naraburns nihil supernum
1yr ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #3
This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
Regarding Western liberal narratives on the Gaza war, I’m noticing something I find somewhat odd. I see mainstream liberals arguing that clueless college students are indoctrinated by loony leftist propagandists to be rabid enemies of Israel, our greatest ally, the only democracy in the Middle East etc. And they seem to be saying this without any reflection on the past, where conservatives they hate, like Ben Shapiro and others, have been warning everyone of the same trend for basically two decades, at least since the early years of Bush Jr’s presidency. Now that the true extent of anti-Zionist agitation on Western college campuses is revealed on prime TV for the first time in almost a decade (the last major Israeli military operation in Gaza was in 2014, I reckon, not counting the mass shootings at the border in 2018 or so), targeted at a nation and a people they actually care about, suddenly it’s a real problem, a real concern to be tackled.
Now I understand that one can come up with all sorts of cynical and mundane interpretations as to why this is, how it’s unsurprising and so on, and I get that. But then I remember that there were violent anti-police protests in the summer of 2020, the campaign to remove Confederate monuments, the various protests against Trump’s rallies, and in these cases the tone of the protests were, as far as I can tell, pretty much set by the same leftist college agitators who initiate the current anti-Zionist protests, the ones who call themselves anticolonialists, social justice advocates, antiracists and so on. And the big difference was that they weren’t criticized by mainstream liberals the way they are now, even though all their agitation and messaging stems from the same ideological tenets.
One thing you arguably haven’t considered is that the US ‘Lib’ reaction to what Israel is doing in Gaza might have been very different if this was October 2020 instead of October 2023.
In the last three years violent crime has surged upward in major cities, some ‘restorative justice’ prosecutors like Chesa have been removed or have had impeachment proceedings start against them, Adams won as the ‘tough on crime’ Democrat in New York, many bail reform laws have been adjusted or reversed, a lot of ‘defund the police’ stuff faded away or was cancelled, stuff like the Smollett thing and the BLM corruption filtered through to mainstream NYT liberals, ordinary urban American PMC progressives now hate the homeless drug addicts in their cities with a fury they certainly couldn’t muster in 2020 in the days of the CHAZ etc. In 2020, the hard left ran roughshod over the ‘center’ because Trump was in power and this was ‘the resistance’ and centrists had zero message other than total acquiescence to the activist fringe plan.
In 2023 there’s a much more firm divide between the ‘center left’ and the activist left. That’s because of higher crime rates, illegal immigration now affecting liberal cities like NYC in a more major way, homeless crime spirally out of control and - of course - the fact that Biden is in power. It’s in this climate that we see the divide between ‘center left’ and ‘far left’ (or activist left) on Israel and Gaza. The more conservative wing of the Democratic aligned movement has reasserted itself - Biden celebrating Columbus Day (cancelled by activists in 2020) is one example. By contrast the more radical student/activist fringe doesn’t seem to have moderated its message and is similarly zealous on Palestine as it was on BLM.
Thanks for the detailed reply. Actually I did consider all that; that's what I was referring to when mentioning "cynical and mundane interpretations". No offense meant, but that's what they are.
I'll only nitpick on two issues. As far as I know, it's indeed true that 'in the last three years violent crime has surged upward in major cities', but this trend didn't start in 2020 (although it did escalate after that) but much earlier, before the Trump presidency, in fact, around 2012-15. And the same applies to the problems with the mentally ill homeless, I'm sure.
The U.S. murder rate reached a low in 2014 and has increased by 75% since (as of 2021 - probably higher now).
Any other crime data is a joke. Do you think crime-ridden cities like San Francisco and Baltimore are accurately tallying anything that's not murder? And even if they did, crime reporting tools like the ones offered by the FBI have been gimped since Biden took over.
Given what we know about murder, and how people who commit murders tend to have also committed a litany of other violent crimes, the murder rate is best proxy for the overall crime rate we have. If anything, it undersells the problem as advances in medical care turn would-be murder victims into attempted murder victims.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I was really frustrated by the BJS toolset, which I am sure contains that information. It’s also supposed to have the FBI’s murder data, but really didn’t want to display it to me.
As for the accuracy of non-murder crimes, I don’t know why we should expect a bias to change in any particular year. I could rationalize a dip, but it’d be post-hoc.
If you have X murder and Y petty thefts, an increase in X will likely reduce policing re petty thefts. So assuming resources are constant increased murders would likely lead to less reporting of petty thefts.
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Notes -
Regarding Western liberal narratives on the Gaza war, I’m noticing something I find somewhat odd. I see mainstream liberals arguing that clueless college students are indoctrinated by loony leftist propagandists to be rabid enemies of Israel, our greatest ally, the only democracy in the Middle East etc. And they seem to be saying this without any reflection on the past, where conservatives they hate, like Ben Shapiro and others, have been warning everyone of the same trend for basically two decades, at least since the early years of Bush Jr’s presidency. Now that the true extent of anti-Zionist agitation on Western college campuses is revealed on prime TV for the first time in almost a decade (the last major Israeli military operation in Gaza was in 2014, I reckon, not counting the mass shootings at the border in 2018 or so), targeted at a nation and a people they actually care about, suddenly it’s a real problem, a real concern to be tackled.
Now I understand that one can come up with all sorts of cynical and mundane interpretations as to why this is, how it’s unsurprising and so on, and I get that. But then I remember that there were violent anti-police protests in the summer of 2020, the campaign to remove Confederate monuments, the various protests against Trump’s rallies, and in these cases the tone of the protests were, as far as I can tell, pretty much set by the same leftist college agitators who initiate the current anti-Zionist protests, the ones who call themselves anticolonialists, social justice advocates, antiracists and so on. And the big difference was that they weren’t criticized by mainstream liberals the way they are now, even though all their agitation and messaging stems from the same ideological tenets.
One thing you arguably haven’t considered is that the US ‘Lib’ reaction to what Israel is doing in Gaza might have been very different if this was October 2020 instead of October 2023.
In the last three years violent crime has surged upward in major cities, some ‘restorative justice’ prosecutors like Chesa have been removed or have had impeachment proceedings start against them, Adams won as the ‘tough on crime’ Democrat in New York, many bail reform laws have been adjusted or reversed, a lot of ‘defund the police’ stuff faded away or was cancelled, stuff like the Smollett thing and the BLM corruption filtered through to mainstream NYT liberals, ordinary urban American PMC progressives now hate the homeless drug addicts in their cities with a fury they certainly couldn’t muster in 2020 in the days of the CHAZ etc. In 2020, the hard left ran roughshod over the ‘center’ because Trump was in power and this was ‘the resistance’ and centrists had zero message other than total acquiescence to the activist fringe plan.
In 2023 there’s a much more firm divide between the ‘center left’ and the activist left. That’s because of higher crime rates, illegal immigration now affecting liberal cities like NYC in a more major way, homeless crime spirally out of control and - of course - the fact that Biden is in power. It’s in this climate that we see the divide between ‘center left’ and ‘far left’ (or activist left) on Israel and Gaza. The more conservative wing of the Democratic aligned movement has reasserted itself - Biden celebrating Columbus Day (cancelled by activists in 2020) is one example. By contrast the more radical student/activist fringe doesn’t seem to have moderated its message and is similarly zealous on Palestine as it was on BLM.
Thanks for the detailed reply. Actually I did consider all that; that's what I was referring to when mentioning "cynical and mundane interpretations". No offense meant, but that's what they are.
I'll only nitpick on two issues. As far as I know, it's indeed true that 'in the last three years violent crime has surged upward in major cities', but this trend didn't start in 2020 (although it did escalate after that) but much earlier, before the Trump presidency, in fact, around 2012-15. And the same applies to the problems with the mentally ill homeless, I'm sure.
What makes you say it started pre-Trump?
I’m having some trouble with their tool, but the BJS data gives me the impression we still haven’t gotten back to 2012 levels.
The U.S. murder rate reached a low in 2014 and has increased by 75% since (as of 2021 - probably higher now).
Any other crime data is a joke. Do you think crime-ridden cities like San Francisco and Baltimore are accurately tallying anything that's not murder? And even if they did, crime reporting tools like the ones offered by the FBI have been gimped since Biden took over.
Given what we know about murder, and how people who commit murders tend to have also committed a litany of other violent crimes, the murder rate is best proxy for the overall crime rate we have. If anything, it undersells the problem as advances in medical care turn would-be murder victims into attempted murder victims.
Thanks, that’s exactly what I was looking for. I was really frustrated by the BJS toolset, which I am sure contains that information. It’s also supposed to have the FBI’s murder data, but really didn’t want to display it to me.
As for the accuracy of non-murder crimes, I don’t know why we should expect a bias to change in any particular year. I could rationalize a dip, but it’d be post-hoc.
If you have X murder and Y petty thefts, an increase in X will likely reduce policing re petty thefts. So assuming resources are constant increased murders would likely lead to less reporting of petty thefts.
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