OT: More broadcast journalism

[Jonathan Lighter]

I think you mean Joe Arapaio.  This was Clarence Dupnik. He opposes the new
law on the truly conservative basis that you shouldn't pass unnecessary
laws.

(The populist neo-faux-conservative idea is, the more laws the better as
long as they don't inhibit you personally.)

It's one thing to believe in angels, another to expect the Antichrist in
your own lifetime. And it's something else again for an American to suspect
that the President of the United States, duly elected by tens of millions of
fellow citizens and vetted by an established national party is really him.

The only hope is that the nuts can't be 100% sure he isn't, so their
low-confidence belief level leads them to say "maybe."

But 24% is a hell of a lot of Republicans to say even "maybe."

I'm more concerned by the 25% of *all adults* reported to believe Obama is
"a domestic enemy" as spoken of in the Constitution (not that they have much
of a grap of that), and the 29% who believe he's getting ready to turn the
U.S. over to a shadowy "one-world government," and the 23% who expect him to
make his move for dictatorship under cover of a national crisis (possibly
engineered, one imagines, by himself).

Proportionally these seem to be extraordinary numbers. I don't know, though,
whether similar polls were taken during previous administrations.  Possibly
not: the quetions would have seemed too weird.

I do know that a Gullup survey in September, 1945, found that 20% of
American adults would not accept the Japanese surrender and demanded
continued atom bombing until there were no Japanese.

Jon


On Sat, May 1, 2010 at 10:18 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject:      Re: OT:  More broadcast journalism
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5/1/2010 09:53 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >I agree, but it might be noteworthy if Arizona achieved that rate suddenly
> >in just the past couple of years.
> >
> >The bigger point, though, is that Dobbs et al. provide no evidence (never
> >mind proof) that the increase is mostly due to illegal aliens.
> >
> >Maybe it is, but if so there should be specific evidence.
> >
> >This gives me the chance to bring the following possibly related
> >nonlinguistic story to your attention.  WARNING: Do not read if you are
> >offended by non-linguistic posts:
> >
> >http://www.livescience.com/culture/obama-anti-christ-100325.html
>
> I can believe that a quarter of Republicans believe that Obama is the
> Antichrist.  The majority (a large majority?) of Americans believe
> that angels exist (presumably to save them from Obama, after personal
> appeal for the intervention of Providence).
>
>
> >Non-linguistic PS: According to at least one Arizona sheriff interviewed
> on
> >CNN, the new law effectively grants him *no* power that he doesn't already
> >have under federal law. None. The biggest difference is that now
> Immigration
> >authorities will not be called on to file Federal charges. And officers
> can
> >be sued for lack of enforcement.
> >
> >He explained that the current Federal law is under-enforced in
> >Arizona because there are not enough jail cells to hold the suspects.
>
> Is this the same sheriff who has been in the news previously for his
> "initiative" against illegal-alien-looking persons?
>
> Joel
>
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