Why is the US the most criminally violent ''First World'' nation of all?

check your statistics. people in blue states take marijuana. in many cases legal or even medicinal.

"drug of choice " in the red states is probably meth or opioid, taken by trump's "tough guys." like police, ptsd former military, and bikers.

 

And we have living among us people from all of those countries plus Poles and Russians Germans and French Swiss and Austrians Turks and Armenians. The miracle is that we do not have even more violence than we do and on a grander scale.

 

Good question. I would suggest a few things.

Fist, compared to all others, America is a very young nation- and our culture is immature. Think of this as you would the immaturity of young people, who are often bold but brash, and often doing things like they thought tomorrow was irrelevant to what we do today. European nations are thousands of years older. Maturity has developed in culture there; values have been refined, and are passed to the next generation by example of both parentage and social standards.. It reminds me of a saying from the aviation industry- "There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." Time tempers judgement; for a society, that means many generations.

Of course that maturity is never complete or unchanging in a society, because things change- the old die, the young inherit the task of continuing the work, and the challenges and desires to try something else are always there. But America was in effect a totally new society and nation, and carved out of wilderness often by sheer courage without the guidance or protection of organized law. New rules, new culture.

And the saying about guns is of course true and logical. People were killing people, sometimes hundreds or thousands, long before guns or sophisticated weapons come along. A murderer's choice of weapons is not near as important as their state of mind, because anything can be a weapon. People rant about and fear "assault rifles" because that has been turned into a buzzword and scare tactic. In fact, there is another weapon that is responsible for more murders than all rifles of all kinds put together- and you can't regulate them. That weapon- fists and feet, used to beat people to death.

Society matures when it lives by and embeds the best fundamental values in the children it raises. They pass that forward, with whatever improvements they can add, and it gets stronger. It is indeed the people and the culture values we build into our society that controls our quality of life. These values are fundamental, and should be obvious to all- but some minds need to reject the established values just as many young people think their parents are stupid and have to do it their own way. Then 20 years later find their parents have learned a lot...

It IS the people; and the consistency of our culture. We're failing to use social standards effectively, failing to place sufficient value on the things that make the difference. Personal responsibility, identity, integrity, self-discipline, strength of character. Parents cannot teach what they do not have or understand, so it's a slow process- and we have allowed it to slide backwards for the last 50 years or so, so that problem has increased.

There are a couple of other old sayings that might apply here.

"This too shall pass". and- "That which does not kill us makes up stronger". IF we fix our cultural attitudes and values- we empower ourselves to fix just about everything. Nothing we do without that will change our course in the long run.

 

Wholly unwarranted assumption. Along with marijuana blue states have a cocaine problem the same opioid problem as in red states, or Big blue cities wouldn't be issuing cops and other first responders Narcan in wholesale quantities. In red states the primary addictive vector for opioids is prescription meds.

 

Well I see you say my conclusion is racist. How about you try that with the statistics I used to back up my conclusion?

No? I didn’t think so.

 

Why do you keep ignoring the reality that it's society as a whole, and the race hustlers in particular, that makes a big deal out of the Hispanic/Latino classification?

This isn't about me getting through the night, this is about how it is in the real world.

If you're not going to face the reality that Hispanics DO NOT fall neatly into the 'white' category, then I guess we're done here. Sleep peacefully in your dreamworld.

 

No, people are the source of racism. You're either going to hate or you're not. What you are saying is much like blaming a gun for killing. You take the responsibility completely out of people's hands.

 

That's true, the US does have a high wealth gap, but I'm unclear in exactly what mechanism would cause that to increase violent crime. How does the wealth gap increase crime?

 

As has been pointed out, drug use in Switzerland is very common, they just handle it differently. Their approach to drug use it probably the most progressive in the world, but let's not forget that what works in one country does not necessarily work in every country.

Switzerland couldn’t stop drug users. So it started supporting them.
The Swiss people took drastic measures to reduce the number of people dying from opioid overdose. Their approach is effective – and unorthodox. The first in a series describing how Europeans have tackled their overdose issues.
https://www.northcarolinahealthnews...top-drug-users-so-it-started-supporting-them/

ZURICH and GENEVA, Switzerland — Today, Platzspitz Park serves as a peaceful respite for those meandering along the Limmat River and past the Swiss National Museum. But it’s best known by the nickname “Needle Park.”

That’s because in the 1980s the park was hijacked by thousands of heroin users and dealers. The space, despite being in the heart of downtown Zurich, became one of the most famous examples of Switzerland’s “open drug” scenes.
.
.
And in 1994, Switzerland went on to pass one of the most progressive and controversial drug policies in the world, which included the dispensing of heroin.
.
.
The majority of Swiss citizens supported the measures, despite some pushback inside and outside the country.
.
.
The nation cut its drug overdose deaths significantly. HIV and Hepatitis C infection rates dropped. And crime rates also dropped.

 

We'll get there. This all ends in a big boom.

 

You are the one here who is hell bent on making everything about race, not me. You bring it up in practically every post, which is typical behavior of blame shifters. Everyone has to be categorized based on race, religion, or national origin so you can argue: "problems exist because of people like THEM, not because of people like ME".

 

Wealth gap is caused by opportunity gap, which puts people on the wrong path from young age, and it can only be fixed by better education, but as we know that is easier said than done. Better educated people commit less crime, they use less drugs, they earn more money, they are more productive, they have less abortions and they have less divorces and make better parents, which leads to more productive next generation.

 

Well for the record Hispanics are not white. Or specifically they’re not caucasoids. Hispanics are mongoloids moreso than caucasoid.

 

You are attributing the wealth gap to a single cause, the "opportunity gap?" How does this "opportunity gap" "puts people on the wrong path?"

Sorry that sounds super vague and doesn't sound like a factor in explaining violent crime.

 

That's absurd.

 

On what grounds? They originate from the native Americans who were unequivocally mongoloid who passed over the Bering strait thousands of years ago. Yes they interbred with the Spaniards but not enough to dilute the mongoloid bloodline.

You can’t undermine 10,000+ years of genetic code with 200 years of suboptimal interbreeding that’s preposterous.

 

What percent of the b

No, we have a Male problem.
Remove all males out of the equation and see how much crime we have.

 

Well that’s sort of true but not really the issue. Meaning we could say the same thing with it being a human problem. Remove humans and see how much crime. But all you’ve done is zoomed out.

Yes it’s a human problem and yes that problem becomes more focused when you look at males... but if you continue to zoom in you find a much higher problem of violent crime within the black male population than others.

Our violent crime rate would reduce by 40-50% by removing the statistics of 5-6% of our population. You don’t think that’s a problem?

 

Sorry but your post is an oversimplification and missing the reality.

For instance did you know the black drug dealers now deal in meth?

And there are plenty of black folks who do meth as well.

 

we're not supposed to point to those inconvenience statistics, that's "racist"...dontchya know?

 

Its not a single source, but a big contributor. People born poor neighborhoods will end up in bad schools and their future outlook is reduced right off the bat compared to people born in better neighborhoods. A different education system, which provides good education even to poorer people would make a difference.

 

I think this statement, "You can’t undermine 10,000+ years of genetic code with 200 years of suboptimal interbreeding that’s preposterous," probably is worth it's own discussion, but that's for another thread.

What you are describing are Mestizos, not "Hispanics." Hispanics is a made up term by the US Census to include everyone in Latin America and the islands as one ethnic group, regardless of race. There are Black Dominicans, Asian Peruvians, and White Argentinians, but to the Census bureau, they are all "Hispanic."

In a less politicized word, we wouldn't use the term Hispanic at all because it's mostly useless (it's certainly useless in describing ethnicity). But I do think Mestizo's would be a more logical and scientifically correct category to use, since it does describe a closer biological and cultural relationship. However politically, Hispanic is more useful so we'll continue to be wrong.

 

All of that was true long before we had such a large wealth gap. How exactly is the wealth gap involved?

 

I see this thread has taken on some racial tones.

While the crime numbers mentioned are accurate, they don't apply to all black people- we have many very fine black citizens. So I don't think color alone is a factor in black misconduct- I think culture is. Culture embeds values, standards and beliefs, good or bad in children who grow up, live by those things- and have children lacking the same values. The gap in black values compared to others is very wide.
Any common denominator such as color tends to become a representation of what that culture embraces, and thus it's not irrational to believe that black people can be dangerous company. That penalizes the good black citizens, and while that's unfair, it is also unfair to demand people ignore indications of risk.

I've long thought that the black leadership should focus intensely on changing these cultural issues within their community, strengthen their family structures and value systems. I realize they don't want to criticize their own- and they protest both criticism and prosecution of black violence, lately calling it all racism. But it's fact. not racism, and that can only be changed by the black community. Accepting the responsibility and the premise that racism is the reason for their culture issues means society is trying to solve a problem it has no power to solve, and the people who do have the power to solve it will not try. No solution- ever.

I tend to think society has accepted far too much of responsibility for solving black problems, which is a prime reason why the black community fails to address it- "somebody else" is supposed to do that. That's unfortunate, because it only makes things worse, and the black community will suffer most. 89% of murders of black people are committed by black people. Thus- a community of 13% creates 89% of the deaths, it suffers, while the remaining 87% of our population are responsible for only 11% of their deaths. This clearly indicates how internal the issue of black criminal conduct is, they prey on themselves, are their own worst enemies by far. But it's the culture, not the color that makes this true. Unfortunately those can't be separated.

 

I shared what I see as a big contributor. If you disagree than education contributes to it, then feel free to share your views if you like.

Besides, I don't think the size of the wealth gap causes more crime, - its poverty which causes it and we have always had poverty in US, and there has not been any great change to it in decades. If you earned $15K a year, would you commit more crime if the average income was $100K vs $50K?