Numbers, Nausea, and a Nod to Anne Coulter

My last post was about numbers not being the world.


I am trying to understand the world behind one number, and that is poll results saying that 80% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. That means that 20% of Americans think we're headed in the right direction. To quote Paul Newman and the Sundance Kid: "Who ARE those guys?!"

If we're headed in the right direction, where in the observable universe is the destination they hope to to reach? Did they not understand the question? Did they think they were answering "yes" to "Do you think the country is headed for vivisection?"

Every one acts rationally within their own frame of reference. If somebody seems irrational to you, then they don't share your frame of reference. This is why the FBI uses profilers. They try to figure out a serial killer's frame of reference so they can figure out what he thinks is rational, figure out what he'll do next, and nail him. I would like to understand the frame of reference of somebody who thinks the country is headed in the right direction. I'm sure that Osama bin Laden thinks so. I think his failing kidneys keep him alive only because they're flooded with the endorphins of sheer joy about us. But that's no help because he doesn't get polled. I guess. I mean, for all we know he's working as a Walmart greeter in Milwaukee and is worried about his 401(k) going down.

Do 20% of us think the country is so shot to hell that the only hope is to start over? Addicts have to hit bottom before they can start back up, and there's no doubt we are addicts. We're addicted to debt, cheap fuel, no responsibilities, and earmarks. If heading for the bottom is a necessary but unpleasant step in recovery from our addictions, then that frame of reference would say we're headed in the right direction.

Is it because as Anne Coulter states, "All liberals hate America and love pedophiles?" No, that can't be right because fewer than 80% of us are pedophiles. Although according to Anne about 40% of us, being registered Democrats, are lurking in the bushes at the school bus stop.
That is a quote, by the way, from her book Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. I read it because I wanted to be objective; I thought maybe she had something to say of higher quality than her vocal statements. I had planned to read Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. After surgery for the hernia I got from constant dry heaves during the first book, I was so far behind I never got around to it.

Anne did help me get perspective, though. Until I read Slander I had forgotten how I used to feel on Sunday mornings after a seriously high-proof fraternity party. Now that she has put me in touch with that memory, it's much easier to take today's problems in stride. Hmmm. If 20% of Americans polled went to frat parties in the sixties....