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0 pointslong_time_gone4y ago0 comments

> But are those upset people actually questioning their position, or defending it?

If they aren't questioning their assumptions, then they are engaging on the wrin

> Even the basic premise of the article has been essentially strawmaned - comparing states to cities

It doesn't really compare cities to states. It mentions how cities are in states, which we know. It is about how Republicans use crime in cities as a hammer to hit Democratic policies and this data shows that narrative might not reflect reality.

> look at the socioeconomic factors at play in the various locations, etc.

These are also a function of government in some way, so it's hard to add this to the analysis without biasing the data.

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giantg24y ago· 2 in thread

"It is about how Republicans use crime in cities as a hammer to hit Democratic policies and this data shows that narrative might not reflect reality."

If it's not looking at cities, then how can it refute that claim?

Is it not possible that city murder rates drag up the murder rate for an entire state? Just looking at the top state for murder rate we see the state level is about 12, while the first 3 cities in murder rate are all over 30 and run by Democrats. I'm not saying that this validates Republicans positions, but it certainly doesn't provide evidence against it.

My whole point is that this is a distraction.

long_time_goneOP4y ago

> I'm not saying that this validates Republicans positions, but it certainly doesn't provide evidence against it.

But it does. It shows that Democratic run states (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, etc.) have lower murder rates than Republican run states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, etc.) REGARDLESS of what the murder rate is in cities (of which Democratic-run states states tend to have more of).

None of the most urbanized states (NJ, CA, MA, NV, etc.) are in the top-10 murder for states [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urbanization_in_the_United_Sta...

giantg24y ago

"It shows that Democratic run states (California, New York, Illinois, Washington, etc.) have lower murder rates than Republican run states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, etc.)"

It's only showing the top ten. If it's actually claiming that, then we would need to see the comparison of all states, because some of the Republican run states have lower rates than some some of the Democrat run states. So it seems that we can't make that absolute statement.

We can see things like how New England is split between party and yet the rates are similarly low regardless of party running the state (still not addressing the city level claims). The article makes no mention of this. It simply picks the top ten, as Republicans could do for the cities with the highest murder rate. Neither address policies or the true underlying issues.

On top of that, it's looking at states that voted for Trump. Why did they choose this instead of looking at the governor's party? If they did that, the top state would flip categories.

Again, this article feel like a distraction that is highly politicized, mismatches counter argument to argument, and offers very little actual substance. Not to mention, the article is not presented in a way that would do anything other than validate one side's already held belief rather than dig into the topic.

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