Stupid Hippie Index
TSO sent me this link, and I really don’t know what to make of it. It’s from a survey conducted by the Institute for Economics and Peace and it ranks the most “peaceful” States. Some how, the peace index has something to do with the correlation of the number of police officers and the increase of crime in the States;
New York experienced the most significant increase in peace as a result of decreases in violent crime and the homicide rate.
Conversely, South Dakota saw the largest decline due to a steady rise in incarcerations and the number of police without a fall in the incidence of homicide or violent crime.
But, South Dakota is #14, so things can’t be too bad there. New York is #29. Funny how the highest ranking States are generally liberal Northeast States.
The USPI also finds that a state’s ranking is strongly correlated with various socio-economic factors including the high school graduation rate, access to health insurance and the rate of infant mortality. Significant economic correlants included the degree of income inequality and the rate of participation in the labor force. Meanwhile, factors such as median income and a state’s political affiliation had no discernable [sic] impact on a state’s level of peace.
I’ll bet if they included abortions in the infant mortality factor, it’d change the outcome significantly.
Generally, the South seems to fare worse in the index. In other words, states which have intrusive governments seem to have more “Peace” and States which generally leave their residents alone have less “Peace”. That couldn’t have something to do with the indicators the Economic and Peace Institute used could it?
Category: I hate hippies
State of peace? Really? How about happy feelings? You can measure the number of people taking prozac. Maybe we could measure how full of s**t their Representatives or Senators are.
Well, then there’s Utah. Home to John M. Browning, several million Mormons, and a successful guerilla TEA Party.
That report might be the biggest waste of freakin’ time I’ve seen since Farmville, or that time TSO tried to take Barney Frank to a titty bar for lunch.
Maybe TSO should have taken Frank to a Moob-ie bar instead.
It depends on what metrics they are using to come up with their data.
Yeah, we have more “peace” up here, according to their graph, but what they don’t show you is that we have a 61% recitivism rate of those who have been let out of jail, as was relayed in a story about that problem from the Star-Tribune. So, we are “peaceful” at throwing money down the rat hole of rehabilitating criminals.
It seems to deal with inverse relationships, and if statistics can be made to say anything you want, an inverse-relation graft will simply sing like a canary for you! It’s nothing more than shape-shifting with words and numbers. Mind games…and they work the best on weak minds. Unfortunately.
They claim that incarceration is a drag, economically, on society and claim that it has no significant impact on reducing violent crime. Yet, as I pointed out in my previous post; the recitivism rate for criminals in my top 5 most peaceful state is quite high, which kinda blows their pre-determined conclusion out of the water. Why do they even bother with such bs when they have pre-determined conclusions and metrics that are designed to give them such conclusions? They leave politics out of it, even though the progressive or conservative policies of a state will have an impact on economic values. For instance; is your state a high tax state in reference to business taxes and regulations? It is a variable that can’t be overlooked. Businesses are running out of Kalifornia not because of the “peace” index, but rather the tax and regulation indices.
If I wrote a report, for my job, with metrics like this, I would either be fired, or torn apart by other engineers in the meeting where I present my results.
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Proud to be from Tennessee! Stay out of my state, hippies!
Hmmmmmm…VT and NH are two of the most “peaceful” states (actually ME is #1, NH is #2.)
Consider the demographics of the region there as well. Just sayin. When I lived in suburban Orange County, we had a crime rate several times higher than where I live now, which for NH is considered higher crime–we had a murder in 2003 and there are a few assholes robbing pharmacies for Oxycontin and Xanax…(Matthis? Kokesh??)
Oh, and NH liberal? ROFL…only the imported Massholes are liberal. Most of us here
…aren’t. Live Free or Die still means something.
(Damn flaky Submit button.)
Company I work for recently announced the relocation of every function at a particular office in CA to the corporation headquarters location here in TX. I’m sure it’s going to save my employer quite a bit of money, even after paying for the hassles of the relocation…
NYC increased the Peace?
Ha! I watched a Kid with a Compound Bow shooting Broadhead hunting arrows at another gang in Flushing Queens 163rd Street. Same Gang ran 3 kids over in front of my house last february with a Maxima, and several months ago shot a kid twice in the knee next door. Cops have never arrested anyone yet for these incidents in the 109th Pct.
Peace my ass, I felt safer in Baghdad back in 2004.
Like I said–the town I live in, according to city-data.com, has a crime rate less than HALF the national average, and it’s considered one of the higher crime towns in NH.
Granted, the cops here are about a half step above the Keystone Cops, but when a bint stealing a dozen lobsters from the local Market Basket makes the STATE news, and the local news for TWO days, you know that all in all, it’s not that bad around here. At least OUR criminals end up in jail, and STAY there.