Left-Right Differences

[fm93]

No, because I do not believe those statements are accurate.

You deny that many religious people are swayed to a large extent because they're comforted by the idea? Or that many racists support conservative ideals and policies as an outlet for their racism?

Excuse me? Did you read the linked article

I did.

which supported the headline with arguments?

It did not.

And your hypotheticals are caricatures of the article, which speaks in generalities, not absolutes. Do you understand the distinction?

My hypotheticals are also in generalities rather than absolutes.

I am not trolling, "blatantly" or otherwise

You posted the most rhetorical snippet from the article and just left it there--no explanation or argumentation; just a smiley character munching popcorn.

I posted the article because it seems to generally fit what I've observed about progressives (here and elsewhere).

So it was a passive-aggressive attempt at trolling?

Hyperbole in response only acts to confirm my impression, operating as does on feelings rather than reason.

Observing and pointing out that an article contains no sound argumentation and consists primarily of a flimsy psychoanalytical overgeneralization (or just plain false generalization, even) is based on reason, not feelings.

So if you want to change my mind, try providing some argument yourself rather than hyperventilating.

"Hyperventilating" isn't even remotely close to the tone of my post. Anyhow, the main issue with the article is that there's absolutely no solid evidence presented that indicates "because it feels good" is the main reasoning. The author's basically writing "I think their arguments are wrong; therefore, they must hold to those arguments only because of how it makes them feel." No hint that he considered the possibility that the arguments are not wrong, or that people simply are unaware of whatever facts or logical fallacies might be refuting their arguments. Sam has presented arguments that seem to be in favor of raising minimum wage that, even if they're wrong, are clearly not based on mere pleasure-seeking. Arguments in favor of affirmative action are based on the simple equation that if one group has been kept lower than another, the path to equality involves lifting those people up. That's something that may produce good feelings, but isn't itself based on mere good feelings. And those who support peace activism do so on the belief that removing military presence will NOT lead to harm--even if they're wrong, that's a reason-based belief, not just "it makes me feel good."

[Sam]

This would probably mean something if you didn't leave out a ton of crucial data. Number of guns per residents. US gun ownership is at 88.8 per 100 residents. According to what I found gun murders were 2.83 per 100,000 in 2012.

Let's look at some other nations for comparison: -
Venezuela has a gun-ownership rate of 10.7 per 100 residents, and is ranked 58th worldwide. It's gun-murder rate per 100,000 was 39 in 2000.
Swaziland has a gun-ownership rate of 6.4 per 100 residents, and is ranked 85th worldwide. It's gun-murder rate per 100,000 was 37.14 in 2004.
Switzerland, on the other hand, has a gun-ownership of 45.7 per 100 residents, which is 4th worldwide and had a gun-murder rate of 0.23 per 100,000 in 2013.

You might also want to consider countries that have mostly banned private gun-ownership and their murder rates before and after the change in gun laws, and then change in the rate of other crimes before and after. In my home nation of East Germany the UK, the gun-murder rate stayed the same, but the rates for other crimes went UP.

Then you can look at the statistics for the US for each state. Interestingly, the District of Columbia has a gun-ownership of 3.6% but a gun-murder rate of 16.5%.

<buries head in hands>

Let's go back to that last part of my post you cut out:

Gun control might be a complicated topic but let's not pretend that gun control advocates operate on "pure emotion."

I obviously was not shooting delivering a proof text or even a full-on argument dealing with the complexities of gun control but rather was pushing back on the ridiculous claim that gun control advocates operate on "pure emotion."

Honestly, man.

[Rational Gaze]

Let's go back to that last part of my post you cut out:

Gun control might be a complicated topic but let's not pretend that gun control advocates operate on "pure emotion."

I obviously was not shooting delivering a proof text or even a full-on argument dealing with the complexities of gun control but rather was pushing back on the ridiculous claim that gun control advocates operate on "pure emotion."

Honestly, man.

Yeah, because posting misleading statistics that on the surface appear to support your beliefs isn't emotive at all.

[Sam]

An office run by political appointees - and ALL government offices are run by political appointees - is not going to be independent or non-partisan. I take anything put out by the CBO with a huge grain of salt, as its figures tend rather toward the optimistic (e.g., its figures on the ACA). I would revise my statement slightly to "nobody wins, and most people lose." And I nowhere claimed that was the conclusion drawn by the CBO. I disagree with the conclusion drawn by the CBO, since it posits a net increase in real money, which is logically impossible. You can't get something from nothing.

The CBO's projection of the ACA's costs in 2010 were higher than the real costs.



But this is all hogwash, anyhow. You're not providing any sort of evidence that points to the CBO's study to be biased or partisan, nor are you providing any evidence to suggest that the organization is partisan. It's staffed with career employees who work at the CBO and related institutions for a long time. Even the new Republican pick for CBO director is a career employee, having headed up the BLS for the past six years ... I've still been using BLS data all that time without conspiracy theorizin'.

And the CBO doesn't posit "getting something from nothing" but that statement is virtually meaningless in an economic sense anyway. The economy doesn't stay static: it grows and shrinks. If increasing the minimum wage helps grow the economy then some of its costs are going to be offset by that growth. Any road, you can pretty clearly see that the positive growth in income for families under $140,000 in 2014 would have largely come from families earning over $140,000.

Sam, the CBO's best case scenario for a $10.10 minimum wage is a slight decrease, not zero. I'm not confident that the IGM poll is an accurate representation of all economists (since by its own admission it doesn't have a sufficient sample size) - and you're fudging the "majority" statement. Further, the IGM poll only deals with the $9.00 projection.

A rather small one. Best case is about $300 per family - and because food and fuel prices are going to be especially affected (most cashiers and gas station attendants will see a wage increase which will be passed on to consumers), that's not going to stretch very far at all. And you can bet your bottom dollar that those anywhere near six times the poverty level are going to be losing money (per Table 4, the 3-5.99 band would see a projected increase between zero and $50). And I'll note that the end result per the CBO would effectively be a forced redistribution of wealth, a favorite progressive plank.

Right back at you, Sam.

Ah, yes: virtually zero on the low-end of CBO estimates, my apologies. And the IGM poll only dealing with the $9.00 option isn't a problem for my position, which argues that increasing the minimum wage can be a net positive. It is, however, a problem for the position of the author in the OP, who argues that any minimum wage increase is harmful and liberals only support such increases because it "feels good".

The $300/family "best case" scenario incorporates increased costs:

Source:

b. Changes in real (inflation-adjusted) income include increases in earnings for workers who would receive a higher wage, decreases in earnings for workers who would be jobless because of the minimum-wage increase, losses in income for business owners, decreases in income because of increases in prices, and increases in income generated by higher demand for goods and services.

© Copyright Original Source

The "real effect" of increasing the minimum wage is, unsurprisingly, more money for the lower income percentiles. Is it the most effective way to transfer more money to the lower income percentiles? Now that's a good debate among economists, with many arguing that more direct taxation (e.g., EITC) is more effective then increasing the minimum wage. But, again, that's not a problem for my side of the argument, which acknowledges both that a minimum wage increase will probably yield a net positive result and that there may be even more effective ways of achieving the same end. It is a problem for your position, though, which argues that a minimum wage increase will not and cannot yield a net positive.

And, of course, this whole discussion is anathema to the frivolous claim that liberals base their policy positions on emotion or "feeling good".

[Sam]

Yeah, because posting misleading statistics that on the surface appear to support your beliefs isn't emotive at all.

Incomplete statistics are not misleading unless the intention is to mislead, especially when they're followed up by an acknowledgement that the topic is complicated. As I was using the statistics to refute the "pure emotion" accusation, the statistics show a baseline argument based on data rather than emotion.

This is not a difficult proposition to grasp, I believe.

[Jaecp]

Are you talking to me? I don't see how what you said even relates.

I bolded what he said, because he said that the foundation of conservative thought is narcissistic, and that there's no way it's based on altruism. Then he condemned the author for presuming to know how people thought with respect to their politics.

You mixed up which part was his belief and which part was him giggling at the apparent belief of the article.

[Sam]

You might also want to consider countries that have mostly banned private gun-ownership and their murder rates before and after the change in gun laws, and then change in the rate of other crimes before and after. In my home nation of East Germany the UK, the gun-murder rate stayed the same, but the rates for other crimes went UP.

Just now getting around to fact-checking this claim. The UK passed a ban on certain rifles, military weapons, shotguns, etc. in 1988 and a broader ban including handguns in 1997. Since 1995, the intentional homicide rate has dropped significantly, according to this article:

Source: Murder rate in global violence hotspots plunges 40% in 15 years as policing improves. EMMA GLANFIELD FOR MAILONLINE. Daily Mail. 2014.09.18

'In the last ten years alone, the number of homicides in London has been cut in half, from around 200 in 2003 to less than 100 in 2013, for example - making it one of the safest cities in the world.'


In England and Wales, the murder rate has dropped by eight per cent to 1.04 per 100,000 population since 1995.


In Scotland, the rate has dropped by 19 per cent to 1.8 per 100,000 population and in Northern Ireland it has fallen by 61 per cent to 1.4, according to the data.

© Copyright Original Source

Now I wouldn't claim that this drop is entirely attributable (or even primarily attributable) to the 1997 law broadening the scope of prohibited firearms but where are getting that the gun murder rate stayed the same? From GunPolicy.org's site, I get this chart:

Image 007.jpg

[Psychic Missile]

Who has told you that the foundation of conservative thought is narcissistic? You quite clearly appeared to do exactly the thing you condemned the OP author for, in the very same paragraph.

Nobody has told me that. I never claimed people told me that. It's not complicated and it's bizarre that you are having so much troubling grasping this concept. People say they believe something. I ask why they believe that thing. They tell me the foundation of their belief. Then I judge that foundation. More often then not, when conservatives tell me what their foundation is, I judge it to be narcissistic. That has absolutely nothing to do with liberals saying why they believe what they do and the author saying that they are not telling the truth and he knows the real reason. I would advise you not to jump to conclusions in the future, but I have no idea how you got from what I said to what you concluded. It's not so much a jump as a teleport to conclusions.

[Zymologist]

Nobody has told me that. I never claimed people told me that. It's not complicated and it's bizarre that you are having so much troubling grasping this concept. People say they believe something. I ask why they believe that thing. They tell me the foundation of their belief. Then I judge that foundation. More often then not, when conservatives tell me what their foundation is, I judge it to be narcissistic. That has absolutely nothing to do with liberals saying why they believe what they do and the author saying that they are not telling the truth and he knows the real reason. I would advise you not to jump to conclusions in the future, but I have no idea how you got from what I said to what you concluded. It's not so much a jump as a teleport to conclusions.

Ok, I misunderstood what you said in that post. My apologies.

If you don't mind, what would be an example of what a conservative has given as a foundation of their belief, that you have then judged as narcissistic?

[Psychic Missile]

Ok, I misunderstood what you said in that post. My apologies.

If you don't mind, what would be an example of what a conservative has given as a foundation of their belief, that you have then judged as narcissistic?

A major one is religion. A lot of conservatives think that generally the law should reflect their own religious tenets.

[Rational Gaze]

Just now getting around to fact-checking this claim...

Huh. Because according to the Daily Mail (i.e. the same source you cite) gun related crimes were up 35% in 2003:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-soars-35.html

Yet, this article by the BBC states that gun crime had dropped 14% by 2006, but that knife crime was on the rise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6960431.stm

Here are the statistics from the murder and crime prevention research centre:
http://crimepreventionresearchcenter...fter-gun-bans/

You can see that, immediately following the ban, the rates went UP, but began to fall down later. However:
"After the ban, clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996. The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates. The homicide rate only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004. Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate."

Screen Shot 2012-12-22 at Saturday, December 22, 9.26 PM.jpg
(Image taken from website.)

[Sam]

Huh. Because according to the Daily Mail (i.e. the same source you cite) gun related crimes were up 35% in 2003:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-soars-35.html

Yet, this article by the BBC states that gun crime had dropped 14% by 2006, but that knife crime was on the rise:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6960431.stm

Here are the statistics from the murder and crime prevention research centre:
http://crimepreventionresearchcenter...fter-gun-bans/

You can see that, immediately following the ban, the rates went UP, but began to fall down later. However:
"After the ban, clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996. The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates. The homicide rate only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004. Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate."

[ATTACH=CONFIG]7243[/ATTACH]
(Image taken from website.)

Well, here's some fun. I spent a little bit looking up what might account for the spike in homicides in the UK after 1997. Turns out that there are two likely culprits (or co-conspirators). First, the spike in 2003 appears to be attributable to a statistical quirk caused by this guy, Dr. Harold Shipman. Around 2002, some 170 deaths were attributed to Shipman and reported as homicides for 2003. Take away the identified murders from the serial killer and the spike disappears. However, there would still be an uptick in the graph and that can be explained by a 1998 law in the UK that dramatically changed how crimes were reported and thus caused the official numbers to rise.

Source:

New Counting Rules, April 1998


Changes to the Home Office Counting Rules for recorded crime took effect on 1 April 1998. The changes concerned the recording of multiple victims (to one crime per victim) and added a number of new offences1. These changes had the effect of increasing the number of crimes counted. Numbers of offences for years before and after this date are therefore not directly comparable.


Under the new coverage rules (post 1 April 1998) the greatest impact was within the following offence headings (in rank order): drugs, violence against the person, fraud and forgery, other offences and criminal damage.

© Copyright Original Source

The effect on "Violence against the person" offenses was 118% ... which, coincidentally, is exactly the distance between the reported murder rate in 1997 and the reported murder rate in 2003, minus Dr. Shipman's victims.

I count four years where the number of homicides was lower than 1997 and, with population growth and the effect of the 1998 law, I would have to imagine that most of the years on the chart below actually represent lower homicide rates than 1997, as most years are clustered around 750 homicides/year:

Image 008.jpg

And the crime rate, as reported by citizens, continued to decline through 1997, while the reported crime rate stayed relatively flat:

Image 001.jpg

Source for both graphs.

So your initial claim, that the gun-murder rate stayed the same after the 1997 ban ends up not being accurate; most gun-related crimes, according to multiple articles, deal with ~1000 weapons still in circulation. The claim that other violent crimes increased needs clarification, given the effect of the 1998 UK law that changed crime reporting statistics. And the spike in homicides appears to be the effect of a serial killer, mainly notable for how low the UK's homicide rate was in 2003 so that the graph could be so easily skewed by one individual. In 2003, the UK had a population of 59.6 million ... since the crime reports only concern England and Wales, let's take out 3 million for Scotland (2010 pop. estimate) and 1.8 million for N. Ireland (2010 pop. estimate) and you get 54.8 million and ~1050 homicides in 2003. In comparison, California had ~1750 homicides in 2003 with a population of only 35.25 million and Texas had ~1130 homicides with a population of around 22 million.

The claim that the UK's gun ban created more homicides or simply shifted them to other weapons does not appear to hold up, even considering that the UK was already starting with a much lower homicide and gun-murder rate than the US.

[Paprika]

Neither side has a monopoly on being motivated by feels. The progressives just take it several levels higher (eg. trying to stamp or rule out certain discourse because it would offend certain groups' feels).

[Rational Gaze]

Well, here's some fun. I spent a little bit looking up what might account for the spike in homicides in the UK after 1997. Turns out that there are two likely culprits (or co-conspirators). First, the spike in 2003 appears to be attributable to a statistical quirk caused by this guy Dr. Harold Shipman. Around 2002, some 170 deaths were attributed to Shipman and reported as homicides for 2003. Take away the identified murders from the serial killer and the spike disappears.

If you subtract Shipman's murders from 2002/03, then you are left with 681 people murdered in 2002/03. But then you look at the other years and see that 1048 were murdered in 2001/02 alone, and there were years with counts as high as the 2002/03 count without anomalies such as Shipman:
http://www.murderuk.com/misc_crime_stats.html

The effect on "Violence against the person" offenses was 118% ... which, coincidentally, is exactly the distance between the reported murder rate in 1997 and the reported murder rate in 2003, minus Dr. Shipman's victims.

Well, this chart takes into account the new rules you mention:
Screen shot 2015-06-14 at 19.55.52.jpg
Moreover, according to an official report:
"The number of crimes recorded in England and Wales 1998/99, under the new rules, was estimated to be 14% higher than the number that would have been recorded under the previous counting rules."
(Source: http://researchbriefings.files.parli...90/SN05390.pdf)

Also bear in mind that 'violence against the person' includes more than just homicide (even prior to the new counting rules) and even homicide consists of more than just murders. This document here has a break-down of everything counted under violence against the person: https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...april-2015.pdf

[Sam]

If you subtract Shipman's murders from 2002/03, then you are left with 681 people murdered in 2002/03. But then you look at the other years and see that 1048 were murdered in 2001/02 alone, and there were years with counts as high as the 2002/03 count without anomalies such as Shipman:
http://www.murderuk.com/misc_crime_stats.html


Well, this chart takes into account the new rules you mention:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]7300[/ATTACH]
Moreover, according to an official report:
"The number of crimes recorded in England and Wales 1998/99, under the new rules, was estimated to be 14% higher than the number that would have been recorded under the previous counting rules."
(Source: http://researchbriefings.files.parli...90/SN05390.pdf)

Also bear in mind that 'violence against the person' includes more than just homicide (even prior to the new counting rules) and even homicide consists of more than just murders. This document here has a break-down of everything counted under violence against the person: https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...april-2015.pdf

The Shipman murders go with the 1050 year ... alternatively counted as 2001/02 or 2003, depending on the dataset used. Using your dataset from murderuk.com, then, you get this breakdown:

1996: 584
1997: 650 <- Gun ban enacted
1998: 629 < - Reporting rules changed
1999: 760
2000: 792
2000/01: 891
2001/02: 1048 <- Shipman murders identified
2002/03: 853
2003/04: 868
2004/05: 765
2005/06: 759
2006/07: 753
2008/09: 640
2009/10: 608
2010/11: 636
2011/12: 550

So we've got a 18% increase in reported rates of violent crime, thanks to the 1998 law, which levels out the homicide graph, quite a bit. But, as you say, increased reporting of violent crime in general does not necessarily mean increased reporting of homicides. Even so, there's clearly no spike in homicides from the 1997 gun ban and the trend went from increasing homicides from 1960-2000/01 to a pause until ~2004 to declining from 2005-2011/12.

If the argument is that the UK's gun ban did not reduce the number of firearm homicides, that argument is wrong. If the argument is that the total number of homicides stayed the same or went up, that argument is true only within a very short time frame after the law's implementation. If the argument is that the UK's gun ban did not contribute to the reversal of the UK's increasing homicide trend, that argument has not been sufficiently demonstrated.