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How to Lie with Statistics
“F.B.I. Treating Attack in San Bernardino as Terrorism” reads the New York Times headline, implying that perhaps the Times demurs. The sense of the paper being dragged, reluctantly, from a preferred narrative is accentuated midway through the article by a curious graphical island, appearing in splendid isolation from the actual text:
Clicking through to the source reveals the contention that there have been more deaths in the United States from “right wing attacks” than “jihadist attacks” since 2002. The take home point: Even if the San Bernardino shooting is the work of ISIS-inspired terrorists, as the FBI now acknowledges, what’s the big deal? The Second Amendment is the real problem.
In his 1954 classic How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff devotes a chapter to manipulating impressions by resort to the Gee-Whiz Graph. The Times entry stands as a modern-day exemplar of the type. For starters, care to guess why 2002 was selected as the base year for comparison rather than 2000? What are the criteria used for categorizing murders as “jihadist” versus “right wing”? What murders are excluded from both categories and why? And what about the evident quiescence in violent death from both camps depicted from 2002-2008? What might possibly have changed in the United States beginning in 2009 to bring about a dramatic increase in successful domestic terror attacks? The authors offer no comment.
And that speaks volumes.
This assumes that the only variable provided by the President is rhetoric, though. Obama’s response to terrorism, his foreign policy, his executive actions, his handling of the justice department and his treatment of various intelligence agencies, his refusal to even hear opposition and his cadre of arrogant and ignorant yes-men…
There is far more to the presidency than talk.
Have there been Left wing mass shooting in the US since 2001?
The only violent post-War US Left Wing groups that I can think of are the Weathermen and the SLA. (Maybe the Black Panthers, but ??)
There just is not that much Left Wing violence in the US, I would say, defining violence and Left Wing traditionally. (So leaving out stuff like abortion, which is arguable either way but isn’t terrorism per se.)
It’s true that the Left dropped organized, targeted political violence for the most part after the 70s. There are a few environmentalist/animal rights attacks, mostly arson. Very few shootings or bombings.
I think there are only a handful of deaths from Leftist terrorism in the U.S.A. There have been plenty of deaths, injuries, arsons and vandalism from Leftists in Europe. When you tote up all the mayhem from animal-rights, anarchist-leftist, environmental eco-terrorists and anti-Christian leftists, they add up to more than from Islamic terror attacks.
Oh, definitely. Not only that, being forthright, brave and honest are important even if the Islammy-whammies take it as provocation. I just don’t think it’ll be fair to judge the next president by how many terrorist attacks there are (though I think the number foiled or aborted because of efficient security might be a good thing to know). Among other things, I suspect that the US makes a convenient target and rhetorical whipping-boy, but the attacks (and the “message” of the attacks) are aimed at other muslims at least as much and probably more than they are directed at us.
The president ought not to be tailoring his own message to the perceived sensibilities of the crazies, nor even the moderates. He should be talking to us and those like us about what we stand for, and if the loonies happen to overhear him (or those who are oppressed by the loonies do) so much the better.
There are fashions in these things. When I was in college, protests against nuclear power plants got pretty lively—protesters brought vinegar to throw up under the state trooper’s riot masks. Nice, eh? But not lethal. Still, if the New Black Panthers decide that protecting black ivy leaguers from micro aggression requires a more macro aggression than mere spitting or screamed obscenities, I suppose it could start up again.
there was the Red Brigades in Italy and the Baader Meinhoff gang in Germany who were pretty into terrorism decades ago.
Goalposts Manfred : – )
Have there been deaths from right-wing violence? Not really. But, that’s the problem with these black and white labels. I don’t think there is much about skinheads and neonazis that has anything to do with conservatism, but they are somehow considered right-wing, rather than independent. Perhaps the only thing that might reasonably be tagged to the right wing would be abortion clinic violence, inasmuch as that actually exists (this last one not being right-wing in any way, from what I understand), and there you’d have to say it is roughly comparable to left-wing violence.
So then consider MJ’s point. Protest groups are absolutely left wing, and are even supported by the mainstream left. That includes OWS and BLM. I don’t know how many deaths you can tally, but they are undeniably more extreme and more violent than any recognized groups or movements on the right.
I have to join in on questioning the counting here. Are such things as the Charleston church shootings considered “right wing” violence? I don’t recall that they were, and there is nothing “right” (in a political sense, particularly) in anti-black violence. If the church shootings are considered right wing because they were perpetrated by either white people or people of a non-leftist ideology, then I would ask that the horrific numbers of deaths in inner city violence be chalked up as left wing violence, since they were perpetrated by people likely not to share the views of Bill Buckley. Please adjust the infographics accordingly….
I would have said there’s nothing about skinheads and neo-Nazis that has anything to do with conservative American thought, and that in fact they’re utterly antithetical to it. Does anyone here feel any kind of kindred feeling for neo-Nazis? Of course not.
Those shootings were 2002, not 2009. But either way, they are not on the NYT graph.
Exactly. But Hitler was right wing… Because apparently the only meaning of “right wing” is “people I don’t like.”
The problem is that too many people accept those definitions.
From the NYT:
It’s not just lurid Nazis with tattoos and swastikas.
Anarchy is not right-wing.
How many officers have been killed by anti-cop BLM sorts, or rioters, who actually are widely accepted into the mainstream left? That article you cited is a cherry picking of numbers with some pretty loose definitions in order to fit people into their preferred narrative.
Claire: “I would have said there’s nothing about skinheads and neo-Nazis that has anything to do with conservative American thought, and that in fact they’re utterly antithetical to it. Does anyone here feel any kind of kindred feeling for neo-Nazis? Of course not.”
Me: Indeed, no.
The left goes to great lengths to characterize the Islamic supremacist movement as having nothing to do with Islam. The seem to prefer leaving out any religious reference at all, e.g., by calling terrorism by Muslims “violent extremism”.
Somehow, I don’t think their desire to leave out an identifier is as great when it comes to extremism they deem “right wing”.
So terrorism by Islamic supremacists = “violent extremism”.
Terrorism by allegedly right wing actors who in fact have nothing to do with the conservative movement = “right wing terrorism” or “right wing extremism”. The generic “violent extremism” could apply here, but why let an opportunity go by to stick it to conservatives?
(You’ll notice that I favor the term “Islamic supremacists”. I think it accurately describes their aims and should be inoffensive to normal Muslims. After all, what white person has ever been offended by the term “white supremacist”?)
1. On some days the medialeft like to lump the violent Islamists with right wingers. They’re all religious crazies.
2. President Obama is an anti-government extremist. He thinks he can rule independently of our lawful government. I hope the DHS has him on its watchlists.
This just in: Hillary Clinton said today on ABC’s “This Week” that she will not use the phrase “radical Islam” because it “sounds like a declaration of war against a religion”.
I guess that also means she’ll never say, “white supremacist”, because that sounds like a declaration of war against a race, nor will she use “right wing extremism”, because that sounds like a declaration of war against a political philosophy.
Unsurprising, but probably a good thing overall. I’m pretty sure that it will result in a net loss of votes, which is the prism through which I judge all her actions.
I wonder where she got that idea. It’s certainly not an idea that anybody thought up on their own.
It’s an extreme version (in its sovereign citizen avatar) of a Government small enough to drown in a bucket. It’s as far from Statist as you can get.
I don’t know. I’m not even sure what BLM stands for.
I’m sure it is, but the point is they aren’t just talking about skinheads and Nazis, they’re talking about people whose views some (even on Ricochet) might view with sympathy.
There are the “Sovereign Citizens” who are extremely anti-government, and they definitely target police officers (we get warnings about them often). Given that BLM held protests openly calling for the murder of police officers without being noticeably condemned by, for example, my denomination—which, FYI, went on record as supporting BLM last year—and given that said murders duly took place… has any mainstream conservative group openly endorsed the goals of the Sovereign Citizens? Openly called for the murder of police officers or others?
Incidentally, in at least one of the incidents cited in the original study, the attackers may or may not have been “right wing.” The description sounds to me like it could as easily be left wing, or anarchist, or whatever:
Homegrown Extremists
On June 8th, 2014 Jerad Miller and Amanda Miller, a married couple, allegedly killed two police officers in an ambush at a pizza restaurant in Las Vegas proceeding to kill another person in a Wal Mart parking lot as they left the scene before committing suicide. Law enforcement are believed to have discovered a manifesto written by the shooters, though its content is unknown. The shooters reportedly yelled revolution during the shooting and left a swastika on the body of one policeman. They had also previously spoken of targeting law enforcement officers and expressed militant views according to their neighbors. Second Assistant Sherrif Kevin McMahill stated, “We believe that they equate government and law enforcement … with Nazis” as quoted by CNN.
Black Lives Matter.
My point is that the equivocation is ridiculous. The connections to conservatives – and make no mistake that this is their intent, to tie these people to everyday mainstream conservatives – are spurious to the point of being almost nonsensical. And it ignores ties to the left. Sure, anarchists have that one thing – small government – in common with the right. That doesn’t make them right wing. They have just as much in common with the left (e.g. the breakdown of traditional norms and morality). So why don’t we call them extreme left?
Exactly. In spite of the fact that they likely have more in common with the left wing; and, more importantly, they are generally praised by mainstream liberal politicians while being denounced by mainstream conservatives, these groups are labeled “right-wing” by the media because they can latch on to one similarity among dozens of differences. That is the height of dishonesty; to the point that I doubt they even believe it themselves. But that’s today’s media.
Actually it does make them part of the Right Wing.
The definitional difference between Right and Left stems from their view of who should control the means of production (or just own stuff in general).
Privately held = Right.
Jointly held = Left.
Every other marker (traditional norms and morality etc.) is secondary.
This is not a commonly accepted definition of right and left. But more importantly, even that definition would give you drastically different numbers than what we see here…
And I’m pretty sure Islamic terrorism would be classified left wing under that definition as well.
It might make sense to keep in its own category, but if I had to I’d classify it as right wing.
Using either definition. Private property is big in the Koran, it even spells out when you can take other peoples’. “Traditional values” – IS believes that it’s upholding them, not creating something new.
I guess it’s a matter of perspective.