The left responded to Trump's portrayal of the country by thinking back to this.
This was a pretty famous ad. Be afraid. Be very afraid. If you don't vote for George H.W. Bush, Dukakis is going to let a bunch of scary black people out of prison, and they'll come and kill you, but Bush will kill the fuck out of them first. Back in 1988, the country actually did have a higher crime rate, based on a variety of factors that scholars still debate. The intermingling of crime, race and racism, particularly in the 1980s, though, was a big political deal.
Oh, and the Clintons were deep in that mess.
Then, in the 1990s, the crime rate started to go down. And it kept going down. Even when the economy tanked, it didn't really go back up. Why not? Um...
Uh...
...
We don't really know, but the crime rate went down. I'm a big fan of facts. Numbers and facts are cool. If you ever want the real shit on crime in the US, here's the link.
Some people, though, didn't get the message, or just enjoy lying about every fucking think. Like Donald Trump. Hence his convention acceptance speech and inaugural speech. There is no crime wave.
Now, take the phrase, "we have an epidemic of crime," and replace the word, "crime," with the phrase, "gun violence."
Are you still reading? Did you cringe, or get really pissed off, or something like that?
The statement would be equally false, but today's left would be all in on it.
There is no epidemic of "gun violence," by any reasonable definition of the word, "epidemic." Homicides are not going up, nor are other violent crimes, and when today's left starts getting into this shit, they are doing exactly what Donald Trump did during his convention speech and the American carnage speech. FBI crime statistics. Trump was full of shit, and don't start spewing the same nonsense with just a minor turn of phrase.
This weekend is the "March for
But, wait! What kills children? Why, I'm glad you asked. We have numbers for that, thanks to the CDC. Death rates by age group. Here's the 2017 report. Death rates are reported by age group. Let's focus on the 15-24 age range. Scroll down to Table 6, Page 32.
OK, for comparison, how many people died at Parkland? 17. How many people die in school shootings? Since Sandy Hook, over 400. Why use that rather than total firearm deaths? Because that gets into a range of other types of crime, and this march is about school shootings, let's be real.
When children die, that is tragic for their family and friends. Let's put these tragedies in perspective, though. There are, after all, more than 300,000,000 in this country, and tragedies happen every day. You just never hear nor read about them. Out of sight, out of mind. That's why I always remind people about waterborne pathogens in this context.
Compare that to Table 6 in the CDC report. 997 deaths among the 15-24 age group in 2015 alone from heart disease. You probably think of that as an oldsters's problem. Kids are more likely to die of heart disease than a school shooting.
By far. It ain't close. Why don't you hear/read about the kids dying of heart disease? What do I keep telling you? "The paradox of news." If it is too common, it doesn't get news coverage. Kids dying of heart disease is common enough that nobody covers it in the news. You just don't think about it. But, it is way more common than school shootings.
12,514 accidental deaths. Most of them car accidents. 2015 alone.
I could keep going through those statistics, but this is the basic point of how you should assess competing risks. School shootings are very, very rare, and the risks they pose are tiny if you actually put them on an objective scale.
However, the fact of their occurrence draws attention from liberals beyond their actual frequency or risk, just as the occurrence of crime draws attention from Trump beyond its actual frequency or risk.
When Donald Trump finds stories of people who were victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants or the MS-13 gang, those crimes happened, and they are tragic. We, as a polity, need to keep a sense of perspective, though, by understanding proportionality. Moreover, putting those crimes in perspective by pointing out the lack of an increase in the crime rate is no more cold-blooded than anything I have written here. It is the same process.
The Buchler-Gekko rule applies: Math, for lack of a better word, is good. Math is right. Math works. Math clarifies, cuts through...
Don't be like Donald Trump.
Related Posts :
Iran issues oil warning as UAE says production can rise
Days from Brexit crunch meeting, Britain’s Theresa May calls for unity
Pakistan: Bomb kills three oil company employees in southwest region
Iran Warns Neighboring Oil Exporters That There Will Be Consequences If Countries Stop Buying Iranian Oil
U.S. Is Determined To Reduce Iran's Oil Revenue To Zero