The Satirical Political Beliefs Assessment Test

THE SATIRICAL POLITICAL BELIEFS ASSESSMENT TEST

A Humorous Political Party Quiz to Test

If You're an Archconservative, Leftwing Wacko,

Antigovernment Libertine or a Commie Sympathizer

Donald J. Hagen

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INTRODUCTION

Political parties share much in common with obscenity. Both are difficult to define, yet, to paraphrase U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's definition of obscenity, you know a political party when you see it. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that some of the most obscene acts in our nation's history were allegedly the deliberate handiwork of some of the most honored and respected political parties in America. All Americans realize this, which is why becoming a member of the U.S. Supreme Court is such a grueling ordeal.

This test, however, is a work of satire, not a history lesson. Consider all questions in this quiz as purely hypothetical situations, posed to discover your perception of reality, rather than actual reality. Through this test’s funny question and answer format you will unearth far deeper insights into your personal political persuasion than on those dry political party tests, which merely pose a dull array of boring questions to give you a rough estimate of whether you are a conservative or liberal.

And rather than using the funny test formats used on all those popular online personality purity tests and quizzes, which merely poke fun of one political viewpoint, this test allows you see the humor in four political viewpoints at once!

SECTION I: ISSUES OF GENERAL INTEREST

What follows are not official party positions. Rather, this is an inquiry into your personal beliefs to determine where you fall in the political spectrum.

Key to abbreviations in test questions that follow:

CONS: Conservative (Archconservative)

LIBL: Liberal (Leftwing Wacko)

LBRT: Libertarian (Antigovernment Libertine)

COMM: Communist (Commie Sympathizer)

1: Government's practice of stealing from the rich to give to the poor is...

CONS: a crime.

LIBL: a brave, generous and heroic deed.

LBRT: a foolish, misguided attempt at social engineering.

COMM: an inspiration to us all.

2: The most egregious example of government waste is...

CONS: the Department of the Interior's $600,000 outhouse.

LIBL: the Department of Defense's $600 toilet seat.

LBRT: the $100,000,000 in emergency funds to buy air conditioners for poor people during the blistering heat wave of 1998. Although, I'm sure there are people who honestly believe that if all those air conditioners saved just one life, then it was indeed a small price to pay.

COMM: the Department of Commerce's entire budget.

3: Why do people contribute money to political campaigns?

CONS: To get a good return on their investment.

LIBL: To buy access to corruptible legislators.

LBRT: To support candidates who have views similar to their own.

COMM: To advance the needs of The Party.

5: What is your favorite quotation?

CONS: "The entire graduated income tax system structure was created by Karl Marx," by Ronald Reagan.

LIBL: "Taxes are the price we pay for civilization," by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

LBRT: "In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another," by Voltaire.

COMM: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," by Karl Marx.

6: What are your personal beliefs about endangered species?

CONS: Spending inordinate sums on hi-tech efforts to save an endangered species is very noble, but sometimes you've just got to know when to let go.

LIBL: Let no species on life-support pass from this Earth unless every means at our disposal is spent on intensive resuscitation efforts.

LBRT: Let those who religiously believe that every species is sacred, spend their own personal funds to purchase vast tracks of virgin habitat where they and all of Charles Darwin's creatures can live together in peace, harmony and normal healthy predator/prey relationships.

COMM: For the sake of our children, and those of future generations, meticulously preserve dead endangered species specimens in formaldehyde in the major metropolitan natural history museums.

7: The Center for Public-Health Dietary Self Control releases a study that says eating just one jelly donut is as harmful to human health as smoking 10,000,000 cartons of cigarettes. Do you...

CONS: keep eating jelly donuts.

LIBL: demand that jelly donuts be removed from vending machines, and public school cafeterias.

LBRT: hoard jelly donuts before they are regulated off grocer's shelves.

COMM: hoard jelly donuts so you can sell them on the black market.

8: The proper response for jelly donut manufactures regarding the public's concerns over jelly donut's deleterious health effects is to...

CONS: hold a televised press conference, wherein the manufacturers eat jelly donuts, and feed them to their children.

LIBL: institute a nationwide jelly donut recall.

LBRT: let any consumers worried about eating jelly donuts simply stop eating them.

COMM: give total control of jelly donut manufacturing to the government.

10: What techniques are best for maintaining discipline in the classroom?

CONS: If just one student misbehaves, severely punish the entire class.

LIBL: Force boys who refuse to settle down to take psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin and Prozac.

LBRT: Anyone who doesn't want to be in class can leave.

COMM: Anyone who doesn't want to be in class can be made an example of.

11: Endangered spotted owls are spotted nesting in New York City's Central Park. Do you...

CONS: call for an immediate return for to unfettered logging in the Pacific Northwest.

LIBL: call for an immediate moratorium on all new building construction within a 500-mile radius of Central Park, until a comprehensive Spotted Owl Habitat Management Plan has been drafted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and approved by the Sierra Club.

LBRT: call for Central Park, and all U.S. Forest Service land to be sold to the highest bidder.

COMM: call for Central Park to be confiscated by the U.S. National Park Service.

12: What are the greatest books of all time?

CONS: - "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", by John Lott

- "Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News", by Bernard Goldberg

- "The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World", by Bjorn Lomborg

- "The Roosevelt Myth: A Critical Account of the New Deal and Its Creator", by John T. Flynn

- "America the Way it Ought to Be", by Rush Limbaugh

LIBL: - "The Feminine Mystique", by Betty Friedan

- "Unsafe at Any Speed; The Designed-in Dangers in the American Automobile", by Ralph Nader

- "The Population Bomb", by Paul R. Ehrlich

- "Eco-Catastrophe!", by Paul R. Ehrlich

- "End of Affluence: A Blueprint for Your Future", by Paul R. Ehrlich

- "Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations", by Al Franken

LBRT: - "Free to Chose", by Milton and Rose Friedman

- "Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights", by Nadine Strossen

- "Separating School and State: How to Liberate America's Families", by Sheldon Richman

- "Facts, Not Fear: A Parents Guide to Teaching Children About the Environment", by Michael Sanera and Jane S. Shaw

- "Waiting to Inhale: The Politics of Medical Marijuana", by Alan W. Bock

COMM: - "Communist Manifesto", by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles

- "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung", by Mao Zedong

- "Free Land:Free Love: Tales of a Wilderness Commune", edited by Don Monkerud

14: What should people not be allowed to do in public?

CONS: Offend the sensibilities of others.

LIBL: Offend the sensitivities of others.

LBRT: Offend the sensibilities of yourself.

COMM: Offend the sensitivities of the authorities.

15: What extremist groups have you joined?

CONS: - The American Association of Retired Persons

- The Gray Panthers

- The Chamber of Commerce

- The National Rifle Association

LIBL: - Greenpeace

- The National Organization for Women

- The A.F.L./C.I.O.

- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

LBRT: - The American Civil Liberties Union

- The Center for Consumer Freedom

- The Hell's Angles

- The American Medical Marijuana Association

- Families Against Mandatory Minimums

COMM: - The Bolsheviks

- The Red Guard

- The Sandinistas

16: A cup with that only contains half a cup of water is...

CONS: half full.

LIBL: half empty.

LBRT: an example of shortages caused by government control of our water supply.

COMM: an example of inequitable wealth distribution caused by the inherent social injustice in free enterprise.

18: We need to get government...

CONS: out of the boardroom, and to loosen government's stranglehold on America's businesses.

LIBL: out of the bedroom, and to loosen government's stranglehold on America's private lives.

LBRT: all of the above.

COMM: none of the above.

19: Cloning human beings...

CONS: must be outlawed. The only person who should be creating human beings is God.

LIBL: must be outlawed. The only permissible nontraditional ways to produce offspring are in vitro fertilization, hiring a surrogate mother, and sperm donation.

LBRT: is a perfectly acceptable method of reproduction, and is a wonderful source of identical twins.

COMM: may one day produce the perfect comrade.

20: What's the best way to stop people from illegally crossing our borders?

CONS: Seal the borders so no one can get in.

LIBL: Do nothing to beef up security at the borders, and offer illegal aliens a wide array of free services.

LBRT: Allow unrestricted passage across the borders.

COMM: Seal the borders so no one can get out.

21: How would you define the word "profit"?

CONS: What business owners earn by selling a quality product at a competitive price.

LIBL: What business owners RIP-OFF from their customers.

LBRT: What business owners are rewarded with for risking the loss of their own money.

COMM: What business owners RIP-OFF from their employees.

24: Global warming...

CONS: doesn't exist. And even if it does, its harmful effects are easily remedied by cranking up the air conditioning to full blast.

LIBL: is already upon us. The sky is warming! The sky is warming!! We must tell Sixty Minutes!!!

LBRT: is the Ecological Calamity of the Month.

COMM: could have one silver lining, if efforts to combat global warming adversely impact The West's industrialized economies.

27: Do you think cigarette smoking is addictive?

CONS: No. Although they can become habit-forming, many people quit successful, without suffering the agony of drug withdrawal, so quitting is just a matter of personal willpower.

LIBL: Yes. We have nearly 700,000 acres of American farmland being used to produce a "crop" that can't be eaten, and that has no real economic value outside of its unique pharmacological properties, which is why it is so important to shield young people from cigarette advertising.

LBRT: Yes. The mere fact that nicotine is addictive provides all the more reason to eliminate laws that prohibit minors from smoking. After all, products whose accesses are restricted to "Adults Only," only makes young rebellious teenagers want to use those products even more!!!

COMM: No. People who find themselves unexpectedly thrown into the walls of Soviet Gulags, and are who thereby forced to quit smoking Cold Turkey exhibit no obvious withdrawal symptoms–-indeed the lack of tobacco products seems to be the least of their worries!

32: What is the meanest most low-down thing a person can do during a kid's soccer game?

CONS: Cheat.

LIBL: Keep score.

LBRT: Play the game in a municipal park.

COMM: Hog all the glory by not being a team player.

36: What should be the highest law in the land?

CONS: God's Law

LIBL: The U.S. Constitution

LBRT: The LITERAL intepretation of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights

COMM: The Party Chairman's

38: The purpose of a military base is to...

CONS: protect and defend the country.

LIBL: stimulate the local economy of the congressmen's legislative districts where the bases are located.

LBRT: save up enough toxic waste to qualify for an all expenses paid Superfund cleanup.

COMM: sway public opinion.

39: Television is saturated with far too much...

CONS: sex, nudity, and underwear advertising.

LIBL: gratuitous violence.

LBRT: PBS programming.

COMM: consumerism.

40: How do you feel about nuclear weapons?

CONS: I love them! Just thinking about them really gets my testosterone flowing!!!

LIBL: They scare the crap out of me.

LBRT: They are important to have in crisis situations, but the best foreign policy is isolationism.

COMM: Like most things in life, the more the better.

42: Who should be the World's policeman?

CONS: The United States

LIBL: The United Nations

LBRT: Local Authorities

COMM: The Communist Superpowers

44: The best things in life...

CONS: have a substantial membership fee.

LIBL: need price controls.

LBRT: are subject to the whims of supply and demand.

COMM: have a substantial waiting list.

45: What is your vision for America?

CONS: Two Maine lobsters in every pot, and a BMW in every three-car garage.

LIBL: Clean air, clean water, clean energy, clean food. . .

LBRT: Make America a place where government institutions don't micromanage people's lives.

COMM: Implement a fresh, new and revolutionary redesign of corporate hierarchies in America's businesses.

47: The Communist Manifesto lists ten goals that the party faithful should try to establish in their own countries. Which of those goals do you think should be established in America?

CONS: - Requiring everyone to work

LIBL: - A free public school education

- A severely progressive income tax

LBRT: - None

COMM: - Abolishing private property

48: What kind of tattoo would you get?

CONS: An American flag on my heart.

LIBL: A peace sign on my left arm.

LBRT: A marijuana leaf on my butt.

COMM: A hammer and sickle on my belly.

50: What is the single most important factor influencing someone's personal success in America?

CONS: What you know.

LIBL: Who you know.

LBRT: What you do.

COMM: Who you oppress.

51: A business cheats a customer. The government should...

CONS: ask the industry to regulate itself.

LIBL: regulate the industry.

LBRT: let the injured customer use any means at his disposal to get restitution from the unscrupulous business.