Sunday, September 5, 2010

Crowd estimates at the Glenn Beck rally manipulated by philosophy

Nobody knows beyond doubt how many individuals attended the Glen Beck rally. The different figures being mentioned show that people will state whatever supports their point of view. Nearly 500,000 devotees made the trip to the Washington Mall, as outlined by Beck and the followers. Up to a million was the declaration by certain Republican political figures. Event organizers often rely on attendance figures to support the righteousness of their beliefs. Supporters exaggerate the totals when detractors scoff at their naive optimism. However an exact number of Beck’s cult members recruited to walk all over the legacy of Martin Luther King’s’ “I have a dream speech” at the site of the address on its 47th anniversary is extremely hard to figure. Resource for this article – Glenn Beck rally atte! ndance figure is in the eyes of the beholder by Personal Money Store.

Conservative opinion of The rally for Glenn Beck attending

Glenn Beck rally attendance numbers reached heights upwards of 500,000, said Beck and conservative commentators such as Joe Scarborough at MSNBC. Their assertions are typical said the Christian Science Monitor. The stated figures, as outlined by the Monitor, reflect the interests of those involved in the story. Rally organizers always say crowds were huge and bigger than expected. Those who are not in favor of the cause can be counted on to dismiss their assertions. There is always controversy. In October 1995, the National Park Service officially estimated that about 400,000 individuals went to the “Million Man March”. Disputing the numbers, the event’s organizers threw their lawyers on the park service, which has since gotten out of the business of counting crowds.

Airborne images belie Beck’s hyperbole

Glenn Beck rally attendance was big enough to disrupt Washington’s subway service. But rather than guess, CBS News really hired a company called AirPhotosLive.com to get a bird’s eye view. Photos were shot from above. The crowd spread from the Lincoln Memorial around the Reflecting Pool and over to the Washington Monument . Based on the images, AirPhotosLive gave an estimate of 87,000 individuals in the guests. The company gave its estimate a 9,000-person margin of error, so anywhere from 78,000 to 96,000 individuals were there.

National politics no place for truth or purpose

The day after the event Beck preened. He said the number of the audience was someplace between 300,000 and 500,000. “We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today — because we were witnesses,” was the declaration uttered by Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachman into a microphone at a side event Saturday. However, it is all much ado about nothing to Southern Fried Science. The blogger WhySharksMatter said an exact number makes no difference, given that Beck’s followers ignore facts and evidence anyway. To illustrate, he referred to a Pew Research Center poll. It determined the statement “President Obama is a Muslim” is considered true by 18 percent of Americans. If a lesson could be drawn from the issue, it is that national politics and religion, particularly when mixed together, have nothing to do with reality.

Additional reading

Christian Science Monitor

csmonitor.com

CBS

cbsnews.com

Southern Fried Science

southernfriedscience.com



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