Where are you coming from?

Your characterizing individuals as "pawns" because they are, demonstrably, influenced by demographic factors, is not valid.:

 

Right wing media often provides information that does not square with reality.

 

I can.

 

Poverty is worse elsewhere.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate

 

California does not have the highest poverty rate.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_poverty_rate

 

Well, how do you explain those who are outliers in your examples? Genetics?

 

Going state by state, there is a higher incidence gun deaths, per Capita, in Red states than in Blue states.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/

 

You missed my point. I’m simply opposed to using our differences as weapons politically or socially.

 

Which is why stat by state is bogus since most of the gun violence occurs in cities which are mostly blue even in red States.

 

Not on a per capita basis.

 

Oh no. Not another one! Seems like every day someone makes this mistake. Your measure is useless. The supplemental poverty measure is the “real poverty rate”.
https://www.politifact.com/californ...alifornia-has-nations-highest-poverty-rate-w/

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.co...lifornia-poverty-rate-20180913-htmlstory.html

 

Now you're just being stubborn. Look at the original post. If fifty percent of the gun violence is occuring in 127 cities that make up 6 percent of the population. There is no way mathematically for the per capita ratios elsewhere to exceed that of those cities.

 

There are no "outliers" unless you need to pretend that someone is claiming that a finite number of significant demographic factors are 100% determinative.

 

Pretending that demographic patterns that show significant correlations are "weapons" is a perversion of the empirical data in which no one is either endorsed or indicted.

Is a well-educated, affluent, young Black woman in Boston inclined to have a differing political orientation from an old, poor White guy with limited education in Biloxi?

Education, affluence, age, race, and geographical difference do contribute to differing perspectives.

Insinuating value judgments into the objective disparities is inappropriate.

 

Which has nothing to do with what I said.

 

"No such factors". Is that the hyperbolic strawman you want to argue against? The truth is that you think of yourself and others first and foremost as members of groups rather than individuals; at least that's how you post, every time, absolutely every time. Factors are one thing. We all got factors, but we are not the sum of our group identities. We are first and foremost individuals.

 

Actually, it's only 1) their political opposition, and 2) their favored victim classes du jour that are allowed to go into alternatively insulting or angelic groups.

As for any negative or even mildly questionable categorizing of themselves? "Woah buddy, check your unfair generalizations!" They are hypocritical like that.

Try putting any of their side into unfavorable groups, even numerically calculable groups not based on horseshit like "most and least educated states" and watch them howl like scalded cats. This OP howls all the time, want to see it? Call them a "leftist."

 

This group, that group, some individuals are so desperate to believe and belong that they would rather be in a hated group than have to stand alone as an individuals.

 

When did you decide value judgments are inappropriate? I’m glad we agree on this today, but your posting history contradicts this current statement.

 

I’m asking what you think accounts for your factors not being 100% determinative if you like that phrasing better. Same question.

 

Education: BA. Grew up in urban IN, living 15 years now in rural WA.

So what does that mean?

 

Yet in red states you dont dodge bullets and dont even bother locking your house, why is that?

 

But isn't that the whole point of your OP.

 

Did not your signature once claim that liberals didn’t understand mathematics?

There are more crimes in cities because there are more people there. But on a per capita basis, for instance, crimes per 100,000 people, there isn’t more crime in cities than in rural areas.

Alaska, New Mexico, and Nevada have rather high crime rates yet are mostly rural states. Incidentally the Northwest has a much lower crime rate than the Bible Belt, by more than half. In Louisiana, perhaps the most corrupt state in the union, the murder rate is almost 6 times what it is in Oregon or Idaho.

Currently I live in Portland and the crime rate in my immediate neighborhood is close to zero. Most my life I lived in Boulder Colorado. I once lost my wallet with close to $300 cash in it. About the time I realized that I had lost it, my phone rang. On the other end was a young stoner. “Hey man, I found your wallet”. Sure enough, I drove to the parking lot where he was. They they were, four young men, the smoke still drifting out the window... But then that was kind of the nature of Boulder, that honesty. I even once ran into a woman who had also come from the Boulder area. In our short conversation, she brought up the fact that she missed the lack of petty theft that seems to be rife everywhere else.

 

Can’t say that I ever had to dodge a bullet, or had anyone break into my home when I wasn’t home, even when I forgot to lock the door.