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Even the FBI crime statistics, by themselves, aren't enough to support the original claim. The claim was that (paraphrasing a bit) you can have guns, black people, or a society without much violence, pick two. For that to be true, you need more than statistics which show "look, most crimes are committed by black people", because it does not follow from such statistics that most black people are committing crimes. You need evidence to bridge that gap, the crime statistics themselves can't get there.
You don't need to show that most black people are committing crimes. You can alternately show that you can't stop the black people who are committing crimes from doing so, which seems to be empirically correct.
Except you haven't shown that. As @FCfromSSC observes we, as society, know how to create better outcomes. The problem is that the required actions are not seen as politically acceptable because there are a lot of bigots and grifters who's egos and livelihoods depend on problems not getting solved.
I can't help but notice that the same people who say "you can't stop the black people who are committing crimes from doing so" are the same people who also lionize George Floyd, defend DeCarlos Brown as "a victim of circumstance", and make excuses for liberal AGs releasing violent schizophrenics back onto the street for the umpteenth time.
We can stop the trolly at any time but doing so would require the liberal striver class to admit that they fucked up.
The actions are not politically acceptable, and that is why we cannot implement them. It does not matter if there are ways of stopping black criminals if we cannot implement them. We've seen what happens if we try -- the pushback gets stronger until we stop doing it, people who notice the issue are ostracized, it becomes illegal to use data to demonstrate things, and if the data stubbornly keep showing the wrong things, they just stop publishing or collecting it.
Then we can't stop it.
Why should you (or anyone else for that matter) privilege the preferences of bigots and grifters over safe streets and teaching kids to read?
Because if we don't privilege them, then they will cause us harm. At some point, the harm that would be prevented by not privileging them could outweigh the harm they would cause and, as such, be worth it, but it's hard to tell where that threshold is and if we've crossed it. In the long run, we can strip them of their ability to cause us harm, but that's one of those Very Hard Problems, and in the long run, we're all dead anyway.
Im sorry but i just do not find the argument that we must allow the commons to be abused because if we dont the people who are currently abusing the commons might burn them down to be particularly compelling.
I would argue that it is better for all involved when abusers are punished, and someone tries to burn it all down because they didn't get thier way we'll punish them for that to.
You say "we'll punish them for that," and I'm assuming that "are punished" before that has an implicit "by us." I agree that, in a fictional world where "we" accomplished such a thing, that it would be better for all involved. Unfortunately, accomplishing such a thing is Very Hard. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but I'm too cowardly to be willing to throw myself on the barbed wire so that my comrades behind me can walk over my body in the tiny chance that we actually do accomplish this. And, as such, I can't begrudge anyone else for being so cowardly.
I acknowledge that it is a difficult problem, but I refuse to accept something being difficult as a reason not to try.
If you're a coward, that's ok. I genuinely respect the honesty and self-awareness it takes to recognize and admit that. and for what it is worth I sympathize. Courage is not the absence of fear (the word for that is "foolhardiness") courage is the ability to think and act clearly in spite of fear. It is an uncommon trait and that's why it is viewed as worthy of notice and commendation.
That said, what I do not respect is the so called "Kolmogorov Option" where someone claims to oppose X in their heart while actively supporting X in word and deed, and that's what I feel like so much of this is.
It's like that nuclear power meme...
...only in this case it's "I don't want to improve outcomes".
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