Gallup Poll: 9 Out of 10 Americans Say Secure The Border This Year (do CFers agree?)

[Douger]

Not that important.

 

[BotanicalBob]

A main purpose of this is to stop the hemorrhaging of money it takes to provide medical care, education and other services to those here illegally. One family in Arizona here illegally has ten kids. And no, the father does not support them. He worked in a restaurant

How about we just not provide those things to them? Make it too hard to be illegal in America.

Securing the borders will save, not cost money. Besides, if Obama and Democrats could toss out billions in payoffs to their voters in government unions via the so-called "Stimulus Bill" they can certainly find the money to protect the borders.

Obama's not going to do anything about the Border. Even Bush didn't do anything.

The simple solution is to make it too hard to exist here illegally, and provide for plenty of guest workers to perform the cheap manual labor we need.

But no one in Washington, dem or rep is interested in solutions. They want us all to be fitted with a biometric ID card that you have to have to work in America.

Now I'm not Christian, but a card I have to carry on me at all times that has my biological info on it that I have to have in order to work, so that I may be able to buy and sell goods? Sounds a little like a certain mark to me.

Protecting the borders is the first order of business for a country.

You say border, but you only mean one. The problem isn't the borders, it's the illegals. If we had the right policies, we could leave the borders open and not have to worry about mass influx of illegals.

 

[HerbieHeadley]

Generally, I avoid polls. However, this one needs some balance.
Extremely important!

 

[mont974x4]

How many of those illegally crossing the border are looting America verses wishing they could become legal citizens? And are they really doing more of a job of it than those who send jobs oversees to countries that can do the work for pennies of the dollar?

I don't particularly care. The border should have been shut tight a long time ago. Bush showed his progressive colors on this issue when he should have had the courage to do what was necessary after 9/11.

Criminals are criminals, I don't care if they want to be made legal later. That is pure crap. 'Yes, officer, I know I was speeding but I was going to slow down. No need to give me a ticket despite my clear guilt." 'Yes, your honor, I did murder that girl. But I was going to stop after that one, you can't hold me accountable for her."

 

[Voegelin]

Thank you for showing us that you could be more disingenuous. There was no question in your poll asking about the amount of time one goes to church, yet that did not stop you from injecting that into your conclusions.

Funnier still is your admission that your poll was disingenuous because you already had a formed your conclusions regardless of the outcome of the poll.

Well done.

Disingenuous is not the correct word. I posted a poll and people voted. I anticipated this forum being way out of whack with how the majority of Americans and Christians who attend church on a regular basis feel.

That isn't being disingenuous. That is being observant. But one doesn't have to be very observant to notice the far left, out of the mainstream tilt of this forum. It's obvious. No reason I had to mention it. Everyone knows it.

Look at the results right now.

Only 10% of Americans think securing the borders is not important.

27% here believe it is not important.

68% of Americans say securing the border is very or extremely important.

55% of those who voted here say it is not or only moderately important.

Why the attempt to shy away from the truth? Why the adversion to admitting the obvious? If the majority were on my side, I wouldn't hem and haw and try to distract by characterizing in a negative way the person who posted the poll.

Something wrong about admitting a leftist bias? Or is it being so far out of the mainstream that bothers you?

 

[JBJoe]

This is actually a good example of how to color questions to get biased results:

Consider the options in this question: Extremely Important, Very Important, Moderately Important, Not that important.

Now consider the options for other questions in the same poll: Very Concerned, Somewhat Concerned, Not too concerned, not at all concerned.

Do you see the difference? Do you see how in the first question, there was no "not at all important" option and three out of the four options favored one side of the argument? What exactly is the difference between "extremely important" and "very important"? Did you notice that none of them had a "Don't know / No Answer" column? Gallup is usually pretty good at these, but something doesn't smell right here.

 

[JBJoe]

Look at the results right now.

Only 10% of Americans think securing the borders is not important.

27% here believe it is not important.

That's just a bad reading of the results, and a good reason of why this question was problematic. "Not that important" does not mean "not important." Some people could think "it's important, but we have more pressing matters to expend our resources on, so it isn't that important." There was actually no option for "not important" or "unimportant" which makes the whole question rather suspect.

 

[SOAD]

Something wrong about admitting a leftist bias? Or is it being so far out of the mainstream that bothers you?

The only thing that bothers me is the disingenuous methods in which you post not for honest debate, rather to reinforce your hatred of liberals. This thread is a perfect example. How did you put it? "no win for liberals"? Why bother if you know the outcome? We know why.

Your link is is a trap for those who say CNS is a poor and biased source. You would come back with it being a Gallup poll and use that to attack liberals.

From "your source"

shows that 9 out of 10 Americans say it is moderately to extremely important

right now, your poll stands at 74% saying it is moderately to extremely important Only 26% say it is not important. Considering your poll has 19 people, it is not far from the mainstream. 19 PEOPLE That is too small a number to draw any conclusion.

Then you throw in ths chruch going nonsense which is irrelevant to the discussion. What's up with that?

disingenuous is an apporpriate word.

 

[Saving Hawaii]

Disingenuous is not the correct word. I posted a poll and people voted. I anticipated this forum being way out of whack with how the majority of Americans and Christians who attend church on a regular basis feel.

To be entirely honest with you, your "poll" isn't going to produce the same result as the Gallup poll, regardless of whether or not this forum is representative of the American public at large.

Here's why (starting with the most obvious but least relevant reasons):

1. This isn't a scientific poll. Your participants are self-selecting. If you could actually get every user on this forum to respond, you would most likely get a different outcome than what you actually will. But that's not possible.

2. You didn't even wait twelve-hours before you declared "victory". We're just now entering the time slot when these forums are most active, and more importantly when we see a lot of American faces starting to pop up. From the time you posted the OP until you declared "victory" (9PM PST to 8AM PST), few Americans would have been using this website. Europeans would be over-represented in the group that might respond to your poll.

3. Big one. We tend to be high-information sorts. We read a lot of news and try to get a lot of insight into the world. The average person only gets around to doing that near elections, if at all. A Christian Forums member is much more likely to know that the Great Recession has dramatically curbed illegal immigration. Based on that sort of fresh information, somebody who just a couple years ago might have said "controlling the border is a top priority" would realize that far fewer aliens are crossing it and conclude that it was "not as important as it was a couple years ago". Being high-information sorts, we might also be aware that nearly half of the illegal immigrants simply overstay their visas... trying to close off the border wouldn't stop these illegal immigrants from coming at all.

4. Really big one. The way the question is presented causes a bias. Pollsters are very methodical in trying to eliminate these problems, but they exist here. What's different between how you presented this question and how Gallup did?

Gallup gives a phone call to a random American who is doing his daily business. He's washing the dishes, playing with the dog, helping the kids with their homework, whatever. Suddenly he gets a phone call. It's Gallup. They want his opinion about important things happening in America. "Is it important that we control the border?" Note that there are issues here which cause Joe Hedgetrimmer to give an artificially strong response. Gallup wants to know if it's important to Joe... Gallup must think it's imporant. It's the only thing Joe is thinking about at the moment... he's not considering other national challenges like wars, the economy, etc.

In contrast, the CF sample consists of people who're reading political and current events news at the time they're responding. Unlike the Gallup respondent who just got asked if one issue was important and didn't think about others, a CFer is already thinking about completely different issues. They've got economy, environment, wars, energy, taxes, deficits, civil rights, etc... that they're thinking about. Consequently, they're much more likely to conclude that it's "less important" than would somebody who gets asked when they're not thinking about politics and current events.

Let's illustrate this with a chart showing the differences in response (so far, as I write this) between Gallup and CF:

As I talked about earlier, the key difference is the respondent's thought process. Strong proponents ("extremely") of securing the border were roughly equal in both groups. It was the response from the other groups that varied much more.

Gallup's sample consisted of people who effectively were told an issue was important, and then asked to rate how important it was. They aren't relating it in comparison to other topics taxes, racial tensions, oil spills, deficits, or the right-ward shift of the Republican Party (top 5 threads in the forum when I just checked). CFers are making that comparison, and that's why you elicit "less important" responses from them.
​

Are you happy now? You asked your question differently than Gallup and naturally got a different answer. Don't let that get in the way of your paranoia that everything is liberal bias.

 

[Blackguard_]

The problem isn't the borders, it's the illegals. If we had the right policies, we could leave the borders open and not have to worry about mass influx of illegals.

What policies would that be? Making us a police state where you can't live "off the grid"?

And the problem is the border, not just immigrants.

This isn't just about outsourcing except where the cheap foreign labor comes Over Here instead of the jobs going Over There.

Perhaps you haven;t been paying attention to the drug cartel wars in northern Mexico? Those gangsters come up here with drugs all the time, and many other criminals and gangsters come up here as well through the border.

Secure the border, you solve the immigration and the criminal issue. Securing the border is lot simpler than hunting down people already in the country or passing laws to increase internal police powers.


Anyway, I voted "very important". The problems with the border are very real but often overblown. We haven't gotten to extremely important yet.

 

[lawtonfogle]

How about we just not provide those things to them? Make it too hard to be illegal in America.

How far do you push that logic though? Ok, so perhaps we stop providing the children with medical assistance and food stamps? Ok, so perhaps we stop providing the children with 'payed by taxes' public school? Ok, so perhaps we stop providing children law enforcement protection?

Yes, it will save money, but if it is ok to stop making sure the kids are fed, then maybe it is the right thing to do to offer the children no help in life. Perhaps it is the right thing to do to not have law enforcement spend their time, which is paid for by tax payers, tracking down sex offenders who will abuse the children of illegal's. If you are willing to stop feeding them when that may be their only source of food only to save money, then how can you be so sure you won't be willing to let them be sexually abused with no police intervention just to save some money. Last I checked, even thought child sexual abuse is a horrible thing, it is no where near as lethal as starvation.


So I must ask you, where do we draw the line? If you don't want to waste tax payer money on feeding them, what other forms of protection do you not want to waste tax payer money on?

Remember the case of the illegal who lost their child, and the police had to have a man hunt for him (or was it a her, it was a few months ago and I forget). Well, they finally found the child, after wasting thousands of tax payers dollars. Some pointed out that illegals should not have gotten police help, that being illegals, we should have not spend tax money helping them. Really is this any different?

The simple solution is to make it too hard to exist here illegally, and provide for plenty of guest workers to perform the cheap manual labor we need.

We can make it too hard for illegals here, but the question is what are we sacrificing morally for the sake of money. What morals are we lying on the altars of mammon?

But no one in Washington, dem or rep is interested in solutions. They want us all to be fitted with a biometric ID card that you have to have to work in America.

Now I'm not Christian, but a card I have to carry on me at all times that has my biological info on it that I have to have in order to work, so that I may be able to buy and sell goods? Sounds a little like a certain mark to me.

A side note, I think that we will be fully aware that it is the mark of the beast once that day comes. He will not trick us into it, it will be made aware to all Christians that they are rebelling against God by accepting it. It will not be tricked onto us.

You say border, but you only mean one. The problem isn't the borders, it's the illegals. If we had the right policies, we could leave the borders open and not have to worry about mass influx of illegals.

And what integrity are we to lose in making this so?

 

[lawtonfogle]

I don't particularly care. The border should have been shut tight a long time ago. Bush showed his progressive colors on this issue when he should have had the courage to do what was necessary after 9/11.

Criminals are criminals, I don't care if they want to be made legal later. That is pure crap. 'Yes, officer, I know I was speeding but I was going to slow down. No need to give me a ticket despite my clear guilt." 'Yes, your honor, I did murder that girl. But I was going to stop after that one, you can't hold me accountable for her."

"But your Honor, I and my partner were only having consensual sex. Yes, I know the law here says that two men cannot consent to sex and it is a sex crime, but it was consensual. What two consenting adults do in their own home should only be between them."

Until 2003, consensual homosexual sex between adults was a crime where I live. Just because you break the law does not make you a criminal, some laws are themselves criminal.

 

[tulc]

hmmm looks like it's pretty even now.
tulc(wonder what it'll look like in the morning?)

 

[mont974x4]

"But your Honor, I and my partner were only having consensual sex. Yes, I know the law here says that two men cannot consent to sex and it is a sex crime, but it was consensual. What two consenting adults do in their own home should only be between them."

Until 2003, consensual homosexual sex between adults was a crime where I live. Just because you break the law does not make you a criminal, some laws are themselves criminal.

are you serious?! no wonder this nation is heading down the toiolet with logic like that being the driving force. Nevermind the completely insane comparison.

 

[xMinionX]

are you serious?! no wonder this nation is heading down the toiolet with logic like that being the driving force. Nevermind the completely insane comparison.

Hope you never broke the speed limit.

 

[Staccato]

To be entirely honest with you, your "poll" isn't going to produce the same result as the Gallup poll, regardless of whether or not this forum is representative of the American public at large.

Here's why (starting with the most obvious but least relevant reasons):

1. This isn't a scientific poll. Your participants are self-selecting. If you could actually get every user on this forum to respond, you would most likely get a different outcome than what you actually will. But that's not possible.

2. You didn't even wait twelve-hours before you declared "victory". We're just now entering the time slot when these forums are most active, and more importantly when we see a lot of American faces starting to pop up. From the time you posted the OP until you declared "victory" (9PM PST to 8AM PST), few Americans would have been using this website. Europeans would be over-represented in the group that might respond to your poll.

3. Big one. We tend to be high-information sorts. We read a lot of news and try to get a lot of insight into the world. The average person only gets around to doing that near elections, if at all. A Christian Forums member is much more likely to know that the Great Recession has dramatically curbed illegal immigration. Based on that sort of fresh information, somebody who just a couple years ago might have said "controlling the border is a top priority" would realize that far fewer aliens are crossing it and conclude that it was "not as important as it was a couple years ago". Being high-information sorts, we might also be aware that nearly half of the illegal immigrants simply overstay their visas... trying to close off the border wouldn't stop these illegal immigrants from coming at all.

4. Really big one. The way the question is presented causes a bias. Pollsters are very methodical in trying to eliminate these problems, but they exist here. What's different between how you presented this question and how Gallup did?

Gallup gives a phone call to a random American who is doing his daily business. He's washing the dishes, playing with the dog, helping the kids with their homework, whatever. Suddenly he gets a phone call. It's Gallup. They want his opinion about important things happening in America. "Is it important that we control the border?" Note that there are issues here which cause Joe Hedgetrimmer to give an artificially strong response. Gallup wants to know if it's important to Joe... Gallup must think it's imporant. It's the only thing Joe is thinking about at the moment... he's not considering other national challenges like wars, the economy, etc.

In contrast, the CF sample consists of people who're reading political and current events news at the time they're responding. Unlike the Gallup respondent who just got asked if one issue was important and didn't think about others, a CFer is already thinking about completely different issues. They've got economy, environment, wars, energy, taxes, deficits, civil rights, etc... that they're thinking about. Consequently, they're much more likely to conclude that it's "less important" than would somebody who gets asked when they're not thinking about politics and current events.

Let's illustrate this with a chart showing the differences in response (so far, as I write this) between Gallup and CF:

As I talked about earlier, the key difference is the respondent's thought process. Strong proponents ("extremely") of securing the border were roughly equal in both groups. It was the response from the other groups that varied much more.

Gallup's sample consisted of people who effectively were told an issue was important, and then asked to rate how important it was. They aren't relating it in comparison to other topics taxes, racial tensions, oil spills, deficits, or the right-ward shift of the Republican Party (top 5 threads in the forum when I just checked). CFers are making that comparison, and that's why you elicit "less important" responses from them.
​

Are you happy now? You asked your question differently than Gallup and naturally got a different answer. Don't let that get in the way of your paranoia that everything is liberal bias.

Great post as usual Hawaii. But! you used a line graph for discrete categories?!

 

[Billnew]

It is not enough to belittle the examples, you must try to show why they are poor in comparsion.

"But your Honor, I and my partner were only having consensual sex. Yes, I know the law here says that two men cannot consent to sex and it is a sex crime, but it was consensual. What two consenting adults do in their own home should only be between them."

Until 2003, consensual homosexual sex between adults was a crime where I live. Just because you break the law does not make you a criminal, some laws are themselves criminal.

So no nation should have laws set on how people enter their country?
These laws are criminal in themselves?
I agree, not all laws made by man are good laws, but they are laws until they are changed, but, Crossing any nations border(not just the USA) without meeting the requirements of that nation, is a crime.
Just because people are poor, their goverment corrupt, and the people can not make enough money to feed their families, does not make it legal for them to flood across the border.
Just because a person is poor, hungry, and can't find a job, does not make it legal to steal what you need.
Cause and affect.

We must stop the flow coming in, before we talk of what to do with those already here. If the ones here get any benefit from being here, this will attract more people to come to reap the benefits of the new laws, unless we have in place, obstacles to prevent this.
When you expand a lake, if you do not block the water from entering the expansion, it will flood your work, when you dig. The same with the immigration problem. If you don't stop people from coming before you adjust the immigration laws, then people will rush across to benefit.

 

[MattLangley]

w

We must stop the flow coming in, before we talk of what to do with those already here. ...

Very simply no... You may think and believe that, but that doesn't mean that's the only way to view it. In fact I view it the opposite. If we find better ways to allow effective immigration and make it not be needed to be done illegally, allowing people to become effective taxpaying citizens then the need to stop the flow becomes a lot less.

Basically why build up huge walls and pay for tons of people monitoring those walls if you can turn your problem into a good thing. It's called working smarter and not harder.

The whole anti-immigrant attitude of people today in the US is ridiculous, if our immigration laws were as hard to work through back when our nation was growing many of our ancestors would never have been able to come here.

The US is about being a melting pot not preventing that melting from happening.

 

[SOAD]

w

The US is about being a melting pot not preventing that melting from happening.

This is a good point, however it is more complicated than just being a melting pot. When making a societal stew, it is best to add quality ingredients. Too much of one can upset the balance, and adding rotten ingredients will ruin the stew. We already have enough mirepoix; we need more meat.

 

[Macx]

Sorry. I incorrectly wrote my first comment. What I meant to say that it is impractical to put enough people at the border to make a difference.

Automated turrets would certainly fill in gaps.

Atención automatizada torretas en uso. Cincuenta metros más allá de este punto, los sistemas de focalización enage cualquier blanco de tamaño humano con fuego vivo.

Create a buffer area between the signs and actual point of engagement, set up some phalanx CIWS style weapons with overlapping fields of fire & let 'em rip! It isn't like anyone is forced to try and invade our country. When people choose to do stupid things, like jumping off buildings or in front of trains. . . it is thier fault, getting killed trying to illegally cross the boarder should be on that same list.

It only takes one every 3 km.