Since Wilkins, Lynch, and Mike are doing this, I must follow (my mom said something about friends and cliffs once…I’m hoping that they don’t ever decide to jump off one). The two mad biologists achieve parity!
You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, “blame America first”-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such cleary desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day…. in Guantanamo!
I can’t gloat too much, though. This is one of those skewed tests where I think you’d have to be certifiably insane to score below 90%.
I knew you’d get 100%. I did, of course.
What I want to know is, is this parody or not?
I got 91% …
I’m sure the upcoming UN leader mentioned in the quiz will be wise, a secular humanist, and a political genius.
Huh? It’s an accurate depiction of the debate about who wants the terrorists to win.
… oh, wait, I guess that doesn’t answer your question … sorry.
“What I want to know is, is this parody or not?”
Exactly the question I had. Usually you can detect spoofdom afoot. This one could go either way. Some hick with a W sticker on his forehead could’ve actually found it prudent to make such a thing as this. A few of the answers could be taken as satirical, but it’s hard to say.
Well, as we all know, you can either be with Bush or with the terrorists. So, by definition, I guess that makes me a terrorist! Funny thing, it makes about 60% of the rest of the country terrorists as well…
I kinda had a problem with the question “Why do the terrorists hate us?” I’m not entirely convinced that if we stopped meddling in their affairs, terrorism would be a thing of the past.
They really do hate our freedoms. And they want us off their land. The latter would be entirely possible if we’d get energy-efficient so we could tell them to suck their oil.
What I want to know is, is this parody or not?
[Cough]
If you pick the most troglodyte answers, you get a score saying:
Congratulations, Patriot! Wave your flag proudly, stand tall, and bask in the glory of George Bush’s America. The terrorists will never win so long as there is a sufficient number of people like you out there. Never question, never doubt. You are on the right side. America’s side. God’s side. Rush Limbaugh has told you so. Rah rah, go Bush!!
Woo hoo! I scored a 100%. I’m also having trouble deciding whether or not this is a parody. By the way, have you read about the Rumsfeld memo, submitted two days before his resignation, that advocates troop reductions? Why does Rumsfeld hate America, right?
The very fact you have to ask if it’s a parody tells me you want the terrorists to win. Come on people. Dichotomize, dichotomize. Isn’t that the fer/’agin American way?
fyi
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/12/those-contemptuous-atheists-why-wont.html
Nicholas Kristof on Dawkins and other allegedly toxic elements in our society:
“These writers share a few things with the zealous religionists they oppose, such as a high degree of dogmatism and an aggressive rhetorical style,” says John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. “Indeed, one could speak of a secular fundamentalism that resembles religious fundamentalism. This may be one of those cases where opposites converge.”…
Now that the Christian Right has largely retreated from the culture wars, let’s hope that the Atheist Left doesn’t revive them. We’ve suffered enough from religious intolerance that the last thing the world needs is irreligious intolerance.
Fit to be hanged, dammit. Handged hanged hanged hanged HANGED!!!!!!!!!!!
Gah!
I only got 89%. Where did I go wrong?
just a point of clarification: last two paragraphs are both Kristof’s …
I only got 89% as well. It must by Libertarian leanings.
At least I’m a proper traitor!
A cute bit of satire that quiz.
Sometimes I think “Common Sense” by Thomas Payne should be required reading in all schools who teach US History.
just a point of clarification: last two paragraphs are both Kristof’s …
I hear ya, a post preview option would be great. My posts usually suck because I write them poorly and misuse HTML tag. I should die.
BTW, I got 96% on the quiz.
I kinda had a problem with the question “Why do the terrorists hate us?” I’m not entirely convinced that if we stopped meddling in their affairs, terrorism would be a thing of the past.
Well, of course it’s more nuanced than that, but I have to doubt that the current wave of Pan-Islamic militancy and fundamentalist Islamic nationalism is mostly a reaction to what they perceive as a revival of Western colonialism. Terrorism will always exist, but dealing with the grievances of the Islamic world can probably go a long way in helping to marginalize it IMO.
Sometimes I think “Common Sense” by Thomas Payne should be required reading in all schools who teach US History.
I vaguely remember reading several excerpts as part of my sophomore-year American history class.
In any case, if I had to pick any work by Paine that should be mandatory reading, it would be “The Rights of Man”. It strikes a proper balance between historical value and contemporary relevance.
98%, not quite as good as PZ, but then again I am a softy…
You do know that Homeland Security now has your scores and IP addresses. You libruls are in for it now!!!!!!!
BWAAHH-HAAHH-HAAHH
I got 100%. I also took another quiz and found out I never drink Republican Kool-Aid. No surprise there. I’ve been a proud card-carrying liberal pinko all my life. You may not believe me when I tell you I learned it in Sunday School, but it’s God’s Honest Truth. (Another thing I learned in Sunday School is that Kool-Aid, especially the red kind, is nasty stuff even when it doesn’t have cyanide in it. The purple stuff is even worse.)
As for Homeland Security…….. I haven’t said anything here that hasn’t been in my FBI dossier for 30 years. (I had to get government security clearance for a job I applied for. They wouldn’t even call me for an on-site interview until I’d been cleared. In the mean time, every few days I’d get a report from one or another of my friends that the Feds had pestered them. I didn’t take the job. All that nosy stuff creeped me out.)
I’m having difficulty believing anyone is in serious doubt whether the creator of the quiz really thinks liberalism equals treason. Just look at the questions, people! (Or is the question whether it’s some kind of meta-parody by a right-winger making fun of left-wingers claiming that right-wingers think left-wingers are traitors? Unlikely, I think. Er, for “left-wingers” read “anyone other than far-right maniacs”, of course.)
And have you stopped beating your wife yet?
I had no doubts that it was parody while I was doing it, and once you get your results you’re told the test was “created by Jack Sparrow of” with a link to this page.
98%. I wasn’t old enough to vote for terror in 2004, so I had to take a pass on that question.
83%.. what happened?.. I guess I am still in the pupa stage of my metamorphosis into a liberal pinko. HAHAHA
Hahaha the responses were GREAT!
0%
Congratulations, Patriot! Wave your flag proudly, stand tall, and bask in the glory of George Bush’s America. The terrorists will never win so long as there is a sufficient number of people like you out there. Never question, never doubt. You are on the right side. America’s side. God’s side. Rush Limbaugh has told you so. Rah rah, go Bush!!
20%
Fairly well done, fellow patriotic citizen. You have taken a decisive stand behind our dear leader and against the terrorists. However you do not march completely in lockstep conformity, and that is troubling. Steel your commitment to the defeat of evil! Bow in unquestioning loyalty to George Bush! Afterall you don’t want to be a liberal, do you?
40%
A rather wishy washy performance. At least you are less than half aligned with evil. However your patriotism and allegiance to President Bush are lacking. You certainly harbor a few treasonous thoughts, which will no doubt result in the deaths of at least a few of our troops. Please get yourself straightened out immediately. Read a book by Ann Coulter at once!
60%
You, sir or ma’am, are more than half terrorist sympathizer. Your ill-will toward America can barely be concealed, and has now been uncovered by this quiz. Your love of America and of her dear leader, President Bush, is clearly approaching treasonously low levels. But it’s not too late for you. Shut yourself out from all liberal influence, listen only to Sean Hannity, read only Ann Coulter, and above all stop questioning! Questioning only gets our troops killed in their noble battle against the forces of evil that besiege our great land!
80%
You are a terrorist-loving scoundrel who hates our dear leader and the values he defends. There are few redeeming qualities about you. You most likely celebrated when the evil-doers hit us on 9/11, then opposed the Iraq war when we tried to pay them back. You hurt us at every step and cause troops to die in the field by questioning Bush’s decisions. You are most likely a lost cause, doomed to be a brainwashed victim of free thought and liberalism forever. No dose of Ann Coulter’s prose can save you now
100%
You are a terrorist-loving, Bush-bashing, “blame America first”-crowd traitor. You are in league with evil-doers who hate our freedoms. By all counts you are a liberal, and as such cleary desire the terrorists to succeed and impose their harsh theocratic restrictions on us all. You are fit to be hung for treason! Luckily George Bush is tapping your internet connection and is now aware of your thought-crime. Have a nice day…. in Guantanamo!
I guess I’m certifiable, at 87%.
Gosh, PZ, I only managed 98%. What did I do wrong?
Aside from getting myself born in Canada, that is.
John Bode sez:
Quite right sir! First one is hanged until dead and then the carcass is hung (preferably after being tarred) for a couple of months “pour encourager les autres”.
I took the test three times, and got 91%, 64%, and 15%. I couldn’t quite bring myself to click some of the answers that I thought might get me a 0%.
Parody=”it’s funny because it’s true.”
Satire=”it’s scary because it’s true.”
Discuss.
I guess that makes me a terrorist!
Congratulations, and welcome to the most productive politcal method ever invented!
the only method ever to involve not one superpower but TWO in a futile war for rubble in Afghanistan!
Yes, soon you too will be able to bend entire nations to your will (so long as you have the hidden but tacit approval and funding of those nation’s governments to begin with).
It’s a win-win all the way round!
Again, welcome, and enjoy the increased status and notoriety that comes from being a terrorist!
If you haven’t affiliated with a specific group yet, check the classifieds in your area, or start your own!
Me, I belong to the “Church Burning Ebola Boys”. It’s been great, my only complaint being we still haven’t gotten our T-Shirts yet.
see you in the trenches…
Sometimes I think “Common Sense” by Thomas Payne should be required reading in all schools who teach US History.
good thing for me that John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty was covered extensively in both my poly sci and US history courses when I was in high school.
In these times, I find myself often re-reading it.
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism.
Hmm. 77%, mostly because I had to pick between the least agregious “wrong, but vaguely right” answer in 1-2 cases than the liberal stereotype, “I don’t mind being insulted by picking this”, answer. That said, a more “honest” quiz would probably peg me more in the 90%.
I mean 3 – Umm. Of course its “none of these”, but what is missing is terms like “suspected of”, “had used WMD before and strongly implied he either had them our would build them again”, “he was simply the *apparently* easiest target in a list of middle eastern dictators whose ass could be kicked to get a message across”. The problem being that the message failed precisely #$#@$#@$ because he was the one on the bottom of the list, instead of having the fracking guts to aim at some place like Saudia Arabia. Its like deciding you need to send the school yard bullies all a message, so you pick the kid with one arm and a heart condition, who “used” to be a bully before his injuries, because obviously going after the “current” bullies is too tough and a few of them promised to beat people up for you…
So, the “correct” answer is misleading right of the bat.
6. Forgot to register and I thought both of them where idiots. Obviously the *right* answer according to the quiz was either “Bush” or “Kerry”, depending on which one you wanted to side with. Note, picking “neither” seems to “gain” you 2 points in favor of not being a terrorist sympathizer.
9. There isn’t a *right* answer on that list. All of them are completely invalid. The only one that comes close is the bullshit Repuglican cannard of “They hate our freedoms”, which really only means “they hate our right to not have Shiria imposed over all of us and make our own choices.” This is a religious war, from their perspective after all, but 90% of the BS that Bush, et al *mean* when saying “They hate our freedoms” gets mixed up in the minds of some people as wrong because “not all Muslims hate all freedoms”, which is like saying fundamentalists are not evil, because *most* Christians don’t attack science. Wrong. We are talking about terrorists, not Muslims. The line between the two might be blurry to some people, but you don’t generally get the “liberal” Muslims taking up weapons to suicide bomb people, its the ones that are already borderline fundy that go totally fundy and start doing it. And the excuse is usually the lies of the priests and/or the state governments they live under, not anything “actually” done “to” or “at” them.
Again, all the answers are wrong, but sadly, the only one that holds truth when talking about “terrorists” and not “Muslims in general” is “hating freedoms”. The only other one with some truth to it is the one about holy land and not meddling in their affairs. That one is iffy. Why? Because most of the meddling happened ages ago, and most of the ones screaming about “modern” meddling are places like Iran, who want the West to leave them alone, so they they don’t have to worry about their Israeli enemies having some way to defend themselves against genocide. Its not a cut and dried issue, even if its the main on the biggest radical lunatics in the ME right now harp on, and sadly too many liberals do to, without thinking about context or what it really means to “leave them alone”. For some its just cynacism imho, “If they want to kill each other, leave them alone to do it, then maybe we can go in to pick up the pieces.” Umm, no, then everyone thats left will blame you for “letting it happen.” You can’t win that way either.
Put simply, the stock “liberal” answer is too fracking simplistic, so that leaves the only one that “directly” applies to terrorism, abhorrently simplistic as it is too.
11. Sorry, but I have to agree with option 2 here.. Too much of the UN’s supposed goals are fracked up by inclusion of states that have no interest in ME stability, or who, even “with” sufficient evidence, prefere to thumb their noses at the US or sit on their thumbs, than do anything. When the US is involved, they appose it, when they are not involved, they make a lot of useless noise, send in a few inspectors or officials that get caught running porn rings or generally don’t do much, but never lift a finger to actively defuse anything. They are literally a, “Lets wait until they stop killing people there, then do something about it.”, organization at this point.
This still doesn’t mean that Bush’s glorious stupidities about planning military conflicts or getting his facts straight are any better, but those are covered other places in the quiz already. lol
Last but not least 18 and 19.
18. If some idiot wants to listen to me call for a bus to take me to town, why should I care? The government can’t even keep their own computer files straight, why does anyone, other than conspiracy theorists, think that the government can, would or, having done so, would be able to use, a damn thing they collected if they tapped every phone in the country anyway? This is just blatently stupid. No computer system is big enough to handle it, no agency has the man power and none of them have the time, even if they had both, to slog through billions of calls to find out how many people, and specifically who, said they hate Bush. Not if they are trying to collect information to do anything more useful, like … stopping actual terrorists.
That said, the Patriot Act sucks anyway and should be burned on the Supreme Courts front steps, in a national TV news conference.
19. Hard one.. Why? Because people are not always arguing about them being “correctly” applied, they are whining about them not being applied in case that they don’t actually apply. You want them to apply there? Change the fracking law, don’t try to claim that the law already says they do apply in that case. Duh! This makes the whole question mute, since even answering correctly, “They are good. We should stick to our morals and not stoop to the level of terrorists.”, is misleading. And not just because following “any” rules at all makes us better than terrorists, never mind the highly codified ones in the Geneva Conventions. Its like suggesting that a cop that hits someone with a baton is “as bad” as the guy they hit, who just murdered 50 people while the TV news filmed it. Why? Because hitting them with a baton *might* be excessive force, which isn’t acceptable. WTF?
Sure, you can say its not the same thing. But the point is, a lot of the people harping about Geneva Conventions *can’t tell the fracking difference*. If you can’t distinguish between “real” torture and giving someone the wrong flavor of toothpaste, you have invalidated your own argument, and some people literally can’t seem to tell the difference, thus scream about “both”. This just distorts the *real* problems and makes the side who are arguing for proper conduct look like idiots.