"Most Americans say US right to fight WWII while...." Topic

…. 1 out of 5 don't know.

"Most Americans believe the United States was right to participate in World War II but many are either skeptical or don't know, according to a poll released ahead of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion that kicked off the liberation of Europe.

The U.S. entry into the war, which was prompted by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, was "completely justified" or "somewhat justified," said 66% of those polled by a YouGov online survey whose results were released Tuesday. Twenty percent said they didn't know and 14% said it was "not very" or "not at all" justified.

Still, the survey found that among those questioned the Allied campaign in WWII received the most support, followed by the American Revolution, which six out of 10 said was justified…."

Main page
link

Only 66%?!?!?!? But the real shocker is that only 62% believe the Revolutionary War was justified….!!!

Amicalement
Armand

Armand-

Americans have no knowledge about, nor any sense of, history. Trust me on this, as I'm American.

That was a "Yougov online survey." According to Yougov, Hillary Clinton is President of the United States and Remain triumphed in the Brexit Referendum, so I have no more idea what Americans think on the subject than I did before I clicked on the link. Perhaps next time, someone might consult a ouija board for greater accuracy?

That was just a very short article on that survey. Try this link for size if you want to know more.

PDF link

Most Americans can't tell you which side won WWII or which side we were on. Or who fought in the American Civil War? I have heard people wonder at American Revolution re-enacments who the guys in the red outfits are. No surprises.

Surdu-

Sad, isn't it? Seems to explain alot of things our country is going through right now.

I'm sure most Americans would do much better on a GOT quiz.

Surdu-

Sad, isn't it? Seems to explain alot of things our country is going through right now.

Yep. I have a kid in Middle School in the SF Bay Area, and I have to teach him American history at home! His curriculum at school is a litany of pop culture progressive issues and a wispy layer of US and world history. Here's a sample of two of his more recent group projects, one on LGBTQ History and one on the history of Air Pollution. His "language arts" class (it ain't English anymore) doesn't introduce him to any great literature ideas -- not even poetry. So while I've read Twain, Dickens, Kipling, Shakespeare and such to him at home, in school he won't ever get that. His reading list is dreary propaganda -- The Omnivore's Dilemma (a pro-Vegan, anti-meat eating screed), and obscure feminist/gay/minority authors who always write about oppression politics from their niche point of view. Nothing big, bold, what I would consider more literary -- no Catcher in the Rye, no Catch 22. No Vonnegut. No Bradbury. Nothing even as easy to read like Red Badge of Courage or Johnny Tremain.

So my kid has more appreciation for history because it's important in my home, but most of his friends are shockingly clueless to the point where they don't even have critical thinking skills. They don't get any exposure critical thinking in school, they are just supposed to barf back the viewpoint being fed them.

California public schools suck that way.

Well I blaimin smart fones fer awl dis trubel!

I always though Pan Marek was Czech? Pam is Mr. in Czech – Mr. Marek.

GdeP

Rather than discuss the state of the education system in America I will leave a quote from one of my favorite philosophers, Bart Simpson:

"Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II and the Star Wars trilogy. If you'd like to learn more about war, there are lots of books in your library with cool, gory pictures. Well, good night, everybody. Peace, man."

They stopped teaching history in the 1980,s in America.

9% thought the Civil War was not at all justified? Forget a little thing called slavery?

To quote the old wille and joe cartoon.
"you Brits are lucky you had allies like Texas and Russia.

The last person under 50 that I discussed American History with told me they thought it was a good thing that we beat the Germans in Viet Nam. Gotta love it!

95% asked say they lie in surveys

I don't even understand the question. It is presented as though the USA had a choice whether or not to "participate in World War II" and hence whether it made the right choice.

In fact the USA chose not to participate until first Japan and then Germany attacked. If we had waited for the USA to choose to participate we'd still be waiting.

The only participants who chose to fight WW2 were Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. Everyone else who fought was either attacked, coerced or left joining in until the issue was no longer in doubt (eg Brazil).

Germany chose to fight War II…in point of fact, they started it…

Japan did attack the US getting the US involved, but Germany then declared war on the United States.

If we had waited for the USA to choose to participate we'd still be waiting.

You don't know that. It was probably inevitable that the US would become involved, luckily for everyone who participated on the side of the allies. Not so much for the bad guys.

Most Americans? Did they ask most Americans? They never asked me.
If 20% of Americans were not born in America what side did their mother country stand for in any of those conflicts?

@SBminisguy. Yes, school kids are probably taught that the biggest enemy to civilization is Global Warming and that is caused by Western civilization.

"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" See, we had no choice but to enter WWII

"Conducted on May 21-22, the poll asked 1,200 U.S. citizens 18 or older…"

1,200 translates to most Americans? NO information on where it was conducted or how it was conducted. No information on the demographics of those polled other than they were 18 or over and American citizens. And while they break down various generations no information on how many of the 1,200 composed each generation.

This is one of those useless "click-bait" type articles. I would not read too much into it.

@ PK Guy Brent
Was the ACW about slavery or was it about the right to secede with slavery being the proximate cause? With history being written by the winners, arguing the ACW was about slavery grabs the moral high ground. But wouldn't secession have been opposed with force whatever the issue?

To take two counterfactuals, let's supposing, arguendo, that the ACW didn't happen and that in 1941 Japan either attacks Russia instead of the USA, or doesn't attack anyone at all.

If a largeish group of US states had objected to American neutrality in the face of Nazi genocide, and had tried to secede from the USA in order to intervene, wouldn't that have triggered a civil war too, on the different grounds that it was fought to prevent opposition to Nazism?

Garde-
Also in Polish. Which is my background.

While I was in college (in the U.S.), in the very early '60s, a fellow student, knowing that I was a history major, asked me if the Korean War came before or after the Civil War! I suppose he had heard or seen some mention of the Crimean War and got confused, but makes you cringe anyway! I also encountered people in college who didn't know the difference between Austria and Australia.

"Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?" ;-)

I watched one of those interviews on the street regarding who won the American Civil War link and was horrified by the lack of knowledge of people.

It got worse when I mentioned to my 40 year old chemist friend at lunch and she said she had no idea who won the civil war.

Don – there were lots of wars in Korea, depends on which one he was talking about. If he had knowledge of the various wars in the Korean peninsular his question may have been quite sensible.

The convention of naming wars outside the European world and its major colonies with our names isn't just a US thing most Europeans do it too.

Similarly 'The Civil War' wasn't only fought in America; we had a couple earlier than that in the UK and the Spanish & Russians had ones a bit later, China had quite a few over a very long time period.

@Gildasfacit,
While that is true if the population surveyed were from around the world, the persons asked were Americans. And America had only one civil war and one Korean war.
They should of asked a test question about the Peloponnesian War being justfied.

I take your point but I doubt that using a war that half of the modern Greek population know little about may not be ideal. Try the war of Jenkin's ear – at least they would be able to pronounce it !!!

The was an earlier civil war – you call it the Revolution now but American did fight American then too.

Truest number was probably the average of 25% who said "Don't Know"

Most Americans? Did they ask most Americans? They never asked me.

Tsk tsk. One does not need to examine 100% of a population to draw reasonably accurate inference about that population.

A sample size of 1200 is going to be very accurate (within +/- a couple percent) in assessing the distribution across the entire population.

But it is still worthwhile asking "what population"? Because if the 1,200 samples are not representative of the larger population -- if the 1,200 are drawn only from a few states, or only from online click-bait addicts, or the unemployed, or workers in fast-food restaurants, etc., then you are only getting an accurate representation of THAT population, not some larger un-sampled population.

If 20% of Americans were not born in America what side did their mother country stand for in any of those conflicts?

A very fair and interesting question. And one that reads on the later statement:

While that is true if the population surveyed were from around the world, the persons asked were Americans.

Yes, they were Americans. Specifically (according to the source) they were American citizens 18 and older.

But a very significant percentage of American citizens are foreign born and educated, or have foreign born and educated parents. They may very well have different names and perspectives on the listed set of "wars".

For example, if you poll a large number of Americans and ask them "what side did the US fight on during the Napoleonic Wars", most would have no idea what to answer. The concept that the US financed Napoleon's latter campaigns, and fought against the British during Napoleon's last campaigns, is entirely missing from the US historical perspective. When we refer to the "War of 1812", we use a name that leaves most Europeans I have spoken with (outside of historical chat fora with substantial US-based membership), including very well educated Brits (whom we claim were the other side in that war), scratching their heads in wonder.

So yes, saying the "Civil War" might indeed be misinterpreted. There is a reason that in the wargaming community we describe it as the American Civil War, or call the "Revolutionary War" the American War for Independence.

And as to the decline in public education -- I do agree that there has been a decline, but before we paint a picture of the perfect past, I might mention that when I was in middle school, back when the earth was waste and void (soooo long ago we called it "Jr. High School"), there was a girl in my 8th grade World History class who had a lot of trouble understanding the lessons on Simon Bolivar and the independence movements in various South American countries.

There wer two or three back-and-forths with the teacher. She just couldn't get it -- we had already been independent since 1776, and what did the Spanish have to do with any of that anyways. The teacher finally said something along the lines of: "They are different countries". Her response has stayed with me my whole life: "But they have America in their name, so they must be part of our country, right?" At 13 or 14 years of age, with 3rd grade, 5th grade, and 7th grade US History as well as 4th grade and 6th grade World History under her belt already, she had no concept that "South America" was not just part of "America".

And she wouldn't even have a smartphone to distract or dumbify her for another 40+ years.

As a rasta street character in San Francisco used to say, "They tried to teach I, but me would not learn."

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

One does not need to examine 100% of a population to draw reasonably accurate inference about that population.

A sample size of 1200 is going to be very accurate (within +/- a couple percent) in assessing the distribution across the entire population.

Tsk tsk, no there is no way to test that hypothesis. When it involves an election there are actual results that tell if the inference is accurate or not. Just an opinion culled with a phone survey has a lot of problems. Many people don't answer their phones so it mostly biased to those who want to give their opinion to survey takers. There is no way to gauge if the population selection accurate or not.

I think in general young people – 15-30 years old – are actually smarter and better informed than the same age groups 50 years ago.

You will always find people who seem woefully ignorant. These kind of surveys and vox pop tests are much more common nowadays than in the past. We can't go back in time to the 30s, 50s or 70s and conduct similar polls. If we could we might be shocked..

Mark 1, seconding Mobius to a degree. We can do the projections for a completely unbiased sample, though the total was too small to make deephorse's "more detail" worth much. The problem is that when we can check the results by means of election or referendum, Yougov has a known track record of inaccuracy and leftward bias.

If they're demonstrably inaccurate when they can be checked, why should I pay any attention to statements of theirs which can't be checked?

It has always struck me as odd that we talk about Gulf War 1 (1990 – 91) and GW2 (2003 -?). In that region, GW1 was 1979 to 1989 between Iraq and Iran.

Don – there were lots of wars in Korea, depends on which one he was talking about. If he had knowledge of the various wars in the Korean peninsular his question may have been quite sensible.

He was an American student in a small southern college, and I'm not at all sure that he even knew where Korea is. (And this was less than a decade after the "police action" there had ended in stalemate.)

Yep, it is a sad indictment on the quality of our educational system, where history is generally not taught at all, and certainly not in any detail.

Additionally, if it is taught, much of it is wrong, with people pushing their PC agendas – "fake history" (remember, you read the term here first).

Geography is another subject frequently not taught, or if it is, not absorbed by Americans (and I suspect many others around the globe as well).

""Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?" ;-)".

No, not until the recent invasion of North Korea by Russia. LOL !!!

This is sad….

Amicalement
Armand

OTOH, kids learn things in school now I never learned in the 60's, like touch typing and computers. My kids still fix my PC when it craps out.

At our AWI event at Mt Vernon a few years ago, an individual walked up and asked me if I was Union or Confederate?

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

Let me tell it like it is …

I've been an Instructor and Asst Prof of Accounting and MIS (computers) at community colleges and major universities. Here are some true stories …

I gave a Colombus Day quiz to Junior Accounting Majors … who discovered America? Who did he meet? Who was it named after … the Sioux Indians. Franco Americana (the spaghetti makers) and these answers were not in jest. The Dean reprimanded me for deviating from approved course material.

Case two. Two students of ethnic background attended ZERO classes, ripped up the mid term in front of the class and laughing left the room. I gave them an F. The Dean called me in an explained I had to give them at least a C because they were on a government scholarship and the school needed the money. The Dean gave them a C and didnt renew my contract. Guess I'm not a team player.

At a local Community College NONE of my 20+ students could write a memo in proper English. But again they were accountants, So why did they need to be able to write??

I'm actually expecting this post to be deleted but rest assured education in the USA is a JOKE it's all about being politically correct. God help us! Cheers!

My Gosh…! THAT bad?….

Amicalement
Armand

I work with accountants. The ones who can't write are…a problem.

When I was in grad school, I had to teach few 1301 U.S. history classes. I had students whom truly believe that the states of Alaska and Hawaii located in the bottom corner Pacific off the West Coast. As in looking at a map of the U.S.

Well, the Orkneys and Shetlands are definitely off the Aberdeenshire coast. The Gordon Highlanders recruited there.

Always be careful of online surveys like Yougov.

You get points for each survey and eventually you can cash them in for actual cash.

I do it (more for the political ones amongst the dire TV and AD agency questions) but it is easy to put in a wrong answer but tricky to correct it, at least when done by phone.
There is also a strong tendency for some people to click anything to get to the end for their points.

So don't lose all hope, but yes there are of lot of people out there who only care for talent shows above all and can only read headlines.