Gauging Ron Paul Support

[owsley]

Are people actually quoting facebook search results as statistical data on the politcal viewpoints of college students? really? Why don't we do some searches by religion and see what today's most popular religions are. Oh wait. That's utterly retarded.

[owsley]

I am not going to get into the argument about how much of a libertarian reagan was/pretended etc but if you look at all of his famous phrases like "the freer the market the freer the people" and "government is the problem not the solution" there are a ton of parallels, not to mention all of his criticism of the soviet union in which I'm sure he made statements about command economies very close to what a libertarian would.

[ALawPoker]

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Are people actually quoting facebook search results as statistical data on the politcal viewpoints of college students? really? Why don't we do some searches by religion and see what today's most popular religions are. Oh wait. That's utterly retarded.

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I totally disagree with this.

Facebook is by no means an accurate way to measure college students' political opinions. Lots of bias there.

For example, you mention religion. You could look at people's listed religions on facebook, but that wouldn't be an accurate measure of what most people really think. I don't know what to make of this.

[owsley]

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Are people actually quoting facebook search results as statistical data on the politcal viewpoints of college students? really? Why don't we do some searches by religion and see what today's most popular religions are. Oh wait. That's utterly retarded.

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I totally disagree with this.

Facebook is by no means an accurate way to measure college students' political opinions. Lots of bias there.

For example, you mention religion. You could look at people's listed religions on facebook, but that wouldn't be an accurate measure of what most people really think. I don't know what to make of this.

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wtf?????????

[vhawk01]

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Are people actually quoting facebook search results as statistical data on the politcal viewpoints of college students? really? Why don't we do some searches by religion and see what today's most popular religions are. Oh wait. That's utterly retarded.

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally disagree with this.

Facebook is by no means an accurate way to measure college students' political opinions. Lots of bias there.

For example, you mention religion. You could look at people's listed religions on facebook, but that wouldn't be an accurate measure of what most people really think. I don't know what to make of this.

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wtf?????????

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Agreeing with you, misinterpreting you, or some amazing level?

[ALawPoker]

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Are people actually quoting facebook search results as statistical data on the politcal viewpoints of college students? really? Why don't we do some searches by religion and see what today's most popular religions are. Oh wait. That's utterly retarded.

[/ QUOTE ]

I totally disagree with this.

Facebook is by no means an accurate way to measure college students' political opinions. Lots of bias there.

For example, you mention religion. You could look at people's listed religions on facebook, but that wouldn't be an accurate measure of what most people really think. I don't know what to make of this.

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wtf?????????

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Agreeing with you, misinterpreting you, or some amazing level?

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Level [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Sorry owsley, couldn't resist after our exchange earlier in the thread.

[XxGodJrxX]

While there may be bias in Facebook results, there is even MORE bias coming from you. Your "evidence" that AC/Libertarianism is more popular is that people hate Republicans and that Democrats are marshmallows; that's quite an argument. Maybe instead of dismissing the evidence that doesn't suit you, and making up explanations about how Libertarianism is getting more popular, you can offer some real evidence to suit your position.

[AlexM]

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I did a Facebook search for my school to see how many libertarians there were. Results: Libertarians were BY FAR the least popular political position in the school. Even "Very Conservative" was twice as popular as libertarianism. Ultra-Conservativism and libertarianism are not the same thing, regardless of what you Reagan supporters think.

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I don't suppose you checked them all to see how many supported Ron Paul compared to other candidates?

FYI, a lot of libertarians don't know the word "libertarian." Personally, I knew my views and didn't know the word until someone defined it for me once and then it was "yep, that's me."

[XxGodJrxX]

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I did a Facebook search for my school to see how many libertarians there were. Results: Libertarians were BY FAR the least popular political position in the school. Even "Very Conservative" was twice as popular as libertarianism. Ultra-Conservativism and libertarianism are not the same thing, regardless of what you Reagan supporters think.

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I don't suppose you checked them all to see how many supported Ron Paul compared to other candidates?

FYI, a lot of libertarians don't know the word "libertarian." Personally, I knew my views and didn't know the word until someone defined it for me once and then it was "yep, that's me."

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In Facebook, there is a field called "Political Views". If you click on the political view listed, it lists everybody with the same political view in your network. I am not going to look for how many people support Ron Paul, as that would mean I have to download that stupid Election application, and I refuse to do that.

I agree that there are a lot of libertarians that don't know they are libertarians. The United States has had libertarianism embedded in its core since the nation was founded. Even though libertarianism is really a core American value, the Libertarian party has never amassed more than a few % points in a general election. The best performing libertarian in the modern era has been Barry Goldwater, and we all know how performed. Goldwater's failure is magnified by the fact that he was running as a member of a mainstream party. As much as I wish it were true, libertarianism is not on the rise.

[AlexM]

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I did a Facebook search for my school to see how many libertarians there were. Results: Libertarians were BY FAR the least popular political position in the school. Even "Very Conservative" was twice as popular as libertarianism. Ultra-Conservativism and libertarianism are not the same thing, regardless of what you Reagan supporters think.

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I don't suppose you checked them all to see how many supported Ron Paul compared to other candidates?

FYI, a lot of libertarians don't know the word "libertarian." Personally, I knew my views and didn't know the word until someone defined it for me once and then it was "yep, that's me."

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In Facebook, there is a field called "Political Views". If you click on the political view listed, it lists everybody with the same political view in your network. I am not going to look for how many people support Ron Paul, as that would mean I have to download that stupid Election application, and I refuse to do that.

I agree that there are a lot of libertarians that don't know they are libertarians. The United States has had libertarianism embedded in its core since the nation was founded. Even though libertarianism is really a core American value, the Libertarian party has never amassed more than a few % points in a general election. The best performing libertarian in the modern era has been Barry Goldwater, and we all know how performed. Goldwater's failure is magnified by the fact that he was running as a member of a mainstream party. As much as I wish it were true, libertarianism is not on the rise.

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Oh, I think it's definitely on the rise, entirely due to the Internet, but I certainly don't think there's going to be a huge uprising anytime soon or anything.