Candorville
So I was in a cafe yesterday, grabbing a quick bite for lunch
and ran across this comic:
and ran across this comic:
However, my friend Suzanne forwarded onto me this link:
The Daily Kos
on black voting on prop 8. Before people start blaming us for the failure of prop 8, look at how many living in CA.
The math in that article came from this article:
Prop 8 and Race Relations
Shows that really the black vote was only a part of the larger vote in support
of Prop. 8. I think we need to do more work to show that everyone under the
sun is equal under the law (or should be)!
Comments
But since it's the blog of Mr. Bob, I feel safe.
I agree that once stats (right or wrong) are out there people are going to run with them, and of course they're desperately looking for a scapegoat to explain this unfortunate event, so I also agree that we have to be skeptical and cautious when we interpret such data.
That said, the article at "Daily Kos" needs a rebuttal. Irrational casting of doubt on well-established statistical methods does more harm than good. In particular, it's very common for people to bash the idea of "random sampling" (as the article does) when in fact only random sampling provides accurate results. Grrrr!
Remember prop 8 passed by a very narrow margin. Of course you can therefore pick nearly any religious, ethnic, or cultural group and say, "if group X have voted differently, Prop 8 would not have passed." So imo, that's a red herring.
The thing that's shaking people up here is the surprise at the voting patterns (regardless of if they really were pivotal in the contest). Oppressed people assume (incorrectly) that other oppressed people will be eager to join their movement for equality. Regrettably, this assumption has repeatedly been shown to be faulty.
However, I will take an aside for a moment and mention how glad I am that you feel safe posting critiques, especially mathematically and factually based ones, on my blog Mr. Keith. ;0)