The Bored is Such a Strange Alternate Universe

[Spock]

I realized something a few months ago, during the Pine Ridge Reservation sexual assault discussion and I just about left the Bored. However, as all of us still here know, the place has a wierd hold and, plus if I left I would never get an answer to my main burning question about the Bored-see spoiler below. I saw the same thing in the "California-Dystopia" thread today.

I found myself trying to convince SSS that sexual assault is a problem on the Rez. I found an article that quoted a teacher and basically said "It sucks, but you have to assume that every kid in school has been raped."

I was going to post it, but then I realized that when the real world situation is "Assume that every child is raped"-it is really stupid to go back to "square minus 100" and try to convince a liberal (of all people) that there are problems on the Rez.

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And then today, I am jawdroppingly amazed when I think about the "California-Dystopia" thread.

Apparently, we have an extremely partisan, extremely political, long-time Californian who first heard of rural poverty/illegal immigration etc problems in the Central Valley TODAY. Furthermore, because he doesn't like VDH, he will be extremely resistant to ever admitting that there are problems.

So, I am in the position of being stuck in "square minus 100" and trying to convince a knowledgeable, political individual who would resist every step of the waythat there are problems in the Central Valley. That's stupid. That simply doesn't happen in the real world. Normal people accept or understand that there are problems in the Central Valley and go on from there agreeing or disagreeing as the case might be.

I have to wonder how studied somebody's opinions on immigration might be, when he has never even ran across the concept of the Central Valley as a possible cautionary example.
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The obvious response to this is "Pot-Kettle-Black"-what about Global Warming? My quick answer is that is a far wider political debate and is discussed in the real world at all levels.
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My burning question about the Bored might be mean, but I seriously have been wondering about it for a long time.

Spoiler

Is Bob#s as obtuse as he appears to be, or is it just an act?

[silverscreenselect]

I have to wonder how studied somebody's opinions on immigration might be, when he has never even ran across the concept of the Central Valley as a possible cautionary example.

Well, perhaps if you would actually do some research on a subject instead of just latching onto the first anecdotal statement that confirms your point of view, people would give you more credence. When Bob or I quote studies and statistics until we are blue in the face, you look at a novel or an article by Victor Davis Hansen as incontravertible proof.

And I never said that sexual assault wasn't a problem on "the Rez." What I said was that there was no evidence that it was more of a problem there than anywhere else in this country.

[Bob78164]

Spoiler

Is Bob#s as obtuse as he appears to be, or is it just an act?

I'll offer my answer in the same spirit that you offered your question. I'm not obtuse. You merely have a reading comprehension problem.

I didn't claim ignorance of poverty in the Central Valley, nor am I unaware that many residents of the Central Valley view undocumented immigrants as a problem (except, of course, for the residents of the Central Valley whose crops would rot on the ground if it weren't for undocumented workers picking them). But, especially since I have a sister-in-law in the Central Valley, I sure as hell am not taking Hanson's word for the extent of the problems of poverty and undocumented immigrants there, and it's the extent (not mere existence) of those issues that is an essential premise for the rest of his argument. --Bob

[SportsFan68]

I have to wonder how studied somebody's opinions on immigration might be, when he has never even ran across the concept of the Central Valley as a possible cautionary example.

Well, perhaps if you would actually do some research on a subject instead of just latching onto the first anecdotal statement that confirms your point of view, people would give you more credence. When Bob or I quote studies and statistics until we are blue in the face, you look at a novel or an article by Victor Davis Hansen as incontrovertible proof.

And I never said that sexual assault wasn't a problem on "the Rez." What I said was that there was no evidence that it was more of a problem there than anywhere else in this country.

I know from experience that you won't take my testimony as evidence, but direct contact with college-age students does tell me that on the Ute and Navajo reservations there is a bigger problem than most places in the country.

The rules of evidence fail me. The under reporting so prevalent in most of the country is even worse on the reservations. I'm afraid that SSS's "no evidence" assertion can easily be borne out.


P.S. I corrected your spelling on incontrovertible.

[silverscreenselect]

The rules of evidence fail me. The under reporting so prevalent in most of the country is even worse on the reservations. I'm afraid that SSS's "no evidence" assertion can easily be borne out.

People report what they are familiar with, and someone who works or lives on Native American reservations will report that. A lot of bad things happen in areas of extreme poverty, whether it's on the reservation in Utah, in the Central Valley in California, or in the coal mining areas of Kentucky and West Virginia.

But the logical response to problems like this should be to do more to try to help solve these problems, especially when we have large areas of poverty while, at the same time, Trump is giving billions back to his 1% buddies. But when Spock "reports" on them, it isn't to suggest we try to help but, instead, to throw a not-so-thinly-veiled racial jab out there. The problems he reports through anecdotal information from buddies of his like Victor Davis Hanson are invariably problems reported anecdotally in non-white communities with the implicit conclusion being that these problems exist because of some moral or (in the case of Muslims) religious defect in those ethnic groups.

Here's some reading that Spock wasn't interested in on the subject:

https://www.salon.com/2015/07/05/we_sti ... new_black/

But Pennsatucky and the thousands of other young women growing up in rural communities in Appalachia, and across the American South and West, are not simply “unlucky”—they are at high structural risk for rape and sexual assault. According to 2012 FBI crime estimates, the states with the highest rates of reported rapes per capita were, in order: Alaska, South Dakota, Michigan, New Mexico and Arkansas. With the exception of Michigan, in all of these states about half their populations or more reside in rural areas or small towns—70 percent in South Dakota. In Alaska, where the figure is 55.5 percent, the rate of forcible rapes per year is 80 per 100,000, nearly triple the national average. “We have an epidemic,” Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell told CNN, whose Sean Sutter did a series of investigative reports on rape in the state last year. New Jersey and New York had the lowest rates of reported forcible rape per capita in the nation.

Recent analyses of rural sexual assault in Pennsylvania—where 60 percent of its counties are rural and home to about one-third of the state’s population—using data from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape and the Pennsylvania Office of Children, Youth and Families found that rates of rape and child sexual assault were significantly higher in rural counties than in urban ones. They also found that the eight highest rates of rape were in rural counties, and included the three most rural counties in the state.

[Beebs52]

Hang in there, Spock.