Originally posted by DivineOb
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And I could say that it's more plausible that people are less likely to vote because they don't feel the need to cancel out all the illegal voting. We can both make things up. That's why hard data, even in a soft science, is preferable to your and my intuition about a group of people we, or at least I, am not a member of.
Now, speaking as a political scientist with the degrees to prove it, there is no such thing as 'hard data' in survey research. We are asking questions and trying to fairly represent the answers which doesn't come in consistently quantitative little packages like physical attributes. We can't weigh the person and see how they vote. We can only ask, often suppositionally, and hope we've done the job well enough that our measure means something in the real world.
Which is why numbers have to be taken with large grains of salt and a knowledge of how we actually get them (you don't need a degree in Poli Sci but you do need to understand the basics of methodology). And even then, the pesky voters go and change their minds!!!!
So we get statistics and a brand new glossary - then do it all over again. No 'hard data', just good methodology, careful reasoning and a heck of a lot more work.
It'd be a lot easier if we could just take air pressure readings...
Yes, another one. I was chewed out by you for assuming LPoT's answer was 'no' and I was chewed out by LPoT for assuming her answer was 'yes'.
I don't want to assume the thoughts of people who see the world so differently from me because my assumptions will necessary be guided by my bias and part of why I came back to this board was to talk with people who could help me challenge my biases.
Voter ID doesn't suppress voting - and it does not present a significant obstical to most voters for a given election, and no obstical at all for subsequent elections. I say that as some one who's followed the issue - and who has had to actually get a voter ID here in Alabama. The registrar was literally thrilled - she'd rarely had opportunity to do one. I ended up voting provisionally but only because I'd just moved. Technically, that means I was disenfranchised because the totals weren't close and my vote was therefore not counted.
It was in every election since.
So Lil may (ask her) agree in principle but not with your practice, yet you keep demanding that she concur with your affirmation. I wouldn't agree with your affirmations either - they imply a unity of practice that doesn't exist even when agreeing in principle.
There are people on this board for whom I believe their honest answer would be "Republicans winning is ALL that matters." Fine, but those are people I *cannot* respect. I try not to people too many people in that category if I can help it.
You wanna paint with a broad brush, you get broad strokes. You want detail, then get a finer brush. Your affirmation technique works for team building when there is no real disagreement; it fails utterly at building understanding.
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