Now that the 2020 Election is over....

[Weedon]

Pastor Austin, are these these the same pollers whose predictions were shown to be laughably off on Election night and in the week’s prior? The same ones who disgraced themselves in the last election? Why bother paying any attention to pollers? It is quite manifestly an exercise in fiction.

[Rev Geminn]

Today’s polls show that young people, aged 18 to 29, voted for Biden by a count of 2 to 1, that is, 66% of them voted for Biden and 33% voted for Trump. This bodes well for the future, especially At a time when his son has suggested he might want to run again.

Are we really sure this is accurate?  I thought I read somewhere that in Florida this same demographic actually voted for Trump because of concerns about Biden's comments about another lock down.  I do not like what I am witnessing right now as it is very hard to figure out fact from fiction.

Peace,
Scott+

[David Garner]

Today’s polls show that young people, aged 18 to 29, voted for Biden by a count of 2 to 1, that is, 66% of them voted for Biden and 33% voted for Trump. This bodes well for the future, especially At a time when his son has suggested he might want to run again.

Are we really sure this is accurate?  I thought I read somewhere that in Florida this same demographic actually voted for Trump because of concerns about Biden's comments about another lock down.  I do not like what I am witnessing right now as it is very hard to figure out fact from fiction.

Peace,
Scott+

What?  Don't you read the NY Times?

/sarcasm

[peter_speckhard]

I would think the youngest cohort of voters would nearly always skew left/progressive. The things that lend themselves to conservatism-- marriage, children, home ownership-- haven't happened to them yet. The more established one becomes, the more one sees the value of securing what has been established.

If you look at married vs. single, you see married voters trending Trump, single voters trending Biden. Homeowners trending Trump, renters trending Biden. Parents trending Trump, childless trending Biden. Revolutions are always led by the young and/or unattached. The people with one year of experience at a company can push for massive change-- it doesn't hurt them and arguable increases their prospects. The people with 30 years in have little to gain and a lot to lose from massive change.

Notably, many of the things progressives are for are designed to give people the security that normally comes with being rooted without the attendant responsibilities that come with putting down roots. The Julia meme that the Obama administration put out encapsulated it well; liberals loved it, conservatives loathed it.

[DeHall1]

Today’s polls show that young people, aged 18 to 29, voted for Biden by a count of 2 to 1, that is, 66% of them voted for Biden and 33% voted for Trump. This bodes well for the future, especially At a time when his son has suggested he might want to run again.

The poll I conducted show that young people, aged 18 to 29*, voted for Trump by a count of 2 to 1, that is  66% of them voted for Trump and 33% voted for Jorgensen.

*Granted, the poll was of my 3 children....But I can confirm that the results are accurate.

[James J Eivan]

Today’s polls show that young people, aged 18 to 29, voted for Biden by a count of 2 to 1, that is, 66% of them voted for Biden and 33% voted for Trump. This bodes well for the future, especially At a time when his son has suggested he might want to run again.

Are we really sure this is accurate?  I thought I read somewhere that in Florida this same demographic actually voted for Trump because of concerns about Biden's comments about another lock down.  I do not like what I am witnessing right now as it is very hard to figure out fact from fiction.

Peace,
Scott+

What?  Don't you read the NY Times?
/sarcasm

Tragically what we may be seeing in the 20-29 year old demographics is the result of government school indoctrination.

A family member shared that while they and their beloved spouse were voting for Trump (yes, as the lesser of the evils) they were concerned that their children after eight years in government high school and university may have been duped.

While their kids were Lutheran educated prior to high school with active parental involvement, the highly formative years of high school and college where parental participation in the education process is naturally less was in the hands of the government indoctrinators.

[Norman Teigen]

The Daily podcast  by The New York Times today features an in-depth discussion of polling in the Election just concluded.  Polling is not a joke.  Polling is not exact.   Polling cannot predict the future.  Please don't dismiss it.

[Norman Teigen]

'James'...  "Government indoctrinators?"  Are you serious?  Come on, Man.

[Charles Austin]

Peter writes:
I would think the youngest cohort of voters would nearly always skew left/progressive. The things that lend themselves to conservatism-- marriage, children, home ownership-- haven't happened to them yet. The more established one becomes, the more one sees the value of securing what has been established.
I muse:
And there are exceptions, many of them. Dave Dellenger comes to mind.

Peter writes:
If you look at married vs. single, you see married voters trending Trump, single voters trending Biden. Homeowners trending Trump, renters trending Biden. Parents trending Trump, childless trending Biden. Revolutions are always led by the young and/or unattached. The people with one year of experience at a company can push for massive change-- it doesn't hurt them and arguable increases their prospects. The people with 30 years in have little to gain and a lot to lose from massive change.
I muse:
So you do believe some polls? How do you choose, the ones that have results agreeing with your view of the world?

Peter:
Notably, many of the things progressives are for are designed to give people the security that normally comes with being rooted without the attendant responsibilities that come with putting down roots.
Me:
So the only thing that counts as “roots,” is marriage, family, children, home ownership? Two or three gazillion New Yorkers or other urban dwellers might disagree with you on that. Do you think paying a mortgage on a condominium, or handling increasing rents on your apartment, or dealing with the various implications of life in a complex and changing urban area means you are not putting down roots?
And do you think that as we get older we lose all our sense of dedication and concern, not to mention our integrity, that our sense of right and wrong or justice degrades so much so that we wouldn’t rattle the cage in any way? We just “go along” because we have, in your opinion, “a lot to lose”? That’s quite an insult to older people don’t you think?

[James J Eivan]

The Daily podcast  by The New York Times today features an in-depth discussion of polling in the Election just concluded.  Polling is not a joke.  Polling is not exact.   Polling cannot predict the future.  Please don't dismiss it.

The NY Times sounds rather confused ... they say polls are not exact ... polls cannot predict the future... but then don’t dismiss polls ... polls are not a joke.

Why if polls are not exact ... if polls do not predict the future, should polling be considered any thing but a joke and simply irrelevant? What purpose according to the Times do they serve Voter suppression?? Ok now we are getting some where


To the extent the indoctrination occurred in government schools by instructors employed by the government, yes government indoctrinators ... just ask parents why they choose private/home schooling for their children.

[Brian Stoffregen]

Big tech, those giants of the relatively new and emerging industries that are heavily invested in the internet, were known to have supported the Biden in a big way.  They came under a bit of fire during the campaign, especially on issues of how much information should be limited (although media often uses the word "censor," even though it is sometimes pointed out here that is more properly used of government). A notorious case involved the NY Post story on Biden.  There has been a push from some quarters to clamp down on so-called hate groups and misinformation.  But who defines that can be tricky.  I'm sure we all know at least one person who ended up in "Facebook jail" because they ran afoul of the algorithms on that platform designed to control information. From some perspectives it often feels rather arbitrary.  In other cases biased. I've dodged that since I am relatively apolitical on FB.

Trump utilized Twitter heavily during his tenure and I'm sure all campaigns relied greatly on social media this time around, especially during the pandemic when in-person approaches were limited. But in the latter part of his presidency Twitter started attaching warnings to his tweets.  It has appeared that Big Tech has been more supportive of liberal endeavors than that of conservative ones.  The heads of these companies, I'm sure most will agree, are not icons of the right.

It will be interesting, going forward, to see how the Biden administration deals with the internet and the various social media platforms that have become major vehicles for information and news.  Biden wants to build broadband infrastructure for communities that currently lack it, which I applaud, since I live in a very rural area. 

Under the Trump administration an antitrust lawsuit was launched against Google. I would think that antitrust efforts might appeal to both sides, but I'll be curious to see if he pushes hard against some of the folks who gave him so much political support leading up to the White House. 

Another area that might bring about some bipartisan cooperation, although for different reasons, is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This law provides tech companies immunity from lawsuits over what people post to their sites. Yet it also leaves the choice to take down or flag content at the sole discretion of the companies. I'll be interested to see if Biden takes a lead here, or backs away.

I hope that Biden can show bipartisan interest in issues concerning Big Tech, especially the critical area of the free flow of information. Having these companies serve as a 'censors' deciding what is truth and what is fiction, removes from the reader/consumer the right and responsibility to do the hard work of their own investigation.

Could it be that more of the conservative posts didn't pass the fact-checking scrutiny and were removed than the those posted in favor of Biden?


The fire against Facebook and Twitter, as I remember it, was about how much false information should they allow on their sites. That was one way that Russia meddled in the 2016 election: the spreading of false information on social media.


There are limits to freedom of speech as Wiki notes: Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury. Justifications for such include the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."*

* van Mill, David (1 January 2016). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 ed.).

[Brian Stoffregen]

Big tech, those giants of the relatively new and emerging industries that are heavily invested in the internet, were known to have supported the Biden in a big way.  They came under a bit of fire during the campaign, especially on issues of how much information should be limited (although media often uses the word "censor," even though it is sometimes pointed out here that is more properly used of government). A notorious case involved the NY Post story on Biden.  There has been a push from some quarters to clamp down on so-called hate groups and misinformation.  But who defines that can be tricky.  I'm sure we all know at least one person who ended up in "Facebook jail" because they ran afoul of the algorithms on that platform designed to control information. From some perspectives it often feels rather arbitrary.  In other cases biased. I've dodged that since I am relatively apolitical on FB. <emphasis added>

This apparent non dictionary restriction was mentioned here.

Check your dictionary definitions ... none restrict censorship to governmental entities ... in fact Wikipedia specifically extends censorship beyond the government ...

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

How and why is it so important to restrict the term sensor to government only? Censorship is alive and well across society… Especially in social media as you have so well demonstrated?

Illegal speech, public communications, or other illegal information should be censored.

[DeHall1]

Evangelicals aren't giving up even though the election is over and. Joe Biden is the President Elect.  Evangelicals are politically power hungry and do not confine themselves to doing the work of the Lord,  This is my letter to NY Times which has been approved for distribution.   

"Your comment has been approved!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with The New York Times community.

Norman Teigen | Hopkins MN
In 1780 Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to Richard Price on the subject of religious tests: "When a Religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its Professors are obliged to call for the help of the Civil Power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one." see the Library of America collection."

No one bothered to answer my question, so I'll ask again...
Are the Paycheck Protection Program loans (a Small Business Administration loan) a "call for the help of a Civil Power"?  If not, why not?

The SBA is a cabinet-level federal agency.

[Brian Stoffregen]

If one asks, "What is the will of the people?" the popular vote gives that..

Pr. Engebretson has already made a similar point elsewhere, but:

Unfortunately, this is a classic example of a circular argument.  What does it mean to be "the will of the people"?  Why, that's defined as "the winner of the popular vote."  And how shall we define the significance of "the winner of the popular vote"?  Well, that's defined as "the will of the people."  Why would anyone ever take such foolishness seriously?

"The will of the people" is a populist myth.

Don't you consider the passage of a resolution by a majority vote to be "the will of the people" who voted? If it isn't that, what is it?

The will of the people is expressed in our Constitution as well. And if they don’t like its expression there, they can try to change it.

Where is there a conflict between this present election expressing the will of the people and the Constitution (which was approved by a vote of the people - at least those eligible to vote in 1787-1788)?

[D. Engebretson]

Big tech, those giants of the relatively new and emerging industries that are heavily invested in the internet, were known to have supported the Biden in a big way.  They came under a bit of fire during the campaign, especially on issues of how much information should be limited (although media often uses the word "censor," even though it is sometimes pointed out here that is more properly used of government). A notorious case involved the NY Post story on Biden.  There has been a push from some quarters to clamp down on so-called hate groups and misinformation.  But who defines that can be tricky.  I'm sure we all know at least one person who ended up in "Facebook jail" because they ran afoul of the algorithms on that platform designed to control information. From some perspectives it often feels rather arbitrary.  In other cases biased. I've dodged that since I am relatively apolitical on FB.

Trump utilized Twitter heavily during his tenure and I'm sure all campaigns relied greatly on social media this time around, especially during the pandemic when in-person approaches were limited. But in the latter part of his presidency Twitter started attaching warnings to his tweets.  It has appeared that Big Tech has been more supportive of liberal endeavors than that of conservative ones.  The heads of these companies, I'm sure most will agree, are not icons of the right.

It will be interesting, going forward, to see how the Biden administration deals with the internet and the various social media platforms that have become major vehicles for information and news.  Biden wants to build broadband infrastructure for communities that currently lack it, which I applaud, since I live in a very rural area. 

Under the Trump administration an antitrust lawsuit was launched against Google. I would think that antitrust efforts might appeal to both sides, but I'll be curious to see if he pushes hard against some of the folks who gave him so much political support leading up to the White House. 

Another area that might bring about some bipartisan cooperation, although for different reasons, is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This law provides tech companies immunity from lawsuits over what people post to their sites. Yet it also leaves the choice to take down or flag content at the sole discretion of the companies. I'll be interested to see if Biden takes a lead here, or backs away.

I hope that Biden can show bipartisan interest in issues concerning Big Tech, especially the critical area of the free flow of information. Having these companies serve as a 'censors' deciding what is truth and what is fiction, removes from the reader/consumer the right and responsibility to do the hard work of their own investigation.

Could it be that more of the conservative posts didn't pass the fact-checking scrutiny and were removed than the those posted in favor of Biden?


The fire against Facebook and Twitter, as I remember it, was about how much false information should they allow on their sites. That was one way that Russia meddled in the 2016 election: the spreading of false information on social media.


There are limits to freedom of speech as Wiki notes: Freedom of speech and expression, therefore, may not be recognized as being absolute, and common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury. Justifications for such include the harm principle, proposed by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which suggests that: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."*

* van Mill, David (1 January 2016). Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2016 ed.).

What is false information differs on who wants that information contained and who is reporting it. The NT Post article on Biden emails was the most celebrated. The reported emails did belong to Hunter Biden. Tony Bobulinski former business partner of Hunter, also offered corroborating information.  We can choose to decide none of this is newsworthy or relevant; we may differ on the significance of the facts, but there were facts that were suppressed. Tucker Carlson's interview was virtually ignored by the main networks. This is a free press issue.  We can ignore it, but we should trust our citizens to evaluate sources and information and come to their own conclusions.  I see this incident as a major concern with regard to the future of what is controlled, especially in social media venues.