The Results: Civic Knowledge

I administered my survey to a sample of 20 students currently enrolled at Capital University. I administered the survey on two separate dates, November 1st and November 5th, 2008, each time to a class taught by Dr. Mike Yosha. Capital University has undergraduate programs geared towards both traditional undergraduates and working adults, and the classes that I surveyed had both traditional and non-traditional students. The class on the 1st was a 100 level class on globalization, and the class on the 5th was a 100 level professional studies course; there were ten students in each course. While I did not ask the participants for their exact age, I did ask them to give their age range, and the most common answer was 39-48. Women made up the bulk of participants and they outnumbered their male counterparts 12 to 8.
When I set out on this project I had 3 specific questions in mind, and the answers to the first two were fairly surprising given the research I reviewed in preparation for the survey. First, I was unable to demonstrate any statistical difference between policy preferences of the informed and uninformed participants. Second, I was unable to demonstrate any significant correlation between the globalization scores of the informed and uninformed


When it came to raw scores on the civics test, results were actually fairly close to what the research suggested. Keeter and Carprini’s research suggested that approximately half the respondents would fall into the category of “uninformed” and my survey results had a median score of 7 (out of a possible 14) and about half the participants scored less than 50% on the civics test, placing them firmly in the category of people who do not know much about what government ‘is’ or ‘does’.

Looking at some specific questions outlines just how little some participants knew about government. For example, question 31 asked:


Which of these statements most accurately describes the official power that a president wields over the economy?
a. Per Article II of the Constitution, Presidents are responsible for creating jobs and keeping interest rates and taxes low.
b. Presidents use executive orders to set prices of public goods such as electricity and oil.
c. Presidents have the power to appoint a treasury secretary and the Fed chair (if the Fed chair happens to be up for reappointment), beyond that they have little direct control over the economy.
d. The President sets interest rates and adjust the value of the dollar against a basket of other currencies.


Seven out of twenty (35%)of the respondents did not answer this question correctly. Two provided no answer, one respondent answered ‘d’ and two respondents answered ‘a’ and two answered ‘b’. This is a good time to note that each respondent was a current student at a University with a selective admissions policy.
While looking at some of the individual scores was almost frightening, a funny thing happened when all the scores were added together; the participants became almost perfectly informed. With just three exceptions, the most common answer to every question was the right answer. For example, on question 31, although 7 people got it wrong, the group overwhelmingly chose the right answer. This data suggests that, although individuals may be incorrect in answering specific questions, in aggregate the American public may be very well informed.


Of the three exceptional questions, where the majority chose the wrong answer, 2 concerned the names of people in key government positions and one question concerned knowledge of the U.S. Constitution. Question 7 asked, “Who is the current Secretary of Defense?” While 5 respondents correctly identified Secretary Robert Gates, 6 respondents identified General David Petraeus, the current head of CENTCOM, as the defense secretary. While the selection of Petraeus as SECDEF does belie a lack of knowledge about who’s who in the cabinet, it might also reflect the fact that the general has become a prominent media figure over the last year, whereas secretary Gates has maintained a somewhat lower profile than his predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld. On a related note, Rumsfeld, whose daily give and take with Pentagon reporters were fodder for news broadcasts, was chosen by the same number of participants as Secretary Gates. Another thought is that General Petraeus is often seen in photographs and video clips wearing his U.S. Army uniform, whereas Gates is generally seen wearing the same dark suit that every congressman, senator, cabinet secretary and lawyer wears, so perhaps respondents visually connect Petraeus to the military and assume that must means he is SECDEF. With this information in mind, it might be interesting to ask questions like this in future using picture of choices rather than simple text. This question saw a fairly even distribution of correct answers between informed quartiles. 40% of participants in the top quartile answer the question correctly, 20% in the second quartile, 40% in the third quartile and 20% in the forth quartile.



Question 8 is another example of the majority choosing the wrong answer and maybe also be an example of a high publicity figure being chosen over a less well-known public figure. Question 8 read, “Who is the current senate minority leader?” The correct answer, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, was the choice of just 4 participants. The most common answer was Nancy Pelosi, who is actually the Speaker of the House. Like with Gates versus Rumsfeld and Petraeus, Pelosi is a higher profile figure than Mitch McConnell. Pelosi’s higher profile is due to the nature of the Speaker of the House, a position that comes with both more power and a higher profile than any given position in the senate. It must be noted that Pelosi is not only a member of the wrong house, but also of the wrong party to be minority leader. This indicates that, although participants may have recognized Pelosi’s name, they apparently did not know which house she served in nor did they apparently know which party had minority status in the either the house or senate. The top quartile of informed participants, those who scored more than 10 correct, were most likely to get the answer correct, with 3 out of 5 correctly identifying McConnell. Scores dropped off significantly in the second quartile, with only 20% selecting the correct answer. No participants in the bottom half (scoring less than 50% on the civics quiz) selected the correct answer to question 8.


The final question where the majority got the answer wrong concerned the U.S. Constitution, and seems to revel some confusion about the difference between a Constitutional Article and a Constitutional Amendment. Question 32 read, “Article I of the Constitution deals with?” Just three people selected the correct answer, which was answer b, congress. The majority clearly confused Article I with the first amendment, because 10 people selected answer c, “The right freedom of religion and speech,” as the correct answer. Like question 8, the correct answers to question 32 were heavily concentrated in the upper quartile. 2 out of 3 correct answers came from those in the top quartile, whereas one correct answer came from a participant in the third quartile. There were no correct answers in either the second or fourth quartiles.

The Table of Contents to my Undergraduate Thesis

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: 3
On Informed Versus Uninformed: 6
SECTION 1.0: PUBLIC CHOICES 7
Uninformed Choices 10
Uninformed Bias 13
THE HUNT FOR UNINFORMED VOTERS OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND BLAME CANADA! 19
CONCLUSION: 21
SECTION 2.0: THE SURVEY METHODOLOGY 23
THE RESULTS 25
Interpreting the Results: Trade and Immigration 31
Interpreting the Results: The Flow of Security 34
Interpreting the Results: The Environment 38
CONCLUSIONS: 39
Is there Wisdom in Crowds? 39
Opportunities for Further Research: 40
SECTION 3.0: GRAND STRATEGY AND THE AMERCIAN VOTER 42
ON GRAND STRATEGY AND MORAL WARFARE 42
A Strategic Theory in Search of a Policy 45
…And it’s 1,2,3 what are we fighting for? 51
All the Wrong Lessons 56
PUBLIC CHOICE IN THE AGE OF GENOCIDE: THE BALKANS 58
The End of History 59
The Constitutional Order of States 60
Eve of Destruction 63
A Mirror Image: Vietnam and Bosnia 66
The Man Comes Around 70
17 Resolutions 70
PUBLIC CHOICE AND A STRATEGY OF PRECLUSION 73
The Next Epochal War 75
Globalization versus Globalization with a Goatee 79
CONCLUSION: BARACK OBAMA AND THE NEXT AMERICAN CENTURY 85
APPENDIX 89
BIBLIOGRAPHY 108

The Abstract to my thesis

Part public opinion poll, part diplomatic history; this paper examines the link between American Grand Strategy and public opinion. I begin by examining the link between a voter’s civic knowledge and their policy preferences on issues related to trade, immigration, security and the environment. I find that, contrary to the literature I reviewed on public opinion, Americans are generally supportive of immigration, international trade and international environmental regulations regardless of their level of civic knowledge. I also found that, even in light of America’s experience in Iraq, Americans appear to be prepared to support humanitarian interventions within certain parameters. When I examined my findings in the context of two past American foreign interventions, I came to the conclusion that the American public today is eager to see the U.S. participate in both the global economy and to continue its traditional role in the international security environment. In fact, in many ways, the American public may be too internationalist, in that they may have too much faith in international institutions such as the U.N. and NATO.

Posting From My Iphone

Just testing with a post from my new IPhone. I do believe this is the greatest device ever invented.

Lamuella = I wrote them.....

This is my blog.

Emails From the Future

I recently received two Emails from the year 2012. Now, receiving an Email from the future is odd, but what makes it even odder is that each Email appears to be from an alternative time line. One time line appears to be a world where Barack Obama has had a successful presidency and the other appears to be from an unsuccessful Obama presidency.

This is the disaster presidency:

November 10th, 2012
To: POTUS, DCCC, DNC
CC: Fmr Rep. Pelosi, Fmr Sen. Reid, Lame Duck President Obama
From: Palin-Jindal ‘12 Campaign
Subject: Thanks guys!
Hi guys
I’ve got to tell you, 4 years ago I never dreamed I would be writing this Email! I mean who woulda thunk that little Sarah Barracuda would ever beat a sitting president in a close election? After John and I lost the election in 2008 all the experts I talked to said that our goose was cooked and that the GOP would become a minority party baring some kind of disaster from within the Democrats. Insofar as you guys were instrumental in causing the destruction of your party, Governor Jindal and I send our sincere thanks.

I guess our path to victory really began during the transition. Although then President-Elect Obama gave a rousing speech in the wee hours of November 5th, all his fancy talk of post-partisan politics and pragmatic solutions fell by the wayside when then-House Speaker Pelosi and then-Senate Majority Leader Reid began announcing their legislative agendas for 2009. Why, just think, if you guys hadn’t spent so much time in January and February fighting to enact the Fairness Doctrine and card check laws, Obama’s health care plan might have gotten somewhere.

Of course President Obama and Fmr Vice President Biden didn’t help matters much when, in February of 2009, just as the new president was trying to get his cabinet approved, Vice President Biden gave an interview where he said that he thought the Charlie Rangel’s bill which would have nationalized 401ks “Made some sense”. Things only went downhill from there as President Obama first tried to defend the comments, comparing Biden to an “old uncle who says goofy things”; then trying to distance himself from the comments by saying that “Joe Biden does not represent my views or for that matter the views of this administration”; finally culminating in the now infamous “Throw Biden under the bus” speech, which reportedly contributed to Biden’s decision to resign the vice presidency in early 2010, ostensibly for “health reasons”. I have to tell you guys, watching the mini civil war that erupted as Hillary Clinton angled herself to be appointed VP, and then watching her announce that she would now be an independent when Obama refused her request was very entertaining.

I have to admit, you guys were dealt a lousy hand. The recession assured that you guys would never be able to enact your promised tax cuts or that second stimulus plan. And the skyrocketing unemployment rate was not helped by the “Fair Trade” bill passed narrowly in the Senate and overwhelmingly in the House that required the U.S. to only trade with nations that paid their workers a “fair wage”. I guess it’s ironic that the bill that guaranteed the Democrat’s defeat in 2010 was also the first bill repealed by the new Republican majority in 2011. By the way, I should tell you guys that Senators Rice and Romney, and Senators elect Schwarzenegger and Giuliani also send their thanks for the way you guys ran things these last four years. But the good news is that unemployment has finally fallen back to the single digits (9.8%!) for the first time since early 2009.

Of course it must be noted that not all Democrats deserve thanks. The 50 or so Dems who quit their party when Fmr Speaker Pelosi tried to cram the assault weapons ban down their throats; thus killing the ban and probably stopping the GOP from picking up several seats in rural districts in “red” states. And Senators Webb, Clinton and Lieberman, who, along with Senators McCain and Voinovich, formed the moderate caucus in mid-2009, promising to focus on pragmatic solutions to energy and healthcare. Thank goodness you guys did so much to punish their efforts!

In closing, 2008 was a dark year for Conservatives. Many worried that we had lost our way; others felt that we needed to rethink our philosophy. Lucky for us you guys were more interested in settling scores than with governing. It turns out we didn’t need a new philosophy, all we had to do was let you guys rerun all your old liberal arguments and then point to the mess you made. Once again, Vice President Jindal and I offer our thanks.

Sincerely
President-Elect Palin,
Vice-President-Elect Jindal
And the RNC.

This is the success:

November 10th, 2012
To: DNC, DCCC, RNC
CC: Fmr Governor Huckabee, Fmr Governor Palin, Fmr Speaker Pelosi, Fmr Majority Leader Reid, Senator-Elect Patraeus, Governor Jindal, Amb. McCain, Amb. Clinton
From: POTUS
Subject: My reelection campaign

Greetings and salutations ladies and gentlemen

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank all of my supporters who assisted in my reelection campaign. When I came to Washington I asked the American people not just to take a chance on me, but to take a chance on themselves as well, because I knew that we, as a nation, were ready to face the challenges before us if we could find a way to put aside the smallness of our partisan politics. I stand in owe in the progress we have made in these last for years, and I am humbled that the American people once again saw fit to ask me to lead them in this wonderful journey.

I would like to start by congratulating governors Palin and Huckabee on a well-fought campaign. We certainly had a number of vigorous debates about the future of this nation, but in the end I was truly moved by both your concession speeches. Governor Palin, as a father of two daughters I found your candidacy an inspiration to little girls everywhere. Governor Huckabee, your speech the day after election about the progress that has been made since your boyhood in the segregated south moved both the first lady and myself to tears. I sincerely hope you will consider my offer to join us in the New Year as my health and human services secretary.

To former speaker Pelosi, and to former Congressman Rangel and former Senators Reid, Boxer and Feinstein I have to say: sorry I had to throw you guys under various buses over the last four years and I hope that you are all enjoying a relaxing retirement. I am aware that many Democrats believe that my repudiations of various bills and proposals you made contributed to Democratic loses in the House and Senate in 2010, but I wholeheartedly believe that the American people sent me to Washington not just advance some abstract philosophy, but to work on real solutions to the issues that plague the middle class. To that end, I appreciate the fact that you guys granted me fast track trade authority early in my term; though it is too bad none of the “Fair Trade” bill you guys proposed ever picked up quit enough support to make it through. We will continue to explore this issue in the New Year. On a happier note, I must say that Speaker Boehner and I have built a very constructive relationship.

To Ambassadors McCain and Clinton, I hope you two are enjoying India and China, respectively. John, we fought a hard campaign, but I appreciated the assistance you gave me in getting my energy bill through the Senate. I also appreciated the wise council you offered in dealing with the deteriorating situation in the former nation of Russia. And President Clinton, your assistance in constructing the Camp David Plan for peace in the Kashmir region was invaluable. Each of you gentlemen is a true statesman and I look forward to continuing our work over the next 4 years.

I would be remiss, of course, to talk about the Camp David Plan without mentioning the wonderful work done by Senator-Elect Patraeus. The COIN plan you enacted in Waziristan in 2009 started a chain reaction that minimized Al Qaeda’s presence in the region and provided enough breathing space for India and Pakistan to begin making real progress in resolving the Kashmir issue. I still believe that the Democratic Party has a tent big enough to include a man with your more conservative values sir, but I am equally certain that your service as an elected official will be as successful as your service in uniform whatever party you represent. And I must add that your address to the Republican Convention earlier this year was magnificent, eclipsed only by the moving “A Nation of Immigrants” speech offered by Governor Jindal. I must say that I am glad my time in elected office will be finished before you gentlemen decide to run for the highest office, because either of you would be a worthy opponent for anyone in my party.

In closing, 2008 was a dark year for our country. We were demoralized by turmoil at home and uncertainty abroad. Our nation was mired by style of politics that emphasized divisive issues and treated policy as a game of winner-take-all. I am proud to have been a small part of a switch from the politics of winner-take-all; to the politics of we are all in this together.

Sincerely
President Barack Obama

I'm not the only one....

I'm not the only conservative who has both endorsed Obama and spent the last couple months wondering "What the hell happened to John McCain?"

Here is Christopher Buckley's take on the matter:

A year ago, when everyone, including the man I’m about to endorse, was caterwauling to get out of Iraq on the next available flight, John McCain, practically alone, said no, no—bad move. Surge. It seemed a suicidal position to take, an act of political bravery of the kind you don’t see a whole lot of anymore.

But that was—sigh—then. John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

All this is genuinely saddening, and for the country is perhaps even tragic, for America ought, really, to be governed by men like John McCain—who have spent their entire lives in its service, even willing to give the last full measure of their devotion to it. If he goes out losing ugly, it will be beyond tragic, graffiti on a marble bust.

Like me, Buckley has long been a McCain booster and is deeply disappointed to see what the McCain campaign has become.

I've been even more heartbroken as I've worked my way through Bing West's "The Strongest Tribe," in which West frequently cites Senator McCain's work in bringing the Bush administration about with regard to troop levels and tactics in Iraq.

Here is what Buckley says about Obama:

As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

Buckley's sentiments are echoed by Christopher Hitchens:

I suppose it could be said, as Michael Gerson has alleged, that the Obama campaign's choice of the word erratic to describe McCain is also an insinuation. But really, it's only a euphemism. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear had to feel sorry for the old lion on his last outing and wish that he could be taken somewhere soothing and restful before the night was out. The train-wreck sentences, the whistlings in the pipes, the alarming and bewildered handhold phrases—"My friends"—to get him through the next 10 seconds. I haven't felt such pity for anyone since the late Adm. James Stockdale humiliated himself as Ross Perot's running mate. And I am sorry to have to say it, but Stockdale had also distinguished himself in America's most disastrous and shameful war, and it didn't qualify him then and it doesn't qualify McCain now.

Like me, Hitchens does not suppose Obama will be a panacea:

I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that "issue" I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience. With McCain, the "experience" is subject to sharply diminishing returns, as is the rest of him, and with Palin the very word itself is a sick joke. One only wishes that the election could be over now and a proper and dignified verdict rendered, so as to spare democracy and civility the degradation to which they look like being subjected in the remaining days of a low, dishonest campaign.

In other news, Obama appears poised for a blowout. I'd say 100+ electoral points is realistic at this point.