Majority of Americans have negative view of Islam

[erowe1]

going from 0 to 2 would be mathematically 200% jump?

No. Going from 1 to 3 would be a 200% jump. Going from 0 to 2, or anything else, is undefined. I.e. (2-0)/0=undefined.

 

[MelissaWV]

I have an "unfavorable view of Islam," too. This is why polls are really pretty crummy indicators of just about anything. I have an "unfavorable view," in fact, of all religions I'm not a part of If I had a favorable view of them, I'd join. It has nothing to do with not liking Muslims. That wasn't the question. The question was about the religion itself. I have an unfavorable view of okra, too. It's just not for me.

* * *

.004, by the way, is .4%.

* * *

There are a lot of "underrepresented" groups in Congress. If people cared that much about there being representatives of their "group," then we'd certainly see a lot more young people, no? When was the last time there was a midget in Congress? Why not an albino? Excuse me, but which of them has autism? I don't see enough blindguys in Congress, and certainly not enough regular people who had average jobs. There just isn't enough diversity!!!

Isn't that a bit collectivist of you? What happened to judging each individual by their own merits? Isn't that what we say we stand for?

You know, I realize that since the presidential debate, that a whole lot of people have not known where to direct their pent up emotions, but we have a bunch of primaries coming upon us in short order and a variety of liberty candidates in those races. Please everyone, try to find something constructive to involve yourselves in. Remember that we are a big movement, with people from across the political spectrum; people who came together and put their differences aside to work for liberty for all.

 

[nate895]

* * *

There are a lot of "underrepresented" groups in Congress. If people cared that much about there being representatives of their "group," then we'd certainly see a lot more young people, no? When was the last time there was a midget in Congress? Why not an albino? Excuse me, but which of them has autism? I don't see enough blindguys in Congress, and certainly not enough regular people who had average jobs. There just isn't enough diversity!!!

This is an important point. Any minority group is going to be underrepresented unless that minority group has other advantages (i.e., Jews tend to be wealthier and more well educated than the general population, and the overwhelming majority don't have a negative opinion of Jews), and it is quite frankly surprising that there is a single member of Congress who is Islamic given that they are only 1-2% of the population and don't have many advantages over the general population in other regards.

 

[Danke]

There are a lot of "underrepresented" groups in Congress. If people cared that much about there being representatives of their "group," then we'd certainly see a lot more young people, no? When was the last time there was a midget in Congress?

They got their representation:

 

[phill4paul]

I have an "unfavorable view of Islam," too. This is why polls are really pretty crummy indicators of just about anything. I have an "unfavorable view," in fact, of all religions I'm not a part of If I had a favorable view of them, I'd join. It has nothing to do with not liking Muslims. That wasn't the question. The question was about the religion itself. I have an unfavorable view of okra, too. It's just not for me.

* * *

.004, by the way, is .4%.

* * *

There are a lot of "underrepresented" groups in Congress. If people cared that much about there being representatives of their "group," then we'd certainly see a lot more young people, no? When was the last time there was a midget in Congress? Why not an albino? Excuse me, but which of them has autism? I don't see enough blindguys in Congress, and certainly not enough regular people who had average jobs. There just isn't enough diversity!!!

As far as (un)derepresented classes in Congress I would like to see more middle-class Congress persons. But, I'd settle for a young autistic albino midget w/ macular degeneration.

 

[phill4paul]

They got their representation:

Did ya hear the one about the armless midget that rang the door bell at the local cathouse?

 

[BlackTerrel]

People are not sent to Congress to represent a religious faith, or a specific race. They are sent to Congress to represent ALL Americans in their state.

In Abe's defense he was merely replying to a poster who said that Muslims were overrepresented. I agree that it is irrelevant either way.

 

[MelissaWV]

They got their representation:

I had to look a few times before I noticed Dennis in that picture at all...

 

[BlackTerrel]

I have an "unfavorable view of Islam," too. This is why polls are really pretty crummy indicators of just about anything. I have an "unfavorable view," in fact, of all religions I'm not a part of

Islam was by far the most unfavorable of all the religions polled.

If I had a favorable view of them, I'd join. It has nothing to do with not liking Muslims. That wasn't the question. The question was about the religion itself.

I looked this up from the same poll. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/286139

A new Gallup poll shows that more than 4 in 10 Americans (43 percent) admit to feeling at least "a little" prejudice toward Muslims. That is more than twice the number who say the same about Christians (18 percent), Jews (15 percent) and Buddhists (14 percent).

It's a bit perplexing. Judaism and Buddhism are viewed more negatively than Christianity. But Jews and Buddhists themselves are viewed less negative than Christians.

Either way I find the numbers about Islam and Muslims to be troubling. Especially since most of those polled probably do not even know any Muslims.

There are a lot of "underrepresented" groups in Congress. If people cared that much about there being representatives of their "group," then we'd certainly see a lot more young people, no? When was the last time there was a midget in Congress?

I believe the prefer the term Little People. Although to be honest little people sounds far more offensive to me than midget

 

[MelissaWV]

I've always had some issues with polling, and modern technology is making polls skew further. I notice the article you posted does not include the polling method, so I looked it up.

Results for this Gallup Panel study are based on telephone interviews with 1,002 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct.31-Nov.13, 2009. Gallup Panel members are recruited through random selection methods. ... Gallup conducted the nationwide U.S. survey between Oct. 31 and Nov. 13, 2009, spanning the Fort Hood shooting in which a U.S.-born Muslim military doctor killed 13 people on the Army base on Nov. 5.

Now, that DOES change things just a LITTLE bit, whether one likes it or not.

First off, the time period is going to skew things over a little bit.

Second off, the methodology is going to skew things a lot. When someone calls you at home, and offers for you to take a survey, do you take it? Most people don't like those calls. Hell, most people are at work or running errands most of the time. In addition, a lot of younger peopld do not have a landline to get these surveys on. That already skews the demographic. Atop that, the stereotypical lonely old person is the most likely to stay on the phone answering questions. I've worked answering 800-Numbers before, and it's not pretty. Old people called all day long just to talk, because they were lonesome and the call was free. Telemarketers and survey-takers often find the same sort of thing. Most people with families (not necessarily children, but family in general) are out and about.

Now, am I saying "old people are racist"? No, however people who are at home all day and are saturated with the news of "that Muslim who killed a bunch of people" are going to have a certain reaction to things. People who might have been rushing around in their daily lives, and encountered a variety of people of a plethora of religions are not going to react, overall, in the same way. People who still have jobs, still have kids to raise, shopping to do, and a million other activities to manage don't generally take time out to take these surveys. Additionally, a large number of those stay-at-home-elderly, for lack of a better term, are Christian. This, again, does not make them automatically racist, but as human beings we're unlikely to hate our own religion (if we did, we'd probably renounce it). This means that elderly stay-at-home types might make up a large portion of that "highly favorable" block for Christianity.

Please note that the LARGEST response for every non-Christian group was "somewhat favorable." You know, as in "I guess they're not so bad, but it's not for me" would fall into that category. Even though Islam provoked the most people saying they had an entirely unfavorable opinion, that was still not the largest response opinion for that religion.

Let's look again at that last graph. Let's look for other headlines. Let's assume no one hates themselves and that everyone says they have a very favorable opinion of their own religion. What jumps out at me, if we're to take this graph at face value, is that you could account for the favorable other religions hating Islam, but you can't account for the favorable Islam respondants hating Christians. In other words, 9% viewed Islam as "highly favorable," but only 4% viewed Christianity as "not favorable at all." That means that *at least* 5% of the people who viewed Islam as "highly favorable" found at least some merit in Christianity and couldn't condemn it outright.

Polls. They speak whatever language you want them to.

 

[BlackTerrel]

Excellent posts Melissa. I do agree that polls can be misleading - though I do think they are useful to convey the general mood of the country.

 

[LittleLightShining]

The military-industrial-media complex has spent the last 9 years brainwashing people that something called islamo-fascism actually exists and that most Muslims are sleeper fanatics who at the call of an imam are going to blow themselves up along with your whole neighborhood in the name of jihad.

I think I'm gonna start asking people I know who try to fling this at me when we talk foreign policy if they realize how racist they sound.

Isn't that a bit collectivist of you? What happened to judging each individual by their own merits? Isn't that what we say we stand for?

You know, I realize that since the presidential debate, that a whole lot of people have not known where to direct their pent up emotions, but we have a bunch of primaries coming upon us in short order and a variety of liberty candidates in those races. Please everyone, try to find something constructive to involve yourselves in. Remember that we are a big movement, with people from across the political spectrum; people who came together and put their differences aside to work for liberty for all.

+1

 

[rpfan2008]

"Arabs control Hollywood." --Alex Jones

 

[ramallamamama]

The look on DK's face is PRICELESS.