Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?

[pvn]

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Do free citizens in a democracy

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Contradictory. Democracy is inherently freedom-limiting.

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have a right to object to things their government does that the believe are offensive, immoral or illegal?

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This may or may not be a right that the democracy does not violate. The people have this right whether or not the democracy (or any other form of government) recognizes it.

The more interesting question is "do these people, who support and participate in the democracy, have a *legitimate* reason to complain when the system produces outcomes they don't agree with?"

We don't tolerate those who whine about the Red Sox beating the Yankess for more than, what, a week? But those who whine for years about politician XYZ beating politician ABC are encouraged. Hey, you voted, your team lost. That's how it goes, so shut up. You *more* than tacitly consented. Save your bluster for the next election.

How hypocritical do you have to be to say "I support democracy, but only if I get the results I want"? Or "I support democracy, but I want to arbitrarily definie who gets to vote with a vague "civics" tests"? Or "I support democracy, but I want to impeach this guy even though I can't figure out what he's done that's impeachable under the rules that I ostensibly agree with"? Interestingly, people who advocate the last position would likely fail the arbitrary civics tests proposed by those that advocate the second position (and sometimes they are the same person!).

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Do they have a duty to do so? Or do they have a duty to keep quiet? Or is the right qualified by wartime?

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If they have a duty, then they are not "free" citizens as you specified. But we already knew that was a misnomer, since you then specified that they were living under a democracy.

[boracay]

Every democratic society is based on checks and balances, not in blind faith in the good intentions of government officials.

[ripdog]

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Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

[WillMagic]

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Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

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wtf?

calling [censored]

[jman220]

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Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

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He illustrated how the entire poll was flawed, I fail to see how his post was at all lazy, and I don't see how its a bad thing to have someone as intelligent as Mason, who has expertise as a statistician commenting on something like this.

[jman220]

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Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

[/ QUOTE ]

wtf?

calling [censored]

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Heh, anyone have that paging censored graphic?

[[censored]]

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[ QUOTE ]
Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

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[censored]: trolling, failing to further discussion, attacking poster.

[GMontag]

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Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

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Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

[/ QUOTE ]

He illustrated how the entire poll was flawed, I fail to see how his post was at all lazy, and I don't see how its a bad thing to have someone as intelligent as Mason, who has expertise as a statistician commenting on something like this.

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The poll wasn't flawed, it just had a different objective. The point of the poll wasn't to get accurate results, it was to spark discussion.

[jman220]

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Hi Everyone:

Years ago, I worked for the United States Census Bureau. And though it wasn't my area of expertise, I did learn a great deal about what we called conditioning in questions. That is questions had to be asked in a manner that would not influence how they were answered thus producing what was known as response bias.

The above questions by Alger is a good example of this. They're not really designed to get an answer. They are designed to influence your thinking towards our government and imply that our government is definitely doing things wrong since it is obvious that they need to be criticized.

He could probably get away with this on many other web sites. But I just happen to be a retired statistician that worked for a few years in this field. Even the title of this thread "Do citizens have a duty to speak out or shut up?" is designed for a conditioned response.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]


Mason--put up or shut up. Pick the entire post apart and allow Alger to respond piece by piece or stay out of it. Your response was lazy and somewhat pathetic. Tell us something we don't already know.

[/ QUOTE ]

He illustrated how the entire poll was flawed, I fail to see how his post was at all lazy, and I don't see how its a bad thing to have someone as intelligent as Mason, who has expertise as a statistician commenting on something like this.

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The poll wasn't flawed, it just had a different objective. The point of the poll wasn't to get accurate results, it was to spark discussion.

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And it did spark discussion, discussion of how flawed the poll was.

Edit: By the way, the assertion that a poll is made "merely to spark discussion" is a little ridiculous. Once a poll is made, one will then refer back to that poll (as I'm sure Chris would have) to try to make a point. However, if that poll is made using a flawed methodology, then the results are biased are flawed, and any arguments made based on that poll are intellectually dishonest. Therefore Mason pointing out exactly why that poll was flawed pre-empts Chris from making an intellectually dishonest argument based on the results of that poll.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Ripdog:

Here's something you don't know: 2 + 2 = 4, and we won't deviate from that.

best wishes,
Mason