It goes like this: Person A says “Black is white” — perhaps out of ignorance, although more often out of a deliberate effort to obfuscate. Person B says, “No, black isn’t white — here are the facts.”

And Person B is considered to have lost the exchange — you see, he came across as arrogant and condescending.

Here’s how I see it: in our current political culture, the background noise is overwhelmingly one of conservative platitudes. People who have strong feelings about politics but are intellectually incurious tend to pick up those platitudes, and repeat them in the belief that this makes them sound smart. (Ezra Klein once described Dick Armey thus: “He’s like a stupid person’s idea of what a thoughtful person sounds like.”)

Inevitably, then, such people react with rage when they’re shown up on their facts or basic logic — it’s an attack on their sense of self-worth.

My point is that many poll questions are slanted and/or incomplete and simplified to such a degree as to make a yes or no vote irrelevant.

Joseph, Do you approve or disapprove of the way political candidates eat small children?
No comments now, just check one.

I approve.

I disapprove.

Results of this poll show that most Americans support my belief that politician's table manners are atrocious.

Do you
A- think Zumbido should run for president as a republican in 2012
or
B- think Zumbido should run for president as an independent in 2012?

Wow, it seems like an overwhelming percentage of Americans polled believe Zumbido should run for president in 2012!