a people’s contest unfettered start, a fair chance in the race of life
This is essentially a people’s contest.
On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men;
to lift artificial weights from all shoulders;
to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all;
to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.
President Abraham Lincoln’s special message to Congress, July 4, 1861.
Known as the The Fourth of July that Could Have Wrecked the Country, Mr. Lincoln explained his views and plans to keep the United States with Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
Oddly prescient, Mr. Lincoln said:
It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion;
that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets,
and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets;
that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections.
Such will be a great lesson of peace,
teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war;
teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.
hopefully readers find this tolerable trying better figuring
It was after the election in 2000 that then President, Bill Clinton said something along the lines of “America has spoken. Now we have to figure out what America said.”
The article was slugged. “Why the latest NYT/Siena College survey on Saturday will include those who started the survey but didn’t finish it.” and Mr. Cohn tried herd to explain how the New York Times was working to present the best polling information possible.
What he meant was he was trying to explain how asking 1,000 different people to take 15 minute telephone quiz could be expanded in a definitive way that explained how 300+ Million Americans were thinking.
I have professionally designing websites since 1995.
I am often asked for a statistical analysis of web traffic.
Folks want to know “What the number show.”
It did not take me long to learn to immediately ask, “What do you want the numbers to show?”
Because of the way web analytics are created I can prove almost any point you want to make, pro or con, about any website all using the same data.
When I read Mr. Cohn’s paragraph:
You may notice the most obvious change:
There are 157 fewer respondents to the second half of the survey than the first half. But there’s more to it:
The demographic makeup of the 823 respondents will be ever so slightly different from the full sample, since even weighting doesn’t force a perfect alignment between the characteristics of a poll and the intended population.
Hopefully readers find this tolerable; if not, there may be other options we can adopt in the future.
This is, after all, the first time we’re trying this.
I expect we’ll gradually get better at figuring out how to present these results, especially once we see what other people notice.
I had to take my hat off again to these folks.
Noting adds authority more to explanatory statements better than colons and semicolons except maybe a split infintiive.
As I read this Mr. Cohn has admitted that “weighting doesn’t force a perfect alignment between the characteristics of a poll and the intended population.”
And, Hopefully readers find this tolerable …
if not, there may be other options we can adopt in the future.
Mr. Cohn expects they will get better at figuring how to present these results.
Especially once they see what other people notice!!!!
Now was any of this even of this mentioned when other news Media around the world presented the information in the latest NTY Sienna College polls?
Nope not that I heard.
But that is the trick isn’t.
It isn’t what the poll said, but what you heard it say isn’t it??
Polling, oh well.
The only thing Mr. Cohn didn’t say is that in the future they will ask folks what they want the polls to say.
I could use that old Abraham Lincoln never conducted a poll to find out what he should do, he just did the right thing as he saw it.
On the other hand, maybe Mr. Lincoln was wrong.
Maybe you CAN fool all of the people all of the time.
party championed free people, speech, trade, markets … once de-zombified
Discussing what Former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley should do next, after losing the Republican Primary election, columnistBret Stephens wrote:
The honorable advice is for her to come to terms with the fact that she may never be president,
but she can become a leader of a principled conservative movement that rejects demagoguery, supports the rule of law,
champions free people,
free speech,
free trade
and free markets —
and bides its time until the Republican Party is de-zombified and wants to return to its former self.
That means campaigning for a while longer, maybe even to the convention.
This was in the opinion piece, The Conversation: Trump Is in His Element , a weekly column in the New York Times by Gail Collins and Bret Stephens where these two writers exchange views on the world scene.
I am, truly, really, trying to stay out of political commentary but the use of language, specifically de-zombified was too much fun to pass up.
The discussion made me think for two reasons, well more than two but these two stand out for the purpose of this essay.
The first reason was the end of that sentence, return to its former self.
It seems to me that this was the first time I had read that someone felt the Republican Party might return one day.
A party of that would once again be a principled conservative movement that rejects demagoguery, supports the rule of law, champions free people, free speech, free trade and free markets.
Maybe.
I think that Pandora’s Box has been opened and all the King’s Horses and all the King’s Men aren’t going to get that Box closed but, well, maybe.
The second reason was that word, de-zombified .
Trying to come up with a word that explains what has happened to the Republican Party, you would hard put to come up with a better word than Zombified along with The Walking Dead.
Kind of sad really.
I remember back in the day listening to a radio broadcast of the Chicago White Sox with Harry Carey and Jimmy Piersall.
The White Sox were down late in the game but the bases were loaded with two outs.
Harry called out his famous, “OH OH OH for a LONG ONE.”
rage of decadent period of nullity at our past titans
If there is a common theme in the current news cycle about the upcoming Presidential election it is that, seemingly, a majority of voters agree that two leading candidates are not what or who the voters really want.
Mr. Jones comments on the report that Russian artist Andrei Molodkin will destroy works by Picasso, Rembrandt and Warhol if Julian Assange dies in prison.
Mr. Jones wonders why Mr. Molodkin would do this and asks, “Why is violence against great art such a trope of our time? And why is it seen by some as fair enough, or at least not anything to get worked up about?”
Mr. Jones answer is, “The truth is staring us in the face. The reason the 21st century seems so interested and perversely attracted to destroying the masterpieces of the past, is that we know deep down we are incapable of rivalling those achievements. No artist is now making anything that comes close to the revolutionary genius of Picasso, so we try to “cancel” him over factoids culled from biographies we have never read. And now Molodkin proposes or pretends to destroy one of his works with acid.
It is the rage of a decadent period of artistic nullity against the titans of a past whose energy and originality we can’t bear. We will be happier when all the masterpieces are destroyed and the museums no longer shove our decline in our faces.“
Ask again, Then why are the leading candidates the leading candidates when few people want them?
And I will answer:
The truth is staring us in the face.
The reason the 21st century seems so interested and perversely attracted to destroying the democracy of the past, is that we know deep down we are incapable of rivalling that achievement.
No President is now making anything that comes close to the revolutionary genius of Thomas Jefferson, so we try to “cancel” him over factoids culled from biographies we have never read.
It is the rage of a decadent period of political nullity against the titans of a past whose energy and originality we can’t bear.
We will be happier when the democracy is destroyed and the history books no longer shove our decline in our faces.
As Ben Franklin answered the lady after the Constitutional Convention on what kind of country we had, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The lady continued, “And why not keep it?”
Franklin responded, “Because the people, on tasting the dish, are always disposed to eat more of it than does them good.”
lift toward greatness the visionary, without narrow jealousy
He had in him all the lift toward greatness of the visionary, without any of the visionary’s fanaticism or egotism, without any of the visionary’s narrow jealousy of the practical man and inability to strive in practical fashion for the realization of an ideal.
No more practical man ever lived than this homely backwoods idealist
but he had nothing in common with those practical men
whose consciences are warped until they fail to distinguish between good and evil,
fail to understand that strength, ability, shrewdness,
whether in the world of business or of politics,
only serve to make their possessor a more noxious, a more evil member of the community,
if they are not guided and controlled by a fine and high moral sense.
President Theodore Roosevelt on President Abraham Lincoln from remarks made at the cornerstone laying of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace Memorial, February 12, 1909.
Teddy could pick a photographer out of a crowd at 500 yards …
