How liberal/conservative/reactionary are you?
Further down in this entry is James Burnham’s famous test of liberalism, which will help you find out where you stand on the political spectrum.
Marius A. writes from Norway:
As you have argued repeatedly, most contemporary people who deem themselves conservative are in reality liberals. How do you like the idea to make a political test on amnation.com where one answers a series of important questions, and then is judged based on the answers and given a political orientation?
LA replies:
Well, in his 1964 book Suicide of the West (which, more than any other single factor, made me a conservative), James Burnham had something like that, a series of statements with which the reader was asked to say whether he agreed or disagreed. For example, one question, highly relevant today, was, “I think torture is always wrong, no matter what the circumstances.” Saying that you agreed with that statement added to your liberal score.
So, rather than write up a new quiz, I could start by copying and posting Burnham’s quiz.
However, since my definitions of liberal and conservative are somewhat different from Burnham’s and involve different typical issues, it might be necessary to come up with an updated version of the quiz. But I think we should start with the Burnham and see how it goes.
Marius replies:
You wrote:
“In any case, rather than write up a new quiz, I could start by copying Burnham’s quiz and see how it goes.”
That in itself is a conservative act. I mean, instead of a revolutionary sweeping out of the old and starting from cogito ergo sum, you look at what of value that already exists, what men before you have thought, and then decide to work with that.
I think such a quiz would be highly interesting and might possibly generate some traffic as well as interesting discussions. Furthermore, the questions will serve as a reminder of which issues are the most important.
* * *
Paul K. has found James Burnam’s liberal-conservative-reactionary test (in an article in The New Criterion) and sent it along. As Paul notes, “Except for a few anachronisms, it’s surprisingly apt.”
Here is the test, plus Burnham’s lead-in and follow-up paragraphs, from Suicide of the West, pp. 39-42:
It is not too difficult to devise a fairly accurate diagnostic for liberalism. In individual and group experiments over the past several years I have often used, for example, the following set of thirty-nine sentences. The patient is merely asked whether he agrees or disagrees with each sentence—agrees or disagrees by and large, without worrying over fine points.
1. All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong.
2. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
3. Everyone has a right to free, public education.
4. Political, economic or social discrimination based on religious belief is wrong.
5. In political or military conflict it is wrong to use methods of torture and physical terror.
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
7. The government has a duty to provide for the ill, aged, unemployed and poor if they cannot take care of themselves.
8. Progressive income and inheritance taxes are the fairest form of taxation.
9. If reasonable compensation is made, the government of a nation has the legal and moral right to expropriate private property within its borders, whether owned by citizens or foreigners.
10. We have a duty to mankind; that is, to men in general.
11. The United Nations, even if limited in accomplishment, is a step in the right direction.
12. Any interference with free speech and free assembly, except for cases of immediate public danger or juvenile corruption, is wrong.
13. Wealthy nations, like the United States, have a duty to aid the less privileged portions of mankind.
14. Colonialism and imperialism are wrong.
15. Hotels, motels, stores and restaurants in southern United States ought to be obliged by law to allow Negroes to use all of their facilities on the same basis as whites.
16. The chief sources of delinquency and crime are ignorance, discrimination, poverty and exploitation.
17. Communists have a right to express their opinions.
18. We should always be ready to negotiate with the Soviet Union and other communist nations.
19. Corporal punishment, except possibly for small children, is wrong.
20. All nations and peoples, including the nations and peoples of Asia and Africa, have a right to political independence when a majority of the population wants it.
21. We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others.
22. The primary goal of international policy in the nuclear age ought to be peace.
23. Except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly, to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong.
24. Congressional investigating committees are dangerous institutions, and need to be watched and curbed if they are not to become a serious threat to freedom. [Obviously referring to HUAAC-type hearings.]
25. The money amount of school and university scholarships ought to be decided primarily by need.
26. Qualified teachers, at least at the university level, are entitled to academic freedom: that is, the right to express their own beliefs and opinions, in or out of the classroom, without interference from administrators, trustees, parents or public bodies.
27. In determining who is to be admitted to schools and universities, quota systems based on color, religion, family or similar factors are wrong. [Here he is referring to quotas favoring whites.]
28. The national government should guarantee that all adult citizens, except for criminals and the insane, should have the right to vote.
29. Joseph McCarthy was probably the most dangerous man in American public life during the fifteen years following the Second World War.
30. There are no significant differences in intellectual, moral or civilizing capacity among human races and ethnic types.
31. Steps toward world disarmament would be a good thing.
32. Everyone is entitled to political and social rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
33. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression.
34. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
35. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.
36. Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security.
37. Everyone has the right to equal pay for equal work.
38. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions.
39. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
A full-blown liberal will mark every one, or very nearly every one, of these thirty-nine sentences, Agree. A convinced conservative will mark many or most of them, a reactionary all or nearly all of them, Disagree.
* * *
George R. writes:
Took Burnham’s test. I’m proud to say that I scored a nearly perfect 1. (I agreed with #10, in a certain respect.) Let’s see if any of your other readers can top that.
George R. (The Reactionary)
LA replies:
Ha ha ha. But did you cheat? :-)
Tim W. writes:
At the risk of nitpicking a little, I would point out that Burnham wrote this test before the rise of the New Left in the late 1960s. He couldn’t, therefore, have foreseen some of the hypocrisies the left would practice on many of the issues discussed in his test. The title of his book, Suicide of the West, indicates that he regarded modern liberalism as suicidal, in the sense that liberals would rather die than not be liberal as defined in his test. But the past forty years have shown liberalism to be murderous in the hands of victorious leftists. Suicidal may have described most liberals in 1964, but today it mainly defines the right-liberals, most of whom would answer in the affirmative to all, or nearly all, of the questions on Burnham’s test. Left-liberals would only answer yes to all these questions on the condition that a variety of drastic exceptions can be made to some of them (this assumes they would answer them honestly, which is a questionable assumption).
For example:
1. All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong.
Liberals support blacks-only dorms, anti-white discrimination, Latino-only political organizations (including La Raza, or, The Race) and any number of other policies along those lines.
2. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
Leftist speech codes, hate speech laws, political correctness, diversity training, all say otherwise.
4. Political, economic or social discrimination based on religious belief is wrong.
Try being a devout Christian and make it through the liberal-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee.
5. In political or military conflict it is wrong to use methods of torture and physical terror.
It may be wrong for our side to use these things, but leftists have rationalized everything from Saddam’s terror state (made to look like a Disney movie in Fahrenheit 9/11), to Castro’s prisons, to Mao’s Great Leap Forward, to Pol Pot’s massacres. They either whitewash them or try to blame them on America.
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
Liberals threw every obstacle they had in the way of conservatives opposing Soviet tyranny. The entire nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s was a Soviet-engineered effort to undercut Reagan and Thatcher, which the Western left supported in order to keep the Iron Curtain standing.
12. Any interference with free speech and free assembly, except for cases of immediate public danger or juvenile corruption, is wrong.
Left-liberals have long since “grown” beyond this one, as the EU attests.
21. We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others.
Unless they’re Christian.
23. Except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly, to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong
See hate speech/diversity training/EU references above.
24. Congressional investigating committees are dangerous institutions, and need to be watched and curbed if they are not to become a serious threat to freedom. [Obviously referring to HUAAC-type hearings.]
Obviously not applicable to any number of leftist witch hunts, including the investigations into total non-crimes such as the Bush prosecutor firings and the Plame leak.
26. Qualified teachers, at least at the university level, are entitled to academic freedom: that is, the right to express their own beliefs and opinions, in or out of the classroom, without interference from administrators, trustees, parents or public bodies.
Try getting tenure as an outspoken non-leftist today.
27. In determining who is to be admitted to schools and universities, quota systems based on color, religion, family or similar factors are wrong. [Here he is referring to quotas favoring whites.]
Today’s left-liberals obviously favor quotas.
28. The national government should guarantee that all adult citizens, except for criminals and the insane, should have the right to vote.
Today’s left-liberals would extend the vote to criminals and the insane, so they’re more extreme now than ever on that one
33. Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and expression.
34. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
Except for speech codes, diversity interests, etc.
35. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.
Unless they vote not to permit same-sex “marriage” or other leftist policies, in which case public opinion is to be subjugated to judicial rule.
So it seems that today’s right-liberals are for the most part liberals as defined by Burnham, but as the West has moved further to the left, left-liberals are rejecting many of their prior beliefs in favor of a more relativistic reading of them.
LA replies:
Great.
Only I wouldn’t call this “nitpicking.” I’d call it grabbing the bull by the horns.
Stewart W. writes:
I’m proud to say I am also among the reactionary forces, having scored a 1 as well (#2, and the question didn’t ask whether they had a right to express said opinion). I don’t believe I cheated, either.
It’s also clear that I can safely discard one of my other fears, that I may secretly be a libertarian. A couple of years ago, I would have answered many questions differently.
Congratulations, you’ve ruined me.
Joe Catechissimo writes:
I came up with 14 agrees and 25 disagrees, which puts me on either the hard conservative or soft reactionary end of the spectrum. I cannot imagine how a Bible-believing Christian could possibly score as a solid reactionary. We are our brother’s keeper, and we are meant to be communitarian. Of course Bible teaching expects the poor to help themselves whenever they can, as in collecting that portion of the harvest left for them.
George R. writes:
You wrote:
“Ha ha ha. But did you cheat? :-)”
No, I didn’t cheat, but I knew I was a reactionary before I took the test.
What did you score, by the way?
LA replies:
I haven’t taken it since I read the book many years ago. I’ll have to take it again and see how I do.
Rich T. writes:
I looked through the political test you posted earlier today. I found it (like many such surveys or questionnaires) very frustrating and superficial. I kept stopping and asking myself, “What does this actually mean?”
1. All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong.
Public or private? It’s one thing to say that public facilities should be available to everyone on an equal basis and another thing entirely to say my private club should be. [LA replies: I feel that Rich is quibbling a bit here. Does he not realize that liberals themselves for the last 60 years have affirmed in the most ringing and imperative tones that “ALL DISCRIMINATION IS WRONG AND MUST BE ELIMINATED”? When liberals say this, they don’t break the discrimination down into public and private. They just say that discrimination is wrong, period. So a liberal typically would agree with statement #1, while a genuine conservative typically would disagree with it. I think that the questionaire ought to be approached in the more intuitive spirit I’ve just described. It is aimed at identifying a basic orientation, not at provoking a philosophical disquisition.]
2. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion.
Sure, but not to his own facts. Freedom of conscience?
5. In political or military conflict it is wrong to use methods of torture and physical terror.
This fails to distinguish between combat, which by its very nature should attempt to evoke terror in the enemy, and the treatment of prisoners.
Was Ronald Reagan a liberal because he signed the Torture Convention and issued a strong statement condemning torture?
Was George Washington a liberal because he made a standing order that prisoners not be tortured or abused? (This was aimed at the Hessians who were feared and hated for their reputation for abusing prisoners and has been the standard for the U.S. Army every since.)
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
What could be more conservative, in an American sense, than rebellion against arbitrary rule?
9. If reasonable compensation is made, the government of a nation has the legal and moral right to expropriate private property within its borders, whether owned by citizens or foreigners.
Unlimited? Or limited to public use, as in the U.S. Constitution? Eminent domain was well established in the common law well before this country was founded. To answer strongly no to this question is not liberal, conservative nor reactionary; it is libertarian.
10. We have a duty to mankind; that is, to men in general.
Aren’t we supposed to emulate Christ?
21. We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others.
“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.” H. L. Mencken
24. Congressional investigating committees are dangerous institutions, and need to be watched and curbed if they are not to become a serious threat to freedom.
Rather, all government institutions have the possibility of being dangerous and should be watched and curbed when necessary. Limited government, anyone?
25. The money amount of school and university scholarships ought to be decided primarily by need.
No, by merit. It’s a complete waste of money to send stupid and uneducable people to university just because they are in need.
26. Qualified teachers, at least at the university level, are entitled to academic freedom: that is, the right to express their own beliefs and opinions, in or out of the classroom, without interference from administrators, trustees, parents or public bodies.
Tim W. wrote, “Try getting tenure as an outspoken non-leftist today.”
I hear this lot. People like Tim should spend more time on an actual university campus. Yes, the Left often dominates (even an extreme leftism, young people being, well, young and foolish) but there are plenty of outspoken conservatives, especially in departments of Economics and in the business schools. They don’t have any problem getting tenure.
35. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government.
Simple majority rule? Mob rule? Or a statement that sovereignty ultimately rests with the people?
38. Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions.
Freedom of association and well established in law.
I can’t score myself as I have too many problems with what many of the questions mean. I know you consider yourself on the Right, but I consider it highly problematic, especially in the American context, to divide politics based on where people sat in the French Assembly.
Many of the principles enshrined in the U.S. Constitution would have been considered radical by those who sat on the Right in the Assembly. What it means to be a traditionalist, in the American sense, is very different from what it means in a European sense.
I consider myself a pragmatic independent, but very conservative on some issues. Establishing and maintaining an orderly society is a difficult thing and people are definitely not basically good, as the liberal cliche would have it.
To strongly support freedom of association, religion, expression and conscience, as I do—does that make me a liberal or a traditionalist, in the American sense?
Gintas writes:
I had a few “it depends” but mostly Disagree. For example, Number 6:
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
If it’s a Leftist regime, by all means, bring on the revolt! It doesn’t have to be a bloodbath, remember the Lithuanians in the USSR in 1991? In fact, the entire disintegration of the Communist bloc gives me hope that Leftism, once discredited, just falls apart.
LA replies:
Well, that’s an example of how Tim W.’s point about the two liberalisms applies. Under the older liberalism and the more decent society that was extant when Burnham wrote the questionaire, conservatives would be upholding society against radical revolt. Under the increasingly tyrannical, evil, anti-national left-liberalism of today, conservatives themselves would feel the need to revolt.
June 13
Bruce B. writes:
How far we’ve come since Burnham’s time.
23. Except in cases of a clear threat to national security or, possibly, to juvenile morals, censorship is wrong.
Notice the exception allowed for threats to juvenile morals that still leaves the statement acceptable to liberals of Burnham’s time.
Tim W. writes:
I’ll concede Rich T.’s point that there are a good number of conservatives in the fields of economics and business in most major universities. But I was thinking more in terms of the social sciences, where political correctness on hot button social issues holds sway.
I’ve spent plenty of time on college campuses. I’ve sat through a university diversity training session. Believe me, anyone openly denying that white privilege exists, or asserting that America should remain a majority white nation, would have extreme difficulty earning tenure. Larry Summers got booted out as Harvard’s president for merely listing genetic factors as one of several theoretically possible reasons men outperform women in math and physics. A year or so later he was scheduled to speak at a school in California, but the speech was cancelled after leftist/feminist protests. I guess his association with Obama has rehabilitated him now, though.
Frankly, I can’t imagine someone getting tenure in a major university who was outspoken about racial differences in intelligence, or who was adamant that homosexuality was immoral, or who wanted to ban Muslim immigration. I won’t say that it’s impossible, but it would surely be highly unlikely, while someone with PC views on those same subjects would easily get tenure provided they met the basic criteria (getting published, handling their classes well, etc.) for academic advancement.
Rich T. replies to LA:
A quibble is a small objection or criticism.
I find these most of these questions too simple to allow me to discriminate among possible answers. I think that’s more than a quibble. General orientation is just too general for me; I prefer specifics.
Do I agree with liberals on many issues? Yes, I do. Do I find the general tendency of liberalism to be pernicious? Yes, I do. This makes it difficult to vote, so I always split my vote, depending on the specific office and the specific issues. Perhaps that makes me an independent, or perhaps it just means I’m confused.
LA replies:
Well, it simply means that you don’t like questionaires of this nature and see no value in them.
Rich T. writes:
Almost, but not exactly. I often give up on surveys that are too general, with only yes or no as possible answers. That forces me into a false dichotomy. Surveys that are more specific, with a wider range of answers (and especially if I can comment), those I will complete.
The former fit well with the data gathering techniques of sociologists; the latter not so much.
LA writes:
I took the test. I only agreed with two of the “liberal” statements, so I guess that puts me well into the reactionary camp. There were a few more statements I would have agreed with, if they had been more qualified. But they were phrased in such a sweeping way that it was impossible to assent to them.
Jim F. writes:
My result was 4 agrees and a lot of mental pain and confusion. Perhaps I am a reluctant reactionary? In most cases, I could find a least a single instance that negates the question from my point of view. The questions that included religion in an all encompassing manner were not in line with my perception of Islam, for instance.
LA replies:
Could you explain what you mean by your last sentence?
LA writes:
By the way, the two statements I agreed with were:
5. In political or military conflict it is wrong to use methods of torture and physical terror.
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
June 19
Jim F. replies:
You ask, “Could you explain what you mean by your last sentence?”
Certainly. My perception of Islam is that it is a deadly foe to our society in the long term. Hence, the six million Muslims who are faithful to Islam but are living in the U.S. represent a potential fifth column for Islam, yet they are operating under our laws and freedoms. Even one percent of this number—60,000 men—represents a major force to begin with that is dedicated to the overthrow of the U.S. government. That is equivalent to about three divisions of troops. This should not be allowed to persist.
Thus #1 (“All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong”) must address the necessity for discrimination against U.S. Muslims.
#4 (“Political, economic or social discrimination based on religious belief is wrong”) must allow for discrimination against U.S. Muslims also.
#10 (“We have a duty to mankind; that is, to men in general”) must exclude Islamic nations.
#13 (“Wealthy nations, like the United States, have a duty to aid the less privileged portions of mankind”) likewise must exclude Islamic nations.
#21 (“We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others”) one cannot respect a religion (Islam) that threatens our very existence.
#32 (“Everyone is entitled to political and social rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”) one cannot grant full rights to a religion (Islam) that threatens our existence.
I recognize that by singling out one religion for discrimination I am advocating a violation of the freedom of religion and freedom of speech clauses in our Constitution. I believe that we should amend the Constitution to provide for revocation of individual and organizational rights under the law for any one or any organization that pursues a public path that supports overthrow and destruction of the entire government.
By “public” I mean the open publication, speeches, emails, IMs, or any other medium that expresses the ideas of overthrow and replacement of our government with some other form. To me such actions are treason, or in some cases, sedition, and they should be stopped cold.
You may ask, what prevents the government from adding all sorts of actions to the amendment that results in a significant decrease of our freedoms and liberties, or in interpreting the statements in the amendment too broadly and thus entrapping many others that were not originally intended by the legislation?
Well, the words have to be quite specific to Islam and Muslims, the Koran, the hadiths, and other defining documents of Islam. The evidence of support to overthrow of the government must be public and well-documented, and based upon the official determination by our Congress and President, and upheld by our Supreme Court, that Islam and Muslims are irreconcilable with our republic. The Amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of our States as well.
This will never happen, I am certain, unless Muslims perform many heinous and devastating actions in America that are directly associated with overthrow of the government. Once these actions have started, however, it may be too late to contain them, especially if at that future time, perhaps in 20 or 30 years, the number of Muslims in America has doubled or tripled, while we have not maintained our vigilance or our armed forces at proper levels.
Out of, say, 18 million Muslims then in America, it is quite possible that they could field a force of one or two million men, which would rival our standing military in numbers. Then, too, surprise attacks on some of our key military bases could yield a major boost to their weaponry, ammunition, armor and transport.
I do not believe that it is possible to devise a test of loyalty to the U.S. that would be sufficiently accurate to eliminate the violent Muslims from our population. I do not believe that any oath of allegiance or signed declaration of loyalty is sufficient to have confidence that the oath taker or signer is truthful, since it is quite permissible in Islam for a Muslim to lie to infidels.
Under these circumstances, the only recourse is to disenfranchise all Muslims, to speed their exodus from America, and to prevent their further entry into the nation. In fact, this Constitutional change would provide the legal basis for forcing Muslims to return home as quickly as possible. Otherwise, other methods of sending them home would possibly tie up our court system for the next century, thus totally defeating the purpose of denying them residence in the U.S.
June 20
Terry Morris writes:
It seems to me that Jim F. is sort of missing the point. Indeed, Burnham’s own intro to the test states the following:
The patient is merely asked whether he agrees or disagrees with each sentence—agrees or disagrees by and large, without worrying over fine points. Thus,…
(2) “Thus #1 (“All forms of racial segregation and discrimination are wrong”) must address the necessity for discrimination against U.S. Muslims.”
Why? The test is intended as a diagnostic for liberalism. Which is to say that it includes sentences or statements that liberals automatically react to approvingly without worrying over fine points.
(2) “#4 (“Political, economic or social discrimination based on religious belief is wrong”) must allow for discrimination against U.S. Muslims also.”
Same principle applies as above.
(3) “#10 (“We have a duty to mankind; that is, to men in general”) must exclude Islamic nations.”
Men in general would include, among everyone else, Muslims and nations.
(4) #21 (“We always ought to respect the religious beliefs of others”) one cannot respect a religion (Islam) that threatens our very existence.
It ought to immediately occur to conservatives upon reading the statement that we shouldn’t always respect the religious beliefs of others. Genuine conservatives acknowledge that not all religious beliefs are compatible with liberty and self-government, and so forth and so on. So we hold them in a certain amount of contempt.
(5) #32 (“Everyone is entitled to political and social rights without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”) one cannot grant full rights to a religion (Islam) that threatens our existence.
Again, conservatives immediately recognize that there’s a big problem with the statement. We cannot safely entrust to communists and socialists, Muslims and neo-Nazis, etc., full citizenship rights and priveleges. The statement itself, as with the others, contains its own inherent flaw without adding to or subtracting from it. Which is the point.
Whenever you start to add to or take away from the statements as originally written, you effectively undermine the whole intent of the test to begin with. By engaging oneself in that method, anyone slightly right of a dyed-in-the-wool true-believing leftist could be considered a conservative.
LA replies:
You are right. What Jim is saying is something different from the purpose of the test. He’s making his own point. The whole point of the liberal statements is that they are general and embrace all mankind. So what he’s doing is not really criticizing the test, but spelling out some of the reasons why a conservative could not agree with the liberal statements.
Also, I believe I made the same point to Jim in an e-mail that, as Burnham said, we should not worry the questions but simply take them on their own terms.
Terry Morris writes:
LA wrote:
By the way, the two statements I agreed with were:
5. In political or military conflict it is wrong to use methods of torture and physical terror.
6. A popular movement or revolt against a tyranny or dictatorship is right, and deserves approval.
Using methods of torture and physical terror is always wrong in your opinion?
If one of my children were kidnapped, and I had it on good knowledge that some individual knew who kidnapped him/her, what the kidnapper’s intentions were, and where he’d taken the child, I would confront the individual possessing this knowledge, and if he defiantly refused to give it to me on request, then I’d break out the proverbial jumper cables and try to extract the information that way. I personally would consider that my duty to my innocent child.
Now, I realize that this isn’t properly a “military” conflict, but the point is that there are times when methods of torture, as a last resort, might be necessary to save the lives of countless of ones countrymen. One doesn’t have to support the use of torture techniques as a normal procedure in military conflict to disagree with the statement.
I do, however, agree with #6. Afterall, “resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”
LA replies:
I realized my agreement with #5 would be questioned. But I took the statement as a general statement dealing with the normal course of military or political conflict, not with exceptional circumstances such as a prisoner having information that can save thousands of lives (note that the statement does not say “always”), and I had to agree with it.
Jim F. writes:
Mr. Auster is quite correct; I was using the test statements in order to express my objections to the liberal ideas, not to critique the test per se.
Terry Morris is also correct, in that a simple NO is adequate to most of the statements. As he points out, any conservative would immediately object to most of the statements as they stand.
At a first read of the test, my concern was to ensure that my conservative opinions regarding each of the questions were validated in my own mind by concrete examples, which I then attempted to document and substantiate.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 12, 2009 03:30 PM | Send