[farright]

Everyone needs to break out of their own bubble to some extent, though other equally misinformed people may not be the best source.

My advice is to read the most informed, reasonable representatives of different viewpoints you can find, and then see why they disagree. Often people will play fast and loose with the facts in order to convince people they consider less educated, but when directing their words towards those they consider their peers, they will be more honest.

An example from the right is the many economists who should know better refuse to distance themselves from the idea of the "Laffer Curve", the idea that you can raise revenue by lowering taxes. Even though they know the Laffer Curve is bullshit, they don't want to refute it because it is a useful rhetorical tool.

An example from the left is that most moderate liberals agree that black Americans commit much more crime (EDIT: I meant "per capita", personally I think a reasonable reading of this comment as a whole would take that as implied) than white Americans. However, they don't want people to hear this fact except in the context where it's already agreed that the main cause for this is structural factors (i.e. a cycle of poverty, crime and lack of education). So in liberal circles this fact is "obvious" and "uninteresting" since the real question is how these structural factors operate. And yet at the same time, outside liberal circles this fact is considered "racist" and liberals do nothing to clarify that it is in fact true.

[pklausler]

Whites were arrested for 276,460 violent crimes in 2015. Blacks were arrested for 169,612.

Source: http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=datool&surl=/arrests/index.c...

[TulliusCicero]

> Whites were arrested for 276,460 violent crimes in 2015. Blacks were arrested for 169,612.

Do you think there are the same number of blacks and whites in America?

[pklausler]

Of course not, but it's not relevant to the claim that was made: "that black Americans commit much more crime than white Americans".

[farright]

I meant "per capita". I'm wondering if you are really being fair in interpreting my comment the way you did. E.g. a progressive article uses the exact same language[0]:

It is also common to hear the supposedly neutral statement that “black people commit more crimes than white people.” This “fact” is used to justify a belief that black people have a natural criminal propensity, or that a “culture of violence” is to blame for problems faced by black people in America.

...even though there are roughly five times as many white people as black people in this country, blacks and whites are incarcerated in equal numbers. But the fact that black people are incarcerated five times as frequently as white people does not mean black people commit five times as many crimes.

(incidentally this is exactly the kind if article that moderate liberals should be refuting, and in turn the article should acknowledge that moderate liberals also believe blacks really do commit more crime).

[0] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-farbota/black-crime-rates-...