A political test

I just found this linked from the David Icke site. I have heard of this kind of political test in the past, but never in this form. Many of you probably already know what it is about, but for those who are unaware, may I suggest you read the section below before answering the question.

In previous years, and on the first day of class, I have given my new students a ballot, indicating that "it is time to elect the leader of a great nation," and offering them two candidates, A and B.

Candidate A is identified as "a well-known critic of government, this man has been involved in tax protest movements, and has openly advocated secession, armed rebellion against the existing national government, and even the overthrow of that government. He is a known member of a militia group that was involved in a shoot-out with law enforcement authorities. He opposes gun control efforts of the present national government, as well as restrictions on open immigration into this country. He is a businessman who has earned his fortune from such businesses as alcohol, tobacco, retailing, and smuggling."

Candidate B is described thusly: "A decorated army war veteran, this man is an avowed nonsmoker and dedicated public health advocate. His public health interests include the fostering of medical research and his dedication to eliminating cancer. He opposes the use of animals in conducting such research. He has supported restrictions on the use of asbestos, pesticides, and radiation, and favors government-determined occupational health and safety standards, as well as the promotion of such foods as whole-grain bread and soybeans. He is an advocate of government gun-control measures. An ardent opponent of tobacco, he has supported increased restrictions on both the use of and advertising for tobacco products. Such advertising restrictions include: [1] not allowing tobacco use to be portrayed as harmless or a sign of masculinity; [2] not allowing such advertising to be directed to women; [3] not drawing attention to the low nicotine content of tobacco products; and, [4] limitations as to where such advertisements may be made. This man is a champion of environmental and conservationist programs, and believes in the importance of sending troops into foreign countries in order to maintain order therein."

OK - so who would you vote for ? Candidate A or Candidate B ?


The article continues ...


The students are asked to vote, anonymously, for either of these two candidates. I employ this exercise only every other year, at most, so that students will not have been told to expect it. Over the years, the voting results have given candidate B about 75% of the vote, while candidate A gets the remaining 25%. After completing the exercise and tabulating the results, I inform the students that candidate A is a composite of the American "founding fathers" (e.g., Sam Adams, John Hancock, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc.). Candidate B, on the other hand, is Adolf Hitler, whose advocacy for the programs named can be found in such works as Robert Proctor�s The Nazi War on Cancer

So - did you vote for Hitler ? Scary isn't it, to think that people could and did vote for someone who became a genocidal maniac responsible for the most devastating war in history. He seemed a decent kind of fellow after all, and if you just read the description of him above, you would be forgiven for actually voting for him.

Thats the danger of allowing appearances to deceive.

Read the rest of the article here. It concerns the Bush administration and the possibility that the people will finally wake up and boot them out.

I picked A! I don't trust anyone who supports gun control.

It was tough, but I picked A because A focused on topics I thought were more important.

I may get flamed for this or whatever, but despite the Holocaust, Hitler was a good leader. He brought Germany out of poverty. Im not saying I liked him, he was a homicidal freak who is most definetly burning in hell. But he did have "some" good qualities in regards to Germany. He could give powerful speeches.

Originally posted by JustAnIllusion
It was tough, but I picked A because A focused on topics I thought were more important.

I may get flamed for this or whatever, but despite the Holocaust, Hitler was a good leader. He brought Germany out of poverty. Im not saying I liked him, he was a homicidal freak who is most definetly burning in hell. But he did have "some" good qualities in regards to Germany. He could give powerful speeches.

He might have done SOME good for Germany in the beginning but what about what he did to the rest of Europe? And then what about his own country after that? they got their asses kicked. Do you think that was good for them and for the rest of us?

The only way I could think of him as a good leader is if he had never done the bad things he did. IMO, it doesn't matter how much good you do, if you then turn around and do evil things you loose any respect and good opinions I might have had about you forever.

If you look at the overall picture he was bad, very bad, I'm dissapointed he wasn't caught alive.

Originally posted by Ranger

He might have done SOME good for Germany in the beginning but what about what he did to the rest of Europe? And then what about his own country after that? they got their asses kicked. Do you think that was good for them and for the rest of us?

The only way I could think of him as a good leader is if he had never done the bad things he did. IMO, it doesn't matter how much good you do, if you then turn around and do evil things you loose any respect and good opinions I might have had about you forever.

If you look at the overall picture he was bad, very bad, I'm dissapointed he wasn't caught alive.

Im dissapointed as well. He was a monster. He did, however, bring Germany out of poverty which is the only good thing he did.

I hope he is burning in hell for all the innocent deaths he caused.

i picked A also. well, so far bush is neither.....they need a 'C' that describes a sneaky, through the backdoor, deceptive, misleading, i say something but do something else...for the u.s. political canidates

I picked "A". The probelm I see here is the US doesn't have a column "A" candidate!!

Hilter didn't really help Germany, even in the beginning.
Those who were pulling his strings, teh money men, boosted up the German economy to finance the war-to-be.

"A" because of gun control, immigration stance and business backround. Besides I don't trust people that represent themselves as squeaky clean - they usually have a hidden agenda.

i chose A too, seems more like a "real" person to me.

wow so far only A's....hmmm

" Hitler was a good leader. He brought Germany out of poverty."

You deserve to die. It's easy to say Hitler was an O.K. guy when your country lost 500,000 men, not 26,000,000+ like Poland or the Soviet Union.

It's people like you that continue to fuel my resantment towards Germans.

Maybe when you goto hell, you and Hitler can have some political discussions about how great of a leader he was?

No need to throw around insults, and loosing 500,000 people is just as bad as 26 million. Lives are lives, and any loss other than natural death or execution for certain crimes is quite unaccepable and horrible. That being said the 'test' is rather interesting, but the way Candidate A is described kind of intentionally sways people from it by the way its worded. Actually the whole thing stinks of something not quite right. The results are not quite suprising, but I would have loved to see the shock on the faces of students after they found out what the candidates were based upon.

Originally posted by PolskieWojsko
" Hitler was a good leader. He brought Germany out of poverty."

You deserve to die. It's easy to say Hitler was an O.K. guy when your country lost 500,000 men, not 26,000,000+ like Poland or the Soviet Union.

It's people like you that continue to fuel my resantment towards Germans.

Maybe when you goto hell, you and Hitler can have some political discussions about how great of a leader he was?

You missed the point. He said Hitler was a good leader. Thats true. Hitler was a good leader. If you can lead your depressed country out of hyper-inflation and turn it into a world power in only a few years, then you're a good leader. What JustAnIllusion didn't say was "Hitler was a good guy" or "Hitler was a smart man". No, Hitler was not a smart man or a good guy, he was one of the most evil men of all time. He is definitly burning in hell for his hienous acts against humanity. There is a difference between the word "leader" and "guy".

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by Slayer]

"Hitler was a good leader."
I usually have an open mind, but this is one issue that is not negotiable...

Go up to a WWII vet and say it to their face, that is if you have the balls to do it. I'll give you the number of my grandfather who lives in Poland.

Perhaps you can tell him how great of a leader Hitler was and how he led to the death of all his brothers?

Originally posted by PolskieWojsko
"Hitler was a good leader."
I usually have an open mind, but this is one issue that is not negotiable...

Go up to a WWII vet and say it to their face, that is if you have the balls to do it. I'll give you the number of my grandfather who lives in Poland.

Perhaps you can tell him how great of a leader Hitler was and how he led to the death of all his brothers?

Just because some one fought against Hitler in WWII doesn't make them right about every issue concerning the war. Like I said, Hitler had great leadership qualities, but he was a terrible man.

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by Slayer]

No, you are wrong. If he was such a great leader, why did he take his life like a coward and abondon his country when the Soviets were knocking on his doorstep?

Would not a great leader fight until the death?

Hitler was a coward who was up to his ears in his own bull, not even close to being a great leader.

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by PolskieWojsko]

Just looking at the descriptions, I would choose B. A sounds like he would probably use the government to meet his own selfish ends.

B sounds more trustworthy to me but then as they say on wall street...

"Past performance does not guarantee future results."

DeltaChaos

Slippery slope though, defending Hitler ;p

In the beginning, he was a Savior for the people.
He gave the people what they wanted...
They wanted to blame their problems on others. They wanted to believe they were a superior race. They wanted revenge for the perceived injustices foisted on them by Treaty of Versailles. Hitler stroked these beliefs and added some of his own, he gave them hope and purpose and pride. In the end he was desperately evil, cold and calculating.
He led them up to great heights only to drag them down into the darkness. He was a skilled leader, but to attach the word "good" to Hitler, well, that only soils goods' name.

Variable

Originally posted by PolskieWojsko
No, you are wrong. If he was such a great leader, why did he take his life like a coward and abondon his country when the Soviets were knocking on his doorstep?

Would not a great leader fight until the death?

Hitler was a coward who was up to his ears in his own bull, not even close to being a great leader.

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by PolskieWojsko]

That's all you can come up with for your defense on why Hitler was not a good leader? Hitler was a coward, and I agree with you - a good leader would fight to the death. But his other ways of gaining his country's support showed that he had qualities of a leader.

[Edited on 18-3-2004 by Slayer]

Originally posted by JustAnIllusion
It was tough, but I picked A because A focused on topics I thought were more important.

I may get flamed for this or whatever, but despite the Holocaust, Hitler was a good leader. He brought Germany out of poverty. Im not saying I liked him, he was a homicidal freak who is most definetly burning in hell. But he did have "some" good qualities in regards to Germany. He could give powerful speeches.

I got your back on that.

I hate everything that that scumsucker did to innocent people during the holocaust,

But the fact remains that he was a leader without equal, and had public speaking skills that I'd turn green over.

However, he was a scumbag that deserved to be drug out into the street, and steamrolled. Otherwise, I liked Adolph Hitler.

Originally posted by PolskieWojsko
" Hitler was a good leader. He brought Germany out of poverty."

You deserve to die. It's easy to say Hitler was an O.K. guy when your country lost 500,000 men, not 26,000,000+ like Poland or the Soviet Union.

It's people like you that continue to fuel my resantment towards Germans.

Maybe when you goto hell, you and Hitler can have some political discussions about how great of a leader he was?

Whoa! OK for one thing nobody deserves to die for stating their opinion, regardless of how emotionally opposed to it you may be.

Also, leadership ability and intellect have little or nothing to do with whether or not a person is "good" or "evil". You should not take offense to it, just because someone says he was a good leader. It doesn't mean good as in lovable, it means good as in effective. Besides, Satan himself is supposed to be one of the most beguiling, and effective, leaders of men, yet he symbolizes the source of all evil and damnation. No matter how successful Hitler may have been as a leader, he will always represent the human manifestation of evil.

Obviously, you have a very personal connection to the issue, so it would be unfair for us to expect you to view this from a purely objective standpoint.

Emotions aside though, Hitler was a very intelligent and effective leader. If that were not true, he would not have been able to influence and control the German people who lived under his rule.

Evil men have to be proficient at manipulating and controlling those suseptible to being influenced, if they want to be successful. They need to be persuasive liars, wolves in sheep's clothing so to speak, in order to bring their plans to fruition.

As for the choices of Candidate A or B, I would have to say none of the above or maybe write in Big Bird. I don't think that, based solely on the information provided, there is a "lesser of two evils". I think they both have qualities that I would look for in a President, but they both also present serious threats to the well-being of the country.

I would vote for a candidate who:
...is a decorated army war veteran
...opposes the use of animals in conducting such research.
...supported restrictions on the use of asbestos, pesticides, and radiation,
...favors government-determined occupational health and safety standards,
...promotes such foods as whole-grain bread and soybeans.
...is a champion of environmental and conservationist programs
...has been a well-known critic of government
...has been involved in tax protest movements
...opposes gun control efforts of the present national government
...is a businessman

But I would not vote for a Presidential candidate who:

...has supported increased restrictions on both the use of and advertising for tobacco products
...believes in the importance of sending troops into foreign countries in order to maintain order therein
...is an advocate of government gun-control measures
...has openly advocated secession
...has earned his fortune from such businesses as alcohol, tobacco...and smuggling