1/3 of Americans back military coup against US government

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Thought this was a pretty interesting poll, was going to post it in that Trump thread on the news board but I think this can warrant its own discussion so it doesn't get lost in that mess.

here's a link to the poll tabs if that interests you

https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/c ... 150903.pdf

Pretty interesting and scary results, I think that shows how low of regard most of the country holds its elected officials. I think eventually secession is probably inevitable with so discontent, eventually something will happen and the people of one state will want out. I am not prepared to spill blood to go against the self determination of fellow American citizens, our country exists on the consent of the governed so if the people of one or however many states decide that it isn't a good deal for them anymore then who am I to stop them? This country isn't a suicide pact, divorce is normal now and we shouldn't be doomed to stay in unhappy abusive relationships.

It seems like a good portion of Americans would support martial law tho which is pretty terrifying, what if there is another serious terrorist attack like 9/11? How much more freedom will we lose? I guess its hard to gauge what life would be like since the military wouldn't be beholden to the government any longer and I do believe individually your average military person probably want whats best for the country more than your typical politician but its a bureaucracy just as convoluted and politically f'd up as our federal government, them being a big part of that problem.

JFK's words still ring true, "those that make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable" and that's what I'd hope to avoid. Our democracy is broken and our country is heading down the tubes, people feel powerless.

Where did they take this poll? You can get whatever results you want by selecting your polling population. One interesting thing that jumped out at me, the vast majority of left wingers in this poll supported overthrowing the status quo. Imagine that !

While the government is not to be trusted, martial law would be unlivable.

not to mention quite unlikely as a large portion of the US military's resources are scattered around the world.

No they don't. The survey clearly states that "29% of Americans could imagine a situation in which they would support the military seizing control of the federal government, while 41% could not imagine such a situation."

29% of americans can't find the pacific ocean on a map.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2003/0512/038.html

There are three gradations of inveracity - lies, damned lies, and politically-motivated polls.

This "poll" is no exception.

(With apologies to the memories of Benjamin Disraeli and Samuel Clemens.)

almost didn't fit in the title

what do you guys find unbelievable about this poll? Read the tabs and you'll have a better understanding of it. YouGov is a fairly accurate reliable polling company.

YouGov is a polling site of collected opinions, not facts. In addition, your subject line should be "1/3 of people polled say that they would back a U.S. Coup". It is otherwise misleading.

Your headline is misleading, and even pollsters know the limitations of these studies. If you take the actual question the response is fairly logical, becuase they are being asked a hypothetical question. A hypothetical which has some cultural and constitutional relevance. To a certain extent Americans are taught this, and grow up with this concept.

There are many cultural concepts which are repeated verbatim, which are assumed to be held elsewhere and this isn't necessarily the case. Some of these concepts come from the cold war, and some earlier.

Any rudimentary survey course will tell you what is and isn't a leading question, and this is a suggestive question.

If you did this survey and did another where the question was more general with various multiple choice options only one involve a coup, you would get a very different result.

Even playing devil's advocate, people could have never had it so good but still be unhappy becuase the grass is always greener. We have high standards of accountability, which doesn't necessarily occur on countries that lack freedom of expression, or the same degree of transparency. The fact that people are pissed off at thing isn't necessarily a sign that everything is lost, it is when you can't here that, then you have wonder if something is up. The reality is you are never going to satisfy 100% of the people 100% of the time.

There can sometimes be a feeling of dissatisfaction and this can be exasperated by moral panic or hysteria. There is a gulf in perception in reality in many things such as crime. The perception of crime is something that is quite well researched, yet it is widely exploited in politics.

Of course there are genuine issues, but extracting actually solutions out of people is not that easy. Sometime you be lucky if you get more than vague idea of how they view the problem. It is that Russel Brand thing, well intentioned but lacking substance

What I do think is needed is giving people the resources and knowledge to find out how things are run. I don't think this is that universal yet and it is not purely about technology. People don't necessarily understand the structure of their governments, the processes, history. Whether a government is agreeable or not, it is important to know that.

YouGov is a successful polling company there is no doubt, but that doesn't necessarily mean everything they produce is good. YouGov is a UK company, we have some awareness of it form before it was international.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 13 Sep 2015, 4:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Even that is not accurate. The question was a hypothetical.

YouGov is a PLC, it can produce good work, but this is not it. They produce various types of studies, fron high end "product" where they put a lot of work on how the servery will be conduct, to snap random surveys. Ultimately YouGov is a business, an you need to now what it is you are looking at.

Blame the media, I just used the same headline they did. Polls are polls, they're snapshots of public opinion in time but I don't not believe this considering how high in regard the military is held and how universally hated and condemned politicians are in this country, it's not surprising.

Now I certainly don't support this, that is the martial law I've been screaming about coming forever and I think it isn't out of the realm of possibility. What will happen if another major terrorist attack happens? I think it's game over for our freedom. Our government will take everything we have from us if we let them, I can't imagine the dark s**t they have in some bill sitting in some desk like the PATRIOT act which was written well before 9/11. Never let a crisis go to waste, that is to M.O. of the statist.

Our democracy needs fixing or we will be doomed to enslavement.

The people that support a military coup don't understand that we don't have an independent military, they're connected at the hip of government and the M.I.C. Nobody should have illusions about the military siding with the American people against the oligarchy that owns it, eventually a military coup probably wouldn't even change much because this police state we have growing. We'll be well prepped, well conditioned, honestly that's why its never going to happen. They don't need it too. Americans are docile, they've successfully been divided and conquered.

I just hope when the orders are to turn the guns on the American people, when the camps are built, when our constitution has been shredded once and for all, that the good people in our military refuse those orders.

America needs another revolution, read our Declaration of Independence. The question is how far will the evil in this country go to hold onto power? How many people need to wake up?

What you actually mean by an independent military?

Besides, for all we know, 2/3s of the people who responded to the poll were ISIS members, Russian military, Chinese hackers, Ulster dissidents, or some combination thereof. There is no way for us to know if any of the poll's respondents were American.

That polling site is not fact-based at all, and seems to be more concerned with attracting attention than with telling the truth.

(Adding Jacoby to my 'Foe' list, btw ...)

If you mean the decision to go to war, then yes we do need to question the 'executive' leadership model.

In the UK, very slowly we are learning. Very, very slowly.

heck, almost 30% of americans approved of GWB right up to the train-wreck end.

And let's say a coup did happen, then what?