glass of water at hand, and without consulting his phone, eddie 1 began asking charles ashley the second part of his quiz .
eddie began by giving charles the same instruction he had given eddie 2 - “we will start with some yes or no questions. just answer yes or no, even if you think there might be some ambiguity or gray area. go with what is more than 50 percent.”
charles nodded his assent, and eddie proceeded:
do you think that there are bad people in the world?
obviously.
i will take that as a yes. do you think that the bad people should all be locked up?
no.
why not ?
because the world would then be one big prison, with nobody left to run it.
golly, that is kind of negative, if you do not mind my saying so.
say whatever you want.
all right, i will not digress. next question: do you think all bad people should be killed?
no.
i think i know your answer, but why not?
who would be left to kill them?
i will try one more. do you think all bad people should be sent to reeducation camps to be turned into good people?
ha ha ha.
excuse me?
that question is so ridiculous on so many levels i do not know where to begin to break it down.
you know, mr ashley, with all due respect, i do not think you are the person to be testing or demonstrating my quiz on.
what would you suggest?
maybe you could pick a completely ordinary person off the street and i could try the quiz on him or her.
you think i can do that? just have ordinary people picked up on the street for no reason?
i think you can. you did it to me, didn’t you? and besides, you would have a reason - to test my quiz on an ordinary person.
you know, i am not sure all this palaver is getting us anywhere.
who are you anyway, mr ashley? i am sure you did not mean to be rude, but you did not really introduce yourself to me in any meanngful manner when i came here.
you did not come here, you were brought here.
oh. can i ask you another question?
go for it.
are you a good person or a bad person?