2/3 to 3/4 of Americans Communists, depending...

Anyone who knows me well at all knows that I don't care for polls and surveys and such. I think it's a rare occurance indeed when a survey consisting of five hundred or a thousand people polled hits upon a single, much less numerous sentiments consistent with the general sense of a citizenry topping 270 million.

I don't think it's necessarily a purposeful misleading that these poll-takers are engaging in, but I don't necessarily believe it isn't either. It all depends on the reasoning behind the particular poll taken, who's conducting it, what kinds of questions are asked, what kinds of answers are provided, and so on and so forth. All of these factors weigh into the final outcome of the survey in question.

I admit that I'm not well versed in the science of poll taking. And I suppose that there are methods to the madness that I'm probably overlooking. But I think it's hard to make a case for polls basing their findings on such an insignificant proportion of the citizenry as the one the story below cites...

WASHINGTON (AP) --

Income differences in the U.S. are too stark, and the government should provide jobs and training for those having a tough time, according to majorities in a national poll released Thursday.

About seven in 10 said discrepancies between income levels are too large, a sentiment voiced by nearly two-thirds of those from households earning at least $80,000 a year, the survey said. Three-fourths of people earning less than $80,000 agreed.

Eight in 10 said the gap between the rich and the middle class has worsened over the last 25 years, said the survey by the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis.

The poll comes in the early stages of a 2008 presidential campaign in which several Democratic candidates have discussed a widening distance between the country's rich and poor.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards has made ''two Americas'' one of his favorite themes. Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois have also touched on the topic.

In the survey, 58 percent said large pay differences help get people to work harder. Yet 61 percent said such discrepancies are not needed for the country to prosper.

Two-thirds said the government should make sure there is a job for everyone who wants one. Small majorities said it should provide jobs for people who can't find private employment, increase federal training programs and redistribute money with high taxes on the wealthy.

Even so, nearly two-thirds said it is not the government's responsibility to ease income differences.

The survey was conducted from June 18 to July 2 and involved telephone interviews with 500 adults nationally. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

My question is simply this: How do these surveys show such disparate results on different, yet obviously related questions asked of the same individuals; why are there such inconsistencies shown in the answers given? Are people truly that fickle about what they believe?

The results to which I refer in this particular survey are of course those showing very even percentages (58% and 61% respectively) of people who apparently believe on the one hand that 'large pay differences help get people to work harder,' yet on the other that 'such discrepancies (in pay I'm assuming) are not needed for the country to prosper.' Huh!?....prosperity has no relationship to incentive, yet it does; productivity is, or it isn't to be associated with success? I'm getting more confused by the second.

Other results from this survey I'm referring to are the ones indicating that two out of three people surveyed believe the government should 'make sure there is a job for everyone who wants one,' and nearly two out of three people surveyed believe that 'it's not the government's responsibility to ease income differences.' Say what!? On the one hand it IS the government's responsibility to provide jobs for those unemployed 'against their will;' on the other hand, and at the same time, it IS NOT the responsibility of government to do anything about the income gap between the, what, 'over-employed,' and the 'under-employed?'

Okay, obviously I'm utterly confused now. And I admit that the more surveys I read, the more confused I get, as a general rule. That probably accounts for most of why I'm simply not a survey/poll kinda fella. The results have never made much sense to me, and I think, based in part on these and others I've had the misfortune to read, they probably never will.

The only thing I've ever found to be consistent in the published results of most polls I've read is the overall tendency for them to show inconsistencies in the thinking of the individuals polled. In other words, they're consistently inconsistent. That fact in itself is enough for me to shy away from putting any stock whatsoever in poll and survey results of virtually any kind, on questions of virtually any kind.

Having taken a few polls myself, I can tell you that my personal experience is that the questions are always either too vaguely asked (not specific enough), or the answers provided are too few or too vague in themselves; or both. In fact, I've given up right in the midst of taking a poll due to these very factors before. I have no interest whatsoever in answering questions wherein someone has already predetermined for me that my answers must fall within a certain range of responses carefully chosen and framed by...someone.

So what is my point, you may be asking? I guess my main point is that I don't like polls, and I want you to know it. Other than that I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on the upside to the poll - only a 'small majority' of Americans (according to the survey) are true believers in the principles of communism. We can chalk that up to the triumph of capitalism I guess.

-DW