|The Ghost of Paley
Joined: Oct. 2005
[Graffiti moved to Bathroom Wall. - Wesley R. Elsberry]
|Show me the numbers, man. I showed you the numbers that suggest that a lack of religion doesn't hurt social ills.|
First, a few numbers.
Also, see here.
Notice two things: when comparing violent assaults, suddenly the U.S. doesn't look so bad:
Serious Assault per 100,000.
1. Australia 713.68
2. England & Wales 405.20
3. United States 357.94
But what about that murder rate? To answer your question:
|Are blacks more likely to commit crimes, or are poor people more likely to commit crimes? |
Homicide Offender Rate/100,000 by Race in US (2000):
3.4 - White
25.8 - Black
3.2 - Other
Note: this doesn't take into account the reasons behind the discrepancy. But notice this bit:
Thus if you remove homicides committed by blacks (total: 21862, Blacks:9316), and assume a proportionality between number of offenders and number of offenses, you can extrapolate US homicide offender rate of only 2.6/100,000, lower than Germany (3.27) and France (3.91).
This demonstates my earlier point about the need for caution when comparing America with more ethnically homogeneous countries. This point also applies to other social ills. Think about this: if Christianity is so useless in creating a stable society, then why did America's exploding crime rates coincide with the secularization of the public sphere in the mid-sixties? And why did crime rates start falling after Reagan assumed office and Christians resumed a more active role in public life? And morality is indeed tied to crime: check out Giuliani's application of the "Broken Windows" theory to New York City. Get rid of the hookers and grifters, and watch the murder rate drop. Liberals predicted the utter failure of this approach, which of course demonstrated its usefulness to any rational mind. Its subsequent success was practically guaranteed.
Wait, it gets worse: the FBI (coincidentally, I am sure) includes Hispanic criminals under the "White Offenders" hate crimes category, even though Hispanic victims get their own box. This, of course, artificially inflates the crime rates of European-Americans. Now, who doesn't have it in for us?
Dey can't 'andle my riddim.