US Peace Index (state comparison)

More fascinating data about the US. This is further data which confirms my analysis in a recent blog post: America’s North/South Divide (& other regional data) I’m, of course, not surprised. It makes sense why such patterns exist once you understand some of the underlying factors. We might not normally think about their influence, but [...]

Muslim vs Rightwing Violence

I was having a discussion on YouTube and terrorism came up. Here are a couple comments from happykillmore88: Wow that video and report are comical and sad. 45 muslem as opposed to 80 non muslem domestic terrorist activities. You have an instance ~30% of all domestic terrorist attacks being committed by one particular unified demographic [...]

White Supremacy Defeated… yet again

I keep coming across racists/racialists who are obsessed with IQ. I dealt with this some in what I posted yesterday. Here is the relevant section: The white supremacists love IQ because African Americans on average have lower IQs. The white supremacists argue that this is genetic, but there is no conclusive evidence for this hypothesis [...]

Do Rightwingers Love War?

I heard once again someone stating that Democrats start more wars. To give a quick response to that statement, I’d point out that it takes both parties to start a war… and there is a big difference between wars of defense and wars of aggression. But the comment and my response isn’t all that important… [...]

Gun Violence & Regulation (Data, Analysis, Rhetoric)

“But I actually want to address his first point because it is so profoundly stupid. Why should we criminalize anything because the criminals are going to ignore the law anyway? Think about that in other contexts. Why should we criminalize murder or rape because people are going to kill and rape anyway? But wait a [...]

Mean World Syndrome

The above video is an interview with Michael Morgan who was involved in a recent documentary about violence in media. I just finished watching the documentary. It’s well done, but I was already familiar with some of the general analysis because of other documentaries (such as: The Power of Nightmares). I wish such documentaries had wider [...]

Jimmy Carter & Clean Air Act

I came across a research paper: http://www3.amherst.edu/~jwreyes/papers/LeadCrimeNBERWP13097.pdf The conclusion of the researchers was: “This paper argues that the removal of lead from gasoline in the late 1970s under the Clean Air Act is an additional important factor in explaining the decline in crime in the 1990s. The main result of the paper is that changes [...]

The Straight Dope on Spanking

In George Lakoff’s book Moral Politics, he compares the conservative Strict Father morality and the liberal Nurturant Parent morality. One of the distinctions is that Strict Father morality in terms of parenting is more condoning of physical violence used as punishment to ensure moral behavior. The following video discusses the research that shows the ineffectiveness (or rather negative [...]

Far Right’s Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Secessionism & Militias, Paranoia & Violence

I find it hard to comprehend the mindset of some rightwingers. I don’t disagree in principle with many of their values and ideas, but I always sense some hidden motive behind the rhetoric. It’s partly just that rightwingers are more prone to paranoid conspiracy theorizing than those on the left. I’m actually sympathetic to the [...]

Mother Of Man Arrested For Threatening Pelosi Blames FOX News