One recurring problem in this forum (and the wider world) is coming up with some mutually agreed way to categorize people politically.
In threads discussing media bias, for example, some people have argued that people such as David Gergen are not conservatives (even though they may self-identify as such), and that people such as Tom Brokaw are liberals or ultra-liberals (even though many of the people so categorized do not self-identify themselves as such).
Jedi Knight has recently come up with something that might make the task of assigning the correct political labels to people much easier.
"Where would you put yourself on the political spectrum in relation to the current US Supreme Court -- far to the right, a little to the right, pretty much in agreement, a little to the left, or far to the left?"
That, of course, would be for the popular-media version of the poll. A more rigorous scientific study could be conducted that would go through a number of the court's decisions to and measure more carefully where people stood in relation to each of these, thus providing a more accurate and more multi-dimensioned profile of the respondents.
Would anyone care to speculate how many extreme conservatives, conservatives, moderates, leftists, radical leftists, ultra-radical leftists, and super-ultra-radical leftists there really are in the US? It's probably premature to comment, before the poll-taking is done, but I think using the Jedi's USSC-Yardstick TM would clearly indicate that the general public is overwhelmingly leftist -- and far-leftist, at that.
This would mean that conservatives are grossly over-represented in the media, not simply at ownership levels (which had previously been known), and not simply at Fox (which had previously been known), and not simply on talk-radio and christian-radio (which had previously been known) but at virtually all levels of all known media.
I therefore reluctantly join with Jedi in calling on the networks to make their broadcasts less biased, by letting go of their conservative reporters and commentators in order to hire more radical leftists, so as to more accurately represent the American public's views.
In threads discussing media bias, for example, some people have argued that people such as David Gergen are not conservatives (even though they may self-identify as such), and that people such as Tom Brokaw are liberals or ultra-liberals (even though many of the people so categorized do not self-identify themselves as such).
Jedi Knight has recently come up with something that might make the task of assigning the correct political labels to people much easier.
Since the USSC is radical leftist -- and I can't think why anyone would want to argue such an obvious truth, now that it has been pointed out -- then the simple way to determine people's political leanings would be to ask the following question:
"Where would you put yourself on the political spectrum in relation to the current US Supreme Court -- far to the right, a little to the right, pretty much in agreement, a little to the left, or far to the left?"
That, of course, would be for the popular-media version of the poll. A more rigorous scientific study could be conducted that would go through a number of the court's decisions to and measure more carefully where people stood in relation to each of these, thus providing a more accurate and more multi-dimensioned profile of the respondents.
Would anyone care to speculate how many extreme conservatives, conservatives, moderates, leftists, radical leftists, ultra-radical leftists, and super-ultra-radical leftists there really are in the US? It's probably premature to comment, before the poll-taking is done, but I think using the Jedi's USSC-Yardstick TM would clearly indicate that the general public is overwhelmingly leftist -- and far-leftist, at that.
This would mean that conservatives are grossly over-represented in the media, not simply at ownership levels (which had previously been known), and not simply at Fox (which had previously been known), and not simply on talk-radio and christian-radio (which had previously been known) but at virtually all levels of all known media.
I therefore reluctantly join with Jedi in calling on the networks to make their broadcasts less biased, by letting go of their conservative reporters and commentators in order to hire more radical leftists, so as to more accurately represent the American public's views.