As in, whether you believe in it. Background: Time Magazine’s done one of those admittedly heavily unscientific quizzes that promises to peg your ideology with no more than twelve, count ’em, twelve questions. Anyway, it’s going around, and I took it… to discover that I’m 63% liberal. Which is weird: sure, I’m a squishy moderate and everything, but still.
Then I realized that I had screwed up this question:
I wish the world did not have nations or borders and we were all part of one big group.
The answer, of course, was supposed to be Hell, no*. I firmly take the position that the United States of America makes a perfect world hegemon because none of us WANT the goram job; we just want to keep all those wild-eyed enthusiasts out there from getting the job – and in the process, presuming to think that they can tell us what to do. That never ends well**.
Anyway, this was the result with the screwed-up answer:
And this is the one with the ‘right’ answer:
OK, 78% conservative makes a lot more sense. Amusing that even Time magazine admits that the Left just doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism any more, though…
Moe Lane
*Well, the answer is supposed to be Yes, but only if everybody and everywhere was just like America. They didn’t have that answer, though.
**For our enemies. As some of them might even admit, if only we had kept them alive afterwards so that they could offer testimonials.
88% conservative still haven’t finished killing the 12% Liberal part of me yet.
86% conservative. 14 % liberal – because I use Firefox and I’d rather see the part of the Met I haven’t seen than go back to Times Square, where I’ve been many times before?
I was 90% conservative 10% liberal. And that was before I realized that I answered the cat question completely wrong ( I hate cats love dogs) After I redid that I got 93% Conservative 7% liberal.
Ownage.
I got liberal points for saying I was not a completely organized person, and also for saying I would be willing to try interesting fusion cuisine. I didn’t know that all conservatives were organized meat-and-potatoes types by their very nature. Some Democrats I know would be surprised to hear that, too.
.
But the phrasing that kills me came on the “My government should treat the lives of its citizens as much more valuable” question. While I think that the American government should treat the lives of American citizens as more valuable, I do not agree when you add the modifier “much.” We’re all human beings, after all. I would expect a company in which I held stock to put my interests before those of non-stockholders; I wouldn’t expect it to, say, exhibit total disregard for non-stockholders by stealing from them or killing them. So I moderately disagreed with the question.
.
According to the test, me saying “I disagree that we should be treated as MUCH more valuable” is equivalent to me saying “I think we should be treated exactly equal.” Apparently, there’s no middle ground where one can say “Sure, more valuable, but not much more so…”
Real conservatives don’t take stupid quizzes in liberal rags*
.
* Classical refference
My (moderate) cousin posted this and I got 52% Conservative. Most of my friends think I’d be 90+%, but the problem is my personal ideology is tempered, overwhelmed may be the better word, by the *things that actually work in the world*. So yes, it would be nice if we had no nations and we’re all one big group. So you can wish all you want, but here in the real world you can wish in one and and **** in the other and see which one fills up first.
.
I’m not really an animal person, but cats over dogs. I love food and would try a new fusion restaurant. And looking at my completely covered, messy desk… I ponder a post I did yesterday blasting government stimulus because, get this, IT DOESN’T WORK! Thus, my conservatism.
92% Conservative, 8% liberal. Not surprised, but the wording of some of the questions made answering difficult. I’m with Demos up above, adding the modifier “much” takes the question to a whole new realm. I’d like to think of valuing all human life equally, but if it is a choice between the citizenry of this country vs the citizenry of another…well, I’m don’t think I’d want to sacrifice us before them.
91%, brought done because I use safari on my iPad. That has to rank as a dumb question with the growth of tablets.
8% liberal, because I prefer cats and would rather go to the Met. I really don’t see the divide on those…
93% conservative.
That was a really stupid, inane poll. My one liberal point? “I use a modern browser” (Firefox). Questions about organization, NYC Tourism (correct answer: why would I want to visit New York?), and mammal pet choice (correct answer: if it has to be a mammal, ferrets, I guess)? Equally irrelevant to the point of the survey.
Correlation is not causation, TIME.
98% conservative. Would’ve been 100% if I didn’t use Chrome as my browser…
I was 66% conservative, 34% liberal.
It’s a dumb test, because libertarians don’t really fit onto the liberal vs. conservative axis …
And I’m neither Mac nor PC — I’m Ubuntu Linux.
Same as nighttwistwr (though it was 95% in my case), I got dinged for using Chrome.
96%. I got dinged for using Firefox, and for choosing a “moderate” response to two questions.
.
But I was cheered to see that even Time considers liberals to be crazy cat ladies.