1/3 of Americans Would Support a Military Coup

[RSL]

Good grief why are we having this discussion on LuLa

Beats me.

[Tim Lookingbill]

From the article:

Abraham Wyner, director of the undergraduate program in statistics at the University of Pennsylvania, said that online polls are suspect when it comes to getting accurate results. "People who are participating in an online poll are generally attracted to that poll because of some variable," he said. In other words, people who respond to the poll tend to feel strongly about the poll's subject matter, so they're inherently biased.

What a waste of time that article is, I'm gonna make myself a real cup of coffee.

Cheers,
Bart

Yeah, I was asked in a phone survey whether I was for or against women breast feeding in public and at work which of course I was all for 100%. I added, excitedly..."Have you seen the zombies at most work places? Mother's breast feeding would be the only sign of life at most of them."

I remember after the survey ended saying to myself "Why can't I get asked to participate in more surveys like that?"

Another phone survey that went very quick first question asked if I was for or against abortion and I said I believe in the woman's right to choose. They hung up immediately before I could get another word in.

[Justinr]

The Brits, the Australians, the Canadians all were magnificent, but without the U.S., Europe would be a Nazi fiefdom right now.

In hindsight the Germans were being led by a nutter who surrounded himself with incompetents, It was never going to end well for them. With regards to Operation Sealion the Germans only had inland barges being towed by tugs to get them across 22 miles of open sea! They did think about it but those who were competent, eg, Rommel, saw the absurdity of it all and it was 'postponed' indefinitely.

[RSL]

So you think Karl Dönitz, Erwin Rommel, and Heinz Guderian were incompetents? You need to go back to your history books and double-check that idea. Yes, Rommel warned about Sea Lion, but that wasn't the reason it wasn't carried out. The Nazis had the most effective military in the world, and though Hitler clearly was insane, he had people who, left to their own devices, would have finished off England before the US was willing to get into the fight. The only reason Hitler lost that war was because he insanely drove his Eastern army into disaster. Guderian, another brilliant officer, and others warned him but he made the same, stupid mistake Charles XII of Sweden made, roughly 235 years earlier.

[Justinr]

So you think Karl Dönitz, Erwin Rommel, and Heinz Guderian were incompetents? You need to go back to your history books and double-check that idea. Yes, Rommel warned about Sea Lion, but that wasn't the reason it wasn't carried out. The Nazis had the most effective military in the world, and though Hitler clearly was insane, he had people who, left to their own devices, would have finished off England before the US was willing to get into the fight. The only reason Hitler lost that war was because he insanely drove his Eastern army into disaster. Guderian, another brilliant officer, and others warned him but he made the same, stupid mistake Charles XII of Sweden made, roughly 235 years earlier.

If you would kindly view my post again you will note that I distinctly noted that Rommel was competent, I would also include Donitz who was probably the first to appreciate the U Boats were defeated. Guderian was dismissed by Hitler twice for standing his ground which no doubt goes a long way to explain why everyone else said yes to him, what sort of competence level is that? What happened to Rommel anyway? On the other hand there was Goering and Wilhelm Keitel.....

Operation Sealion would have been an utter disaster for the Germans, it suited post war governments to believe otherwise but you cannot land an army over the Channel using boats designed for the canals and rivers of continental Europe. How do troops get down over the bow of them for a start, and if drawn by tugs how do they approach the beach? Did Germany have the expertise to navigate and deliver an army (that still relied on horses to a great extent) across a seaway that suffers strong tides and bad weather? Britain (not just England) was once again saved by her salty moat.

Churchill was keen to see the US involved to help defeat Hitler in Europe, his own island was reasonably secure from any seabourne invasion although it may not have looked quite so certain at the time.

  

[Rob C]

I thought they made tanks that had good armour and were simple to keep running, also artillery. I think you're being a bit harsh. Wasn't half the point of the siege of Stalingrad (if I recollect correctly and I'm not checking now, it's late) that while it cost many lives it bought time to make these tanks and equip for the counter offensive?

Good grief why are we having this discussion on LuLa

Because we can: it's in the Coffee Corner...

Rob C

[drmike]

Well yes, I realise that but I'm not sure we are the most appropriately qualified group to settle this Fun to watch though.

[petermfiore]

Fun to watch though.

That is why...

Peter

[Otto Phocus]

That's irrelevant nonsense.

Stick to the quoted point: Hitler’s belief in maintaining the sovereignty of nations. If that's not the greatest example of irony, then one of us hasn't any idea what irony is.

Rob C

I believe that person is you.  There is nothing ironic in this.  The word you should be using is hypocrisy.

Irony is when someone makes a decision with the intention of avoiding a specific outcome but ends up causing that outcome by their decision
Hypocrisy is when someone says one thing but means/acts in the opposite.  With hypocrisy, there is an assumption of intention to deceive.

[Jimbo57]

Once again, the ultimate proof that the majority of Americans were educated in the Hollywood School of History.

[Rob C]

I believe that person is you.  There is nothing ironic in this.  The word you should be using is hypocrisy.

Irony is when someone makes a decision with the intention of avoiding a specific outcome but ends up causing that outcome by their decision
Hypocrisy is when someone says one thing but means/acts in the opposite.  With hypocrisy, there is an assumption of intention to deceive.

Yes and no; it all depend how you approach what you are addressing.

Your interpretation is based on the quoted words as uttered at the time, which might or might not be hypocricy, because we don't actually know the state of Hitler's mind at that monent. He might well have meant every word, when spoken, which would remove them from the envelope of hypocrisy; mine is based on the fact that those words are being used supposedly to illustrate something much later on, which in that context and time-scale turns them to irony due to the obvious differences between what was said then and what actually happened later on.

C'est la vie; it's all a matter of perspective.

Rob C

[BJL]

Gulag, your title is way off.  It should be
    "1/3 of the people who choose to sign up at an online politics site and complete an online survey . . ."
which is vastly different statement.

Conflating the two is like believing that the opinions expressed in these LuLa forums on equipment choices and what constitutes adequate performance specs are an accurate reflection of opinions in the population as a whole.

[RSL]

If you would kindly view my post again you will note that I distinctly noted that Rommel was competent, I would also include Donitz who was probably the first to appreciate the U Boats were defeated. Guderian was dismissed by Hitler twice for standing his ground which no doubt goes a long way to explain why everyone else said yes to him, what sort of competence level is that? What happened to Rommel anyway? On the other hand there was Goering and Wilhelm Keitel.....

Operation Sealion would have been an utter disaster for the Germans, it suited post war governments to believe otherwise but you cannot land an army over the Channel using boats designed for the canals and rivers of continental Europe. How do troops get down over the bow of them for a start, and if drawn by tugs how do they approach the beach? Did Germany have the expertise to navigate and deliver an army (that still relied on horses to a great extent) across a seaway that suffers strong tides and bad weather? Britain (not just England) was once again saved by her salty moat.

Churchill was keen to see the US involved to help defeat Hitler in Europe, his own island was reasonably secure from any seabourne invasion although it may not have looked quite so certain at the time.

Oh, I read your post Justin. In one sentence you say Hitler surrounded himself with generals who were incompetent. In another sentence you say Rommel was competent because he saw the absurdity of Sea Lion. Rommel wasn't the only one. Even some of Hitler's incompetents saw it too. Sea Lion was postponed in September, 1940. The reason it didn't go forward was that planning and troop diversions for Barbarossa already were in progress.

Yes, Guderian was dismissed and Rommel was, in effect, murdered. I agree with you that Sea Lion would have failed. But that's not the point. If the US hadn't come in when it did, Sea Lion would have become possible because as a result of Dönitz's submarine campaign Britain would have been forced to throw out Churchill and surrender. You can't fight a war without weapons and with your people starving.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Somehow this part of The Guardian article seems overlooked in this debate (emphasis mine):

Abraham Wyner, director of the undergraduate program in statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said that online polls were “worse than just about any other way you can put together a poll” because they were prone to selection bias, meaning proper randomization was not achieved and the sample was not representative of the population – since people can choose to participate.

[RSL]

It's a really good point, Slobodan. But I suspect telephone polls are subject to the same problem -- at least to some extent. I usually flat refuse to participate or else have some fun by tweaking the pollster with dumb questions or by pointing out the errors in some of the poll questions. Not long ago I read an article about the declining accuracy of polls, but I can't lay my hand on it at the moment.

[Justinr]

Oh, I read your post Justin. In one sentence you say Hitler surrounded himself with generals who were incompetent. In another sentence you say Rommel was competent because he saw the absurdity of Sea Lion. Rommel wasn't the only one. Even some of Hitler's incompetents saw it too. Sea Lion was postponed in September, 1940. The reason it didn't go forward was that planning and troop diversions for Barbarossa already were in progress.

Yes, Guderian was dismissed and Rommel was, in effect, murdered. I agree with you that Sea Lion would have failed. But that's not the point. If the US hadn't come in when it did, Sea Lion would have become possible because as a result of Dönitz's submarine campaign Britain would have been forced to throw out Churchill and surrender. You can't fight a war without weapons and with your people starving.

I'm not so sure to be honest. If there is something we can probably agree on it is that there is usually no one single  reason why any great decision is made and that goes for the postponement of Sealion as much as it does for the invasion of Russia. One of the main problems with Sealion which is often overlooked is the total inability of the German Army to cross large expanses of water.  If we look at the effort that went into D Day and the island hopping in the Pacific it soon becomes clear that Germany was never capable of mounting such an operation and it's been suggested that Hitler was quite convinced that Britain would sue for peace anyway, but then Pearl Harbour happened and he decided to go for Russia and its resources and the rest, as they say, is history. We must also remember that the longer an invasion of Britain was put off the stronger her defences became. From 1941 onward there was no chance whatsoever of an invasion succeeding.

I am also becoming ever more convinced that it is a mistake to view WW2 as a separate entity, instead we should be looking at it as a continuation of old wars and battles that have been raging on the European continent since time immemorial, and they were often driven by 'strong' characters, Napoleon is the obvious example, will Putin be another?

I must admit I should have made myself clearer about the incompetence of Hitlers generals. At the start there is no doubt that they were a highly competent army but as the war progressed one gets the impression that worthy soldiers were replaced by yes men and those with their own agenda to pursue. Was Himmler more interested in Killing Jews or fighting for victory for instance? The comparison with Churchill is instructive. Churchill was an old soldier who understood war far better than Hitler did, therefore he fought a war and not a campaign to try and establish an idealogy throughout Europe and beyond, which was basically Hitlers aim. Whatever the competence level of the German armed forces it's easy to see in hindsight that Germany was in trouble just as soon as their new chancellor started throwing his weight about.  

[RSL]

I think we just reached agreement, Justin. One quibble: The longer an invasion of Britain was put off the stronger her defences became, but only after Pearl Harbor brought the "arsenal of democracy" on line. I've forgotten the quip Churchill gave off mic after his "we shall fight on the beaches" speech, but the burden of it was "I don't know what we'll fight with."

I certainly agree that WW II can't stand by itself. WW I was the beginning of WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East wars and the disaster we're facing now with the Iran "agreement." We're still in that sequence and we'll still be in it long after I'm gone -- if we're all still here to be "in" it.

[Justinr]

I think we just reached agreement, Justin. One quibble: The longer an invasion of Britain was put off the stronger her defences became, but only after Pearl Harbor brought the "arsenal of democracy" on line. I've forgotten the quip Churchill gave off mic after his "we shall fight on the beaches" speech, but the burden of it was "I don't know what we'll fight with."

I certainly agree that WW II can't stand by itself. WW I was the beginning of WW II, Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East wars and the disaster we're facing now with the Iran "agreement." We're still in that sequence and we'll still be in it long after I'm gone -- if we're all still here to be "in" it.

This might be worth a read -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_the_Second_World_War

[RSL]

Gotta wait until I have some time to read it. But I've read (and marked up and annotated) everything Churchill wrote on the subject plus all three volumes of The Last Lion. I'm fairly familiar with the subject.

[Justinr]

Gotta wait until I have some time to read it. But I've read (and marked up and annotated) everything Churchill wrote on the subject plus all three volumes of The Last Lion. I'm fairly familiar with the subject.

Churchill was rather prone to his 'black dog' days so although he was the man at the top I would still prefer to see a span of views and sources as he would often take a dim view of prospects himself. I'm not doing him down BTW, his was a tremendous achievement but now, looking back after three quarters of a century, away from the heat and genuine concern of the time, we are probably in a better position to make an assessment of just how vulnerable Britain was.

I once worked a summer at Bladon BTW.