You’ve made three posts about this issue since I used the term “neo-Confederate,” each referencing ad hominem. This is my third post since the new-Confederate reference, which I haven’t made any assertion about Von Mises’ views on race. At this point, you’re the one who keeps bringing it up.
Seriously, would you like to debate the views of this organization? You’re unhappy that I didn’t defend my accusation of racism, and you’re unhappy that I “keep bringing it up.” Do you want me to talk about it or not? Make up your mind.
Perhaps the main critique of limiting the compassion to OECD countries is that such countries is that:!“Such assertions ignore immense differences in culture, size, politics, history, demographics, or ethnic diversity. Comparisons with mono-ethnic Asian countries like Japan and Korea make even less sense.”
However, it then goes one to propose: “More Realistic Comparisons Involve a Broader View of the World – Why not use the UN’s human development index instead?” The author then proposes that 0.75 on the HDI should be used. This brings in counties such as Oman, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Cuba, Iran, Sri Lanka, and many others, even though the author doesn’t mention them by name. In fact, 78 countries qualify under the author’s proposal. In his chart on “high HDI countries,” he reflects data for only 18 countries.
Now help me follow this rationale:
Comparing the US to a mostly Western European group of countries is said to be misleading, because those countries are so different - especially Asian countries.
Author proposes a “better measure” that involves 78 countries, many of them Middle Eastern, Eastern European, a few on the Subcontinent, and so on.
Author shows data for only 18 of the 78 countries and declares that the US looks pretty good in comparison.
This is the logic of a college sophomore. If Western European countries are a poor comparison because of demographics and other factors, surely Middle Eastern oil nations, former colonies in South America and elsewhere, and former Soviet bloc countries are an even worse comparison. Why does including those countries make a better comparison?
The author rightly criticizes someone for cherry picking by excluding Mexico from his comparison for arbitrary reasons. By then the author proposes a “better” criteria in which he eliminates 3/4ths of the countries in his criteria for no apparent reason. Why is this not cherry picking?
Finally, the author goes on to add states with “low murder rates” to the comparison, so that countries like Russia and Panama to states like Colorado. If you are very concerned about cherry picking, your alarm bells should be off the fucking charts by now.
But they aren’t. I have a hypothesis why: because you agree with the author’s conclusion, no matter how he arrived at it.
Sorry for messing up your quote a little bit (I’m on a phone and it’s incredibly difficult to reconstruct - I don’t mean to alter your meaning!). So you agree with the author that comparing the US to Norway is oh so misleading because of “immense” differences. But you imply that a comparison to Kazakhstan and Oman ought to be considered valid? This makes literally no sense.
You may have missed it, but by doing this, it was intentionally cherry picking to demonstrate a point. The point was not that the HDI is oh so wonderful, it was that the very act of picking the comparison set is arbitrary. The use of states with low murder rates was a demonstration of cherry picking. From the article:
This whole line of discussion stemmed from your comparison to ‘virtually all modern industrialized countries that have much lower rates of violent deaths’. The point is, depending on the criteria you use to choose your comparison set, you can manipulate the results however you want.
If I say that the cheetah is the fastest creature on the planet, you could rightfully correct me and say no, the Peregrine falcon could travel much faster than a cheetah! And then I would have to say, well, true, but I’m thinking only of land animals. Okay, that seems like a meaningful distinction because the method of travel is so much different. That is a persuasive distinction. But if you are comparing modern industrialized countries, you’re going to have to find a persuasive criteria that omits Mexico but leaves in the US.
So if you are proposing a comparison set of “modern industrialized countries” you need to support why that is a good comparison set. Me personally, I don’t find ANY comparison to foreign countries persuasive. And as **ChickenLegs **stated earlier, there’s more to the comparison than just gun laws.
I agree with the author only to the extent that choosing the criteria of the comparison set can lead to misleading conclusions.
Still, you can’t have it both ways. If the author is being sarcastic in using HDI as a “better comparison,” the implied conclusion is that one cannot compare the United States to any group of countries, because there are too many variables.
Do you think that we cannot compare any group of counties? Because I do not. So long as one recognizes the limits of comparisons, they can be extremely useful for understanding policies, economics, societies, and many other phenomena. This is the reason there are whole academic disciplines devoted to comparing countries and groups of countries.
I’m not sure the HDI comparison is entirely sarcastic, here is what the article says when introducing it:
From this I don’t think there is heavy credence placed on the HDI, it’s simply used as a comparison data point.
But the main thrust that I take from the article is that any such comparisons should be made carefully, and that all will have weaknesses. I think some things lend themselves well to comparisons where there is data available. Infant mortality, GDP, population density, etc. Homicides and whatever is defined as “gun violence” or just straight violence are more problematic and I don’t find the comparisons persuasive in either direction. Combine with the fact that I’m most interested in the US laws I typically don’t give much credence to the efficacy of other country’s gun laws.
Especially with regard to open carry, why look to other countries at all? The US alone has many examples of different treatment of OC.
Notwithstanding your statement (not quoted here for brevity) that you don’t particularly care about other countries’ gun laws, as a general principle, what countries do you think are most apt for a comparison to the US?
Thanks for bringing us back to the actual topic of the thread. I think open carry as a practice is totally bizarre, but I don’t see how it effects crime, homicide, or safety in a very significant way.
Probably not the answer you’re looking for but my grandfather open carried because (at the time) concealed carry required a license. (At least that’s what my father told me.) So my grandfather always made sure the top of his pistol was visible.
As to why my grandfather felt the need to carry a gun…maybe it was because he was a night watchman. I don’t really know and never got the chance to ask him.
You mean for other items not including gun laws? I really don’t know. I think some will be more comparable in different areas for different reasons. I think it terms of health those with generally western diets could work. China could be a good example since it’s such a big country some parts of it have more embraced western diets than others. I think I’d need to look at a specific thing that is being compared to hazard a guess.
I personally am not a fan of open carry for myself. It would be a bit more inconvenient and I would likely get hassled more. My employer probably wouldn’t appreciate it. I live in CA though, so I have no method of carry. Here would be my choice in order of descending preference: Concealed, open, ---------------------> no carry.
I’m confused… I thought Ann Richards or George Bush made open carry legal in Texas back in 1995 or so? This was a long time ago, and I was only stationed there in the Army, but it seemed like kind of a big deal back then.
History of the Texas ban on open carry (including the racist roots, a common element in the history of gun control.) Concealed carry shall-issue passed in 1995, not open carry.
