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by CyberRabbi 1953 days ago
My initial comment is about the crime rate but he responded with a reference to the homicide rate, which is a clear deflection. For some reason the general person has a hard time reckoning with the fact that 1950s America was drastically safer than 2020s America. It’s very interesting.
1 comments
michaelmrose 1953 days ago
It's not a clear deflection it's an attempt to break down the numbers instead of indistinct notions.

I picked murder because I thought it would be more straight forward because people are pretty clear about who was killed whereas rapes and assaults might go unreported especially if the victins were minorities.

I think it's pretty clear that it wasn't particularly safe to be anything but a straight middle class+ white person in the 50s.

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CyberRabbi 1953 days ago
> I think it's pretty clear that it wasn't particularly safe to be anything but a straight middle class+ white person in the 50s.

>= 90% of the US population in the 1950s were middle class white people. Ignoring that, the national aggregate crime rate was lower for non middle class white people then as well. On what are you basing that claim that it wasn’t safe for them?

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michaelmrose 1952 days ago
I think you are using a different definition of middle if you believe 90% of people fall within it. If the population was 85% white and 60% middle class white middle class people were about half of the population. The portion of the population actually privileged in 1950 was basically the male half of that demographic so around 25% of the population.

A substantial minority of that segment now shrunk to more like 17% wish they could have the 50s back for some reason despite how bad the total picture was for most people.

Do you have a cite on the 1950s being substantially safer? Please note an actual and official source of data wherein data collection is to a uniform standard over the time frame discussed. For example a system where figures are collected from some areas and not others and coverage increases towards 100% over time will show an increase in crime rate even when there isn't one. Conversely a system where crimes against minorities aren't investigated or punished will see fewer crimes reported even when reported crimes are faithfully counted.

An example of a bad source is disastercenter.com which doesn't obviously cite how its data is collected, whose frontpage says nothing about who runs it. It is at best a summery of other sources which you aren't at liberty to inspect. Wherever they get their data might be a good source but its impossible for me to ascertain this.

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CyberRabbi 1952 days ago
You still haven’t provided a basis for your claim that 1950s america wasn’t safe for non middle class white people.

My claims of the safety in america are based on aggregate crime rate statistics since the 1960s from the FBI UCR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Cri...

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michaelmrose 1952 days ago
It seems to support my position not yours. The notion that the homicide rate has gone down only because superior medical care in particular seems ridiculously unsupported by any evidence whatsoever. Its not clear that reporting standards for rape and assault would be similar across 70 years.
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CyberRabbi 1952 days ago
> Its not clear that reporting standards for rape and assault would be similar across 70 years.

So now you’re rejecting official data without any evidence to support your skepticism. Interesting.

You still have yet to provide any basis for the claim that 1950s america wasn’t safe for non middle class white people. Why not?

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