At least 14 people have been killed in a mass shooting at a center for people with developmental disabilities in San Bernardino, involving multiple shooters in combat gear and using assault weapons. Police say that two suspects have been killed, one man, one woman; a third suspect has been detained. As I write this it’s not clear who the attackers were, what motivated them.
Please post any relevant information you find in the comments below.
See here for ongoing coverage.
I’m trying to understand why you’re not grasping that my actual point, which I thought I had stated clearly, is that your statement:
is, IMHO, wrong. The absolute numbers are more significant than the per capita numbers. What exactly is unclear about that? How can I state that in a more straightforward way? I’m not disagreeing with a strawman; I’m disagreeing with what you clearly said.
No, that is not at all what I would say. I would say that those countries are doing equally the same amount of good. Your per-capita method would say they are doing more good, even though, as you admit straight out here, there is “literally no difference.”
And this is just plain false. I have no idea where this came from. Where the arbitrary national borders are drawn makes an enormous difference. If it didn’t, migration wouldn’t happen for political reasons, and only climate would vary between locales. People absolutely do care, for good reason, where they are geographically located relative to arbitrary national borders. Whyever would you argue differently?
eta:
This sounds like a great rationale for Americans to petition to stop accepting any immigrants at all. If we are already doing the opposite of helping, maybe we should just stop all the, by your reckoning, half-assed efforts we’re already making.
Compounding the compassion fatigue many Americans are experiencing is the observation that there really wasn’t ever much of an economic recovery for the middle class in many areas of the country. Jobs are still hard to find, hard to get, and the pay in general has not kept up with the basic cost of living. We’re having another housing boom in my area, fueled by truckloads of out-of-state (not foreign this time) in-migration money, that has priced many locals out of the game. This happens about every two decades for various reasons. My neighbor’s rent went from $825 to $1375 literally overnight last fall (they were on a month-to-month lease). Can they get raises to cover this magnitude of increase? Nope. People here are feeling pressured, scared, and poor – the opposite of generous. So, lots of grumbling.
I’ll make this as simple as possible.
The reason why per capita numbers are more important is because it doesn’t change depending on the number and size of countries. I.e. if all of Europe was one country accepting X immigrants instead of many different countries all accepting an average of X immigrants, then clearly the latter would be preferable. If instead we focus on per capita numbers we can’t explain away doing less as doing more, as you’re trying to do. And yeah, I’m seriously side-eyeing you for this obviously BS argument.
As for your last paragraph, it’s possible I could’ve used better words there. Doing something is better than doing nothing. However, doing less than average* when you could be expected to do average does not win you a pat on the head.
*I don’t actually know that the US is doing less than average. This is meant as a general statement, not as criticism of the United States specifically.
Your per-capita standard is completely arbitrary. Europe doesn’t get to set the “standard” for what per-capita immigration numbers ought to be and then bitch at the United States for failing to meet that goal. Europe doesn’t get to decide what is “fair” and what is not.
You don’t personally get to make this decision either, and your side-eyes mean zip to me.
Uh. You might wanna check your math on that one.
And, yes, I do personally get to make the decision as to who I personally choose to side-eye. Maybe you’re misunderstanding the word “personally”?
I didn’t mention any “standard” in my comments. More examples of strawpersoning.
—
I’m gonna leave this discussion now because of dinner, and hopefully won’t revisit it later. You’re getting a last word in, so don’t waste it by repeating yourself.
You don’t personally get to decide what is fair. I’ll give you a reading comprehension pass for not being a native speaker of English. You are not the arbiter of fairness.
Yep, you are so much better and farther above me. Glad we cleared that up.
Per-capita is important for making analogous comparisons. While total is good for comparing absolute impact, per-capita indirectly reveals the percentage of resources dedicated to doing good. So yes, a country a quarter the size of the US with a per-capita immigration rate of double that of the US would have grounds to complain that the US should accept twice as many immigrants as the US has been doing without that country having to push its per-capita acceptance rate to eight times that of the US. Because the smaller country is dedicating more of its effort to accepting immigrants.
No, by the per-capita method in the scenario as described, each will have precisely the same per-capita number accepting 250,000 immigrants with a population of 80 million as accepting 1 million with a population of 320 million. In order for the per-capita method to say they’re doing more good, total immigration across all four would have to rise.
@guy
Thanks for confirming my math. I thought it was a simple example, but apparently not. :/
Aced my TOEFL by the way, so swing and a miss there, PoM. 😀
Yes, it’s tragic, but what is more tragic is how stupid the media was in thinking the people killed were employees of Inland Regional Center. They weren’t. They were all employees of the Department of Health, Environmental Unit, the people who grade the restaurants, you know, like the A, B, C or D grade you see in the front window. That said, is this whole thing a tragic incident. Yes. Needless people died at the hands of a killer islamonut and his nutty wife.
That said, all this talk about Inland Regional Center being a place that helps disabled is absolutely wrong. This is a place that routinely fights parents who are advocating to get help for their disabled children (at any age). Don’t be fooled.
How Inland Regional Center (IRC) really helps disabled kids and adults: They bring them to court and fight against providing them services and supports:
http://www.documents.dgs.ca.gov/oah/DDS_Decisions/2013080486.084.pdf