Californian Quagmire, Part II
I read this comment at someone else's site yesterday and felt the need to elaborate on my post from a few days ago.
Lets see: US Census puts the population at 35,993,799.
I don't have a good way to estimate our presence there, but I think we would all agree 200,000.
2,394/35,993,799 = 0.00665% as a murder rate.
905/ 200,000 = 0.453% as a murder rate.
One of those numbers is 68 times bigger than the other.
Stupid point to make and the politics here usually has more ingerity as a conversation.
Maybe we should worry that really bad math like this is considered a good agrument. And if I wasn't supposed to be getting ready for work I am sure I could come up with equally bad stats for the left.
I weep for education in this country.
Yes, obviously, the rate of homicide deaths in California is lower than the rate of deaths of coalition soldiers in Iraq.
However, I don't see candlelight vigils for the 2000th death each year in California.
I don't see people protesting criminality in California as loudly as I do see them protesting purported crimes of the US in Iraq.
Are those deaths unimportant? Or is it because the rate of homicide is so low, that their deaths become negligible? Are 2,300 deaths just considered nothing? Not to me. Not in a democracy where law and order should rule.
How come CNN doesn't have a page memorializing their deaths?
Those deaths in California are truly “for nothing,” and I think it is hypocritical to supposedly care about the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq, and have candle light vigils for them, but pay less heed to the needless deaths in one's own state.
They don't care anymore about the 2000th homicide of a California resident each year, than they do about the 2000th death of a US soldier in Iraq.
They only care about their own selfish political motivations and dishonor soldiers in doing so.
Last night, by sheer coincidence, I received this email from a friend:
If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The rate in Washington D.C. (among others) is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.
So there is a mathematically correct comparison....even though we are comparing a metropolitan area to a country. However, still same as above: where are the protest marches all over America for the homicides in Washington each year? Protesting those needless deaths?
Lets see: US Census puts the population at 35,993,799.
I don't have a good way to estimate our presence there, but I think we would all agree 200,000.
2,394/35,993,799 = 0.00665% as a murder rate.
905/ 200,000 = 0.453% as a murder rate.
One of those numbers is 68 times bigger than the other.
Stupid point to make and the politics here usually has more ingerity as a conversation.
Maybe we should worry that really bad math like this is considered a good agrument. And if I wasn't supposed to be getting ready for work I am sure I could come up with equally bad stats for the left.
I weep for education in this country.
Yes, obviously, the rate of homicide deaths in California is lower than the rate of deaths of coalition soldiers in Iraq.
However, I don't see candlelight vigils for the 2000th death each year in California.
I don't see people protesting criminality in California as loudly as I do see them protesting purported crimes of the US in Iraq.
Are those deaths unimportant? Or is it because the rate of homicide is so low, that their deaths become negligible? Are 2,300 deaths just considered nothing? Not to me. Not in a democracy where law and order should rule.
How come CNN doesn't have a page memorializing their deaths?
Those deaths in California are truly “for nothing,” and I think it is hypocritical to supposedly care about the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq, and have candle light vigils for them, but pay less heed to the needless deaths in one's own state.
They don't care anymore about the 2000th homicide of a California resident each year, than they do about the 2000th death of a US soldier in Iraq.
They only care about their own selfish political motivations and dishonor soldiers in doing so.
Last night, by sheer coincidence, I received this email from a friend:
If you consider that there have been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq theater of operations during the last 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of 60 per 100,000. The rate in Washington D.C. (among others) is 80.6 per 100,000. That means that you are about 25% more likely to be shot and killed in our Nation's Capitol, which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, than you are in Iraq.
Conclusion: We should immediately pull out of Washington D.C.
So there is a mathematically correct comparison....even though we are comparing a metropolitan area to a country. However, still same as above: where are the protest marches all over America for the homicides in Washington each year? Protesting those needless deaths?
posted by CaliValleyGirl at 12:05 PM
2 Comments:
Keep weeping for education, that's why we homeschool.
The answer to part of your question from the last political campaign I worked on (granted, it was seven years ago, but I was very active prior to that) is that we are USED to what we live with every day. It has lost its sexy allure. It is normal to us. So random deaths by car, although to me seeming much more senseless than people fighting for a cause they believe in, are a part of the cost we have come to expect of driving.
Also, polls are horribly weighted, something that no one lets on and isn't taken into account. What happens is that the people taking the poll call- say, 1000 random people. In the course of asking them questions they get a political affiliation. The pollsters tally the numbers, then skew them the direction of the number they feel is under-represented (if 60% of the respondants identify themselves as Rep., they would "weight" the poll more heavily toward the Dem to "make up" for not enough Dem's being contacted). This is the single biggest reasons polls done by the NYT are so notoriously unreliable.
... sorry, pol sci major/grew up in a family of politicians...
Ha...I was gonna say "keep weeping for education, and LEARN HOW TO SPELL, DUDE."
I guess it's just one of my pet peeves when someone has spelling mistakes while he rips on you for how stupid you are.
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