Hmm, a much more detailed "American" quiz...

[altivo]

From lobowolf, this one is a lot more comprehensive, though as usual OKCupid gets a black mark from me for those pointless percentiles at the end.

Tourist You scored 24 Patriotic, 11 Lazy, 0 Power Hungry, and 90 General Knowledge!

Congrats! You know a lot about America, without actually possessing the personal stereotypical American characteristics. Perhaps you are an American who simply doesn't act as lazy and power hungry as most of the others. Or perhaps you googled a few questions to get some answers..or maybe you just paid attention in class?

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 0% on Patriotic You scored higher than 0% on Lazy You scored higher than 0% on Power Hungry You scored higher than 0% on Gen Knowledge

Link: The Just How American Are You? Test written by g_nome on Ok Cupid

Evidently no one else in my age group has even taken this yet. Oh, and I know why I got only 90 in "general knowledge". It was because I refuse to say that the words "under god" come after "one nation" in the Pledge of Allegiance. They don't belong in there and should be removed. They were only inserted during the great "godless communists" panic of the early 1950s, and were not part of the original Pledge. So I answered "one nation, indivisible" which is the original and correct wording.

Comments

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't think the results are accurate at all (but hey, it's a meme...since when are they?)

Probably the biggest problem that I had with this one is that I'm really a Canadian spy sent here to blend in with you Americans, and apparently I'm doing much too well.

You don't know how much I just want to spell "color," and "neighbor" and "check" the right way.

*Salutes the Canadian flag*

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, the current Canadian flag is certainly much more handsome than the US one, history or no. Though I remember before that flag was adopted. The one they had back then was just as much a mishmosh design as the US has.

Canadians are Americans anyway. Even Mexicans are Americans. ;p

Maybe I'm a Canadian plant too. Lessee... One great-grandmother was French Canadian and actually spoke French with her family. Another set of great grandparents were English speaking Canadians, farm people from near Elgin, Ontario. So that's three-eighths. My father was three quarters Canadian and never knew it. :) In fact, his great-great grandfather fought on the British side in the American Revolution, with Butler's Rangers.

[niko-winterset.livejournal.com]

Wow, I guess you do learn something new everyday. I never knew that 'under god' was not in the original pledge of allegiance. Why do they never mention that fact when they do news stories about trying to remove that from the pledge? Perhaps because if the truth was out there would be less resistance to the change back to the original?

Storm

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I dunno what news stories you've looked at or heard, but the complete ones do mention it. And it's true. Those two words were added by act of Congress sometime between 1952 and 1954 if I recall the date correctly. Right at the height of the McCarthy witch hunts.

Of course, media purveyors who are catering to the right will be inclined to "forget" this little fact. And in general, the media doesn't seem to research its history very well any more. A few years ago they made a huge stink about a Russian satellite that was going to fall from the sky and land somewhere unpredictable. But they forgot that the US space station "SkyLab" had done the same thing years before that. Never mentioned it.

Of course the entire pledge is fairly new, 20th century stuff I think. It doesn't have the historic standing of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution by any means. In fact, I generally refuse to say it on the principle that if I owe any allegiance, it is certainly NOT to a piece of cloth.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Shoulda checked this right away to get it into a single comment. The Pledge was first published in 1892, and was authored by Francis Bellamy. Even though he was a Christian minister, he did not include the words "under god" and in fact, did not even approve of the change made in the 1920s to replace "my flag" with "the flag of the United States of America."

Bellamy's original intent was to provide an exercise for school children, bless his little jingoistic mind. He had wanted to include a reference to "equality for all" but knew that his school superintendents were opposed to equality for women or blacks. (!!!)

Congress added the words "under god" in 1954. One account of the full history can be found here.