Reviewing and Analyzing Recent Polls

From some recent polls, it's interesting to see different people opinions on matters. Sometimes you see that people aren't as naive as polticians would hope. Sometimes, their answers aren't consistent.

Tax and Spend
"After federal taxes are collected from the American public, do you think Congress thinks of the money more as taxpayer money to spend carefully or as their money to spend as they wish?" Their Money: 80% Taxpayer Money: 10%.

Now sometimes polls reveal that how confused some people are. Look here:

"Now thinking about taxes: Do you consider the amount of federal income tax you have to pay as too high, about right, or too low?" Too high: 51%, About Right: 44% Too Low: 2% No Opinion: 3% The immediate follow question is "Do you regard the income tax which you will have to pay this year as fair?" Yes: 61%. So essentially 12% of respondents think that their taxes are too high but also think that is fair.

Similar numbers think that illegal immigration is out of control.

Immigration
"Do you think that illegal immigration to the United States is out of control, or not?" Out of control 81%

Religion
9/11 didn't make everyone immediately dislike Islam. I think many people gave it the benefit of the doubt that there were some extremists, but subsequent actions over the last four years have caused opinions to drop further. "What is your impression of [see below]? As of today, is it very favorable, somewhat favorable, somewhat unfavorable, very unfavorable, of haven't you heard enough about that to say?" Favorable: 19% Unfavorable: 45%. However back on 2/02, the same question received a Favorabe: 30% Unfavorable: 33%.

Adding to more confusion was people's reactions to the Muslim cartoons:

"Do you think the European newspapers that printed those cartoons acted responsibly or irresponsibly?" Responsibly 29%, Irresponsibly 61%.

"Overall, do you think this controversy is due more to Western nations' lack of respect for the Islamic religion, or due more to Muslims' intolerance of different points of view?" Western Lack of Respect 21% Muslim Intolerance: 61%

Which comes closer to your view? The U.S. news media have an obligation to show controversial items that are newsworthy even if they may offend the religious views of some people. OR, The U.S. news media have an obligation to avoid offending the religious views of some people even if that prevents them from showing controversial items that are newsworthy." Obliged to show: 57% Avoid offending: 33%.

So what you have is people who think that the European newspapers acted irresponsibly for printing the cartoons, but US newspapers should print them. The Europeans are irresponsible, but it's only a problem because of Muslim intolerance. That doesn't make sense. If the cause is unacceptable then the reaction should be justified.