A perspective on the 2000 election

Nov 14 07:42 UTC 2003

"   Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline
    University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote about the
    2000 Presidential election between Al Gore and George Bush:
     
    Population of counties won by Gore 127 million -- by Bush 143
    million.
     
    Square miles of country won by Gore 580,000 -- by Bush
    2,427,000.
     
    States won by Gore 19 -- by Bush 29.
     
    Murder per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore 13.2 -- by
    Bush 2.1 (not a typo).
     
    Professor Olson adds:  "The map of the territory Bush won was
    (mostly) the land owned by the people of this great country.
     NOT the citizens living in cities in tenements owned by the
    government and living off the government."  "

response 2 of 101:

Nov 14 07:52 UTC 2003

  No doubt Olson has become embittered from living in a "tenement
  owned by the government" (I'm just assuming, since he's living
  in the most densely populated part of a "blue" state..)

response 4 of 101:

Nov 14 08:13 UTC 2003

I profess, therefore I am.

I profess that I am Eric R. Bassey of Ann Arbor, Michigan, therefore 
I am Professor Eric R. Bassey of Ann Arbor, Michigan.

The above represents the semantic equivalent of #0.

response 6 of 101:

Nov 14 08:17 UTC 2003

Refuting the statistics is like trying to prove you're a liberal by 
demonstrating that the sky is blue.

response 8 of 101:

Nov 14 12:23 UTC 2003

I'm not convinced that the statistics show that either set
of land is either "that owned by the people who make the
country great" OR "those sponging of the state" (yes, i'm
paraphrasing).

response 10 of 101:

Nov 14 14:38 UTC 2003

Certainly Gore won more urban counties than Bush, and urban counties
generally have more crime.  So the direction of the "murder rate" 
comparison stated in #0 is no surprise, but I would question the alleged
magnitude.

     (I myself prefer to use the much more accurate "death rate from
     homicide" than the FBI's much cruder "murder rate", but let's
     pretend they're equivalent.)

Of the 14 states with the highest murder rates, 11 went to Bush
(Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona, Georgia,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas, Indiana).  Only three went to
Gore (New Mexico, Maryland, Illinois). 

Notice that most of the states with high murder rates are in the South,
where Gore ran poorly.  The states of the Deep South, including Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, have ranked near the top in homicide
statistics for decades.  The South, taken as a whole, invariably has a
higher murder or homicide rate than the East or West or Midwest.

Why does that happen?  As documented in "Culture of Honor" and other
studies, white men from the South are far more likely than white men from
the non-South to respond to affronts with physical force.  It is also a
traditional cultural norm in the South that deadly force is an appropriate
response to marital infidelity.

response 12 of 101:

Nov 14 15:02 UTC 2003

(Scribbled 11 due to typo.)

Also, among the states with the LOWEST murder rates, ranking 40 to 50 (all
this is based on 1998 FBI stats btw, since that's what I found quickly),
Gore won eight (Iowa, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island,
Minnesota, Delaware), and Bush only three (North Dakota, South Dakota, New
Hampshire).

The urban/crime:rural/safe truism is challenged by the fact that urban
Massachusetts and Rhode Island generally rank in the bottom 10 states,
with the lowest murder rates, and rural Alabama and Mississippi generally
rank in the top 10, with the highest murder rates.

response 14 of 101:

Nov 14 17:03 UTC 2003

Indeed, the "red states" are net consumers of federal dollars, and the
"blue states" are net providers.

response 16 of 101:

Nov 14 17:49 UTC 2003

  re #15:
  > "the non-South"? Is "the North" politically incorrect, or something?

  When Americans talk about "the South" they practically always mean the
  part of the southeastern United States containing the states that seceded
  during the American Civil War (or, as the residents of the area have 
  taken to calling it, "The War of Northern Aggression.")

  "The North" is more vaguely defined but clearly doesn't include states
  like Arizona and New Mexico, which are would be parts of Mexico if they
  were any further south.  They're generally considered parts of "the West"
  or "the Southwest."  

  As a result, "the non-South", while it sounds clumsy, is probably a much
  better term than "the North" for Larry to use to specify the area he means
  to include.

response 18 of 101:

Nov 14 20:15 UTC 2003

resp:0 :: One Acre, One Vote, I always say.

response 20 of 101:

Nov 15 03:29 UTC 2003

every citizen of the united states has equal rights, whetehr they live in the
city or in the country, in a tenement or in a farmhouse.  That is a fact. 
And what is also a fact is that more citizens of the United States, many
thousands more in fact, voted for Al Gore than for George Bush.  In my opinion
that election showed that the electoral college is archaic and outdated.  If
the electoral college does not reflect the popular vote, then it has outlived
its usefulness

response 22 of 101:

Nov 15 04:29 UTC 2003

of course it is outdated every time one of your candidates loses.  But not
when they win, right?

response 24 of 101:

Nov 15 05:35 UTC 2003

Actually, at the inception, a "popular vote" wasn't part of the system: "Each
state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,
a number of electors" (US Constitution, Article II, Section 1).