New Poll, 20-25% of Amercians are morons

Whenever I start to wonder how things in this country can get so screwed up, a poll comes about and hits me in the head. A new CNN poll says the following regarding Civil Rights.

While 39 percent of the 1,013 poll respondents said the Bush administration has gone too far, 34 percent said they believe the administration has been about right on the restrictions, according to the Opinion Research Corp. survey. Another 25 percent said the administration has not gone far enough.

Yes, I'm clearly in the 39% group, and empirically, 34% seems about right for folks who think, "Hey, we're at war, I expect to lose some CL's." But the fact that there are 25% who think that W hasn't gone far enough? Seriously? There are people out there who feel the Feds should have more power, and We The People less? Some folks are feeling a little too free?

This curmudgeonly group (Lousy kids and their freedom - Stay off my yard!) must also make up a large part of the 20% of respondents who think the size of the government has gone down. If any reader out there is part of the group of American's who think the government has gone down, please, please write me. I'm dying to know how this can be. For one, we're fighting two wars. By default, the size of Government has to go up. The only rationale I can come up with is that this group has taken a long cool drink of the "The GOP is in charge, they shrink government" Kool-Ade.

The 25% and 20% group remind me of a post I read by Tom Tomorrow (no, the link doesn't go to the post, he doesn't have a "search this blog" feature so I couldn't find the exact post - I'm sure this is some kind of blogger fox paws, but I prefer to think its just my rebel nature). Anyway, his point was that about 20% of American's will believe just about anything you tell them. Kind of makes sense. Looking at just about any poll, there's always about 20% that believe something that's not true, or just plain weird. So I say, to get a handle on what the country's really thinking, you have to look at the numbers above the 20% threshold. And yes, I get the fact that I've taken my memory of a random person's opinion in a blog and added my own little kicker on top, rendering this whole point about as stable as my 85 year old grandmother on roller-skates...on quick-sand...in a gale force wind...with Stalin Malone poking her with a stick (quit tormenting her Stalin, you've made your point!).

But really, if 20% of American's really think that the size of government has decreased, then those of us who want to actually decrease it start at a huge disadvantage.