Pax on both houses: Facebook Exchange With Xtian Fundamentalist Friend About Violence In U.S. Cities

Image result for "pax on both houses" trump lie

Karen, you say that "Every city that's been run by Democrats since the time of FDR is plagued by crime."

Nonsensical conservative "talking points" aside, here is a useful summary of actual crime statistics culled from FBI's annual reports over the last 25 years:

1Violent crime in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. The two most commonly cited sources of crime statistics in the U.S. both show a substantial decline in the violent crime rate since it peaked in the early 1990s. One is an annual report by the FBI of serious crimes reported to police in approximately 18,000 jurisdictions around the country. The other is an annual survey of more than 90,000 households conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which asks Americans ages 12 and older whether they were victims of crime, regardless of whether they reported those crimes to the police.

Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 49% between 1993 and 2017. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 74% during that span. (For both studies, 2017 is the most recent full year of data.) The long-term decline in violent crime hasn’t been uninterrupted, though. The FBI, for instance, reported increases in the violent crime rate between 2004 and 2006 and again between 2014 and 2016.

Crime rates have fallen since the early 1990s

2Property crime has declined significantly over the long term. Like the violent crime rate, the U.S. property crime rate today is far below its peak level. FBI data show that the rate fell by 50% between 1993 and 2017, while BJS reports a decline of 69% during that span. Property crime includes offenses such as burglary, theft and motor vehicle theft, and it is generally far more common than violent crime.

Public perception of crime rate at odds with data

3Public perceptions about crime in the U.S. often don’t align with the data. Opinion surveys regularly find that Americans believe crime is up nationally, even when the data show it is down. In 18 of 22 Gallup surveys since 1993 that have asked about national crime, at least six-in-ten Americans said there was more crime in the U.S.compared with the year before, despite the generally downward trend in national violent and property crime rates during most of that period.

Pew Research Center surveys have found a similar pattern. In a survey in late 2016, 57% of registered voters said crime in the U.S. had gotten worse since 2008, even though FBI and BJS data show that violent and property crime rates declined by double-digit percentagesduring that span.

While perceptions of rising crime at the national level are common, fewer Americans tend to say crime is up when asked about the local level. In all 21 Gallup surveys that have included the question since 1996, no more than about half of Americans have said crime is up in their area compared with the year before.

4There are large geographic variations in crime rates. The BJS data don’t allow for specific geographic comparisons, but the FBI data show big differences from state to state and city to city. In 2017, there were more than 600 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in Alaska, New Mexico and Tennessee. By contrast, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont had rates below 200 violent crimes per 100,000 residents. And while Chicago has drawn widespread attention for its soaring murder total in recent years, its murder rate in 2017 – 24.1 murders and non-negligent manslaughters per 100,000 residents – was less than half of the rates in St. Louis (66.1 per 100,000) and Baltimore (55.8 per 100,000). The FBI notes that various factors might influence a particular area’s crime rate, including its population density and economic conditions.

Now consider this eyeopening report from Britain's "The Guardian":
"Meet The Republicans Representing Cities With A Higher Murder Rate Than Chicago"
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/12/deadliest-cities-gun-control-laws-congress-chicago

An even more revealing fact is that U.S. crime rates - particularly murder rates - are often three to ten times higher in "red" American states than they are anywhere in Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

Compared to European nations, we Americans are barbarian people who slaughter our kind "just for the hell of it," a fact that leaves the rest of the developed world slack-jawed in disbelief.

Adjusting a metaphor that you yourself often use: "Putting lipstick on a fat pig -- or even a thin pig -- is still putting lipstick on a pig."

Viewed against the backdrop of European crime rates, everywhere in America -- whether rural or urban -- is still "The Wild West," six shooters blazing, Native American people-of-color conceived as subhumans fit for target practice.

The Origin Of White Supremacy: "An Indigenous Peoples' History Of The United States"

By Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-origin-of-white-supremacy.html

Furthermore, "FBI data show big differences from state to state and city to city. In 2017, there were more than 600 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in Alaska, New Mexico and Tennessee. By contrast, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont had rates below 200 violent crimes per 100,000 residents."

The upshot?

Two of three American states with the highest crime rates voted for Trump in 2016 - and the one state (New Mexico) that went for Hillary was a "relatively close call" as well as a state that has been traditionally Republican

In that same 2016 election year, all three states with the lowest crime rates voted for Hillary.

5 Facts Abou Crime In The U.S.

Pew Research Center

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/03/5-facts-about-crime-in-the-u-s/

The longer we continue our Facebook conversation Karen, the more I realize that you rely on partisan talking points and lousy data, or you simply make up numbers, regularly alleging that "tens of thousands of people" or "millions of people" do such-in-such when in fact, you're just plucking those numbers out of your ass.

I also realize that you don't know how to evaluate the trustworthiness of sources, nor do you know how to conduct research, resorting for "information" to "conservative" "Christian" talk shows, QAnon and a wide spectrum of sites a la Alex Jones that claim Hillary operated a child sex slave ring in the basement of Comet Pizzeria. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/fire-pizzagate-shop-reignites-conspiracy-theorists-who-find-home-facebook-n965956

The inconvenient truth is that to discern, manage, contextualize and meaningful cross-reference factual truth, you need more intellectual training, and -- prepare yourself! -- such training is most easily gotten by studying with "the intellectual elites."

Not surprisingly, Trump (like you) abuses, mangles and rapes truth all the time, or, -- even worse -- just makes shit up.

Donald "Pus Gargle" Trump Makes Shit Up. Crowds Cheer. | made w/ Imgflip meme maker

The core difficulty is that you want to be lied to in order to confirm your biases, whereas those of us trained in "The Academy" want the truth, and are greatful when our factual errors are corrected.

Consider the following fact-checked statements:

Image result for trump's crime statistics