Perception #231
By Hank Silverberg
If you listen to politicians, follow social media or look at news on cable TV, one would get the impression that crime is at an all-time high, our cities are in shambles and it's all the Democrat's fault.
Yet that is the way it is playing out in elections both local and national. And media coverage makes it worse.
Let's look at the facts, with information taken from non-partisan sources.
Here is one list of the top ten most violent cities in America. The rates are based on crimes per 100 thousand people and taken from FBI statistics. Note, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. often maligned over their crime fighting and safety, are not on this list. They don't make the top 10 with the highest crime rates:
1, St. Louis
2 Jackson, Mississippi
3 Detroit
4) New Orleans
5 Baltimore
6) Memphis
7) Cleveland
8) Baton Rouge
9) Kanas City, Missouri
10 Shreveport, Louisiana
The FBI says crime in general in the United States has gone down 3.9% since 2017. Violent crime is down even more, though property crimes like car theft have gone up.
Yet time and time again, the GOP will use crime as their mantra. always blaming the perceived rise nationwide that doesn't exist, on Democrats in big cities. Check out the list. It is true that all the cities on this top ten list are run by Democratic mayors, but they are not all in Blue States. Only one, Baltimore, which has some distinct problems of its own, is an eastern city.
If you break it down crime by the top ten states with the highest crime rates, it looks different. Here is a list:
1) Alaska
2) New Mexico
3)Tennessee
4) Arizona
5) Louisiana
6) Missouri
7) South Carolina
8) South Dakota
9) Michigan
Six of these states have Republican governors, with a seventh, Arizona, just switching to a Democrat this past January.
Big city crime rates:
New York City-- down from 2022 -5.6%
Boston-- down from 2022 -1.5 %
Washington, D.C.--down from 2022 -4%
San Francisco--down from 2022 -15%
Los Angeles--up from 2021-2022 +11
Houston--up from 2021-2022 +3
So, it's a mixed bag. Complicating everything are statistics from the pandemic years of 21-22.
In general, violent crime went down during the pandemic, but property crimes went up dramatically in many places.
What's my point? Party policy and crime are not directly connected. Perception is not always what it seems.
Of course, that is hard for the public to grasp when the local 11p.m. news leads off from a crime scene almost every night, and conservative pundits and politicians bombard us with the same tired rhetoric every day.
In case you are wondering, the safest city in America with a population of over 300,000 is Virginia Beach, Virginia.
35. Akron, Ohio - The most dangerous cities in America, ranked (cbsnews.com)
17 Cities with Highest Crime Rate in the US [Report 2023] (usabynumbers.com)
Earth Day
Did you do something on Earth Day this past weekend? Did you even know Sunday was Earth Day? The first Earth Day was more than 50 years ago, in 1970. I remember it from high school. Then we talked about more recycling, less garbage, planting more trees and saving endangered species. Scientists were already warning us about climate change, although they called it "global warming" then-- confusing the issue. But the concept of saving the planet was a bi-partisan, international effort. Roughly 10% of America's population participated in the first Earth Day. We all understood the issue, and the science was clear.
We started recycling, made cars that used unleaded gas, put composting piles in our backyard and started to phase out dirty coal power plants. But the progress was slow in the United States, and even slower around the world.
Somehow the 21st Century was a long way off and the predicted big change in climate didn't seem that threatening. It didn't seem urgent.
Today there is no confusion. But there should be
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| (My Earth Day pin from April 22, 1970) |
A study by NASA indicates that ice sheet loss in Greenland has increased sevenfold in the last three decades. In 2019 alone, 440 billion tons of ice melted from Greenland, enough water to flood the entire state of California to a depth of three feet.
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting, too. It has more than doubled since the early 1990's. These are clear and indisputable signs of climate change.
I went to downtown Fredericksburg on Saturday as a volunteer for the Earth Day event. But it was a bust. A violent thunderstorm, the ones that seem to be more common as the climate changes, washed out the event. My wife and I spent our volunteer time, in the pouring rain, helping police and the parks department direct hundreds of cars and people out of the park before the lighting and 60 mile-an-hour winds arrived.
A recent report indicates that increases in heat waves, floods, storms and droughts along with some unusual snow patterns and higher temperatures in recent years can be attributed to climate change. Earth is already about two degrees Fahrenheit hotter right now than it was in the 1800's. Climate scientists have pinned much of the problem on greenhouse gas emissions with the internal combustion engine from AUTOMOBILES as the biggest source. They say the world could be a much different place by 2060 and almost unlivable if something isn't done. Finding a different way to provide power to cars, including wind and solar energy, may be one way. EV's will only help thought, if people buy them, and we find a way to produce more electricity to charge all those electric cars without using fossil fuel. Nuclear fusion, not fission, was suggested years ago, but research there has also been slow.
We must also have a long-term financial investment to better manage reservoirs, aquifers and other water resources, or droughts my become the biggest problem in the very near future.
This is a 21st century problem, but unfortunately in the United States and elsewhere, our politics and diplomacy seem to be lost in 20th century failures. Time is running out.
Shacking Up!
Yes, a man and a woman living together without being married is technically still a crime in Michigan, subject to a one-year jail sentence and a $1000 fine.
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I'm not sure what century Senator Albert is in, but it's not the current one. A study by the Pew Research Center in 2018 found that one in four parents living with a child today are unmarried, and 35% of unmarried parents are living with a partner. This is just another example of some politicians who are out of touch with the real world. Most of them seem to have an R next to their name.
The repeal did pass the state senate though, with bi-partisan support, and moves over to Michigan's House of Representatives. It's likely to be taken off the books.
Early Poll
I have written before that polls this early in a presidential race don't mean much. But there were numbers out in the last few days that were notable.
An NBC poll out on Sunday finds Ron DeSantis
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The news is not good for both Trump and President Biden.
President Biden gets only a 41% approval rating in the poll and half of those polled, including Democrats, don't think Biden should run again because of his age. He's 80.
Meanwhile, 60%, including a third of the Republicans, don't think Trump should run in 2024. Trump is 76, but his legal trouble weighed more heavily on negative poll numbers.
Here's the conundrum. There is no one else poised to challenge Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination, and none of the Republicans who have actually announced their candidacy even reach double digits in the poll. We have a big leadership gap right now. Is there anyone out there who can move this country forward?
Dumbest Quote of The Week!
A repeat appearance in this space for Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. The Senator took to twitter to respond to New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who is going to test market a proposal to ban the sale of tobacco products in New York State.
https://nypost.com/2023/04/22/kathy-hochul-test-marketing-ban-on-all-ny-tobacco-sales/
Hochul's proposal sparked a great deal of discussion and comment, but none as dumb as Cruz, who tweeted back this reaction:
"Dems are nanny-state authoritarians. Personally, I don't smoke cigarettes, but if you choose to do so, it's your damn choice!"
Cruz was immediately attacked because he supports government bans on abortion, marijuana and sex change operations, not to mention controlling what history our children learn in school. All take "choice" out of the equation. It's totally hypocritical, Senator.
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