Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Monkeyleg on November 30, 2009, 12:33:42 AM
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This is a simple enough quiz: http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/quiz/index.php
Take a few minutes to look at the percentages of people who got questions right or wrong. Scary. Very scary.
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I choked on the number of troops in A-stan.
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I biffed troops in A-stan and healthcare spending per person, mainly because I think those numbers are cooked.
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I got everything but the unemployment rate and the DOW Jones average correct. It said unemployment is closer to 10%, but wasn't there an article or something not too long ago that said the employment rate was higher and the .gov was lying?
I have been deliberatly trying to ignore as much of the news as possible. I've got other stuff to worry about and I'm tired of hearing about everything (especially since the overload of the election coverage) and I realize that it all comes down to "We're Boned". The finer details don't really matter as much when you realize what's going to happen in the end...
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Here's Your Score: You correctly answered 11 out of the 12 possible questions, which means you did better on the quiz than 93% of the general public.
I got the question about our military numbers in Afghanistan wrong. I'm pretty sure we don't have 70,000 US troops over there. That's more than the ISAF. I thought we were still working on trying to double our troops presence there.
Guess I'm wrong on that one. :'(
Oh yeah! Quite a disturbing trend!
1). 65%
2). 40%
3). 75%
4). 56%
5). 18%
6). 33%
7). 42%
8). 53%
9). 33%
10). 61%
11). 23%
12). 28%
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I got all 12 correctly. I'll be honest, I guessed on a couple. Though, on the questions I was fuzzy on, it was easy to cut it down to 2 probable guesses. Apparently 2% of folks get all 12 right. Ok, I could see the finance committee question throwing folks off, or the current troop levels. But the rest were pretty friggin easy.
I'll admit, I flinched when I saw the male/female score breakdown. I'm honestly at a loss to explain it. The education and age tracks like you'd expect.
But overall... Gods, that is depressing.
I got everything but the unemployment rate and the DOW Jones average correct. It said unemployment is closer to 10%, but wasn't there an article or something not too long ago that said the employment rate was higher and the .gov was lying?
Total unemployment is obviously higher than 10%. "Unemployment" govt statistic only covers a specific aspect of people that are not currently employed. For example, "discouraged workers" are not included. I guessed that they meant the official statistics, not a more accurate number.
The govt isn't lying, per se. Just being very picky about their definition. If you want to see serious manipulation, look up the CPI. That's crooked like no tomorrow. There are a couple private CPI equivalents, all of the best ones are subscription required.
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Republicans and independents each averaged 5.7 correct answers, compared with five correct among Democrats. Men correctly answered an average of 5.9 of the 12 items; women answered an average of 4.7.
Represent!
Hey, RevDisk, did anybody ever tell you you're pretty smart for a Democrat? :P
(Oh, come on, you gotta laugh at that one, man.)
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Represent!
Hey, RevDisk, did anybody ever tell you you're pretty smart for a Democrat? :P
(Oh, come on, you gotta laugh at that one, man.)
=D
I get that a lot from both sides. "For a conservative, you're not a fascist redneck hatemonger." "For a liberal, you're not a commie, pinko moron." When you support all of the Bill of Rights, both parties view you as being kinda off in the head. From my perspective, aside from a few wedge issues, I see few significant differences between either party.
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I get that a lot from both sides. "For a conservative, you're not a fascist redneck hatemonger." "For a liberal, you're not a commie, pinko moron."
I've gotten "even compared to most other Libertarians, you're a heavily armed, raving fanatic."
You'd think a politician would know better than to speak up with that. Good thing for him that I consider it a compliment, and I think it was sort of meant that way too.
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I choked on the number of troops in A-stan.
Me, too.....serves me right for copying off your test paper.... :lol:
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Here's Your Score: You correctly answered 12 of the 12 possible questions along with approximately 2% of the public. You did better than 98% of the general public.
:D
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I got 11 of 12, but truthfully, I accidently checked the wrong box on the health care box; Americans pay more. I did have to think about it, but I do believe Americans pay less. That's an easy test if one actually pays attention to daily life.
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I scored 10/12. I missed the ones on the troops and the Senate Finance Chairman.
Chris
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I dunno Grampster, I think it depends on one's daily life. I suspect the lower scores for women has something to do with stay at home moms. That could only be confirmed though, with age+sex breakdowns.
I got 11. I clearly recall having seen and heard news segments about a national unemployment rate about 15%, but then I get my news sans sound at the Y and san balance (mostly) on NPR.
(ETA: And yeah, I totally guessed on troop levels. In terms of knowledge, I scored a ten.)
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11/12
I checked 15% for unemployment due tot he fact that there are a lot of people not accounted for by the current government statistic who have simply given up on finding a new job.
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I got all 12, but guessed on Afghan troop levels . . .
By the way, if you want to get technical, the wording on many of the questions actually indicated a "yes" or "no" answer was called for . . .
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:D
At least that durn feriner didn't beat me none!
:laugh:
Here's Your Score: You correctly answered 12 of the 12 possible questions along with approximately 2% of the public. You did better than 98% of the general public.
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I feel like and idiot. I only got 9. I missed numbers 5,6, and 7.
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Woo hoo! All 12 questions correct! That bell curve is sure shifted to the left, though.
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10 out of 12, and same as Balog. I missed the number of troops in Afghanistan, and I purposely said our health care costs are lower because I know the quiz didn't take taxes charged by other countries into account for overall costs. It's a Pew poll after all...
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpewresearch.org%2Fpoliticalquiz%2Fquiz%2FPolitical-Quiz-Charts_12.png&hash=c073c7192b907e0cf49677de4d46959a5664e95c)
The Afghan question took a little arithmetic. I recall, way back when Dems "supported" the effort in a-stan, that the troop level was in the neighborhood of 20-30K and that BHO stuffed 10-15K more over there. 70K seemed most reasonable.
As to some of the other questions of, ah, "questionable" provenance, one has to recall the dofference between "goodfacts" and "truefacts."* goodfacts are what is reported by gov't and its hangers-on. Truefacts are usually a bit closer to eh mark. Unemployment, for example. Goodfact ~ 10%. Truefact ~ 17% (by gov't's own reckoning prior to WJC changing the methodology)
Even if it is BS, it is helpful to know what the BS "goodfact" answer is.
* Babylon 5 reference. Yes, there was good scifi before Firefly.
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I missed the Afganistan one too.
11/12 for me.
-C
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Took a wild stab at Q12, which was the only one I got wrong.
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Great jobs by Micro and Iain. If these were the equivalent questions for Israel or Great Britain, I'm betting I'd only get half of them right.
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I realize that it all comes down to "We're Boned". The finer details don't really matter as much when you realize what's going to happen in the end...
Awesome punnery! Ouch! :O
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11/12 here as well, also missed on the Afgan troop levels question
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i got the Afghanistan question wrong too.
i just sent it to a friend of mine and she got 6/12. I'd be disturbed except that she's politically apathetic and doesn't vote. She figures she can't effect an election the politicians will do whatever they want anyway. I've tried to nudge her to pay more attention to stuff, but I have more respect for her decision than someone who doesn't pay attention but is still opinionated and votes with their ignorance.
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9 out of 12...missed 5, 11 and 12...
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8/12
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8/12
hey we're in the top third, [tinfoil] man, now i'm really depressed =|
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12/12 for me...pretty much guessed at the healthcare cost between US and Europe, though.
Sawdust
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11/12.
Missed the health care spending (U.S. vs. Europe) question.
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Me, too.
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12/12. I assumed since we were a more free market, that leading technology would emerge here and make health care both better and most expensive.
I've dealt with the Medicare Fee Schedule for years though and been able to compare it against free market plans for compensation: if Europe is anything like Medicare then physicians have less incentive in Europe to work hard since the pay is substandard.
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12/12. But it matters not, for I get only one vote. Looking at where this country has been going, I have been getting more and more disillusioned about the modern version of democracy.
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Would you like an older form of democracy, or did you have something else in mind?
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12/12 for me. I gave them the MSM answers.
I knew the committee chairman is Max Baucus. What I don't know is how he got elected in Montana. :O
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Would you like an older form of democracy, or did you have something else in mind?
I have not made up my mind yet, but intuitively, a better system might be one that has the chief elements of Ancient Greek and/or Founding Fathers styles. Basically, small-gov limited democracy. There are still checks and balances, but estateless socialists cannot vote themselves benefits at the expense of the taxpayers. Allowing everybody to vote inherently opens the system to a vicious circle of politicians running budget deficits and taxing their enemies to give away to supporters, which in turn keep the former in office by the latter's votes. That is ultimately what has been destroying and will destroy this country.
But all of the above is theoretical pipe dreams. The reality is that we are way past the cultural point of no return. So, we are just sliding downhill faster and faster. The good news is that when the country finally is completely bankrupt and nobody in the right mind lends money to the US gov, the incentives of corruption will disappear as well, so that lawyers, bankers, demagogues, and dirty politicians can move on to the next economic powerhouse to leech on and destroy.
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I got all 12 correct, hurray for me, I rock :laugh:
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Allowing everybody to vote inherently opens the system to a vicious circle of politicians running budget deficits and taxing their enemies to give away to supporters, which in turn keep the former in office by the latter's votes. That is ultimately what has been destroying and will destroy this country.
Oh no. I think we've just revived one of our favorite thread-locking debates on APS. :O
I agree we're at a point of no return. I've felt that way since about 2000. MB will be along shortly to chide me for this. =)
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What I don't know is how he got elected in Montana.
Me neither =( He was here when I got here. OTOH, so was Conrad Burns.
There is sorta a tradition in MT to elect conservatives to state level and liberals to federal level - sort of a "get what you can" from the District of Criminals =|
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I think it's interesting that the 50+ bracket had more trouble with the healthcare cost question than the 30-49 bracket. That's the ONLY question where the age / correctness correlation breaks down. It's also the only question where women scored higher than men.
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9 out of 12.
suprising considering i almost try not to pay attention to the news. =|
and one i should have gotten right, but i hit the wrong button.
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I think it's interesting that the 50+ bracket had more trouble with the healthcare cost question than the 30-49 bracket.
Perhaps because a good percentage of people in that bracket are on Medicare, and so think that other countries are more expensive.
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11/12. I really thought the cost of European healthcare was more expensive. ???
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I really thought the cost of European healthcare was more expensive.
Why would an inferior product be more expensive?
What our leaders are trying to assure us is that they can deliver us a superior product for less money. It doesn't work that way. Ever.
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I got all 12 correct, hurray for me, I rock :laugh:
It's good to be better than the rest of the riff-raff here, isn't it? =D
[popcorn]
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Egads. Only 2% can answer all of those correctly?
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I got all 12, but guessed on the troop level in A-stan.
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9 out of 12, bacus,bernake and dow jones.
but I thought i pressed bernake.
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12/12 in the youngest age group and I only completed highschool. I do, however, read The Wall Street Journal.
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I missed health care spending and troop level in Afghanistan. In my defense the troop level question did not specify US troop levels, I considered allies as well. I 'm skeptical about the health spending answer and need to do some research to either validate my answer or correct myself.
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12/12 in the youngest age group and I only completed highschool. I do, however, read The Wall Street Journal.
Did you stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, too? ;)
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What our leaders are trying to assure us is that they can deliver us a superior product for less money. It doesn't work that way. Ever.
Actually, it works that way quite often: most of the time, when government gets out of the way, products improve and prices drop.
It just ain't going to happen with government more involved.
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Why would an inferior product be more expensive?
People asked that same question of American car companies in the 70's and 80's.
Euopean healthcare is run by socialists/bureaucrats. They think they can never run out of other people's money. Their idea to fix anything is to pour more money into it. Of course as they increase the money spent on the system they drop coverage to reduce costs. I suppose that causes it to even out.
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12/12 here