primitives discuss people who don't count

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9393131

Oh my.

KamaAina  (1000+ posts)        Tue Oct-26-10 06:12 PM
THE ANAL CAMEL PRIMITIVE
Original message
 
Major Pollster Refuses to Count People with Disabilities

and amazingly, it's not (R)asmussen.

http://www.ncil.org/resources/whamv8i32.html

The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, one of the nation’s most prominent pollsters, is dedicated to providing valuable data representing the will of the people, that is unless you happen to be a person with a disability. NCIL (National Council on Independent Living) has submitted a request to Pew Research Center to include disability statistics in their polling so that the voice of the disability community can be factored into the national political dialogue. Those requests have been flatly rejected, and the message is clear that people with disabilities don’t count.

This outrageous unwillingness to include people with disabilities in their polling is narrow-minded, and delegitimizes the work done at Pew. The power of the disability vote is of significant consequence in America, and to omit disability statistics from the national conversation is both unethical and dishonest. People with disabilities are a major constituency and a swing voting bloc. The disability vote went for George W. Bush in 2004 (a million apologies) , and Barack Obama in 2008. Furthermore, a GAO study found that 14.7 million people with disabilities voted in the last presidential election despite inaccessible conditions at over a quarter of the nation’s polling places. The disability vote is almost as much as the African-American vote, 50% larger than the Latino vote, and many times more than the Jewish vote. Do we count now?

If you are mad, you should be. While all of these other constituencies are well-represented in polls, discrimination still prevents people with disabilities from being considered in American political life. Blatant discrimination will not stand, and with the support of our members and allies, NCIL will fight the idea that people with disabilities should remain invisible.

CreekDog  (1000+ posts)      Tue Oct-26-10 06:20 PM
Response to Original message
 
1. Are they throwing out answers provided by disabled participants in their polls? No

sounds like they aren't providing a breakout of numbers of the disabled participants.

well, that's a lot different.

unrecommended.

KamaAina  (1000+ posts)        Tue Oct-26-10 06:23 PM
THE ANAL CAMEL PRIMITIVE
Response to Reply #1

2. How could they throw them out if they don't even know who we are?

Any pollster worth his/her salt gives a breakdown of African American, Latino, senior citizen, youth voters, etc. Why not us?

11cents  (1000+ posts)      Tue Oct-26-10 07:26 PM
Response to Reply #2
 
3. The article and headline are outrageously misleading.

Motown_Johnny  (1000+ posts)        Tue Oct-26-10 07:37 PM
Response to Reply #2
 
4. maybe disabled persons tend to vote more in line with their ethnic or age group and that trying to lump them together would be misleading.

The two examples given in the post are simply that the candidates who got the most votes got the most disabled persons votes. This isn't a very persuading argument.

If you can provide some statistical evidence that a person's disability is determinative in his or her vote then I will agree with you that a separate demographic is required.

REP  (1000+ posts)        Tue Oct-26-10 07:47 PM
Response to Original message
 
5. I'm disabled, and this doesn't bother me at all

I don't see why my disability (in my case, kidney failure and a weird form of arthritis) trumps everything else about me - gender, age etc.

KamaAina  (1000+ posts)        Tue Oct-26-10 08:19 PM
THE ANAL CAMEL PRIMITIVE
Response to Reply #5

6. It doesn't "trump everything else about you"

indeed, in independent living, we explicitly do not allow our disabilities to define us.

BUT it does give you a vested interest in issues like health care reform, Social Security, etc.

Yeah, especially in that free medical care and those social security disability checks.

[thundley4]

The only disability that gets overlooked by pollsters would be the deaf, I think. 

[true_blood]

KamaAina  (1000+ posts)        Tue Oct-26-10 08:19 PM
THE ANAL CAMEL PRIMITIVE
Response to Reply #5

6. It doesn't "trump everything else about you"

indeed, in independent living, we explicitly do not allow our disabilities to define us.    (then quit your bitching and cast your vote for the person that best suits your needs.)

BUT it does give you a vested interest in issues like health care reform, Social Security, etc.    (Oh! Like health care "reform"? What is that? The imposter didn't pass a reform bill, it was a gubberment take over of health care stupid!)

[franksolich]

The only disability that gets overlooked by pollsters would be the deaf, I think. 

The anal camel primitive's upset because pollsters inquire about party registration, age range, sex, income level, ethnic origin, education, those sorts of things.

The anal camel primitive thinks that a "handicap" should also be in that mix.

My bitch is that too damned many people define themselves as "handicapped" for the stupidest little reasons, and get away with it.

Another bitch is this primitive assumption that a "handicap" is considered a "defining characteristic," much like age or sex, when it comes to values or voting.

The anal camel primitive's just being silly.

[franksolich]

The only disability that gets overlooked by pollsters would be the deaf, I think. 

But that's okay with me, because statistically, the authentically-deaf are insignificant.

Not enough of us are around, so no point in bothering.

Better to poll Americans of Gheg and Tosk derivation; there's more of those than there are of us.

What matters is that one votes, period.