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New Poll on Torture and Investigations Negates Beltway Conventional Wisdom
One of the most common and most corrosive aspects of our political discourse is the endless assertions -- based on nothing -- about what "Americans believe." It is exceedingly conventional wisdom that Americans generally view the world through the prism of Jack Bauer and therefore want our government to torture, want Guantanamo kept opened, and do not want suspected Terrorists to be tried in civilian courts inside the U.S. It is even more commonly asserted that Americans do not want, and even further, would never tolerate, criminal investigations into the various crimes of Bush officials.
A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday negates all of those beliefs. Here was the question that was asked about torture -- note that it's phrased in the most pro-torture manner possible, because it is grounded in the ludicrous, 24-clichéd "ticking time bomb" excuse that is the most commonly used argument by torture advocates:
Q. Obama has said that under his administration the United States will not use torture as part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism, no matter what the circumstance. Do you support this position not to use torture, or do you think there are cases in which the United States should consider torture against terrorism suspects?
By a wide margin -- 58-40% -- Americans say that torture should never be used, no matter the circumstances. Let's repeat that: "no matter the circumstance." That margin is enormous among Democrats (71-28%) and substantial among independents (56-43%). As usual these days, Republicans hold the minority view, but even among them there is substantial categorical opposition to torture (42-55%).
Moreover, a majority of Americans (53-42%) favor the closing of Guantanamo, with large support among Democrats (68%) and independents (55%). Even more significantly, a very solid majority of those favoring the closing of Guantanamo recognize exactly what ought to be done with detainees who the government believes are guilty of terrorism-related crimes -- it's exactly what the ACLU and civil libertarians generally urge be done:
One reason for Obama's order on judicial proceedings is to figure out just how to handle those suspects, and among those in the new poll who want Gitmo closed, more than six in 10 said they should be put on trial in the regular U.S. court system. A third said they'd like them to face justice in their home countries.
Even more surprisingly for spouters of conventional wisdom, a majority of Americans (50-47%) believe that the Obama administration should investigate whether the Bush administration's treatment of detainees was illegal. When asked: "Do you think the Obama administration should or should not investigate whether any laws were broken in the way terrorism suspects were treated under the Bush administration?," Democrats overwhelmingly favor such investigations (69%), while Republicans oppose them by the same margin, and independents are slightly against.
Relatedly, Americans would have opposed (52-42%) the issuance of pardons by Bush to those "who carried out his administration's policy on the treatment of terrorism suspects." The poll confined itself in these questions to investigations into detainee abuse, and did not ask about investigations into other Bush crimes, such as illegal spying, obstruction of justice and various DOJ crimes.
What's most remarkable about the fact that a majority of Americans favor investigations is that one has to struggle to find even a single politician of national significance or a prominent media figure who argue that position. The notion that Bush officials shouldn't be criminally investigated is about as close to a lockstep consensus among political and media elites as it gets, and yet, still, a majority of Americans favor such investigations.
One can, of course, debate the significance of public opinion on these questions. In general, the fact that a majority or even a large majority believe X does not make X true or right. And one should avoid relying too much on a single poll, since results can and typically do vary based on the wording of questions, sample size and the like. One could probably devise polls with slight wording changes to generate marginally different results.
Still, when assertions are made in political debates about "what Americans believe," those assertions should not be made baselessly, inaccurately or manipulatively. Yet, as this poll demonstrates, that's exactly how such claims are typically made. For years it was conventional wisdom -- repeated endlessly -- that American majorities don't care about constitutional liberties and thus wanted the Government to spy without warrants, even if doing so was against the law. Yet polls continuously showed that was not the case.
These results are not really surprising. The Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon's forced resignation and the imprisonment of many of his top aides ingrained the idea in the American political landscape (though not in the minds of our political class) that high political officials are not above the law and must not be allowed to escape consequences when they commit felonies. Americans are also inculcated early on with an emphasis on the primacy of our constitutional values. The Republicans have failed miserably in two straight elections by making one of the centerpieces of their campaign the fear-mongering warning that Democrats would cause us all to be slaughtered by Terrorists because they would put an end to illegal spying, torture, secret detentions and the like.
Our political elites endlessly deny these facts -- and insist that Americans don't care about the rule of law and Constitutional values -- because that's how they excuse their own violations and their refusal to hold themselves accountable: "We can't investigate Bush because the public wouldn't tolerate it; we can't abide by Constitutional norms because we'll lose elections if we appear soft on terror." But those claims are false. There may (or may not be) reasonable grounds for arguing against constitutional protections and imposing consequences on those who violate them, but the fact that public opinion won't permit such actions is quite clearly not one of those grounds.
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15 Comments so far
Show AllGlenn,
You forgot one thing: Americans are dumber than a sack of door knobs. I would bet a significant number of Americans don't even know that Mr. Obama is president, or that the vice president is Mr. Biden or that Hiliary is Sec. of State.
Or that the first ten admendments to the US Constitution is called the "Bill of Rights."
Most Americans are bible believing dolts.
If "Most Americans are bible believing dolts" how about a poll to find how many can quote the "Ten Commandments." Catagorise the results by Democrat, Independent, and
Republican. See who is on the bottom of the list. Any bets?
If you believe election results over last decades --
and reports by corporate-controlled media . . . then, yes,
Americans are "dumb."
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Nine times out of ten when the talking heads are asserting "Americans believe X" it is that their corporate bosses want Americans to believe X and the talking heads are earning their pay in trying to make that happen. I remember during the primaries when the same talking heads were asserting that Kucinich was "far out of the mainstream of the Democratic Party" that the polls were showing that most Democrats agreed with his positions on the issues, far more than they agreed with the positions of the mainstream candidates.
The interogatory art and statistical science of polling is nothing more or less than applied propaganda. Those who sponser these surveys have no interest in what is the truth, rather, they are interested in how to seduce and trick people by any means necessary into seeing the world their way.
Therefore all polling (including progressive polling) is only as reliable as the questions on which its statistical evaluation is based. Without knowing all the questions asked and all the options offered as answers to respondents no poll results have any more value than used toilet paper as a measure of public opinion, mood, or desire.
Poet
camus13
I have been reading lately in the media (New Yorker) and on line about the demise of the newspaper business.
No kidding. It does not take much to see that the American public is fed up with newspapers and the so-called pundents. The live breath and spew inside the belt way jargon......each and every day.
After working at a newspaper for 35 years (retired in 1991) it turns my stomach to read most papers........like the New York Times.....which I do longer do. Gaza was more than enought for any SANE person. But they lost any appeal long ago.
Without the web I would be lost and I am not upset with newspaper's demise. With most owners it more....more....more....money that is.
Newspapers are important and I do miss reading them but they have been co-opted by big business or are part thereof.
Since when does the law matter to U.S. politicians?
Excellent article by GG.
I think the reason that the "official wisdom" is the opposite of what people actually think on this topic is that, of course, the mainstream media is but a mouthpiece for the government, and the government would have those gullible ones to believe its lies.
The demonstrates the degree to which the mainstream media is compromised.
Congress and the White House don't give a shit about polls unless that idea gets them money money money !! Besides, we the idiots in America are too busy drowning ourselves in schadenfreude watching defenseless and possibly innocent people getting mugged and tortured to pay attention to the need to push for reform !
In what turned out to be his final performances, Bruce took to reciting (with a thick German accent) lines from a poem by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton — a meditation on the high-ranking Nazi official Adolf Eichmann. “My defense? I was a soldier. I saw the end of a conscientious day’s effort. I watched through the portholes. I saw every Jew burned and turned into soap. Do you people think yourselves better because you burned your enemies at long distances with missiles? Without ever seeing what you’d done to them?” - Lenny Bruce
It seems that the terror is in the hearts of many Republicans and not in the hearts of the rest of us.
"We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours." Lord Baden-Powell
And what about the Democrats who joined the Republicans? A wrong action is a wrong action regardless of who does it, PERIOD.
Bring America Back !!!! Being short of time, I just want to add that the Neocon Mainstream Media continues to make the "T" Word==Torture a centerpiect of attention, when the crimes that have afflicted us for 8 years began, not with Torture but with the Crime of 9/11 !!!
***Bushco and his Band have gladly admitted to Torture because they know it will distract world opinion from what really happened on Sept 11, 2001==thats the baby they don't want to address, or have investigated.
***They want us to keep on believing the fairy tale that a cave dwelling boogieman, and his heirum of 19 airline pilot school flunkouts pulled off the technical genius that was 9/11.
**************There will be a Deep Throat for 9/11 and I hope it is soon, now
that the War Criminals have lost hold of some of their power!!
It has always been so.
In poll after poll, Americans express liberal and progressive attitudes on just about all subjects. We're talking scientific polls here.
Since both our government and our media are far to the right of us, this information is generally suppressed, in favor of spin polls concocted to make America seem more conservative than it really is.
For example, a recent poll shows that most Americans want more government--just the opposite of the right-leaning government and media:
"The latest survey of the National Election Studies (NES) shows, for example, a preference for a vigorous government role in a complex world. Sixty-seven percent said we need a strong government to handle complex economic problems. Nearly 58 percent said government should be doing more, not less; and 59 percent agreed that government has grown because the country's problems have grown."
The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth
A new slogan for all Americans to embrace.
IT'S THE CONSTITUTION, STUPID!
All of the politicians involved, took the oath to protect and defend THAT document, not the United States itself. Herr Bush never honored his oath, and attempted to recreat it again and again when stating that his one sacred duty was to protect the American people. WRONG.
Not surprising that he got it wrong, since he likely can't read, and even if he can, I'm certain he never actually read the Constitution, cause it's too long and too boring. Certainly in his view, it also was only a speed bump, placed in the way of his desires just to annoy him. After all, Herr Bush is the center of the known universe, right? Laws need not apply.
It is long past time to clean this swill out of the troughs of government. Reagan's self-realizing, and utterly sophistic philosophy of "government IS the problem" has come to full fruition with the crimes of the last President and his gang of sycophantic thugs. They ALL need to be prosecuted, or else this all simply gets punted forward into the future for other generations to deal with. Only problem, as has been the case from Nixon through Herr Bush, each successive violator/violation has been consistently worse than the last, and if this is not stopped, it will become (if it isn't already) an inoperable tumor in the body politic of this country. If we care to survive as a "shining" example of peace and freedom, and law and justice, we need to apply the rules, and defend them against all violators, whether they be in high office, or at street level.