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Thursday, May 18, 2017
Thursday, February 16, 2017
Facts don’t always match perception
On Tuesday, Feb. 7, during a round
table with county sheriffs from across the U.S., President Trump made
the following comment:
“I’d say that in a speech and
everybody was surprised because the press doesn’t like to tell it
like it is,” Trump claimed. “It wasn’t to their advantage to
say that. The murder rate is the highest it’s been in I guess 45-47
years.”
Sounds like the streets are no longer
safe and we’d better stay out of the cities.
But, the thing is, it’s not true.
And as a journalist, facts are
important to me.
We actually have one of the lowest
murder rates in the last half century.
In 2015, the murder rate was 4.9 per
100,000 people.
At this point 50 years ago, in 1957,
the murder rate was 4 murders per 100,000 residents. Over the next
decade and a half, that rate rose steadily to a high of 10.2 in 1980,
when the U.S. was much whiter and had 100 million less people.
Then it began to drop, hitting 7.4 in
1996, 6.1 in 2006 and 4.4 in 2014. It 2015 it went up to 4.9. A
significant increase, but not even half of what the rate was in 1980
and still well below 1996.
But that is less than half the murder
rate of 1980. The raw number of homicides in America has actually
declined from 19,645 in 1996 to 15,696 in 2015, even while the
population has risen from 265 million in 1996 to 321 million in 2015.
Murder is just one of the crimes
categorized as “violent” by the FBI when it takes crime data.
Violent crime includes murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
The peak for violent crimes was 1991, where it was at 758 per
100,000. Now it has declined to 372.6 in 2015, less than half the
peak.
Being close to 40, I am old enough to
remember the “good old days” of the mid-’80s to mid-’90s when
people were actually terrified of going into larger cities because of
the potential to get lost in the wrong neighborhood. There was
hysteria about wearing certain colors, with people being suspicious
of “gangsters.” Our state capital, Little Rock, became
particularly infamous at this time, largely due to an HBO documentary
called “Gang War: Bangin’ in Little Rock.”
But it wasn’t just the cities that
experienced elevated violence during that time. There were also
several high profile events involving white nationalists too, one of
which happened in Arkansas in 1985 when a member of Covenant, the
Sword and the Arm of the Lord, a white supremacist, killed an
Arkansas police officer, resulting in a standoff in Mountain Home.
Another police killer, Gordon Kahl, was killed in neighboring
Lawrence County during a shootout in Smithville in 1983. Harrison
still has a reputation for this kind of activity, being dubbed “the
most racist town in America” in November 2016 by the U.K.
newspaper The Daily Mirror.
Even before the 1980s, the U.S. could
be a nasty place. Large cities were dominated by crime syndicates
operated by mobsters. Blacks in the countryside lived in fear of
being lynched. Women everywhere were ignored when it came to their
own spouses visiting violence upon them.
Nowadays, people actually walk on the
sidewalks of downtown Little Rock, much like America’s other large
cities. It’s still one of America’s most dangerous cities
statistically speaking, but the perception has changed from one where
people think that random strangers will be targeted for violence into
one that they see the majority of violence there as being between
people who know each other. Blacks can make stops in small rural
towns without having to worry about “being out by sundown” as the
old saying went.
All changes for the better, which leads
us back where we started.
Did Trump make the claim, knowing it
wasn’t true? Did he just believe what he said because he wasn’t
familiar with the facts? Does he just say whatever strikes him at the
moment as true?
Heck, I don’t know, I’m not a mind
reader.
The only thing that really matters is
that what he said is demonstratively false when one looks at
statistics and evidence.
But, why does it matter?
Because facts and evidence is what our
leaders are supposed to make their judgements based upon, not
beliefs. If we believe that people are dying left and right, we’re
going to demand that our leaders act accordingly, which leads to what
is essentially taking a sledgehammer to swat a fly. On the flip-side,
when we believe something is “not a big deal” we act accordingly
to that too, like using spitballs to fight off bombers.
The ripple effects of that means
spending too much on something, or too little. Making too few rules
or too many. Who is friend and who is foe.
Without facts, we can’t find the best
spot to draw the line. If we go by belief, we can essentially draw
the line where ever we want.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Tariff on Mexico will turn back the clock
Originally published in the Batesville Daily Guard
Well, it looks like there’s a plan to
build “the wall.”
By “the wall” I mean the one
proposed by President Trump to run the length of the border with
Mexico.
Trump promised to make Mexico pay for
it. Mexico, of course, responded by saying “as if!”
That threw a ratchet into the gears of
the plan, though I’m not sure who expected the Mexican government
to say “OK, we’ll do it!”
Up until a week ago, a lot of people
believed the whole deal with the wall was going to be dropped. After
all, it would be very expensive, $15-$25 billion and up to $16
million for each mile, and Mexico wasn’t going to pay for it. Most
American also don’t favor it, with both Pew and Gallup finding that
support from Americans as a whole was below 40 percent.
So, realistically, the wall could’ve
been dropped with little repercussion to Trump. It might have
actually been a chance for him to gain some ground in public opinion,
which has so far shown him to be rather unpopular.
But he persisted and now he’s come
forward with a plan. A plan to tax all imports from Mexico by 20
percent. Despite his claims though, Mexico still won’t be paying
for the wall.
Instead, American importers will. That, in turn, means American consumers, also known as you and me.
Now, I hear some people saying “Well,
we can just stop buying stuff from Mexico.”
And I’ll say, “No, you can’t.”
Mexico is our third-largest trading
partner. While you many not see as many “Made in Mexico” labels
as you do “Made in China” we do import billions and billions of
dollars worth of goods from Mexico that we can’t avoid.
In 2015, the U.S. imported $74 billion
in vehicles, $63 billion in electrical machinery, $49 billion in
machinery, $21 billion in agricultural products, $14 billion in
mineral fuels (especially oil) and $12 billion in optical and medical
instruments. That’s only the biggest, there is lots, lots more. You
know, what you’d expect from a neighbor who happens to be your
third-biggest trading partner.
So, enjoy your avocados while you can
before they double in price.
Realistically, those jobs won’t “come
back” (many of them weren’t here in the first place) to the U.S.
Instead, they’ll just move to other countries where even a 20-35
percent tariff won’t make the imports more expensive than American
goods. Americans will just keep paying more.
Plus, it would actually cost many
Americans their jobs. If stores like Walmart and Costco have to pay
more on imports, then they will make up the cost by cutting jobs or
lowering salaries. The consumers will just wind up paying more,
meaning that other parts of the economy will be hurt.
Also, trying to make Mexico fund the
wall will likely result in more people trying to cross the border
illegally. From 2007 to 2014, the number of undocumented people, not
all of them Mexican of course, has fallen by more than a million
people. Mexicans are leaving the U.S. for Mexico.
Why? Because wrecking a country’s
economy can do that.
What our president and many of his
supporters don’t seem to realize is that immigration of Mexican
people has actually reversed over the last few years.
Why would they go back to Mexico, a
place the president has painted as slightly more Mad Max than he has
the U.S.?
Well, two reasons: The Great Recession
of 2008 and the growth of the economy in Mexico. Thanks to Mexico’s
growth, many Mexicans are living at a similar standing as their
American counterparts across the border.
This isn’t to say we don’t have an
issue with illegal border crossings. Thousands of people make their
way through Mexico from Central America (particularly Honduras, El
Salvador and Guatemala) every year. Some are seeking opportunity but
many are fleeing crime and violence. It’s been an issue we’ve
been working with Mexico on in regards to the issue because it means
that they have an undocumented immigrant problem there too. This adds
up to “Mexico stops working with us, both American and Mexican law
enforcement lose cross-border assets and crime goes up.”
If we continue down this road, what
will be the result? We’re not only going to have to pay for a wall,
but we’re going to also have to expand our border patrol too
because if Mexico stops working with us, we will have to pick up the
slack.
At the end of the day, though, and like
the now much-circulated meme says “Problem: A $25 billion wall.
Solution: $36 ladder.”
So, is it really worth it?
Note: On Thursday Press Secretary Sean
Spicer said the 20 percent tariff was just an “option.” — JP
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Thursday, January 26, 2017
The punch heard around the world
Originally printed in the Batesville Daily Guard
Richard Spencer: White nationalist, coiner of "alt-right" |
If you didn’t catch it, there was a
new president sworn in last week.
It was followed by protests, claims by
the president it was the “biggest” attendance for an inauguration
ever and the entry of “alternative facts” into our lexicon.
A much-memed but less discussed event
happened on the streets of D.C. though, one that could have
far-reaching repercussions — the punching of Richard Spencer.
It is an incident that not only
highlights the two extremes of those who call themselves “right and
left” but might have also been the snowball that kicks off an
avalanche.
If you don’t know who Spencer is,
then all you need to know is that he’s a white nationalist who
coined the term “alt-right” and likes to lead people in Nazi
salutes. He’s active on social media and like most people who enjoy
tormenting others, he doesn’t ever shut up. He’s the president of
the National Policy Institute, a Virginia-based white nationalist
“think tank.”
Spencer’s predecessor, Louis R.
Andrews, said “There’s no such thing as post-racial. There’s
conflict, conflict and continued conflict.”
Black Bloc tactics |
Andrews also said he voted for Obama
because he wanted to see the Republican Party destroyed, so it could
be reborn as a “party representing the interest of white people.”
Spencer has continued the provocatory
approach of Andrews. He has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing”
and has called for a sort of “white Zionism” to create a “white
homeland.”
Anyway, while giving an interview after
the inauguration on Friday, a person clad in black with their face
hidden ran out of the street and punched him in the face,
disappearing as quickly as he appeared.
A lot of people cheered because Spencer
is who he is. It has even become a meme of sorts.
Taking joy in Spencer getting punched
is a natural reaction. Spencer is, after all, the proponent of an
ideology that reflects a dark past and ought to be shoved back into
it where it belongs.
But those cheering may not be thinking
of the repercussions of the action.
In a way, that punch is the best thing
that could have happened to Spencer. Now he can say “we’re under
attack!” That single punch may have opened the door for others to
attack those who they disagree with on the street, no matter what
their political leaning.
Of course, the person who attacked
Spencer was an anarchist, a group that sees no legitimacy in a
central government (or really any government at all), whether it be
Democrat or Republican — and really, they consider both to be
enemies considering their behavior during both parties’ conventions
in the past.
Where ever there are large
demonstrations, anarchists show up, using black bloc tactics to
disguise their identities and engage in actions like property damage
and now violence. They are extremists who don’t care whether or not
they harm the cause the actual demonstrations are supporting. The
anarchists only seem to care about fighting some ambiguous enemy via
smashing windows and setting things on fire, often throwing rocks and
firecrackers at law enforcement. The actions of the anarchists often
distract from the message of the peaceful demonstrators, who are
pretty much always the majority when it comes to protests.
No matter how much someone points out
to the anarchists that they’re harming the cause they’re
allegedly supporting, you’ll usually get similar responses such as
rioting being a form of expression against exploitation by business
or destroying the system. The general reaction when such is pointed
out is usually dismissiveness or outright tirades against “useless”
nonviolent protesters.
Now it seems that both sides have
gotten what they wanted. Spencer’s white nationalists can now claim
there’s a war against them and the anarchists can claim they took
“direct action.”
I for one hope that the punch of
Spencer isn’t a sign of some sort of escalation. But with the
current state of American political dialogue, that’s very, very
unclear. We aren’t living in some sort of dystopian society, yet.
But it seems that we now have movements that want to force society to
fit a certain vision. There’s no telling where a single punch could
lead to.
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Friday, January 20, 2017
Changes – Politics move like a see-saw
Originally published in the Batesville Daily Guard
We are going to see a lot of changes in
2017 — changes that are going to make some people very happy, some
very unhappy and others just frustrated with the process in general.
Over the last few decades, our
government has become a see-saw of sorts as the two big parties,
Democrats and Republicans, move away from the middle and embrace more
narrow ideals of what is considered “liberal” and “conservative.”
The election of 2016 drove that home with two huge personalities,
President-elect Donald Trump and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders,
essentially becoming the human embodiments of the bases, or at least
the most enthusiastic, of their respective parties.
People who live and breathe politics,
particularly those who think in terms of “right vs. left” don’t
have a problem with this. For them, it’s more a battle of good vs.
evil and shaping the government to fit a vision instead of filling
the potholes and making sure the trains run on time. It’s sort of
like the “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” cliché,
except instead of throwing the baby out, the argument is to either
give the kid a bath in a frozen lake or a boiling kettle.
That sounds a little extreme, but we
seem to be in pretty extreme times, at least politically. It seems we
are rapidly approaching a chaotic time when we are going to see
things built up in one election thrown out in the next and then the
things built during that government are thrown out with the next.
That’s not what anyone would call stability. It’s just a mess.
There’s always the talk about the
need of people to support a third party, but the minor parties of the
U.S. tend to have even more extreme philosophies. Americans
constantly poll that they do want a third party, but none that exist
really seem to offer what they want.
What do they want?
Probably some sort of calming
influence, a balance of sorts.
In most democracies, there are two
major parties like ours, usually center-left and center-right and a
lot of fringe parties. But there are also often third parties who may
not be the same size as the big two, but not as small as the fringe,
that take more moderate positions and make themselves necessary for
the larger parties to form a governing coalition. In a way, acting as
sort of a middle weight that slides slightly to balance the board and
keep it from becoming a seesaw of back and forth policies —
stability you could say.
Right now, it would seem an opportune
time for such a thing. The 2016 election saw the lowest voter turnout
since 1996. In 1996, only 53.5 percent of voter-age Americans turned
out for the election. In 2016 that number was 55 percent, much lower
than 64 percent of voter-age Americans who cast ballots in 2008.
Those numbers say people are either indifferent or just turned off by
the current offerings.
And really, who can blame them? With
people on both sides of the political aisle more interested in making
pronouncements or condemnations, those who want to be outside of
partisan fights are either ignored or attacked. That does not get
them interested in turning out for the polls.
Of course, a viable third-party
probably won’t happen anytime soon. In the U.S., third parties have
a habit of not going for modest goals — like running for local,
state and congressional offices — but instead seem to center around
capturing the presidency.
Sure, capturing the presidency is
probably the ultimate goal of any political party, but sometimes four
or five people in Congress can make as big of a difference when it
comes to things that affect people’s lives as well as balancing
partisan ideology.
It may only be a pipe dream, but I do
hope to one day see a government where there are some adults in the
room.
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Friday, January 13, 2017
What did R.E. Lee ever do for Arkansas?
Why does Arkansas celebrate Robert E.
Lee with a state holiday?
Why do they celebrate a guy who became
the face of a group of rebel states that seceded because its
wealthiest residents were afraid they'd have to set their slaves
free?
Why do they celebrate him on the same
day as a man who made a positive difference on the country as a
whole?
That's the sort of things I wonder when
we honor Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert E. Lee on the same day in
Arkansas. Two contradicting characters: King lead the way forward for
not only black equality, but that of other disenfranchised people
too, becoming not only an American figure, but also a world one. Lee
married into a rich slave owning family and fought for states who
sought to keep the institution of black slavery and when the war was
lost, he lent his voice to those who sought to keep blacks from
voting.
It seems that it makes sense why one is
honored nationally and the other is honored by only five states:
Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Florida. All of those,
except Georgia, celebrate him on Martin Luther King Day. In Lee's own home state, Virginia, he is honored on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day with Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson,
another Confederate general.
So why is he honored? He didn't really
do anything for Arkansas, except have its able-bodied men shipped
eastward to fight in Virginia. The Confederacy as a whole seemed to
treat Arkansas as just a jumping point into Missouri, which it
considered a prize. After it was obvious that they would never take
Missouri, Arkansas was pretty much left abandoned, with invading
Union forces taking most of the state with little effort. By the end
of the war, Confederate Arkansas was pretty much reduced to the
southwest corner of the state. By the time it was over, 10,000
Arkansans — Union, Confederate and civilian — had lost their
lives.
Arkansan soldiers returned to a state
that had been prosperous in the late 1850s reduced to a husk of its
former self due to the war. Many of them lost everything and they
went through many years of rebuilding what they had lost. In some
scholars' opinions, Arkansas, like much of the south, never fully
recovered from the Civil War.
Lee on the other hand returned to a
largely comfortable life in Virginia, eventually becoming the
president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, from 1865 to
1870. During that time Lee, along with other prominent Southerners,
signed an Aug. 26, 1868, letter to Gen. William Rosecrans that
opposed allowing blacks the right to vote following the Civil War.
On the other hand, almost 100 years
later, King led a 1965 march from Selma, Alabama, to the Capitol in
Montgomery to advocate for equal voting rights.
Now, I've heard the argument “well,
if they (by “they” it's meant black people) get Martin Luther
King Jr. Day then we (“we” being white people) should get Robert
E. Lee Day.” That argument misses the point of honoring King.
Throughout most of the country, as well as the world, King is not
regarded as someone who only did things for black people. He's
regarded as someone who transformed the status quo, not only helping
black people on the way toward equality, but also helping change how
whites see themselves in relation to minorities in the US.
Lee did none of that. Lee is seen by
many as a southern icon, but in reality, the South was, and still is,
more than the Confederacy. Many southerners, including Arkansans,
fought and died to preserve the Union. Reducing the South to the
Confederacy does it a great disservice, as it narrows what a
Southerner is down to a government that existed only four years and
ties that identity eternally to slavery.
Some will argue that those who don't
think there should be a Robert E. Lee Day in Arkansas, especially on
the same day as Martin Luther King Jr. Day, are somehow trying to
destroy their heritage. I don't see that as the case as the
descendant of a Confederate soldier myself, and believe that there's
a difference between remembering our ancestors and honoring a
government that most of us would consider reprehensible today. We can
remember acts of bravery from soldiers on both sides without having
to elevate the government they fought for or try to justify the
atrocities they committed. Not honoring the Confederacy will not take
away from any of that.
So maybe, today will be the last time
we will celebrate the two days together. But, I kind of doubt it.
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Thursday, January 12, 2017
Social media swarms don’t reflect reality
Originally printed in the Batesville Daily Guard
As we leave 2016, we leave behind a
year that was ruled by Facebook and Twitter. The two social media
sites had always been influential, but this year they became the
heart of the nexus which includes public opinion, propaganda and
information. They were places that regular people could actually say
something to their leaders and just maybe get a response, whether
they be national, state or local.
One consequence of this was that the
whole world also had access to those officials. Sometimes it’s a
good thing, sometimes it’s bad, but state boundaries are no longer
a deterrent when it comes into offering opinions to state officials.
But as far as the bad, one group that
has found a way to influence policy via social media are fringe
groups and conspiracy theorists, who rely on insinuation and
distortions instead of research and fact.
We had a case of that in Arkansas over
the last week.
Rep. Karilyn Brown (R-Sherwood) filed a
bill to remove religious and philosophical exemptions for vaccines
when it comes to children who attend public schools in Arkansas. It
did not remove the medical exemption.
Since even the Amish allow for
vaccines, the religious exemption doesn’t make for much purpose.
Aside from the Dutch Reform Church, there are pretty much no branches
of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism or Buddhism that bar their
members from taking vaccines, not even the Amish. And last I checked,
I don’t think there is a single congregation of the Dutch Reformed
Church in Arkansas at all, much less many Dutch.
On the other hand, the philosophical
exemption pretty much allow a person to not vaccinate a child for any
reason they want. Whether it be the debunked “vaccines cause
autism” claims, “making my kids take vaccines is communism”
claim or the “natural diseases are better than modern medicine”
ideas or “vaccines are mind control” conspiracy theory …
they’re all equally valid in the philosophical exemptions.
They are also all equally dangerous. It
bears to repeat that small pox, a disease that killed millions, has
been eradicated due to vaccines. Polio, which left many people
disabled, has been eliminated from most of the world, with cases in
the single digits worldwide — all in third world countries.
Measles, mumps and chicken pox all of which have been linked to
blindness, deafness and sterility have become very rare in the U.S.,
at least until the last couple of years when those diseases have
started making a comeback.
Those comebacks renewed calls to
tighten up or eliminate exemptions for people who lacked a medical
reason.
Makes sense right? People want to
protect their kids.
And I’m sure Brown took note of that
when she wrote her bill.
Of course, she probably didn’t expect
the swarm.
When I say swarm, I mean an
anti-vaccination social media group caught wind of her bill and took
to her social media, leaving shrill messages accusing her of being a
shill for “big pharma” to wanting to give kids autism. Most of
these messages don’t seem to be from people who are in her
district, or even Arkansas. I saw posts from people in Virginia,
Michigan, Kentucky and a person from Los Angeles who says he works
at, and I quote, “Stop Mandatory Vaccination” — which I suspect
is the source for many of Brown’s comments.
I’m not sure if Brown took this into
account when she withdrew the bill on Tuesday. But the same people,
not from Arkansas, gave her thanks for “representing her
constituents.”
Brown’s case, which is not unique,
shows the power of swarms on social media. The swarms can create the
impression that the majority of people are in favor of fringe
beliefs, anti-vaccination movements and chemtrail belief are two
examples of this, simply by drawing people from all over the country
to overwhelm an account with posts. Some of these go further, giving
out phone numbers and emails, leading to an endless stream of
harassment.
I hope Brown will reconsider her
withdrawal of HB1043 sometime in the future. We do not need to let
fact-based policies that would benefit our public health brought down
by a minority who just happen to have loudest mouths (er, fingertips,
I guess would be more accurate). If politicians start letting
Facebook and Twitter determine their actions, then we are putting our
fates in the hands of anyone who is capable of combining links with
the right hashtags on the internet. This may eventually cause our
policies to be driven by an alternate reality which thrives online.
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