Posted on 02/04/2008 5:51:05 AM PST by jdm
Every once in a while, some pollster comes up with a survey that shows what idiots Westerners can be. They especially like to pick on Americans and their rather insular attitude towards geography, being unable in large numbers to actually find Iraq on a globe or to identify the correct continent for Guyana (South America, in case anyone asks). Jay Leno has a running gag on the Tonight Show where he goes out in the street and asks people simple questions and films them getting the answers spectacularly wrong.
So I have some sympathy with our friends in Britain this morning, who have to be slapping their heads with the results of a poll taken by a television production company that found 23% of their fellow countrymen didn't believe that Winston Churchill actually existed:
Britons are losing their grip on reality, according to a poll out Monday which showed that nearly a quarter think Winston Churchill was a myth while the majority reckon Sherlock Holmes was real.
The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.
And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.
Even more laughable, the man who most exemplified peaceful protest in this century also got relegated to mythical status. Mohandas Gandhi appears in the Top Ten of Mythical Creatures in this poll. In contrast, a majority -- 58% -- believed that Sherlock Holmes was in fact a real person, and not a fictional character from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's excellent novels.
One might forgive those who consider Richard Lionheart and the Duke of Wellington mythical. Especially with the former, the myths may have overtaken the actual history, to some extent. The British can afford to have a mythical Wellington now, even if they should be grateful for having an actual Wellington when they needed him most against Napoleon.
But Churchill? Not only was Churchill the truly indispensable man of World War II, he was also captured on miles of film. He served a second term as prime minister just fifty years ago. His descendants still work in politics and speak on ceremonial occasions that celebrate his life. Most critically, Churchill produced some of the most important volumes of history during his long lifetime which grace libraries around the world.
I mean, what more does a man have to do to gain some measure of immortality?
At least 23% of Americans don't believe that FDR or Abraham Lincoln never existed. Or at least I hope they don't. Maybe we shouldn't ask questions for which we'd rather not hear the answers.
What is the percentage of ROP citizen in Great Britain now? Maybe they are just taking their cues from the president of Iran and disbelieving anything to do with WWII.
I bet you 90% of Brits believe Christ never existed. Welcome to post-modern ignorance.
Sounds about like the approximate number of Islamics that have moved into Great Britian. Add that to their liberal education system and there is no surprise here...only sorrow.
LOL. Perhaps the 23% of those polled were composed mostly of immigrants.
If Al Gore can’t prove that Churchill existed, then what right have you to say otherwise?
Really sad.
Well, looking at pathetic Britain now, who would think that they had such a great leader only sixty years ago?
I wouldn’t assume the poll was of Westerners, just because they were British.
Ward maybe, but Winston???
He wasn't?
How about Dr. Watson?
lol
Gee. I guess since I can remember Churchill being PM, it’ll be ‘off to the camps’ for me.
I remember once when Jay Leno asked someone in L.A. what the large body of water nearby was and the guy said "the Atlantic Ocean."
For liberals, history starts either the day they were born or the day they woke up.
I recall reading here on FR not long ago (last fall, perhaps) that British history books used in the government school system no longer even mention Churchill. How they can cover WWII without mentioning him is beyond me, but he was apparently eliminated because he is not popular with Muslims and is considered “divisive.” If you will recall, Churchill had some very accurate words about Islam and its effect on the world...
This poll says something interesting about people beyond “gosh they’re dumb”. If you slowly allow the freedoms that great leaders like Churchill fought for to be taken from you bit by bit, the sacrifices of those leaders and the people that served with them become irrelevant. Churchill was real then...but he isn’t now because the people carrying his legacy are throwing it away.
Examining the state of the GOP leads me to think that Ronald Reagan never existed either...
Wanna bet that half of black Americans cannot say who Lincoln was or what he contributed to their history?
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