Want to rant about rightwings and conservatives? This is your thread.

[alhoon]

Let it rip.

I hope everyone here realizes that murder ratios have more to do with income inequality, poverty and other chronic issues than the mayor or the governor or whom the electorate picked as a PotUS.

[Coughdrop addict]

I hope everyone here realizes that murder ratios have more to do with income inequality, poverty and other chronic issues than the mayor or the governor or whom the electorate picked as a PotUS.

Well income inequality, poverty and other chronic issues tend to be a lasting problem in Red States, and those things are mostly caused by generations of Republican policies such as shifting the tax burden to those who can least afford it to make their mega-rich donors even richer.

[Cyclops]

I hope everyone here realizes that murder ratios have more to do with income inequality, poverty and other chronic issues than the mayor or the governor or whom the electorate picked as a PotUS.

Its a horribly smug piece, like a carton hero throwing a bomb back into the lap of a cartoon villain.

[Bande Nere]

I hope everyone here realizes that murder ratios have more to do with income inequality, poverty and other chronic issues than the mayor or the governor or whom the electorate picked as a PotUS.

And why is that generally? Policies. Policies are decided by people. People in charge. And who's held power in these states for the last 20 years? Even New Mexico and Georgia were red just up to a minute ago.

I absolutely concur that guns aren't the sole reason why these homicides occur, though I'm quite certain the high numbers ARE. A gun will kill the person you are pissed at long before you realize the idiocy of that act. Even a toddler can shoot a gun and kill or wound someone.

[alhoon]

I absolutely concur that guns aren't the sole reason why these homicides occur, though I'm quite certain the high numbers ARE. A gun will kill the person you are pissed at long before you realize the idiocy of that act. Even a toddler can shoot a gun and kill or wound someone.

That's why all sane governments have taken the guns from their citizens. And as Ukraine showed us, when you actually need armed militias, you can do give them out.

[sumskilz]

I hope everyone here realizes that murder ratios have more to do with... poverty

And yet:

The poorest place in the United States is not a dusty Texas border town, a hollow in Appalachia, a remote Indian reservation, or a blighted urban neighborhood. It has no slums or homeless people. No one who lives there is shabbily dressed or has to go hungry. Crime is virtually non-existent.

It's as if it never occurs to anyone that the correlation between poverty and murder rates could be explained by the fact that the types of behaviors that lead to high murder rates also lead to poverty. As I've pointed out before, people deemed to be living in poverty in the US generally have as much material wealth as median income people the majority of European countries. We're not talking about crime due to stealing food. On the other hand, I'll accept your more general "chronic issues" claim.

[PointOfViewGun]

And yet:

It's as if it never occurs to anyone that the correlation between poverty and murder rates could be explained by the fact that the types of behaviors that lead to high murder rates also lead to poverty. As I've pointed out before, people deemed to be living in poverty in the US generally have as much material wealth as median income people the majority of European countries. We're not talking about crime due to stealing food. On the other hand, I'll accept your more general "chronic issues" claim.

Is that article, which is hidden behind a paywall, suggesting that homeless people have more wealth than those in that particular area the article is concerned with?

[sumskilz]

Is that article, which is hidden behind a paywall, suggesting that homeless people have more wealth than those in that particular area the article is concerned with?

No, but it undermines the assumption that high poverty levels produce high crimes rates. I don't know what percentage of urban crime is committed by homeless people, but as I recall, homeless people in the US are most often homeless due to mental illness and/or drug addiction, which supports the hypothesis that poverty and crime may be caused by the same factors rather than poverty being the cause of crime. It's not a simple problem to unravel.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

I guess there would be a greater corelation between murder and opiod misuse (in any form), as less impulse control leads to more violent crimes.

[alhoon]

All these are valid statements but not ranting. A discussion about the causes of high crime and poverty and perhaps guns or other issues is a fascinating discussion ... for the academy. This is a thread to blow off steam when some conservatives, far-right and alt-right are acting stupid.
So, things like "Gun-nuts are a serious cause of high murder rates!!!!111 Shame on the politicucks that support them!" is fitting for this thread.
Posts like "let's take a look at the causes of poverty and the causes of crime before we correlate poverty and crime." deserve their own threads.

[PointOfViewGun]

No, but it undermines the assumption that high poverty levels produce high crimes rates. I don't know what percentage of urban crime is committed by homeless people, but as I recall, homeless people in the US are most often homeless due to mental illness and/or drug addiction, which supports the hypothesis that poverty and crime may be caused by the same factors rather than poverty being the cause of crime. It's not a simple problem to unravel.

The quote you posted but with highlights:

The poorest place in the United States is not a dusty Texas border town, a hollow in Appalachia, a remote Indian reservation, or a blighted urban neighborhood. It has no slums or homeless people. No one who lives there is shabbily dressed or has to go hungry. Crime is virtually non-existent.

This implies that homeless people have more wealth compared to the poorest place in the USA. You might notice people with mental health or addiction problems more on the street but those are more of byproducts of homelessness than actual causes of it.

[sumskilz]

This implies that homeless people have more wealth compared to the poorest place in the USA.

No, it doesn't. Homeless people don't represent the statistical median income in any municipality.

[Bande Nere]

And yet:

Oh my Lord. Poor Jews? Thanks, Soros. [I'm being sarcastic]

[PointOfViewGun]

No, it doesn't. Homeless people don't represent the statistical median income in any municipality.

That's not exactly the right way to measure poverty, especially when one, as in your article, checks if there are homeless people or not. The article looks at a town with just 21 thousand people. Not exactly the kind of places we're looking for. It's a nice statistical point to play with as if it means more. Yet, poverty means and plays differently in different places.

[Bande Nere]

Is that article, which is hidden behind a paywall, suggesting that homeless people have more wealth than those in that particular area the article is concerned with?

Here's the wiki of the township.

[sumskilz]

That's not exactly the right way to measure poverty, especially when one, as in your article, checks if there are homeless people or not. The article looks at a town with just 21 thousand people. Not exactly the kind of places we're looking for.

Okay...

Kiryas Joel is the poorest place in the country.

According to the latest round of U.S. Census figures, released late last year, the village has the highest poverty rate in the nation, and the largest percentage of residents who receive food stamps. Only one other place in the 50 states has a lower median income. The median household income in Kiryas Joel is $15,848; in Carbondale, Ill., it’s $15,799.

More than two-thirds of Kiryas Joel residents live below the federal poverty line and more than 40 percent receive food stamps, according to the American Community Survey, a U.S. Census Bureau study of every place in the country with 20,000 residents or more.

That makes the village poorer than crumbling big cities like Detroit and noted slums like East St. Louis, and by far the poorest place in the mid-Hudson.

The poverty rate in Newburgh, the next-poorest place, is 28 percent. Regionwide, it’s about 11.5 percent. Places in the country with poverty rates similar to Kiryas Joel are mostly college towns with large populations of students who don’t have full-time jobs.

Kiryas Joel is an unusual place for the US. A major difference is culture, but if culture produces a radically different outcome with a poverty rate more than twice that of Detroit, then poverty is not the primary cause of crime, certainly not murder rates.

You can argue with the measure being used, but it's the same measure typically used to argue that poverty is the primary cause of crime. The original conversation was about what it is in Democrat run cities that leads to murder rates being so high.

[PointOfViewGun]

Here's the wiki of the township.

It's basically a cult town. Interesting how the NYT chose this town and NYT article was chosen for this thread...

Okay...

Kiryas Joel is an unusual place for the US. A major difference is culture, but if culture produces a radically different outcome with a poverty rate more than twice that of Detroit, then poverty is not the primary cause of crime, certainly not murder rates.

You can argue with the measure being used, but it's same measure typically used to argue that poverty is the primary cause of crime. The original conversation was about what it is in Democrat run cities that leads to murder rates being so high.

To use a town with 21 thousand people to pass judgment about trends in major cities is just improper usage of statistics.

[sumskilz]

To use a town with 21 thousand people to pass judgment about trends in major cities is just improper usage of statistics.

I didn't pass any judgment on the cities. I pointed out evidence that undermines a common assumption about the cause(s) of violent crime.

[PointOfViewGun]

I didn't pass any judgment on the cities. I pointed out evidence that undermines a common assumption about the cause(s) of violent crime.

That is a judgment.

[Bande Nere]

From what I've read so far, the low levels of crime in that town are probably due to the orthodox gang running the community. Who are also the only ones doing most of the grievous crimes BTW.

So I guess those dem cities need more cops.