In fact marriage equality, and the increasingly broad acceptance of homosexuality in America, is an extraordinary accomplishment. And it's only going to keep getting better. That contrasts sharply with the majority of the world, that is the exact opposite and opposed to marriage equality.
> If you exclude the places where murder happens most, of course you appear to have a low murder rate.
Not excluding at all. The whole of the US has a murder rate 1/3 that of Russia, and on par with Amsterdam. Few Americans as a percentage live in very high murder rate neighborhoods or areas. Those areas have extremely high murder rates, the other 99%+ of America where most people live does not. That's an exceptionally critical distinction. The worst areas of eg Chicago do not threaten most of the people that live in Chicago, most of those citizens are under very little risk of being murdered or harmed by that crime. It's context dropping to pretend otherwise. To pretend that all of Chicago suffers from an equally high murder rate is absurd.
> Perhaps you have not paid attention to the news. Quite literally hundreds of black people have been shot by US police this year so far.
In fact I do more than just watch the headlines, I read the stats. Police caused deaths have been falling for 40 years. The US is almost so diverse at this point, that it will soon have no majority. The parent comment claimed unarmed minorities were being killed left and right. In fact, there are typically around 500 police caused deaths per year in the US, a small fraction of which are unarmed minorities that are shot, and a fraction of which are unjustified in terms of use of force. Nearly half of those deaths are white people, not minorities. To put these numbers in context, China executes 2,500+ people per year, with some record execution years that are truly astounding. They've executed more people in the last 10 years, than cops have killed in the US total in the last 100 years.
> Asians in America are a relatively privileged minority. Now look at how other ethnic groups fare. Not so rosy.
I find it fascinating how you excuse the success of Asian Americans by slandering them as privileged. Fact: Asians in America are among the richest Asians on earth; Blacks in America are the richest blacks on earth; Latinos in America are the richest Latinos on earth.
> If you're rich.
Nope, America has the world's largest middle class, and has good upward mobility:
"A surprising and increasing number of middle-skill workers are moving up rather than down the economic ladder."
The fact that the US has one of the highest standards of living, median incomes, and median disposable incomes, proves the point easily. You very clearly don't have to be rich at all to do well in America. The US also has one of the highest rates of college degree acquisition in the world.
I want to add that Amsterdam is TOTALLY NOT dangerous. It's got a high murder rate because it's a capital for drug lords and assassinations happen. Civilians are completely unaffected by this. In my neighbourhood multiple people were assassinated while I was a kid, nobody ever talked about it, nobody was scared or anything, it's a non-topic really. In fact most of them used to happen in the wealthiest part of Amsterdam where all the rich people live and where I'd happily and safely cycle to school by myself at age 8 every day.
Again this is a street where virtually everyone living is a millionaire, and the primary school she's 1 minute away from is one of the best in the country.
Nobody I knew ever witnessed anything, you'd just read it in the newspapers. The people who got assassinated were high level drug bosses who'd been in organised crime for decades. We're not talking about civilians here.
Beyond that, these are eurostat numbers and they're a bit shitty. The murder rates include drumroll abortion, dangerous driving and euthanasia. In short, it has nothing to do with crime or safety. So even the homicide rate of the Netherlands (a mere < 1 per 100k) is overstated. (as it probably is for American cities which have high abortion rates due to socioeconomic issues and poor sex ed)
Amsterdam is a super safe city I've lived all my life. (and I've traveled and lived in 4 continents so I can compare.) In terms of safety, sadly no developed country compares to the US, it's that bad.
I'll tell you the actual murder rates for Amsterdam and the Netherlands for 2014. Amsterdam 20, the Netherlands 137.
Per 100k that's about 1.5 for Amsterdam (for comparison, 1.3 in 2010, 1.5 in 2011), the most dangerous city in the Netherlands, and 0.8 for the Netherlands.
It's not dishonest in the least. For a country supposedly as violent and dangerous as the US, with the vast number of guns that we have, to have a murder rate on par with Amsterdam is worth noting - it's also worth noting that it has been improving for decades almost non-stop. As we gradually end the war on drugs, it's likely to drop a lot further.
If we get that 4.x rate down to a high 2.x rate in the next 20 years, would that not be a solid accomplishment given the guns in America? At the rate violent crime has been dropping over time, that's likely to be the outcome.
And as I've noted previously, America in fact has a lot of cities with extremely low murder rates. If you want to live in a very safe city, there are plenty of options.
Let's look at San Diego versus Amsterdam: nearly twice the population and nearly half the murder rate.
1) you're comparing the safest US cities to the 'murder capital' of Europe. That's a total joke. It's like comparing the standard of living of a European billionaire to an American homeless person and saying 'look!'. That's why he's saying it's dishonest.
2) Even if the comparison was reasonable, you completely fail to understand the cause of the numbers and what they say. And they say nothing about safety for ordinary people living in Amsterdam, I can tell you that right away.
1) San Diego isn't the safest US city. The safest US cities are on par with the safest eg Scandinavian cities. There are US cities with 100k+ people that regularly have 1.x annual murder rates. If you want to live in a very safe city, the US has plenty to choose from.
2) Nothing you've said refutes or alters Amsterdam's murder rate. Nor is what you said very effective, watch: your statement says nothing about the average safety of someone living in New York City. You completely fail to understand the murder rate in New York City and how it impacts the quality of life of the typical citizen there.
Oh my god, it's the LOWEST. Yes, the lowest of big cities. San diego has a population of a little over a million, quite comparable to Amsterdam (which has a smaller population, but roughly a million).
And what's the murder rate in 2014? 32. Amsterdam's murder rate in 2014? 20.
Alright so, the safest big city in the US, has a murder rate comparable with the most dangerous city in the Netherlands, or as you call it the murder capital of Europe.
(2) Yes I did refute your claims. Are you not listening?
1) Again, the 4.4 number includes abortions, dangerous driving and euthanasia. You can make a claim for dangerous driving (although it's mostly self-murder, so doesn't impact my safety), but euthanasia and abortion doesn't affect my safety AT ALL or anyone else's. Virtually every year the actual murder rate in Amsterdam is below 2, again comparable to the SAFEST city in the US, and this is supposedly the most dangerous city. So someone aborts a baby, or a 95 year old with a great life who went blind, bed ridden and in constant pain from a chronic disease wants to die and is requests euthanasia, makes my life less safe? It's a joke.
2) And those are murder rates of who? Organised crime. 90% of the murders in Amsterdam are assassinations of organised criminals, people who generated +$100m in drug money and get assassinated by a competitor. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with my safety. It doesn't affect me at all. Drug crime isn't like it is in the US, every month or so one or two people get assassinated in a targeted attack. I've never witnessed this or heard the gunshots or seen the blood or the bodies, despite living my entire childhood in neighborhoods in Amsterdam where this happened. (the richest neighbourhood by the way because these drug lords are all multi millionaires who live in expensive villas. The fact someone goes to their home and kills them and spikes the murder rate affects ordinary people in no way whatsoever. As opposed to gang violence in the US which takes the lives of many innocent people, and takes the lives of young small time petty criminals who have few opportunities, as opposed to 50 year old millionaires who've been in crime for decades). It's like saying if a police officer kills a dangerous criminal and the murder rate goes up by 1, that this makes your life less safe, it's a joke.
3) Actual crime (whether it's assault, rape, theft) is all much lower because Amsterdam is extremely safe and the murder rate is only high because virtually all victims are high level criminals. If you actually look at safety (whether it's from murder or any other crime) for ordinary civilians, it's nowhere near the safest US city. The comparison is a total joke.
> In fact marriage equality, and the increasingly broad acceptance of homosexuality in America, is an extraordinary accomplishment.
It is an accomplishment, for sure! The Western world (not just America) has become much more tolerant of gay people.
And yet, while the US has had white people getting more tolerant or even accepting of white gay people, white people have not been getting more tolerant of black people.
In fact, the US has recently stepped backwards in some places, such as the end of the Voting Rights Act.
By all means, celebrate the progress that some people have made in the US. But bear in mind others have made none.
> The US is almost so diverse at this point, that it will soon have no majority.
Majorities and minorities matter less than who holds power. In Apartheid South Africa, black people were the majority.
> The parent comment claimed unarmed minorities were being killed left and right. In fact, there are typically around 500 police caused deaths per year in the US, a small fraction of which are unarmed minorities that are shot, and a fraction of which are unjustified in terms of use of force.
Only a few of which are unjustified? Really? In most civilised nations, police shoot orders of magnitude less people.
Also, the idea that it only matters if unarmed minorities are shot in the US is abhorrent. In the US, you may legally carry arms.
> Nearly half of those deaths are white people, not minorities.
The fact poor white people are also shot is itself alarming.
> To put these numbers in context, China executes 2,500+ people per year,
China isn't a rich, Western nation. It's not a fair point of comparison.
> I find it fascinating how you excuse the success of Asian Americans by slandering them as privileged.
It's not slander, and I don't mean to say they face no discrimination, but they do face a much easier time than, say, black people in the United States.
> Fact: Asians in America are among the richest Asians on earth; Blacks in America are the richest blacks on earth; Latinos in America are the richest Latinos on earth.
Yes, but absolute (if you can even call it that: exchange rates vary) wealth doesn't matter. US Black and hispanic people are living in poverty by US standards.
> Nope, America has the world's largest middle class, and has good upward mobility:
It also has a massive number of people in poverty who cannot move up the latter.
> You very clearly don't have to be rich at all to do well in America.
The whole "upward mobility" concept relies on you eventually being rich. If the metaphorical ladder never reaches you (and for millions of people, it never does), no, you don't do well.
And by "rich" I do not mean upper class. Middle class people are, relatively speaking, rich.
of course, everyone knows that it's a problem that white people get shot by cops too. But bringing it up frustrates the white American liberal because they can't get truly mad about police shooting unless it disproportionally affects (non-asian) minorities. I mean, they'll talk about it, but everybody wants to pretend they're on the front of a new civil rights movement and signal how progressive they are. It gets old.
The problem is that when you take away the racial angle, you might discover that America's pretty violent, and that fact might have an impact on how many police shootings there are.
In fact marriage equality, and the increasingly broad acceptance of homosexuality in America, is an extraordinary accomplishment. And it's only going to keep getting better. That contrasts sharply with the majority of the world, that is the exact opposite and opposed to marriage equality.
> If you exclude the places where murder happens most, of course you appear to have a low murder rate.
Not excluding at all. The whole of the US has a murder rate 1/3 that of Russia, and on par with Amsterdam. Few Americans as a percentage live in very high murder rate neighborhoods or areas. Those areas have extremely high murder rates, the other 99%+ of America where most people live does not. That's an exceptionally critical distinction. The worst areas of eg Chicago do not threaten most of the people that live in Chicago, most of those citizens are under very little risk of being murdered or harmed by that crime. It's context dropping to pretend otherwise. To pretend that all of Chicago suffers from an equally high murder rate is absurd.
> Perhaps you have not paid attention to the news. Quite literally hundreds of black people have been shot by US police this year so far.
In fact I do more than just watch the headlines, I read the stats. Police caused deaths have been falling for 40 years. The US is almost so diverse at this point, that it will soon have no majority. The parent comment claimed unarmed minorities were being killed left and right. In fact, there are typically around 500 police caused deaths per year in the US, a small fraction of which are unarmed minorities that are shot, and a fraction of which are unjustified in terms of use of force. Nearly half of those deaths are white people, not minorities. To put these numbers in context, China executes 2,500+ people per year, with some record execution years that are truly astounding. They've executed more people in the last 10 years, than cops have killed in the US total in the last 100 years.
> Asians in America are a relatively privileged minority. Now look at how other ethnic groups fare. Not so rosy.
I find it fascinating how you excuse the success of Asian Americans by slandering them as privileged. Fact: Asians in America are among the richest Asians on earth; Blacks in America are the richest blacks on earth; Latinos in America are the richest Latinos on earth.
> If you're rich.
Nope, America has the world's largest middle class, and has good upward mobility:
"A surprising and increasing number of middle-skill workers are moving up rather than down the economic ladder."
The fact that the US has one of the highest standards of living, median incomes, and median disposable incomes, proves the point easily. You very clearly don't have to be rich at all to do well in America. The US also has one of the highest rates of college degree acquisition in the world.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/some-hopeful-job-news-for-a-hard...