Can somebody explain this?

Posted on January 30, 2005 by Sappho

Do you think democ­racy is pos­si­ble in Iraq?

This is a poll taken from the Time mag­a­zine.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

33 Responses to Can somebody explain this?

  1. Pingback: Kaedrin Weblog

  2. Pingback: Mudville Gazette

  3. Pingback: TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime

  4. CMAR II says:
    January 30, 2005 at 03:49

    It is a poll of peo­ple who would go to the Time mag­a­zine web­site to check out their com­ing report “Can the US Get Out of Iraq”. The title alone pre­sumes that democ­racy is not pos­si­ble there and the only ques­tion is how can we best retreat.

    61%? Why so low?

  5. Mike Clark says:
    January 30, 2005 at 04:09

    The poll is unsci­en­tific and can eas­ily be spoofed, in fact, is unavoid­ably spoofed, by peo­ple who con­tact all their friends and say go there and vote NO, so Bush will get dis­cour­aged or some­thing like that. Like the page with the piechart itself says, it’s for enter­tain­ment only!

    So don’t worry about it.

  6. Don Carter says:
    January 30, 2005 at 04:09

    “61%? Why so low?: It is a Time Mag­a­zine poll. Try again with a neu­tral, non-partisan, legit­i­mate polling organization…

  7. AMM says:
    January 30, 2005 at 04:41

    Time is shit. Pay no atten­tion to their polls. We sup­port you 100%. God bless Iraq.

  8. WC says:
    January 30, 2005 at 05:12

    Howdy!

    Well, yes it may be a biased poll. But there is also real deep skep­ti­cism that the cabal of the mon­sters that Iraqis are up against can be over­come. To some extent, it is a reac­tion to all the very bad pic­tures that come at us every day from the media about Iraq. To some extent it is “his­tor­i­cal prej­u­dice” (that is: “those peo­ple have always had a strong tyran­ni­cal leader and that is how they are cul­tur­ally trained”).

    All of this is in denial of logic and rea­son and it is against what we know in our hearts to be true.

    Take hope, though. ’cause the same things were said about Japan and Aus­tria in 1946.

    God bless Iraq and all Iraqis every­where in their “diaspora”.

    Happy trails,
    WC

  9. daniel seyb says:
    January 30, 2005 at 06:13

    Don’t take this poll too seri­ously. There is no guar­an­tee that most (or indeed, ANY) if the peo­ple vot­ing were Iraqi, or even human. (This wouldn’t be the first on-line poll to be attacked with a script)

    If it comes to that, there is no guar­an­tee that these num­bers weren’t just gen­er­ated by Time.

  10. Ray says:
    January 30, 2005 at 06:38

    Dont worry about that pole, it is prob­a­bly some punk col­lege kids from all over the world doing mul­ti­ple votes. In real­ity, the num­bers for yes and no should be reversed.

  11. alidu says:
    January 30, 2005 at 07:47

    The same Time web­site poll pre­dicted a Kerry win on elec­tion day here in the states. Nuff said.
    Ali

  12. Jay says:
    January 30, 2005 at 08:32

    I wouldn’t worry about that poll, its open to every­one in the whole world no just USA, unfor­tunetly most peo­ple around the world who think the inva­sion by the US was wrong would like noth­ing more then to see the Iraq sit­u­a­tion turn into a never end­ing quag­mire. They aren’t vot­ing No because they don’t think Democ­racy is pos­si­ble, there vot­ing No because they don’t want you to have democ­racy because it will be seen as a suc­cess for the U.S.

  13. ss says:
    January 30, 2005 at 09:58

    Hail to free Iraq!!

  14. Kat-Missouri says:
    January 30, 2005 at 10:57

    con­grat­u­la­tions on a free elec­tion. Go Iraq! Happy inde­pen­dence day!

  15. Alias Pseudonym says:
    January 30, 2005 at 11:16

    Well, don’t know if this makes a dif­fer­ence or not to you but did you try vot­ing in that poll twice? How about three times? Four? Maybe five?

    No? Well, I guess you didn’t notice that all you had to do was close that poll win­dow and vote again.

    Take a look now. You might like it bet­ter now that I voted for my 20 friends here at work. 90% vot­ing for democracy!

    Seri­ously though, I can not think of one per­son I have met here in Texas that is not hop­ing that Iraq can find some way to free­dom. 30 Jan­u­ary is a step in the right direc­tion and I applaud each and every one of you that has the courage to vote.

    Hon­estly, it makes me ashamed of the cit­i­zens of Amer­ica. Iraqi’s brave bul­lets and bombs to vote while Amer­i­cans com­plain that it”s rain­ing and therefore…someone else will do it.

    Allah akbar! Democ­racy is great too!

  16. Ralph Woods says:
    January 30, 2005 at 15:51

    Never believe a poll you see on the inter­net. Before our Pres­i­den­tial elec­tion the polls all showed John Kerry lead­ing. The major media out­lets in the USA are left lean­ing and try to bias American’s views of the world. They are los­ing cred­i­bil­ity very rapidly as many of us who really care about the polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tions in the world reach out through the inter­net to gain perspective.

  17. Terry says:
    January 30, 2005 at 16:08

    For­tu­nately I have never believed in polls. Unfor­tu­nately oth­ers do. God Bless you brave Iraquis who voted today. May your valor be cov­ered by the media at least as much as they will cover the deaths.
    God Bless Fox News for let­ting me know of this Blog. Free­dom Rules!

  18. Anita Barker says:
    January 30, 2005 at 16:10

    Accord­ing to our tv, vot­ing is LARGE in Iraq, like many of us prayed it would be.
    God bless each one of you, stay strong.
    Anita…Texas

  19. Cathy says:
    January 30, 2005 at 16:28

    My fam­ily and many many more here are pray­ing for a suc­cess­ful democ­racy and elec­tion in Iraq. Many of us just can’t under­stand all the neg­a­tivism in places like Time, and won­der about how these peo­ple seem to have come to take for granted their pre­cious free­dom and democ­racy. Con­grat­u­la­tions on this momen­tous day and may God bless you and pro­tect you and your brave countrymen.

  20. Debbie says:
    January 30, 2005 at 16:44

    What a tru­ely won­der­ful day for the Iraqi peo­ple. What amaz­ing courage it took for them to get out have their voice heard. They should all be very proud of what they have accom­plished today. God bless the Iraqi peo­ple and God bless our won­der­ful troops for this day pos­si­ble for them.

  21. Steve says:
    January 30, 2005 at 17:05

    The proof is in the actions of the Iraqi peo­ple. I was there for the inva­sion two years ago as an acti­vated Reservist, and I still sup­port their free­dom and what we’re doing over there. This is truly an his­toric day for Iraq and the entire Mid­dle East. The less than one per­cent of rad­i­cals who oppose this act of free­dom are evi­dent by their actions. The Amer­i­can press should be ashamed of them­selves for their betrayal of the pub­lic trust and their pathetic report­ing over the past two years.

  22. ds says:
    January 30, 2005 at 19:59

    Sure, up until now, the face of the Iraqi peo­ple has not been one of under­stand­ing what democ­racy is — democ­racy requires cit­i­zens do, not government.

    So until the Iraqis take up the gun, take up the phone, get rid of the ter­ror­ists, peo­ple will think they do not want democracy.

    I think today the Iraqis proved the detrac­tors wrong, but will they satnd and fight the ter­ror­ist tom­mor­row? Only the Iraqis can answer that question.

    Free­dom and democ­racy is not free, you must earn it.

  23. John says:
    January 30, 2005 at 20:01

    Go Iraq! The peo­ple of Iraq are truly noble and brave. The num­bers of peo­ple going out to vote is won­der­ful. Please don’t even give TIME any thought, their poll is not sci­en­tific and is biased. Most Amer­i­cans strongly sup­port the peo­ple of Iraq. I have tears in my eyes read­ing the sto­ries of peo­ple voting.

  24. Richard Laycock says:
    January 30, 2005 at 20:08

    Just proves what kind of numb­skull idiot both­ers to surf Time’s web­site.
    A poll of Michael Moore lovers has noth­ing to do with the Amer­ica that’s hold­ing the reins of power in Wash­ing­ton these days, thank God.

    The poll for today should be; Whither next, Syria or Iran?

    R.

  25. ddurbin says:
    January 30, 2005 at 21:15

    TIME is an extremely lib­eral biased pub­li­ca­tion. It barely thinks Democ­racy will work in the US.

  26. Betty says:
    January 30, 2005 at 21:54

    Praise God for the courage and pro­tec­tion of the Irac­qui peo­ple. What a won­der­ful vic­tory with danc­ing in the streets even! Thanks to the US mil­i­tary and the Irac­qui police and sol­diers. You all did great, every man,woman and child.…I would dance if I could!

  27. Amy says:
    January 30, 2005 at 22:38

    I just voted yes about a hun­dred times– on behalf of the Iraqi women and men who are my new heros!

  28. nick says:
    January 31, 2005 at 00:29

    The world has obvi­ously under­es­ti­mated the Iraqi peo­ple. Keep prov­ing them wrong!

  29. Loren says:
    January 31, 2005 at 03:45

    Yes, it’s because Islam and democ­racy can­not coex­ist.
    The con­sti­tu­tion will have in it some­thing along the lines of “no law can be made that con­flicts with sacred Islamic law”, which of course is only deter­mined by cler­ics, and law will no longer be made by the peo­ple.
    Islam allows for no choice. Democ­racy is all about choice.

  30. JuanB says:
    January 31, 2005 at 03:55

    Too many Amer­i­cans take their lib­erty for granted. They haven’t had to work for it or risk their lives for it. It’s just always there. Today it is the Iraqis and Afghans and Ukra­ni­ans (and the British and Amer­i­can sol­diers) who are at the fore­front of lib­erty. Don’t waste a thought on the 61%. Keep set­ting the exam­ple for the rest of the world.

  31. Pingback: This isn’t writing, it’s typing.

  32. dean says:
    January 31, 2005 at 08:46

    Prior com­menters are cor­rect, that the online Time poll is worth­less as an indi­ca­tor. How­ever, the result I believe is accu­rate in one sense. Democ­racy, as under­stood infor­mally by Amer­i­cans, is not merely the free choice of a gov­ern­ment by cit­i­zens. For us Amer­i­cans, it con­notes a set of inter­lock­ing rights, duties, and ideals, such as the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers, equal pro­tec­tion for minori­ties, rule of law, broad civic par­tic­i­pa­tion, and a free press. None of these ele­ments of mod­ern democ­racy has been real­ized in any Arab soci­ety, ond only a sub­set has been real­ized in any Mus­lim state. It remains to be demon­strated that this full promise of democ­racy will be real­ized in Iraq. It’s all too pos­si­ble that Iraq will become a demo­c­ra­t­i­cally elected tyranny like Rus­sia, a merely for­mal democ­racy like Iran, or an instance of one man/one vote/one time. (The Jan­u­ary 30 elec­tion doesn’t count as “one time”; for that first elec­tion, under a new con­sti­tu­tion, we must wait until December.)

    I sup­port the Amer­i­can efforts in Iraq, I voted to re-elect Bush, and I fer­vently hope that a humane and demo­c­ra­tic soci­ety emerges from the ashes of Saddam’s Iraq. But we won’t know the out­come of this grand geopo­lit­i­cal exper­i­ment for many elec­tions to come. I, for one, will keep my fin­gers crossed until an elec­tion results in the peace­ful trans­fer of power from one party to another.

    Mean­while, let us indeed cel­e­brate today’s first suc­cess­ful step towards a bright future for Iraq!

  33. Pingback: Kaedrin Weblog