Facts don’t always match perception

Originally published in the BatesvilleDaily Guard

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.

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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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