From Paul Krugman jumps on the bogus 'red state murder problem' bandwagon by John Sexton.
Well . . . Paul Krugman.
More seriously though, an interesting discussion about lying with truth. If you can carefully craft both your statements and your data, it is possible to create an argument whose constituent components are entirely true but whose overall argument is empirically untrue. Are eight of the states with the highest murder rates governed by a Republican governor. Yes. But there is more to the argument than that headline.
Take red state Missouri. It is among the top ten states for murder rates. Does that mean, as implied, that Republican governance fosters an environment of murder? Well . . .
Take Missouri. Yes, it voted for Trump. But it is also home to two of the most dangerous U.S. cities — St. Louis and Kansas City — both of which are run by Democrats. Earlier this year, CBS News did an analysis of the “deadliest U.S. cities” using the latest FBI and other crime data. In 2019, it found, St. Louis had the highest murder rate in the nation, with 64.54 murders per 100,000 residents. Kansas City, meanwhile, had the eighth-highest murder rate, with 29.88 murders per 100,000. According to the FBI, the state had about 520 murders in major metropolitan areas that year, 20 in cities outside metropolitan areas, and 28 in nonmetropolitan counties. So, the vast majority of Missouri’s homicides took place in its Democrat-run cities.
Sexton is making a partisan argument but the point he is making about using careful definitions and selectively presented data to advance something which is untrue is a good one. And the practice is regrettably common.
That is pretty powerful data though. 568 murders in the state with 520 of them being in blue governed cities.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment