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> The answers to these questions are all bound up in political values. But they aren’t though, there is an objective truth. To cut through to said truth those

> The answers to these questions are all bound up in political values. But they aren’t though, there is an objective truth. To cut through to said truth those with differing opinions have to be willing to accept they are wrong. Due to the media narrative and political leanings people are unwilling or unable to accept they’re wrong. Take gun violence. It’s exclusively a cultural issue in one community in the United States. https://austingwalters.com/firearms-by-the-numbers/#Firearm_Related_Homicides_by_the_Demographics https://austingwalters.com/firearms-by-the-numbers/#Firearm_... To be clear, it’s an issue in the black male population. It’s not gangs generally (Hispanic community has a higher gang rate and lower firearm homicide rate). the white population has less gun violence than almost anywhere in the world; same with Hispanic and Asian. But saying that breaks a narrative and no one will accept that as the truth. Once you can accept the truth, you can resolve the issues one-way-or-another. Try saying what I just wrote in a classroom, town hall meeting, or floor of congress. Watch what the media does to you, watch what your community does to you. It’s the truth. But the media has made it such that we can’t discuss it. If the media presented the truth or even a balanced view, we wouldn’t have so much of the issues because it would be okay to have the view of truth.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
> But they aren’t though, there is an objective truth. This is just nonsense. What is the objective truth about homelessness? About drug use? Is it the fault of individuals who make bad choices? Is it the fault of a society that doesn't truly care for many its members? Even if the answer is (obviously) a mixture of the two, the balance between them will affect what sort of solutions you would view as effective. There is no objective truth here. > Take gun violence. It’s exclusively a cultural issue in one community in the United States. This is so preposterous. Mass shootings (one aspect of the gun violence problem in the USA) are not particularly disposed to occur to one racial group or another, although the shooters are overwhelmingly white. Child-driven accidental shootings are relatively rare in the black community, and occur overwhelmingly in white rural populations. I could go on and on with refutations of this bullshit. However, let's just reword it so that you can see the deeper point here: "to be clear, gun violence occuring in cities among people who are either known to each other or are neighbors is overwhelmingly a problem involving poor black males" So this much we could probably agree on. But it doesn't mean anything. It defines "an issue" that you consider to be important, and you're utterly entitled to do that. Other people who see gun violence through a different lens would regard it as a small part of a much larger issue (e.g. gun availability), or as a side-effect of a totally different issue (e.g. racism, poverty, structural inequality, (dis)investment etc). So even if we could agree on a relatively simple statement of "facts", we would never agree on the framing of that as an "issue", nor on the solution.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

> But they aren’t though, there is an objective truth. This is just nonsense. What is the objective truth about homelessness? About drug use? Is it the fault of individuals who make bad choices? Is it the fault of a society that doesn't truly care for many its members? Even if the answer is (obviously) a mixture of the two, the balance between them will affect what sort of solutions you would view as effective. There is no objective truth here. > Take gun violence. It’s exclusively a cultural issue in one community in the United States. This is so preposterous. Mass shootings (one aspect of the gun violence problem in the USA) are not particularly disposed to occur to one racial group or another, although the shooters are overwhelmingly white. Child-driven accidental shootings are relatively rare in the black community, and occur overwhelmingly in white rural populations. I could go on and on with refutations of this bullshit. However, let's just reword it so that you can see the deeper point here: "to be clear, gun violence occuring in cities among people who are either known to each other or are neighbors is overwhelmingly a problem involving poor black males" So this much we could probably agree on. But it doesn't mean anything. It defines "an issue" that you consider to be important, and you're utterly entitled to do that. Other people who see gun violence through a different lens would regard it as a small part of a much larger issue (e.g. gun availability), or as a side-effect of a totally different issue (e.g. racism, poverty, structural inequality, (dis)investment etc). So even if we could agree on a relatively simple statement of "facts", we would never agree on the framing of that as an "issue", nor on the solution.