Crime Data in the United States

One thing that is overwhelmingly clear in current events in the United States is that many people do not understand crime data. For example, many people believe that in metropolitan cities, Chicago for instance, violent crime is on a sharp rise, which gives the impression that we're not as safe as we once were. I've put together a collection of data which I've attempted to make easy to understand for the express purpose of helping people to understand the error in thinking this way. We as people are have a bad habit of thinking that things we hear about often are things which happen very often - like how we believe that because we hear about terror attacks so frequently we must be in constant danger of being killed in a terror attack, which just is not true. This having been said, let's take a look at some information.

There is an important point to be made about these data: violent crime is on an overall decline in the US, as it is in many many places. Over the span of only 22 years the number of total violent crimes has decreased by 442,473. Unfortunately, this number probably isn't easy to understand or picture, so let me try to explain. What this means is that over the course of about one generation we've reduced crime by about the population of Sacramento. This means that every year the number of people equivalent to the population of Sacramento is not the victim of a violent crime, whereas if the crime rate had remained constant, that number of people more would have been.

In case you're wondering if this general trend remains constant over the whole spectrum of violent crimes, yes it does. The number of Murders, Rapes, Assaults, and Robberies have all decreased in connection with one another. The rate of murder throughout the whole US was about 0.0087% in 1989. As of 2011, it's been reduced to 0.0047%. Rape has gone from 0.038% to 0.027% in the same time frame. Robbery has seen a huge reduction, going from 0.234% to only 0.114%. Remember, all of these numbers come from the World Almanac from 2014. This is not partisan, nor is it cherry-picked.

I know, seeing numbers do not make some people feel safe about the state of the world or the country, but please remember my purpose in doing this is mainly to highlight how much worse the world could have been if we hadn't acted and improved our societies and communities over time.

Demonstrations and Free Speech

On August 11th and 12th, a rally was organized in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the removal of a Confederate war memorial. Called "Unite the Right," the movement was met with counter-protests on both days. Many rally-goers were recorded displaying extremely racially vicious slogans and slurs. Some were identifiable members of either the KKK or neo-Nazi groups. Almost immediately after a state of emergency was declared by the city and the county, a car sped into the crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring at least nineteen others. The driver attempted to flee the scene, but was quickly caught and the owner arrested. James Fields Jr, a citizen of Ohio, was charged with second degree murder. The events served well to highlight intense racial tensions that continue to flare in the United States as opposing factions continue to fight in a seemingly never-ending struggle to reconcile America's promise of freedom and liberty with a long history of denying that liberty to many of its own people.

Since these rallies and the failure of the President to respond and defuse the situation, tensions have worsened. A rally in the city of Boston held August 19 (one chaotic week after Charlottesville) was met with fierce counter-protest from the locals. Many such rallies took place nationwide with similar results. 

What all of this serves to highlight is that there is growing tension between the cause of freedom of speech and the cause of racial justice. One such tension can be seen in that the neo-Nazi groups rallying in Charlottesville had a permit to meet whereas the counter-protesters did not. However, I would argue that this point is secondary. It is far less significant that the counter-protesters did not have a permit than the fact that they were actively countering a force that is so fundamentally anti-American it cannot possibly be misconstrued as a democratic ideology. 

Women in Leadership, and the AHCA

Understandably, this is a very unusual picture, coming out of Queen Mathilde of Belgium's dinner with several key NATO leaders' partners. Standing in stark contrast to the other nine people in the photograph, Gauthier Destenay is the First Gentleman of Luxembourg, wed to Prime Minister Xavier Bettel since 2015 when the country legalized homosexual marriage. 

The other members of the group are Brigitte Macron of France, Emine Gulbaran Erdogan of Turkey, Melania Trump of the US, Queen Mathilde herself, Ingrid Schulerud, partner of Secretary General of the UN Jens Stoltenberg, Desislava Radeva of Bulgaria, Amelie Derbaudrenghien, the wife of Belgium's Prime Minister, Mojca Stropnik of Slovenia, and Thora Margret Baldvinsdottir of Iceland. 

However, this is clearly a more significant image because it makes a few major messages. First, clearly it sends a good message to the world when the leader of a country has reached a level of acceptance to the point where a significant security conference of western leaders includes a homosexual couple. However, at the same time, this picture represents the same deep problem that we are faced with when examining all of the portraits of US presents - all of our leaders are men. This picture would be much more encouraging if anywhere near half of the people pictured were male. 

Further, this picture links to the issue facing the US in its work on Health Care currently. With virtually no female lawmakers or representative members able to give input in the formulation of the law, naturally the law would contain virtually no protections for women who would need health care. The AHCA seeks to make several moves against services for women. For example, it seeks to strip all funding from Planned Parenthood, even the funding necessary to provide women with mammograms (screenings important in detecting breast cancer). What's more, on the list of pre-existing conditions being cut under the AHCA many are women-specific such as birth-control, prenatal and maternal care. The bill seeks to slash funding for Medicaid by $880 billion over the course of ten years, a move that would disproportionately effect minority women, who are more likely to be insured through Medicaid. 

And continuing the note of stripping protections for women giving birth, the US is currently one of a mere eight countries in the world where the rates of women who die during childbirth is rising, other countries including Afghanistan and South Sudan. To put this in perspective, in 1987 the infant mortality rate was 7.2 per 100,000 births, however by 2011 the rate was 17.8. To be clear, there is no one clear reason for which this can be explained, as things like complications from increased rates of obesity, childbirth at an older age, and the lack of affordability of health care, and a large increase in the need to perform a cesarean section during birth. Significantly, one Dr. Michael Brodman found when researching the impact obesity has on childbirths that there is an extreme range in the US when it comes to the quality of health care provided to women undergoing prenatal and maternal care, meaning that the way a patient is treated in one state or even one county could be wildly different from the way they are treated elsewhere, even if they have the same condition, and that's a major problem.

"In the United States," Brodman said, "there's thinking such as, no one tells me to wear a helmet when I'm riding my motorcycle. I am allowed to do what I want,' that kind of mentality. Well, doctors have that, too, and in reality, it doesn't work in health care." 

Sanctuary Cities

Part of the method of President Trump's attempts at cracking down on illegal immigration is through executive order. Aside from the two attempts at creating a ban on immigration from several Muslim-majority countries in the middle-east, one of the targets of these orders has been the idea of what are called Sanctuary Cities. Now, we tend to think of these Sanctuary Cities either as safe havens for immigrants seeking refuge where they can be free from persecution, or as lawless places where anarchy rules and American values are destroyed. In reality, neither case is true.

First, when an arrest is made - for an unrelated incident, for example speeding - the local law enforcement will undergo a process that is standard regardless of where they are. The police will fingerprint the person(s) arrested, and then run those prints by an FBI database, which is then shared with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database. It is significant to note that this is mandatory. No local or state official can simply refuse to do this, regardless of whether or not they consider themselves a Sanctuary. Next, if it comes up that an individual is currently of undocumented or illegal status in the US, ICE will send a request (called a detainer request) to the local law enforcement to keep that person for a bit longer - another 48 hours past their normal release time - so that ICE officials can then come to the location in order to handle that person themselves (ie deport them). It's important to recognize that that's a key area where the difference is made. ICE will send a request to officers, which they are not required to comply with, and so local and state lawmakers may choose to endorse not complying with the request, so that the person will simply be handled as though they had simply committed whatever irrelevant transgression they were jailed for in the first place. 

The fact that the States are not required to comply with this order is accounted for in the Tenth Amendment, from which we've drawn the conclusion that States cannot be forced to enforce Federal law. 

It's important to note that even in Sanctuary Cities people still may be deported, even when police decide not to comply with detainer requests, as ICE officials have other methods by which they can operate that do not require local police to comply with requests. 

So why is this important? What does the president's executive order say about Sanctuary Cities? Essentially, the Executive Order, which has been blocked in part by a San Francisco federal judge, attempts to allow states to withhold federal funds from these local positions when they refuse to comply. This is a significant issue in the discussion about reforming immigration in the US, as it's an issue that so far has seen only fighting between states as to what should be done. A former executive order by President Obama had done the exact opposite of the order in question, by ordering that federal money could not be withheld by the state from cities if they should refuse to comply with ICE. 

It's become clear as time has gone on that law enforcement is in need of more clear information about crime and justice in the context of all of the issue concerning racially-motivated police problems. One of the facts consistently supported by studies has found that immigrants, regardless of legal status, are less likely to commit crimes than natural-born citizens. See the following quote from this article:

According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while the overall percentage of immigrants and the number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. both increased sharply between 1990 and 2010, the violent crime rate in the U.S. during that time plummeted 45 percent and the property crime rate dropped by 42 percent. Studies have consistently found that immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans and that there was no correlation between crime rates and levels of immigration.  Other studies have in fact found that crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates.

In addition, in areas where the police are strict about following detainer requests it is actually much more difficult for police to do their jobs due to the fact that entire sections of the population are afraid to speak with them for fear of being deported. J. Thomas Manger, President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association said in a press conference that "the bad guys know that many immigrants will not call the police." This is very important when we consider that it is near impossible for a police officer to do their job (such as in collecting information regarding a case) when people can't trust the police as a whole. Charlie Beck, Chief of Police of the LAPD said in a statement that "Five hundred thousand people who live in Los Angeles are undocumented immigrants. I need their cooperation. I need them to work with their local police stations. I need them to be witnesses to violent crime."

Very recently in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has moved to pass his own order to deny funding to cities that can be considered Sanctuary Cities, exactly as Trump's order seeks to do throughout the nation. However, this can easily put local law enforcement in a tricky spot, as their decision over whether or not to detain an illegal immigrant will boil down to what the police station believes is more important - maintaining safety in the community by keeping the public's cooperation, or keeping themselves funded.

US-World Relations

One of the few things virtually everyone in the US knows about the Near East is very similar to what they know about a lot of problems facing the country today: it's very complicated. The history behind the Syrian regime, the rebel group opposing it, and ISIS is not easily understood at a glance, and one of the only things everyone can agree on is that the thing that makes US involvement in Syria so tricky is that there is no good answer, no correct tactic to take in order to solve all of the problems in the region. Let's face it, if there were someone would have tried a long time ago.

For starters, the key difficulty in simply backing the Syrian rebels begins with Russia. Much like many of the conflicts the US and Russia have gotten involved in since World War Two ended, they find themselves supporting the opposite sides either openly or through indirect support. Russia currently backs the Syrian regime headed by President Bashar al-Assad, which everyone knows from recent news has been committing war crimes against its own citizens - noncombatants - for many years. US involvement is currently very hard to pin-point as there is no unified message on the topic. Some have suggested that the US's primary objective in the region is to first defeat ISIS, but with the recent missile barrage by American President Trump it now seems as though that focus has shifted to ousting President Assad. And this barrage has made matters with many international discussions infinitely more complicated.

For starters, while campaigning then-candidate Trump had repeatedly bashed NATO due to the disproportionate amount the US was paying into the system compared to many of the other member-states, and the countries who are paying the agreed upon 2% of their GDP into the system may surprise you - they are the US, Greece, Britain, Estonia, and Poland. However, this organization comes to the forefront with the issues at hand, and Trump himself has recently come forward saying that "NATO is no longer obsolete," which is a strange and unexpected flip from his earlier stance - one that fired up a base eager to see America turn its attention away from policing the world, and toward improving itself on the home-front. This is significant because NATO is a critical component to checking Russia's increasingly aggressive and expansionist tactics under President Putin, tactics that have only become more raw and abrasive with the recent missile strike in Syria.

Adding to the tensions in an extremely counter-productive fashion is the UN. US representative to the UN Nikki Haley has become an upcoming focal point on matters involving Syria and Russia, however her message is difficult to decipher as it seems to emphasize more finger-pointing and conspiracy weaving than typical UN discussions. Over the course of this past week Haley has claimed that Russia knew about Assad's plans to use chemical weapons ahead of time, and that even made fun of the country, saying it was 'nervous' and an 'island,' referencing the lack of international support Russia seems to be getting amid the tensions.

An additional matter that cannot be ignored would be North Korea. For reasons unbeknownst to most, there is currently a US strike force en route to the Korean peninsula. North Korea held yet another major missile test April 5th, to which the US responded by sending the USS Carl Vinson (an aircraft carrier), USS Wayne E. Meyer (destroyer), USS Michael Murphy (also destroyer), and USS Lake Champlain (a cruiser) to the region as a show of force. The group had been previously stationed in Singapore. The primary catch in this case would be the incredible amount of tension surrounding the North Korean state-run media on this movement. The North Korean people are told very frequently that the western world and specifically the US will attack again, keeping the Korean War in the back of the peoples' minds. Therefore, this move has given the state media an incredible amount of evidence to point to, legitimizing everything that the people had been told already. Adding to the conflict is the fact that the South Korean capitol of Seoul is a mere 35 miles away from the demilitarized zone between the nations, still technically at war. This combines to make the decision to send a strike force to the region very dicey, as it is guaranteed only to dramatically increase tensions in a region where a lot of tension has existed for decades already.

Criminal Justice and the War on Drugs

If you've never heard of the War on Drugs, consider looking into it a bit in your spare time. In short, in June 1971 President Richard Nixon declared what he called a "war on drugs," due in large part to the greatly increased use of drugs by people in the US. The government halted research into the medical effects of drugs, and dramatically increased the size of federal drug control agencies and their presence in the country. Notably, there was a backlash by some in government around this time. In 1972 the commission formed by Nixon himself, led by Republican governor of Pennsylvania of Raymond Shafer, decided unanimously to recommend decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana, a recommendation ignored by Nixon.  

The controversy around the War on Drugs mainly consists of a few key questions: How did this effect people who where and are using drugs, and what effect did this have on the country over all? One thing lost about the 1980s, coming increasingly into public view now as we review prison policy, is the effect the war on drugs had on incarcerations in the country. The 80s brought with it a remarkable amount of drug hysteria and mass incarcerations, fueled in part by President Reagan's very controversial mandatory minimums policy, a response to the rise of crack and crack cocaine in the country. The policy states, naturally, that there is a minimum sentence to be imposed on people depending on the crimes they are being charged with. This policy is responsible, in part, for the extreme rise in prison populations in the United States, which has an extreme proportion of the prison population of the world. 

Significantly, the War on Drugs and the actions that followed it have had extremely negative effects on the US as a whole. It has helped to fuel anti-drug hysteria and unreasonably harsh laws which have greatly damaged America's prisons system.

Globally and Nationally, the War on Drugs destabilized a wide range of communities, including those in Latin America which have seen a dramatic rise in cartel violence. This can be explained in the fact that the war on drugs and mass incarcerations does nothing to decrease the demand for drugs in the US, it simply punishes people without providing much-needed assistance. In a most basic model,the US has reduced the supply of drugs in the country by cracking down on drug dealers and traffickers, however it did nothing to reduce the demand, which of course resulted in a dramatic rise in drug prices, making drug manufacturing and trafficking all the more profitable.

Police Militarization

One of the biggest domestic problems facing America today is the debate surrounding law enforcement. While some justify the increased use of military-grade hardware by law enforcement officers as necessary for the protection of the community and the officers themselves, others see a disturbing trend in the lack of oversight in the training and methods used by some police officers.

One of the key issues surrounding the law enforcement debate is the issue of military-grade equipment being used by police agencies. For example, some police departments have received armored vehicles, assault rifles and body armor, and intimidating masks and helmets as a result, in part of the surplus of these sorts of materials. The argument to be made, of course, is whether or not a police department actually needs a mine-resistant vehicle intended for use in war-ridden countries in order to enforce the law in American communities. The fear of foreign attacks and terrorism has, in part, contributed to the expansion of this idea, however as I have discussed, there is virtually no statistical reason to believe that a police agency will end up using their materials for these reasons, realistically.

Perhaps the biggest complaint to be made is that most law enforcement officers do not receive proper training on how to use the materials they are now being given, and the result is a emboldened group of people who search for opportunities to use their new-found equipment. For instance, use of assault rifles by police officers has risen dramatically over past years, however in a real military situation it is incredibly foolish (and in fact, very dangerous in some cases) to point them at someone you do not immediately intend to shoot. So, when a police force deploys people equipped with assault weapons and body armor for a drug-raid, and we see images of people being arrested with guns pointed at them, that is an example of misuse of police hardware.

Further, on the topic of drug raids, the foremost reason SWAT teams are deployed in the US is for drug raids, despite the fact that these teams are equipped to handle terrorist attacks and hostage situations. Studies show the deployment of excessively forceful units actually elevates the danger in situations where negotiating and common tactics would have been preferable, putting law enforcement officers in more danger.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the obvious racial disparity in law enforcement. Not only is there a major issue in many towns in the difference between the proportion of the population of black residents and the proportion of black officers, but black citizens are significantly more likely to be the victims of aggressive law enforcement and profiling. And, to predict a commonly made argument that locally high crime rates are responsible for these unusually high rates, studies have long since disproved this idea. There is no correlation between local crime rates and police violence; in other words, police are not more aggressive in some areas because of crime rates, they are quite simply aggressive everywhere.

The Wealth Gap

One of the things most important issues facing the average American, whether they know it or not, is the disparity in wealth between a select few top individuals and common citizens. It is extremely important to address the difference between the wage-gap and the wealth-gap. The wage-gap refers to the amount of gross income people make, and in some ways in entirely understandable. If a company or individual has a very good product or idea they tend to make more money than other companies, and thus grow their business. However, the wealth-gap works in a different way. Essentially, wealthy individuals pass on their accrued wealth to their children and relatives, which actually works against the idea that people with good ideas tend to make more money. If a person or company starts out with more money than competitors it makes it very difficult to fairly compete with. Things like smart yet expensive advertising and inexpensive mass production or lower quality products make it difficult for good, new ideas to gain traction.

For clarity, let's start by focusing on just the income gap. The gap between the largest earners and the lowest is its highest levels since the Great Depression. Not including taxes, the top 1% of earners make about 22.5% of total national income.

At the same time, the top 1% own about 40% of the nation's wealth. Further, these same individuals own more than the bottom 90% combined.

However, a major point I'd like to make in the final chart is that it is very easy for the wealthy to become wealthier as time passes, as the price of stocks continues to rise at a much faster pace than the average wage in this country. And that's significant. High stock prices tend to mean that average people, people who do not have a large amount of wealth, cannot invest in the stock market, and thus those people miss out on anything growth in companies means. The majority of people in the US have no reason to pay attention to the stock market, and as time passes fewer and few people do either.

This is especially important to understand in the context of today's politics, where supreme court cases and national trends continue to degrade the limits on the amount of influence lobbyists and wealthy individuals can have on politicians. SC cases include the 2010 Citizens United decision - removing the ban on corporate election spending - and McCutcheon v FEC - which removed the overall cap on individual contributions. These cases are extremely critical to understanding the type of national trend that is developing as a result of spending on politics - it allows the top earners to invest as much as they want on whomever they like, and then use that influence in order to reduce regulations on their type of industry, expanding their power. 

Climate Change

What if you're wrong? - Chris Wallace of Fox News, speaking to Scott Pruitt of the EPA

 The role that scientific research plays in political developments has not always been very noticeable. I can think of no better example than that of Climate Change - the broad idea that, by several mechanisms, human activity is contributing to increased volatility of global climate and temperatures. Surveys consistently find that about 97% of climate researchers believe that the Earth is warming, and that human activity contributes in some way to such warming. However, polls show that about 47% of Americans do not believe that climate change is caused by human activities and only 49% of Americans believe that most scientists agree that global warming is happening. This is significant because it highlights the slowness of the movement of information in the US, even when real data and studies continue to be done and shared throughout the world.

I believe that it is important that the conversation about climate change continue to happen in the future because I believe that this issue highlights a greater issue facing the country today - a lack of proliferation of good information. It would surprise no one to hear that people will gravitate toward the materials that support their pre-existing ideas about a subject, but as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, the theory behind freedom of information is that if people continue to be faced with all sorts of information, good and bad, the best ideas will eventually come to the forefront. In other words, if people hear about every idea, and discuss these ideas openly, then over time people will come to a consensus on that issue. I emphasize this because this is exactly what I think is not happening in this case. People are not being met with all sorts of information, but rather they surround themselves with studies and surveys that agree with them already, and discuss these instead.

I think it is important to note, too, that those that disagree that climate change is man-made, or believe that climate change is not founded in solid science are by no means fools. Rather, these are people who have probably read more on the subject of climate change than an average person, however they read dubious sources and studies that prove themselves correct. Exactly like the issues facing news media in the face of conspiracy theories and fake news, these are people who hungrily seek out information, but due to targeted media, misleading reports,  and a hefty amount of money thrown into producing studies that prove a company's products or methods are not damaging, these people come away from their studying farther away from the truth than they were when they began.

Facebook

I believe that many people actually know about the damaging practices that Facebook employs. Facebook, as a social media and data-sharing platform, has severe problems that persists despite a number of parties coming out in opposition. Facebook routinely siphons of millions of views from other video-streaming networks - such as Youtube - thus hurting the creators of those videos, who take no credit and make no profit from the views or ad revenue. Facebook has virtually no process for screening "news" that is put up on its pages. Neither do they make any effort to keep your data private, but harvest it for their own use and profit. In short, Facebook is a very serious case in which it is difficult to govern what the site can and cannot due, in part due to freedom of information online, and in part because very few users actually take issue with what Facebook does because the site caters to them when they use it.

A few years ago, a video by the German Youtubing group Kurzgesagt detailed to problem of Facebook stealing billions of views from other content creators. The video went viral, having been created only a short time after Facebook execs made the momentous claim that the site was generating eight billion views per day.

In short, the video summarizes the issue of Facebook claiming views from videos taken from other creators and posted on the site, often without the creators' permission. First, the vast majority - 750 out of 1,000 - of the most highly viewed videos on the site were stolen from a different source. Further, the issue is becoming more and more common on the site, and those who maintain the site are doing nothing to prevent or curb video theft. Among numerous other problems such as counting views when people are not actually watching and an unnecessarily awkward and difficult copyright infringement claim process, Facebook clearly needs to take steps to improve its media streaming process, as the system damages and discourages original content creators as it stands.

One of the more broad problems with social media is the issue of news preferences, for which Facebook is an excellent example, but far from the sole offender. In short, many media sites use algorithms and personalized data in order to make advertisements, news, and suggested media more relevant to you, which on the surface doesn't seem like such a bad thing. However, the matter of media personalization is directly connected to matters of extreme polarization and proliferation of misleading and sometimes completely incorrect studies and news reports. 

The Infinite War Paradox

Looking back on our relatively short existence as a country it seems as though there has hardly ever been a generation that has not seen its own war. What if I were to say that we're currently involved in one of the strangest periods of peace in our history? Even since the end of the second World War, in which the United States emerged along with the Soviet Union as one of only a few viable global super-powers we have taken an increasingly active role in world affairs from the Korean and Vietnam Wars to Grenada, Panama, and the seemingly endless fighting in the Near East. However, following the declaration of war in Korea, we have not declared war on any of the struggles we've participated in, and this seems like a bind. How is it that we're constantly fighting people for one reason or another, and yet we've not declared war in generations?
For starters, the Vietnam war saw rise to the War Powers Resolution, a piece of legislature that required the President to communicate with Congress prior to initiating military action in a region, and to withdraw military personnel from fighting regions after 60 days if no declaration of war is made. Arguments abound for and against the legislature - some argue it takes away power granted to the President by the Article Two of the Constitution, however some argue that it leaves the President with too much power over declaring action. The primary issue is that since the legislature (passed over President Nixon's veto by two-thirds majority) The U.S. has not actually declared war on anyone, but rather preferred either indirect methods of intervention - ie as in Iran-Contra, indirect support of our allies - or limiting our physical involvement to 'advising roles' - as is the case in much of our action in the Middle East.
What I argue is that we've reached a state of paradox - because the United States is always 'at war,' we are never actually at war. This can be clearly connected through examining the sorts of engagements we have taken place in since the Korean War, which seem to suggest that rather than the world reaching a sort of unprecedented era of peace, the definition of what a war is has changed, rather.

Gun Violence and Mental Health

It seems that after nearly every major tragedy involving gun violence in the United States, there is one key argument made by those who argue against gun control regulations - focus on assisting the mentally ill instead of blaming the gun. The purpose of this essay is to offer a counterargument to that statement, as research suggests it is not as supported by factual evidence as some suggest.

The first argument to be made is that there is a major element of hypocrisy in pendents claiming that lawmakers should focus on health care support for the mentally ill rather than gun control. There is a very strong correlation between states that have high gun violence and states that have poor availability of health care for the mentally ill.

The first thing made clear by this chart by the CDC is that those states that have the highest levels of gun violence are primarily the southern coastal states, the southern center, and the northern midwest, the clear exceptions being Texas and Florida. One of the important connections to be made here is that many of these states are poorer than the country as a whole, and may have decreased infrastructure, and this is significant because these states may have a decreased ability to provide health care to the public regardless of their management and motivation.

In the second chart we see the connection to be made. The deep south has the least available care for the mentally ill, as well as the highest gun violence in the country. This emphasized a major point in the national dialogue on gun violence and mental health. If pendents advocating that states not pass gun control regulations but rather enhance care for the mentally ill continue to make such arguments, then those states should either follow their own advice and improve mental health care or pass their own gun regulations, because in its current state the country needs to improve these systems to improve our lives.

Terrorism and our Brains

As a species, there are certain things that we have evolved to be very good at, certain methods of thinking that we have used to survive, certain tools to our survival that have become ingrained in our DNA. However, human history is very interesting in how much we've changed culturally, and technologically in such a short amount of time. As a result, some of our methods of thinking can even be said to lag behind our technology and lifestyles. For example, human beings are very good at learning events, activities, even vague images and smells. Something we are very bad at learning, however, is numbers, statistics, certain logical data that can be hard to grasp at an instant glance. In some fields this isn't particularly harmful, our social lives, for example, isn't damaged by our inability to understand the significance of numbers, but there are other things that are very much affected by these shortcomings of the human brain.
Terrorism is a relatively new word to describe a sort of activity that has been happening throughout much of human history. Acts intended to frighten or intimidate enemies have happened in some form or another in nearly every civilization's history. What gets lost, however, is that these attacks actually harm very few people, even today in a time when it seems like you can't go a week without hearing about a terror attack, in part because people are guarenteed to watch every piece of news that comes out of it. This is in stark contrast to some very important statistics. Studies have found that from 1975 to 2015 exactly 3,024 people have died due to foreign-born terrorism, including the 2,983 people killed in the World Trade Center attacks. That averages about 76 Americans per year. It's important to note that after 9/11/01 foreign terrorists have killed, on average, one American per year, with a running total of eight Americans having been killed by ISIS.
The point to be made here is further emphasized when you examine the odds of one dying from any given cause.

To provide further analysis of this table, you and I are theoretically five and a half times more likely to die due to the police than we are from any form of foreign terrorism. We are also ten and a half times more likely to die due to bicycling than terrorism, and 13.4 times more likely to die chocking on food. But these statistical facts get pushed to the background of our minds when we spend a week looking at news about terrorist attacks.

The point I truly want to make here is that there are so many larger causes of death to combat in our lives than terrorism. The leading causes of death in the US are Heart Disease, Cancer, Physical injury, and Chronic Lung Disease, however no organization to reduce these problems has anywhere near the amount of funding our military has had historically. If you were to ask someone who works for the Center for Disease Control, "How much should the US spend on fighting a disease that kills 1 American per year," they would look at you like you were crazy, yet that is exactly what so much of our federal funding goes toward.

What I suggest is that more people look at news with more awareness of the effects it has on our brains. It is not a matter of simply not watching news about terrorism, but rather maintaining the ability to make rational decisions about what sort of policies we support, and what kind of politicians we trust to make rational decisions in the world stage.

Creative Writing: The Vessel

I had the opportunity once to serve abourd one of the greatest vessels ever made by Federation hands. The Копье set out from Riga in what used to be Lithuanian territory in 2025. It was an incredible chance, though it lasted for only a few years. A kilometer long, and 200 meters wide, it is a ship that breaks records, a gigantic mass of metal and power that its architects boast can never be defeated by any ship nor a fleet of ships. The ship is capable of traveling for months on end without the need to make port to refuel or resupply, and can carry thousands of Federation men at a time. It was a marvel, and I was made to swear never to tell about it, but now I've come forth to make this information public

At the time we set out, I was a rank-and-file sailor with little to no significance in the eyes of my superiors. We set out to the Western Front within a matter of weeks, and had seen action shortly after. Any soldier or sailor could tell you that when it came to the Federation's navy, we had been badly out-gunned in the early years of this war. We had a great lack of aircraft carriers and bases, our weapons were out-dated. The Копье was a huge step toward changing that. No longer would the East's superior air power be a factor, and no longer would their navy seem so untouchable. It wasn't long before we made great strides toward turning the war in our favor. Every time we made port we were immediately met with crowds of cheering men, women, and children, people who cried out their thanks for fighting off the enemy, shouted their encouragement for us to bring the war to the enemy.

We received the order to set off across the ocean in winter 2027. It was fantastic news to here, we would soon be bringing the fight to the people we had been so bitterly fighting for year after year without an end in sight. Our morale soared, and people began talking once again about returning home to tell tales of their adventures at sea, defending their country proudly. This feeling would not last.

We were not told what city we approached first, but we could guess it may have been in the northern part of the coast due to the snow on the buildings. We received an order to bombard the city without discretion. No one questioned the order, neither officer nor sailor, if anything people seemed ready to unleash all of the anger that had been building up, no matter the target. We bombarded the city for several days, until it seemed that no building taller than two floors was left standing. There was no worthy attempt at stopping us, any resistance was quickly obliterated. We sent back a report that the city was vulnerable and virtually undefended. An army unit would be dispatched to occupy the region within several days. Meanwhile, we turned southward, and continued to bombard cities as we went. This continued for weeks until it seemed there was nothing more to our jobs than destroying buildings, and over time the anger left us. We became numb, and no one spoke of an end to the fighting. No one spoke of returning home, no one spoke of telling stories of proud victories.

The Death Penalty

The Death Penalty is a surprisingly touchy subject in the United States justice system. It still has a shocking amount of support in the country, with Gallop reporting that an estimated 60% of the population is in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder. This number has diminished greatly over time, however there the fact remains that the process still holds. Further, the locations in which the overwhelming majority of these executions are taking place in the world may surprise you. Data from 2010 suggest that the large majority of executions in the world took place in China, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, and the United States. That is a problem from the perspective of our world reputation, however there are many other factors to consider.

Arguments both for and against capitol punishment exist in plenty, and many are effective which is part of the reason that the American public has had such a difficult time putting a stop to executions. People who argue for the death penalty are often proponents of stances that are very hard on crime, and often seek to convey justice through an unshaken devotion to doing what is right. The number one reason people say they support the death penalty is the logic of an 'eye for an eye,' or rather that the punishment fits the crime because the person convicted took a life, with the second reason being that it saves taxpayer dollars and reduces the costs associated with prison. However, we have and have had evidence for a long time that that is simply not true. Firstly, capitol punishment is significantly more expensive than a life sentence. Sources show that cases without the death penalty average $740,000, whereas cases involving the death penalty average $1.26 million, and the cost of maintaining death row inmates costs $90,000 more per year than other prisoners, coming out of public funds. What's more, the constant appeals process and legal fighting divert legal talent and money from other cases, bogging down the entire court system. I will discus the arguments against the 'eye for an eye' logic in an upcoming section.

Gallup data suggests that the third largest reason to support the death penalty is simply 'they deserve it,' with about 10% stating it as their main reason for supporting the death penalty. Surprisingly, more and more we hear stories of people who simply did not deserve it, people who were wrongly convicted, and people who were mentally ill being convicted and executed. Amnesty USA reports, "Since 1973, 140 people have been released from death row due to evidence proving their wrongful conviction. In this time period more than 1,200 people have been executed." Now it is simply a fact that the death penalty has killed innocent people. Just as normal trials occasionally give out unjust verdicts and the wrong person ends up being punished, these trials have seen people convicted without proof of guilt, or in many worse cases simply due to racial bias. The case of Walter McMillian is the ultimate example of a case in which everything that can go wrong with the death penalty did - save the execution. McMillian was accused without evidence, moved to death row prior to sentencing (a practice almost unheard of), and sentenced to the death penalty despite dozens of witnesses - including a police officer - who testified that during the time of the murder he was accused of, he was truly at a fish fry held at a local church. Cross-examination of the witness claiming to have seen him at the location of the murder made clear that the witness was lying. Significantly, the jury consisted of eleven White people, and only one African American, due largely to the fact that prior to the trial the case was moved out of the original court to a neighboring court in a town with an uncommonly low proportion of black residents. Shockingly, the jury convicted Walter to a life sentence, however the presiding judge Robert E. Lee Key Jr. overruled the jury's recommendation in favor of the death penalty. Stories such as this highlight a truly broken system in which racial bias, economic status, and a number of other unnecessary factors - such as a system which elects judges, making attack ads for people who do not give the death penalty common - make executions more likely for some than others. This is not justice, nor do the people receiving these punishments 'deserve it.'

An additional problem with the death penalty is the misconception that the death penalty is an effective deterrent for violent crimes. There is no source to suggest that the death penalty is any more an effective tool for deterring crime, especially considering that life in prison requires a prisoner to remain in a cell for decades longer than if they were on death row, a mentally transforming experience. Amnesty USA reports that 14 states without the death penalty in 2008 had homicide rates below the national rate. 

Now, I want to highlight the moral arguments against the death penalty, and I do so knowing that due to one's upbringing these arguments may not be convincing or important to some readers. First is the idea that 'an eye for an eye' is medieval. Revenge is not an idea preached by any credible religion or moral creed we want to teach our children. Getting even with people is not a priority in life, nor should it ever become that. On this note, killing killers sends a backward message about justice. If we are no better than those who kill we are actually creating sympathy for those who murder, regardless of their reasons. Mistakes made in the process are far too common to allow for the process to continue in its current state. Mistakes such as racial prejudice, jury white-washing, the removal of mental illness from deciding factors, all of these factors are things that are not morally right and need to be improved in the justice system over-all, not simply death-penalty cases. Further, there is no closure provided to family members of victims by executing the convicted killer. Killing does not solve killing, nor does it bring a loved-one back to life. Having licensed physicians present at executions is entirely contradictory to their code of ethics, as the American Medical Association directly states that it is the job of medical practitioner to protect lives, a role which they ignore in presiding over executions. Finally, the death penalty puts us all in a position of weakness, not simply because we seem backward in a global stage or because we are no better than what we claim to be against, but because we actually afford our adversaries arguments to condemn us with. For example, President Putin loves to point out to his people and any in the world who would listen that the United States is hypocritical, for how can we claim to criticize his human-rights record (a record which, mind you, is significantly worse than the United States'), while we attack the very values we claim to uphold? The bottom line is that the death penalty puts us in a terribly weak, terribly immoral position, and action needs to be taken to abolish the method under any circumstances if we're to remain the great power we claim to be. 

Religious Institutions in the United States

The IRS makes no attempt to evaluate the content of whatever doctrine a particular organization claims is religious, provided the particular beliefs of the organization are truly and sincerely held by those professing them and the practices and rites associated with the organization’s belief or creed are not illegal or contrary to clearly defined public policy. - Excerpt from the IRS's "Tax Guide for Churches & Religious Organizations"  

This direct quote from the IRS's documents concerning Tax Exempt and Government Entities raises some questions. Firstly, this is a very commonly pointed to section of the document - 501(c)(3) - which highlights some concerns about the ease with which religious organizations may be founded. Firstly, I think it is important to note that it makes absolute sense that the IRS would make intentionally vague guidelines about exactly what it takes to found a church or religion in the United States, especially considering the large part of our history in which many people came to the New World seeking religious freedoms, or rather escape from persecution. Further, the First Amendment directly states in an upfront manner, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." 
However, in relatively recent times, it has come to light exactly how much potential there is for abuse in this system. The so-called trend "televangelism" is by no means a new trend, however it is none the less surprisingly effective in its goals. The method consists of, in a general case, a minister, preacher, or speaker making incredible claims of healing or religious salvation which is in some way connected to donations made to their religious organization. In some cases, the speaker may ask that one "plant a seed," herein meaning give a donation, or donations, in return for a sort of positive karma which they claim will lead to great wealth and happiness in the future. The majority of the American public is certainly desensitized to the effects of bold advertising and excited claims, however there are those that this sort of message is very effective at reaching. People in need of major medical care, or who may be deeply in debt, are sadly often driven to these people. 

This sort of method of promising great things, and in some case complete miracles, in exchange for money represents a major problem for the people of the US, just as predatory lending does. Both of these institutions are, of course, major distortions of entire broad-ranging groups of people, and do not represent their respective groups at all, however they none the less pose a great problem which deserves a solution. 
I wish to highlight some of the most important errors in the system of registration for tax-exempt status that may be resolved in some form. Firstly, there is no requirement to provide evidence that the proposed institution actual resides in the state it is being registered for. One popular example of this can be seen in the comedian John Oliver's registration of a nonprofit church in Texas - a state which he admits he has never lived in, and living in New York, would clearly not be in a position to start a church in. In addition, there is no mention of where this religious institution actually is in a physical sense. Continuing the Oliver example, he registered the place of worship as being the studio of the "Last Week Tonight" television show, which you will note, is located in New York City.
These facets, however are simply requirements - and not even necessarily required, as the documents make clear it is not necessary to meet all of the requirements to establish a religion - and there are three specific rules in order to be tax-exempt. One is that the the church cannot conduct political lobbying. This makes sense as the separation of church and state is something the US has supported - at least in the de jure sense - for much of its existence. Secondly, the church cannot engage in any activities that actually break existing laws. Again, this is a logical requirement. Thirdly is the requirement that the church not financially benefit any private individual or shareholder, and this is where the line gets very grey. This requirement is not tightly enforced, and the definition of what it is that actually benefits a private individual is not well defined, and thus is open to exploitation. For example, One prominent televangelist asked each of his church's members for $300 in order to purchase a private airplane for the sake of spreading their faith. However, it is not difficult to see the abuse of power in that situation. Creflo Dollar, in many ways, directly gained from that investment, one which he directly instigated. This is significant because lack of regulation in this specific requirement of tax-exempt status is what open the possibility of abuse of religious institutions overall. Not only is it certainly uneasy that a religious leader should frequently ask their congregation for donations, but it is dangerous that there are virtually no restrictions on where that money can go.

Media Trustworthiness

It is too easy to say that in recent times people do not trust the media. This trend has been happening for decades, and there are several reasons as to why. Firstly, the media are a very easy target for criticism because the media itself - like many institutions - only gets attention when it fails in something. Much like road workers only being the topic of conversation when they fail to fix things that we use regularly, the media only seems to talk about itself when it gets key facts wrong, or reports on events before details are known, things of this sort. However, this it understandable that the media acts as it does, largely due to the intense competition not just between conventional media - radio, television - and social media to put out information and news at an ever-faster rate, but also due to competition between separate conventional media outlets themselves. For example, in reporting the Charleston church shooting, Fox News reported that the killing may have been motivated for religious reasons, and on the surface this makes sense. If one had seen no coverage to the contrary, this is a logical assessment - the shooting took place in the church afteral - however this was simply an incorrect assumption made by a member of the Fox News team in the effort to explain why a shooting would take place in the first place, a question many viewers want answered as soon as possible. Of course, investigations uncovered that the killing was motivated by racial hatred, however the fact remains that the media is in a never-ending fight to release information ASAP, and this leads to misinformation spreading just as quickly as fact, thus discrediting the media as a whole.

Further, it has become increasingly difficult, or in some cases too bothersome, to fact-check the news we read. In writing this article I have thus far included three references to sources that I judged important in backing up claims and information I am presenting. None of these sources was the first result of a Google search, and I had to look through a surprising number of articles - each of which boasting an extreme confidence in whatever matter I was looking into - in order to find somewhat trustworthy information. This is a process that has in many cases become simply too difficult to do prior to releasing information, and slows down the process greatly. Consumer-side, naturally people greatly want to be around those who they have something in common with, and reinforce our viewpoints. However, this is not an intellectually stimulating way of looking though information. If each of us closes our perspective to information that disagrees with us, then conversation simply goes away. The willingness to discuss matters - or in some cases simply admit one is wrong - comes with a a basic human respect that seems to be losing its place in our lives. But I digress, that point has been made a hundred times already. 

The fact of the matter is that news services provide an invaluable service to the public, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the media as a whole to do its job. Many news outlets rely on smaller sources of news for citations and information, for example local newspapers. This institution as well has come under major fire as time has gone by, and these small companies have become unable to turn a profit on their work, and eventually close. The Newspaper Death Watch keeps tabs on newspapers that have closed over time and provides some insight as to why in individual cases. For example Pittsburgh Tribune-Review closed recently, laying off over 100 employees, yet 'maintaining an online-only edition.' This is an important issue to face in the country because facts are not always profitable in this climate of business, and if this is the case, then newspapers will continue to close, leaving larger media outlets a shrinking pool of sources from which to report, leaving us with a media that reports more and more on what gets people to view their articles - not simply important information. 

US Military Spending

A quick glance at the trends in US Military spending over the past few decades reveals some key information about how this country has been approaching its problems. The Council of Fereign Relations' website contains some insight as to how.
Ever since 2001 the US's military spending has increased to an extreme degree, with a peak in 2010. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute findings highlight that in this time the US was the world's largest exporter of major arms, making up 31% of the global volume. Further, these details are significant because 2010 was a deadly year for the US in Afghanistan, setting the record at one American killed every 18 hours, on average. This highlights the impact that the foreign, and increasingly unpopular war had on our military spending. This is very important to understand in today's climate, especially in a time where many do not support another war in the Near East. 
Long-term this fact may have consequences on an increase in military spending now. This can be seen in the veritable explosion in national debt since our engagements in the Middle East began. Comparing our national debt to GDP, our national debt is near a level unseen since the Second World War, and it continues to grow. I cannot - as a writer - highlight the importance of this fact more. Our country's debt is a matter that cannot be ignored for much longer, and drastic increases in military spending are guaranteed to make this debt worse. Currently, no politician nor sitting official has a solid plan - long or short term - to reduce or erase our country's debt, and that is a major problem. This is a problem that is not improving with an increase of military spending, and it will continue to worsen until the matter of debt can be handled directly.