicity. Isn’t that what the civil rights movement was about? When Martin Luther King said men should be judged by the content of their character- he didn’t have a footnote and he didn’t digress to try to qualify his statement. His point of reference was equality.

America has evolved as a nation. The Tea Party sees the basic unit of society as the individual. The creator of the poll sees the basic unit of society as the ethnic group. The struggle for individual success is a solitary action- no one can be given success. Success is something you earn through your own individual struggle- the rewards you receive are from your individual work- and the individual doesn't have a right to the rewards of another individual. I don't have a right to the success of Jerry West. I am a horrible basketball player- my individual struggle to become an NBA Hall of Famer is irrelevant- I don't have the talent. Jerry West did not oppress me- he didn't pool all the talent for himself like water. Talent isn't a resource that can be distributed- it doesn't fall like rain and you can't dig it out of the ground. You can be born with some talent- what you do with that talent is up to you- you can develop it to make yourself more talented- or you can ignore it and allow your environment to determine your actions. Man as a species can not expect to succeed if he relies only on his environment to survive- man must develop himself and change his environment. No group really has an inherent talent or an inherent disability and so no group should expect the rest of society to give them 'special favors' or pay a 'talent tax'. Talent and disability are descriptions of the properties of individuals.

Two questions in the poll discuss immigration. The first question doesn't surprise me as much as how many people didn't give a common sense answer- though the Tea Party has a much higher percentage of people who gave a common sense answer. If you don't think recent immigration levels will take jobs away from people already here I think you may have issues beyond answering poll questions.

How likely is it that recent immigration levels will take jobs away from people already here? (Likely)	56%
The number of immigrants from foreign countries should be…(Decreased)***	54%

Over half of the Tea Party People Polled think that the number of immigrants from foreign countries should be decreased. Well all countries that are not the United States are foreign countries to US citizens- it's a reciprocal relationship. To the citizens of Lesotho all countries that are not Lesotho are foreign countries-so I'm not sure why they worded the question in that way. Do the pollsters think some countries are not foreign countries? Maybe I'm over thinking it. The basics of logistics would dictate that when you have limited resources the units of resources per person will be determined by how many people you have- the more people you have, the smaller the portion each person would receive. So again common sense would dictate that we lower the number of immigrants coming into the country so as to not stress the resource pool further.

The next few questions were not addressed in the 'Newsweak' article. I think it's because it contradicts the humanitarian progressive narrative.

Favor/Oppose laws to protect homosexuals against job discrimination? (Favor)	62%
Homosexuals should be allowed to serve in the United States Armed forces? (Strongly Agree)	69%
Gay or lesbian couples should be allowed to legally adopt children? (Yes)	36%

The Tea Party is pretty Libertarian in nature and although it may be from an older demographic who doesn't necessarily agree with the novel idea of homosexuals adopting children- they still believe homosexuals should have what ever place in society they have earned individually.

The second set of poll questions really makes me want to see the sample polls used to construct the survey. I think that with both surveys the sources are probably slanted in the first place and so the bell curve would simply illustrate that bias.

Here is an interview with the pollster.

Here is the organizations analysis of the polls which contains links to the following pdfs.

Arizona law filling a power vacuum.

The Arizona state law is only evidence of a Federal failure. The Federal government has allowed a power vacuum to happen on the border so the state governments who are 1) closer to the problem and 2)more responsive to their constituency- have filled the vacuum. The state governments are being forced to action.

The responsibility of the Federal government as outlined in the Constitution is to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity". When the Federal government decided to ignore the problem it shifted the responsibility to the next logical level of responsibility. Our porous southern border has been a problem since at least the Eisenhower administration.

A news conference with Eisenhower from July 21, 1954:

Q. John Herling, Editors Syndicate: Mr. President, the wetback legislation prepared by Attorney General Brownell is sort of bogged down in the Congress, and at the time it was introduced there was great urgency about it, and it seems to continue to be that. Do you plan to give the idea an additional push? THE PRESIDENT. Well, wherever I see an opportunity, yes, I will. This is part of a general program that the Attorney General has to make it possible for him to enforce the laws as written. We want to make sure there is no disposition here in any of these laws to interfere with the transient workers who come in by legal means. They want them, they want to come; it is all on the up and up. The only difficulty is these that come across illegally; it is difficult to control unless he gets these additional measures. I believe there are two of them on that particular subject that should be enacted.

Americans who believe in what America is believe in the same things expressed by President Eisenhower. We don’t want to interfere with people here legally and at the same time we don’t want people to come here illegally.

If the federal government is interested in preserving our nation- then it must act soon to reform immigration policy. Under the law those who have entered illegally must pay a price of some kind. It wouldn’t be fair to those who have chosen to be a part of the American dream if they didn’t. I work with many legal immigrants- they have worked for years in the United States. They have paid taxes, many have become citizens, some have children serving our country in the armed forces, and they deserve to be treated fairly. These legal immigrants are jumping through the hoops and unraveling the red-tape that is legal immigration. How would allowing those who ignore our laws and minimize the struggle of legal immigrants be construed as an establishment of justice?

Here is where many would begin to indict the state government of Arizona- but I am going to point my finger at the federal government. Through the non-action of the federal government to defend the border states from an invasion it has forced Arizona to effect as much change as it can with its limited resources. This has caused a reaction in the legal and illegal immigrant community. No legal immigrant wants to see relatives here illegally, harassed or deported- be it by a government agent or a private citizen. Does the vacuum the federal government has created on the border promote domestic tranquility?

Traffickers affiliated with the Juárez Cartel supply illicit drugs, including cocaine and marijuana, to various street gangs for distribution in urban, suburban, and rural communities throughout the Southwest, Midwest, Great Lakes, and Mid-Atlantic Regions. Our southern border is so porous that we not only have problems in Arizona- we have problems all over the United States- because the federal government has allowed a power vacuum to exist on the border. People are in actual danger- Americans are being killed in their own back yards. What will move the federal government to actually provide for the common defense?

What is one of the first arguments you see from people who want to encourage illegal immigration? “They do jobs Americans won’t do.” Well why won’t Americans do those jobs? Could it be because of poor conditions and low pay? If an illegal immigrant is willing to do a job at a fraction of the wage an American would expect- what is to stop companies looking for cheap non-demanding labor from hiring illegal immigrants? “Without illegal immigration food costs (etc.) would increase.” That is the same exact argument northern supporters of slavery would use before the civil war. The producer wants the most affordable raw materials and be it the connoisseurs of “3000 mile salads” of today or the consumers of cotton textiles from 1860- they will do and say anything to have it. “Illegal immigrants are better off in America- Mexico is such a terrible place now- we have to help these poor souls.” Here is where we come to the old-deep south argument for slavery. Some slave owners would argue that the human beings they own would not be able to take care of themselves- and that they are in fact serving a humanitarian cause. So I would say that essentially people who want to promote illegal immigration are in fact using the same arguments slavers would use before the civil war. How can anyone argue that fighting for illegal immigration is promotion of the general welfare?

How can “reasonable suspicion” be attained with out immediately asking someone for their papers upon seeing that they may not be an American citizen. Reasonable suspicion doesn’t sound like a very high hurtle for a peace officer to jump over. If we want a limited government- every agent of the government must have a respect not only for the law but for the principles behind the law. Asking brown people for their papers upon “reasonable suspicion” is only going to hurt any kind of reform efforts. It will only reinforce the progressive policy of the past 20 years toward illegal immigration. The law will provide cover for the federal government to enforce the constitution selectively. It will be difficult for a peace officer to prove probable cause upon arrest if he has a “reasonable suspicion” of immigration status. Probable cause is the precedent for a lawful search or detention- mere suspicion isn’t a cause. Is reasonable suspicion securing the blessings of liberty?

The federal government is failing. If the federal government acts with purpose and common sense then states like Arizona won't be forced into filling the power vacuum with horrible laws.