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Might want to look that one up; he's a law professor of some repute.

Here's some more information of interest:

https://www.cato.org/survey-re...

https://today.yougov.com/news/...

http://www.pewresearch.org/fac...

I believe, if you scroll up, that the original post was:

Dissenting opinions can be punished by the state, or the herd, but either way, the outcome is the same.

Actually, the "Born in Kenya" is because the dust-jacket biography for his first book said so.

In the same vein, a majority of Democrats believe Russia actually modified vote totals during the 2016 election, despite there being zero evidence for that - even less evidence than the Birthers ever had.

Basically, extreme political polarization has led idiots (which form the majority base of both major political parties) to believe stupid things. Stupid people gonna stupid.

If on the other hand, I deliberately try to serve cookies containing peanuts to you, knowing you're deathly allergic to peanuts

Peanut allergy is real. So, apparently, is the effect of strobing images on epileptics. But it is still worrying...

Recall, that "trigger warnings" are already "a thing". What if my political opinion "triggers" somebody — causing them pain and/or other suffering? For now, such snowflakes are content to escape the brutal realities of life in "safe spaces". Unfortunately, those prolifereate and are already used to silence certain opinions.

True, FBI is not yet used to go after the "triggering" folks, but that can't be far off. When the current crop of students enters real life and their careers place (some of) them into actual decision-making positions, Law Enforcement will equate such triggering with assault — and doctors, currently in pre-med at those same campuses, will certify in court that the "victims'" "pain" is real...

Oh, and did you know, movement is seriously afoot to make "hate speech" a crime too?

tell someone that my intention is to do you harm

Yep. Right here... I do consider certain Illiberals to be beyond repair and do wish to make them uncomfortable — my very /. signatures are designed to mock something they hold dear. Intentionally.

Whatever this intent says about my own character flaws, it is still protected by the First Amendment today. But we are already sliding down the slippery slope... The First Amendment may be protecting a nebulous "right" to sell pornography (except for the child sort, for some reason), as well as to (quietly!) video-tape police. But, if the current trends aren't reversed, it will — in a generation — become illegal to say certain things because of the "painful reaction" such speech might cause...

I don't think many people seriously believed voting itself was hacked.

Actually 50% of Clinton voters believe that, or about a quarter of the US population. Of course Trump voters had their own preferred conspiracy theories as you can see from the same report. What it shows is that people believe the narrative of their preferred news sources, and that neither major party is immune.

Rolling Stone has a nice article with an overview of the whole situation and why we should be skeptical. It's nice to see that coming from them, because MSNBC won't say it (gotta support out side) and nobody is going to believe Fox saying it, and sadly the rest of the press is starting to fall in line with one side or the other.

Yes, the image detection algorithm that flagged that, automatically, is clearly a conspiracy to control "fake news".

You are kinda dumb aren't you?

The "controlling fake news" conspiracy literally is this. You now have the option when flagging a story, to mark it as fake news. That's it. It's not even an automated process (yet) it's literally giving YOU the ability to alert THEM to fake stories.

So, unless you are an asshole spreading bullshit fake news, you should be happy. But going from your tone, I think we all know you are all up in that pizzagate... Right?

"Fake news" only became a big deal when Democrats and the media that said Hillary! would win had to excuse her loss instead.

Want to talk about "fake news"? Now half of all Democrat voters actually believe that the Russian government directly affected vote counts to allow Trump to win.

Now there's some "fake, narrative-driven news" for you - all for the Democrat's and partisan media's goal to delegitimize Trump's win.

And it's brought to you by the same folks at CBS, ABC, NBC, The New York Times, and of course the "Russians-also-hacked-the-electricity-grid-ooops-forget-we-published-that" Washington Post:

'Fake News' And How The Washington Post Rewrote Its Story On Russian Hacking Of The Power Grid

The "Russia hacked the U.S. election" headline, in contrast with "some Russians hacked the DNC and we don't know who leaked to Wikileaks", is the biggest case of fake news out there and almost no one is talking about it. Because of this type of deceitful headline half of Clinton's voters believe that the Russian government hacked the vote tallies, even tough there is no indication of that and no officials are actually claiming.

Yes, EVERY SINGLE liberal person believes that Russian hackers LITERALLY infiltrated the election votes.

No, 50% of Clinton voters, actually say they believe that.

Especially seeing as the way this has been covered 50% of Democrats now think the Russians hacked voting machines

https://today.yougov.com/news/...

Gotta give the DNC credit on this one, they have managed to completely deflect from their security incompetence and breaking faith with their voters.

Unless you linked the wrong article, you left out the word "probably" between "now" and "think" and the words "I think" before "50%". That article doesn't say anything about anyone thinking voting machines had been hacked.

The article itself is actually somewhat interesting and may have a point about some conspiracy theories being highly partisan in who believes them. I assume the comment upvotes were either appreciation for the article as it is or part of the usual echo chamber from people who didn't bother to read whether the article says what your comment implies it does.

Especially seeing as the way this has been covered 50% of Democrats now think the Russians hacked voting machines

https://today.yougov.com/news/...

Gotta give the DNC credit on this one, they have managed to completely deflect from their security incompetence and breaking faith with their voters.

because it demonstrates a significant lack of appreciation for the text, spirit, or values enshrined in the Constitution

Overall, I find the lack of appreciation for same by the other party to be far more discontenting. It is the Democrats, who wish to:

• Illegalize "hate speech", contrary to the First Amendment;
• Illegalize weapons — from knives and brass knuckles to firearms, contrary to the Second Amendment;
• promote Affirmative Action — contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment;
• abolish Electoral College and otherwise diminish the role of the member-States in the Union;

But those threats to the Constitution do not worry you, only Christianity does?..

the survey you cited includes no evidence that American Muslims agree with Sharia Law

Seriously? Are you that dense? The article I linked to is called (emphasis mine) "Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world". What does it tell you, that, while it has Sharia-support figures for about 20 other countries — and even a graphic showing same — the figures for the US are omitted? Ok, maybe, my growing up in the USSR gave me the ability to read between the lines, that the blissfully naive Americans do not possess. Fine. Let's look for other sources:

According to the just-released survey of Muslims, a majority (51%) agreed that “Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to shariah.” When that question was put to the broader U.S. population, the overwhelming majority held that shariah should not displace the U.S. Constitution (86% to 2%).

and:

nearly a quarter of the Muslims polled believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.”

Now, these results are politically inconvenient to the still-prevailing dogma, so, as could be expected, the study is denounced (such as here) as "deeply flawed". But what better rebuttal could there be, than offering results of your own study contradicting those of the "flawed" one? And yet, none of the critics could cite their own numbers. Does that not tell you something?

a completely made up story

Once again, it is not "made up" at all — and certainly not completely made up. It is a real problem, and not just in the US (for which we, curiously, do not establishment-blessed figures at all), but also in Canada, UK, and Norway...

Quit denying it — makes you look stupid. You'll get better mileage out of arguing, "it is nothing to worry about" instead.

A plurality of Clinton voters say the election was rigged - that vote manipulation or fraud led to the election of Trump.
As mentioned elsewhere, the "Hands up, Don't Shoot!" lie has been pushed for years, and has led directly to major rioting and the murder of police officers.
The SPLC claimed that the Family Research Council was a hate organization, and inspired an attempted mass-murderer to attack it.
After Dan Rather's pathetic attempt to push fraudulent documents, the media famously came out in support of him, saying "Fake but accurate".

The Left has pushed "fake news" for many years, but just like in 2000 and 2004, as soon as they lose, it's time for "cleaning up the news", "truth in reporting", a new "Fairness doctrine", or some other form of censorship.

Actually, the US voters are rather centrist, and it's the parties which are to the right of them. Perhaps one might even argue the population is center-left. And with the youth it's even more so. See, for example, this survey finding that half the population views Socialism favorably.

You mean anti-porn zealots like these?

I mean, anti-porn zealots mentioned in the write-up:

Anti-pornography groups have succeeded in their efforts to get Starbucks and McDonald's to block porn on the chains' Wi-Fi networks

That's the party of Trump, by the way.

More of the anti-porn zealots may be among Trump supporters, but the even worse danger is from the freaks, who'd criminalize (what they deem to be) "hate speech". These are mostly in Hillary's camp — are you comfortbable in that company?

Neither group should be allowed to prevail and the best way to achieve this is by keeping as much stuff as possible out of government's control to begin with.

since capitalism and democracy in their current forms began, both

The US is not a Democracy, but a Republic. The rule of the majority in our country is limited by the Constitution. For example, a majority may some day decide, that hate-speech ought to be illegal. But, as long as the First Amendment exists, no such law can be passed.

But, yes, we can continue doing it... Still waiting for period3 to elaborate on his "Insightful" proposal, though.

Homeopathy is, unfortunately, more of a left-wing delusion than right-wing. Young earth creationism and global warming denial tend to be right wing delusions. Other left wing problems include irrational beliefs about power generation (to some extent this happens on the other side, but even most hard right wingers admit fossil fuels aren't an ideal long-term solution...), and mysticism about quantum mechanics, "organic foods", and GMOs. There are healthcare mysticisms on both sides too. The "religious right" is ironically particularly resistant to certain alternative medicines that come packaged with incompatible religious messages, like weird aura/crystal healing bullshit.

The problem is that you have this idea that the left is the "right about everything" party and the right is the "wrong about everything" party. The only thing you can be sure a left-winger is right about is politics :), not science. In fact, your own post is an ad hominem fallacy: the right are more likely to be wrong about evolution, THEREFORE they must be more likely to be wrong about vaccines. It's a very irrational way to view the world and that's exactly how we get the problem of these ridiculous beliefs in the first place.

Remember, just because a person is too ignorant or even too stupid to understand the right answer doesn't mean they'll believe the wrong answer. Especially in cases where you narrow to two choices (left and right wing) where they'll pick the right answer half the time even for completely wrong reasons. They'll still pick the wrong answer on a bunch of other things.

As for who is more anti-vax? Well, according to this: http://today.yougov.com/news/2012/12/05/public-support-vaccination-remains-strong/, it's true: in the US, the right wing is more anti-vax than the left wing, although not by a wide margin. You appear to be correct about vaccination, for completely the wrong reasons.

Who says the general public doesn't care about it?

Polling shows that even back in July the US public knew the NSA was lying and disapprove of what's happening by 2:1.

But what can be done? "Outrage" doesn't achieve anything. It became abundantly clear the moment senior members of the military were caught lying and nothing was done, that what the public think doesn't matter. So why should the public make a fuss? Waste of energy.

CNN and the likes are just reflecting the fact that the general story is by now well known and not news. The NSA lies and is totally out of control. It does everything the most paranoid people ever imagined, and more. OK. Got it. Next story.

But make no mistake. The right people are still paying attention. Behind the scenes there's a lot going on in a lot of places. All kinds of people who previously would not have included government agencies in their threat models are now starting to do so. Change will take years, perhaps decades, and enormous amounts of technical talent is going to be wasted fighting the US government by trying to blind it with more effective encryption. Success is by no means guaranteed. But without a doubt those members of the general public who have the ability to take part in that are still paying attention.

I would be suspicious without seeing the wording of the poll itself.

I don't think this is the poll in question, but a recent YouGov poll is at http://www.yougov.com/uk/archives/pdf/Liberty%20results%2008%2003%2027%20(2).pdf .

This instead offers a choice between raising it to 42 days, and changing the law to allow the police to question suspects on related offences after the 28 day period. 70% supported the latter, with only 13% in favour of the former.

But yes I agree with you about the Lords - the question of how long someone should be locked up for is the very thing that shouldn't be put to the popular vote.

I will concede that some polls showed a lean towards banning the practice (the link shows a poll with 57% for banning fox hunting). As I mentioned above, I am generally against it, and if asked to chose between not banning it or banning it I would probably have to say ban it (with a shug!), but I guess the point I am making is that a small minority of people made sufficient noise that the question be asked in the first place. Had there not been the vocal minority kicking up a fuss, how many people would have even considered the question? I'd have to say not many! The majority, I would conclude, simply don't care.

I agree with your point about opinon polls vs petitions though! The website should be redesigned so that there is automatically a petition setup to offer the alternative view point, or you can vote for or against!

I can do better than that. I'll show you a poll that asked the ID question as the first question on the poll. No leading questions at all.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL060101004_3. pdf
52% in favour, 37% against.

But it says nothing about the national database, nor does it specify compulsory cards. These are the two main issues which people are mostly against, so this poll tells us nothing as to whether people are in favour.

As for the later questions - yes, people are inclined to agree with the supposed benefits - even I'd be forced to technically answer Yes. But note that a majority believe the cards will contain wrong information, half believe the equipment will often fail (with only 28% disagreeing), and more people disagree it will make things easier to catch criminals. A shocking 80% say the cards could be forged, and only 21% believe it will help against terrorism. 74% believe the cost will rise more than the "enormously expensive" cost already announced, and 60% say the cards will be time consuming and enormously disruptive.

See the pattern? People have no problem with the general concept of a national ID, such as a cheap optional card. I can see it'd be handy.

But as soon as you ask details about Labour's scheme, there is immense opposition. And you claim this poll shows support!

Also, it's curious to note just how leadingly biased the questions are - in both directions - and this often seems to result in a huge number agreeing with the statement. It's a pretty poor poll.

Actually, I question the methodology they use for the polls in the first place. The vast majority of those I've seen cited in the media are government-funded, and carried out by the kind of organisation one hires when one already knows the result required.

That's absolutely not true. The government at an early stage did a request for comments on the ID card, and there was some dispute about how they counted the result. But that's not polling. The vast majority of polls on the ID card issue have been done by newspapers (who'd love an anti-ID card result), commissioning the reputable polling companies. The most regular of them being the Telegraph - a right wing anti-Labour newspaper - commissioning YouGov, a reputable polling company. (I hope your confusion isn't mistaking YouGov for some government agency. It's a private polling company.)

You show me a study that presents both the questions at the top of this post and the verifiable facts afterwards in a balanced way and then tells me the majority of the population wants ID cards

I can do better than that. I'll show you a poll that asked the ID question as the first question on the poll. No leading questions at all.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL060101004_3. pdf
52% in favour, 37% against.

But unbiased polling isn't enough for you is it? You don't want to know what the public actually think. You want to feed them your own perception of the truth, your own bias, your own propaganda, and then ask the question immediately after that. You're not really complaining about bad methodology in polling at all, you're complaining that the polls haven't been manipulated to give the result you want.

Earlier in the year, a poll found 45% support, which isn't a majority.

When the number opposed was 42%, it is. You don't get to count "don't knows" for your side.

That poll was in June 2005. The very lowest ever of all the polls for the ID card.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101028_1. pdf

Since then, an identical but later poll was taken for the Telegraph by YouGov in Feb 2006. The result was 53% in favour, 37% opposed, 11% don't know.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL060101004_3. pdf

As I said every single poll that's ever been don on ID cards in the UK has shown a majority in favour.

Earlier in the year, a poll found 45% support, which isn't a majority.

When the number opposed was 42%, it is. You don't get to count "don't knows" for your side.

That poll was in June 2005. The very lowest ever of all the polls for the ID card.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL050101028_1. pdf

Since then, an identical but later poll was taken for the Telegraph by YouGov in Feb 2006. The result was 53% in favour, 37% opposed, 11% don't know.
http://www.yougov.com/archives/pdf/TEL060101004_3. pdf

As I said every single poll that's ever been don on ID cards in the UK has shown a majority in favour.

And I can refute your ICM poll with a YouGov poll commissioned by the Daily Telegraph and ITN which shows 50% back the US/UK.

Yeah - and the Daily Telegraph's YouGov (pdf) poll showed 50% in favour.