Push Polls, Marketing, and Respecting Human Liberty

A couple of months ago, I got a "survey" in the mail from the National Rifle Association.  As a Virginian, they were interested in learning what I had to say, so that my opinions might help them decide…snicker…be reflected in their legislative…snort…I'm sorry.

Can't keep a straight face on that one.  They couldn't have cared less what I thought, because their "survey" wasn't a survey at all.  I used to review social science research proposals in a prior life, and for a survey instrument to have any validity, it needs be written in a way that allows for an objective response.  Meaning, you need to carefully construct the language so it doesn't create a bias in the person  responding.  Otherwise, your results will be skewed, and the data you produce will be unreliable.

That's a problem if you care about gathering information, but the survey I got was not about listening to opinions.  It was about cramming opinions down your throat using manipulative language.  In political parlance, what I got from the NRA was a "push poll," which meant it asked questions like:

1) Do you want fat-cats in Washington to destroy the Constitution and take away your fundamental freedoms so that special interest groups can have their way with the weeping, broken body of Lady Liberty?  (  ) Yes   (  ) No

Um.   Hold on.  Let me think.  This is a toughie.   Maybe…No?

Sure, I have my political opinions.  But I also know when I'm being played.   I found that survey…woefully misdirected to a progressive…remarkably false.  From my progressive predilections, it was easy to cluck knowingly at how effectively this hunk of rotten meat would be consumed by the fearful and the gullible and the true-believers.

Which made it interesting when Friday's mail brought me a "50-State Survey" from the American Civil Liberties Union.  

That ACLU survey began:

"Nationwide, we're seeing a relentless and wide-ranging assault on our fundamental freedoms."

Wait, what?  I think I read that exact same opening sentence in the NRA survey.

It went on, in three sections, entitled, respectively:  1) Defending Freedom in Virginia; 2) Defending Freedom Nationally; and 3) Strategies for Advancing Freedom.

I wish I hadn't sent back the NRA's survey instrument, because Lord have mercy, did that seem familiar.

I got into the questions.

Do I care about the constitutional rights of those who are impacted by discriminatory laws?  Do I care about standing up to extremists who are carrying out an all-out assault on our rights?  Do I care about informing and mobilizing people to strengthen and expand individual liberty in America?  Will you help us confront those seeking to undermine the Constitution and sweep away our fundamental freedoms?

Yikes.  Different hot-buttons, but the same emotionally charged, manipulative language wrapped in a "survey."  And while I agreed with much of what that survey was pushing, I still couldn't help but notice that I was being played.  The ACLU's marketers were using the same push-poll fundraising strategy as the NRA's marketers.

Because the last question, in both surveys, was : "Will you send us money?"

In the context of both the NRA and the ACLU, that bears with it a deep irony that goes well beyond the unfortunate and unnecessary divide between liberals and libertarians.

You cannot claim to serve the cause of liberty if you use manipulative tactics.  Because to serve the liberty of others, you must first respect their integrity as individuals.

Push poll marketing does not show that respect.

The NRA and a Shooting Close to Home

My earliest memories are of Nairobi.   From the age of two until my family returned stateside right before I went into first grade, Kenya was my home.  My younger brother was born there.

So when I hear of a mass slaughter in Nairobi, as members of al-Shabaab gunned down nearly seventy souls in a downtown mall, it doesn't feel like one of those easily forgettable things in a far-off nowhere.  It's the place where I was a little child, the stuff of memory, part of myself.  It was home.

As I read through the stories of this event, in all of its horror in a place that was at the heart of my childhood, my mind plays out to a related thing.

For the past decade, the United Nations has been trying to stop the flow of weapons into places like Somalia and Afghanistan.  The guns and explosives that have poured into the hands of folks like Al-Shabaab and the Taliban have taken a tremendous toll, allowing them to terrorize civilians, attack peacekeeping forces, and...in the case of the Taliban and al-Qaeda...kill American soldiers.

Terrorist organizations will happily steal and extort to get the money they need to pay arms dealers for those weapons.  And so long as they get paid, those international dealers don't care who gets the weapons.  It's a nasty, bloody trade.

But international efforts to stop the flow of arms to groups like the Taliban and al-Shabaab have run up against a consistent opponent: The National Rifle Association.

The NRA has consistently used its considerable influence to pressure American lawmakers into opposing and stalling international efforts to disarm terrorists.   They've drummed up panic among their members, pitching out visions of blue-helmeted Koreans taking away the firearms of law abiding Americans, and then forcing us all into reeducation camps to listen to Ban Ki Moon talk about climate change.

The horror...

That UN efforts to stem the flow of arms would in no way effect our sovereignty and Second Amendment rights doesn't mean a thing.  That it has everything to do with protecting a profit center for the firearms industry just slides on by.  Fear does funny things to the minds of otherwise rational beings.

What amazes me, just hornswoggles my cortex, is that helping keep weapons in the hands of the Taliban and monsters like al-Shabaab is a priority for NRA rank and file membership.  Most of the NRA members I've known personally are good eggs, and many have been veterans.

And yet they are members of an organization that's proudly facilitating the flow of small arms that have been used against American soldiers serving our country overseas, rifles and grenades that have been used to kill and maim our men and women in uniform.  Providing guns to our enemies so they can kill us is the price we have to pay for freedom?  How does that even work?

As insane as that seems to me, it does have the peculiar logic of madness.  If NRA leadership is comfortable with compulsively sabotaging practical gun safety measures here at home, why not take that same ethic into the international arena?