Murder Rates

Lately, I have seen this posted repeatedly:

Interesting.  Sounds like an attack on Democrats and gun control supporters.  If true, this is a strong argument against both.  Let's fact-check it.

First step: Does the US really have the 3rd highest murder rate?  A quick search returned this link and it has the United States way down at 76th, not 3rd.  As of 2018, the US had a murder rate of approximately 5 per 100,000 people.  El Salvador had 10 times that number.  However, if we look at just the number of people murdered, the US ranks 6th with 16,214 murders.  Just looking at the piles of corpses, Nigeria is the most deadly with 64,201 people murdered in 2016.  Based on this, it looks like the maker of the above graphic may have been using murder totals rather than murder rates.

Next step: How many murders are there in the listed cities?  The FBI maintains crime statistics by city that are available here.  The most recent data available that includes all of the mentioned cities is for 2018.  Let's go with that:

That does amount to 12.4% of all murders in the US for 2018.  Doesn't seem like that would move the US from 3rd place to 189th place.  In order to test, we need to subtract those murders from the total and see where the US places then.  16,214 - 2,325 = 13,889.  After changing that on the table used in step one, we get... 6th place.  Yes, 7th place was Colombia with 12,586 murders.  The US position is unchanged.

Let's try the murder rate.  Sure, it was at 76th place when we used the murder rate, but maybe we'll move the needle by using that instead.  So, we'll have to take out those murders from the total and, to be fair, we'll need to factor out the populations of the listed cities to calculate a murder rate for the rest of the country.

Look at that.  Our murder rate has been greatly improved.  After plugging in 4.37 and resorting by murder rate, the US moves from 76th all the way to 82nd, putting us between Chile (4.405) and Latvia (4.356).  That is a far cry from 3rd to 189th.

Conclusion: the graphic is propagandistic crap.

The 2nd American Civil War?

Here is an interesting analysis of current events.  It is a long video but here are a few highlights.  He makes a strong case but then I am biased against government in general and willing to believe the worst of it.  No one wants to surrender power which is why George Washington is great; he surrendered power when he could have been monarch.  He set a precedent that held until FDR, almost 150 years later.  These unelected bureaucrats who have been able to regulate to their hearts content for decades are suddenly forced to repeal 2 regulations for every new one!  That shrinks their power!  How dare he?  Tax cuts?  Yet another reduction in the centralized power of the state.  Those who don't believe in the Deep State willfully ignore that Hillary won the District of Columbia by 90% to 4%.  That 90% is not happy and a substantial portion of them have joined the Resistance.  What did Lincoln say: A house divided against itself cannot stand.

 

Bring back the spoils system.  Better yet, shrink the government to the original 4 cabinet posts and leave everything else to the states.

The Bureaucracy Dissents

The title of this Politico article is practically treasonous:

Federal workers turn to encryption to thwart Trump

The article details how career bureaucrats at the various agencies in DC are coordinating among themselves with encrypted messaging to dodge laws regarding workplace communication.  In other words, they are pioneering a version of Hillary's offsite email server.  Why use secret communications within the bureaucracy?

The goal is to get their message across while not violating any rules covering workplace communications, which can be monitored by the government and could potentially get them fired.

 

The story puts the best possible spin on why these bureaucrats are engaging in this secretive communication.  They have to be able to oppose Trump if he tries to undermine the mission of the agency, tries to destroy important scientific data, or flout the law.  In fact, we know that most of the bureaucrats are Democrats (DC went 91% for Hillary) who don't want to implement Republican policy.  When the country votes for Democrat policy, the bureaucracy moves expeditiously but when the country votes for Republican policy, the bureaucracy must be dragged kicking and screaming.

 

Over at Labor, employees are coordinating in private emails to oppose the nomination for the Secretary of Labor.  Oh, that is going to make for a great working relationship if Puzder gets the job.  The same sort of opposition is surely happening at the Dept of Education regarding Betsy DeVos, at EPA for Pruitt, at Energy for Perry, etc. 

 

Thanks to civil service reform, we have non-partisan civil servants.  After all, labor statisticians can do statistics for Republicans or Democrats, right?  Of course, if someone came along who thought a particular bureaucracy needed streamlining and economizing, the current non-partisan bureaucrats might suddenly find they aren't as non-partisan as they thought.

 

It is entirely appropriate for an employee to voice disagreements.  A good boss will take note and perhaps moderate.  However, if not, the employees do what the boss instructs, provided it is legal.  If the employee cannot do this, it is time to find another job.  Assembling a resistance movement within the organization should result in immediate termination.

 

Yet again, here is evidence that the bureaucracy needs to be emptied on a regular basis.  The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act (1883) succeeded in creating a bureaucratic leviathan that is barely responsive to the elected representatives of the people.  Let's go back to the spoils system.  Sure, we'll get a crop of novices every 4 years but government 'service' will cease being a career.

DC Demographics

I was having a discussion the other day about how Washington DC is the most biased region in the country and yet it serves as the seat of government.  I referenced much of what I had written in a previous blog.  It was then pointed out that DC is predominantly black which probably explained the heavier than usual tilt.  Good point.  I hadn't considered that.  Let's run the numbers.

First, let's look at the Demographics of DC.  Though DC once had a black population as high as 70%, it has fallen since the 1970s and now stands at 46%.  Here are the numbers:

Race	Percentage
Black	46
White	39.2
Latino	10.4
Asian	3
Other	1.4

I don't know quite where that stands in relation to other regions and can't offer a similar state that had clearly different results.  In the election, 312,575 votes were cast in Washington DC.  Assuming that the races had equal turnout rates, we can determine approximately how many voters from each race voted.  That gets us the following:

Race	Percentage	Voters
Black	46	143,785
White	39.2	122,529
Latino	10.4	32,508
Asian	3	9,377
Other	1.4	4,376

Looking only at the overall vote by racial demographics, the candidates had the following breakdown:

Race	Hillary %	Trump %
Black	88	8
White	37	58
Latino	65	29
Asian	65	29
Other	56	37

The only racial demographic that Trump won was white.  He trailed badly in all other groups.  With whites being a minority group in DC, a loss is a foregone conclusion but how badly.  Again, assuming that each cohort voted per the above, what are the end results?

 

Race	Hillary %	Voters	% x Voters
Black	88	143,785	126,530
White	37	122,529	45,336
Latino	65	32,508	21,130
Asian	65	9,377	6,095
Other	56	4,376	2,451
		Total:	201,542

 

Race	Trump %	Voters	% x Voters
Black	8	143,785	11,503
White	58	122,529	71,067
Latino	29	32,508	9,427
Asian	29	9,377	2,719
Other	37	4,376	1,619
		Total:	96,336

Purely by the racial demographics, Hillary crushes Trump by a 64.5% to 30.8% margin.  However, in the actual votes, Hillary pulverized Trump, 90.5% to 4.1%.  So, though race may have been a factor, it does not explain the colossal drubbing.  Setting aside race, what demographic subgroup saw something close to the 91% to 4% that we see in DC?  Hillary won Democrats by 89% to 9% and Liberals by 84% to 10%.

Hillary didn't win DC because of the plurality of black voters but because of the overwhelming majority of Liberal and Democratic voters.  Though Republicans may be on top right now, the Deep State remains Democrat and changing these hostile bureaucracies will be a Herculean task.  Here is a reason to revive the spoils system and wash out this Augean Stable on a regular basis.

Unrepresentative Capitol

Hillary Clinton won 48.01% of the popular vote while Trump won 47.03%.  Clearly, the country is pretty evenly divided.  However, the capitol city, Washington DC, voted 92.8% for Hillary and 4.1% for Trump.  This is the place where the representatives of the country come to make policy and yet it is overwhelmingly biased in favor of one party.  That cannot be healthy for a democracy or a republic.  An evenly divided nation is ruled by a city that has clearly chosen one side over the other.  Of course, as the seat of government, it is only to be expected that government employees would be in favor of government.  One party is far more pro-government than the other.  This bias is inherent and cannot be changed.  However, the impact can be diminished by limiting the authority, size, and reach of government.  Limited government?  Where have I heard that?