August 23, 2013

The only thing we have to fear is inference itself

A Washington D.C. journalist named Brian Beutler writes in Salon:
What I learned from getting shot 
Defenders of stop-and-frisk and racial profiling have made me break my public silence about the night I almost died 
BY BRIAN BEUTLER 
I haven’t said or written much publicly about the shooting that nearly killed me in 2008. But a recent confluence of events — Trayvon Martin’s death, the Zimmerman trial and the public pronouncements of mostly privileged, mostly white people in the aftermath of the verdict — has left me feeling like I have something to share. 
Most recently, actor-activist Kal Penn, once an avowed opponent of racial stereotyping in law enforcement (based in part on his own experience getting patted down at airports), changed his views after he was held up at gunpoint in Washington, D.C. (Penn published a brief explanation late last week, and apparently reconsidered his view over the weekend.) 
... What I can say with some authority — whether this is what happened to Penn or not — is that being a victim of gun violence doesn’t have to turn you into a supporter of racial profiling. 
My story is more than five years old now. It took place in Washington, D.C., on a typically warm July night. I was out late on a Tuesday with a friend whom I’ll call Matt, since that’s his name. [This Matt? The one who was the victim of a racial hate crime nearby in 2011?] We’d been drinking — probably too much for a weeknight, but not too much for a 25-year-old journalist. 
A half-hour after last call, on our walk home up 16th Street northbound toward Mount Pleasant where we lived at the time, we impulsively decided to grab a late night snack at a 24-hour diner we used to frequent in Adams Morgan and hung a left up Euclid Street — a dimly lit one-way street with a violent history. 

The corner of Euclid and 16th Street is 1.8 miles due north of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I’d been up and down Euclid hundreds of times over the years — midday and late at night; alone and with friends; drunk and sober; and just about every permutation thereof. Always without incident. 
This time was different. About half a block up Euclid, Matt and I encountered two young men — both black, both wearing hoodies, characters culled from Richard Cohen’s sweatiest nightmares. They wanted our phones, which we were cleverly holding in front of our faces as we walked. 
We declined, gently under the circumstances. I worried we might end up in a fight. Maybe one of them had a knife, or a larger group of friends around the corner. I know I would’ve surrendered my phone eventually, but not before suggesting they go hassle someone else. Maybe they’d figure we weren’t worth the trouble. 
They didn’t oblige. The kid opposite Matt drew a small, shiny object from wherever he’d been concealing it and passed it to his accomplice, who was standing opposite me. A second or two lapsed — long enough for me to recognize they weren’t joking, but not long enough for me to beg — before it discharged clap clap clap; my body torqued into the air horizontally, like I’d been blindsided by a linebacker, and I fell to the ground. 

The ER removed Beutler's spleen to save his live, leaving him with big medical bills. Within a year or so he was over the trauma, although one of the three bullets is still inside him. But, he's proud to say, he hasn't learned anything.
[Former Indian-American Obama aide and movie star Kal] Penn got in trouble for touting the supposed merits of New York’s stop-and-frisk policy. To the objection that the policy disproportionately targets blacks and Latinos, he responded, “And who, sadly, commits & are victims of the most crimes?” 
But that’s a non sequitur. A false rationale. Take people’s fear out of the equation and the logical artifice collapses.

People's fear must be removed from the equation. Fear of crime is contemptible weakness. Just remember: What does not kill you makes you stronger.

On the other hand, it's completely reasonable for black youths to be terrified of all the roving white racists like George Zimmerman out to gun them down.
Canadians are highly overrepresented in the field of professional ice hockey, but it would be ridiculous for anyone to walk around Alberta presumptively asking strangers on the street for autographs. When you treat everyone as a suspect, you get a lot of false positives. That’s why above and beyond the obvious injustice of it, stop and frisk isn’t wise policy. Minorities might commit most of the crime in U.S. cities, and be the likeliest victims of it, and that’s a problem with a lot of causes that should be addressed in a lot of ways. But crime is pretty rare. Not rare like being a professional hockey player is rare. But rare. Most people, white or minority, don’t do it at all. ...

This may have something to do with the trillions spent fighting crime, the 800,000 cops employed, the two million in jail, the flight to the suburbs, the decline of walking, and other costs.

But still ... according to the liberal Center for American Progress): "According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime."

That's a lot.

And the conclusion:
Everyone who’s ever shot me was black and wearing a hoodie. There just aren’t any reasonable inferences to draw from that fact.

The only thing we have to fear is inference itself.

Over at his NYT blog, Ross Douthat asks in response: "How Rare Is Crime?"
But at the same time, crime is common enough that it’s quite likely to happen to the average person at some point in time. Not that the average person will go through what Beutler went through, mercifully. But over a span of years, your odds of experiencing at least an attempted robbery or an attempted assault are pretty good.
How good? Well, that depends on the crime rate over time. In the 1980s, the Bureau of Justice Statistics tried to quantify the “lifetime likelihood of victimization,” by assuming that the American crime rate over that hypothetical lifetime averaged what it averaged from 1975 to 1984. (Those were, of course, high crime years; more on that below.) The study calculated that at those rates, 83 percent of Americans could expect to be victims of an attempted robbery, rape or assault at least once as an adult; 40 percent could expect to be injured in a robbery or assault; 72 percent of households could expect to be burglarized and 20 percent could expect to have a car stolen, and 99 percent of the population (that is, everybody) could expect to experience some kind of personal theft. 
These numbers don’t suggest that crime is a regular occurrence in law-abiding lives; it is not. But they suggest that it can be a normal occurrence, in the sense of being something that you have to be prepared for, something that you can reasonably expect to have to deal with at some point, and something that will definitely affect somebody you care about even if it doesn’t touch you directly. 
(As a personal aside, I would hazard that my own experience is probably fairly typical: My parents’ home was burglarized when I was a teenager, I had my nose broken in Adams Morgan in the early 2000s, our car was stolen two years ago, and then I have various one or two-degrees-of-separation connection to incidents that involved extended hospitalization or worse.) 
And part of what makes the endless debates over profiling so vexed, I think, is that it’s hard to assess what constitutes a reasonable response to this reality. Is crime a low-probability danger? Well, yes in the everyday sense, but no in the sense that you could very easily be victimized at some point, which isn’t true of, say, lightning strikes and terrorist attacks and other truly low-probability threats. Clearly it isn’t a threat that should make you a shut-in; clearly it isn’t so non-threatening that urbanites should relax and leave their cars and houses unlocked overnight. But most of what counts as everyday profiling, whether by attire or attitude or age or race or by all those variables at once, falls into a much blurrier area, where the rational thing to do — cross the street to avoid a group of kids or not? keep a closer eye on customer X than customer Y in your store? call the cops to report suspicious-seeming behavior or not? — isn’t slam-dunk obvious given the variables and risks involved.

Well said. But Ross's methodology actually understates that 1987 federal Bureau of Justice Statistics' report on the prevalence of crime in the 1970s-1980s because many victims would be victimized multiple times. 

Similarly, in the marketing research business, we referred to total sales as penetration times buying rate. If a product is bought by 50% of the people (penetration rate of 50%), and they average five purchases each (buying rate of 5), then total sales will average 2.5 purchases per person.

While, as Ross says, 87% of the public could be expected to be a victim of violent crime (completed or attempted) at least once in their lifetimes, Table 1 reports that only 30% would only be victimized once. Another 27% would be victimized twice in a lifetime, and 25% three or more times. So, the average American would suffer at least 1.59 violent crimes in a lifetime, and almost certainly more (depending on the exact number of incidents befalling the 25% suffering "3 or more" crimes). 

For example, if the average number of victimizations for the 25% in the 3 or more category was 4.65, then the expected number of violent victimizations per American would be 2.0.

125 comments:

Anonymous said...

My grandfather used to carry one of those "small, shiny objects". He claimed it got him out of more than one jam over the years.

DJF said...

""""a dimly lit one-way street with a violent history. """

Here is a typical evasion, the street is not violent, some people on the street are violent.

There was a particularly violent murder in my city and all the talking heads used the same evasion, they blamed some apartment buildings and demanded that they be gotten rid of. Of course there was nothing wrong with the buildings, it was the people in the buildings that were the problem but that could not be said.

eah said...

JAFI - Just Another Fucking Idiot. The tipoff is that it's Salon. Slate, Salon, The Atlantic, what's the difference? It's all idiocy. I mean, 'consider the source' as they say.

Read the description of the crime. The absolute savagery. And he'd have that inflicted on countless others just so he can buck up his PC bona fides.

testing88 said...

I was always really upset when growing up in pre-Giuliani NYC that, being half Jewish, I couldn't join the Klan.

Anonymous said...

I used to carry for protection based on the rule of "better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6." However, recent events have demonstrated to me that this rule no longer applies, those 12 quite likely will put you behind bars for life. A simple set of rules that seems to do the job are listed in Section 10 of John Derbyshire's The Talk, a proactive, actionable set of rules to manage the personal risk of living in a diverse society. Following Section 10 will substantially reduce the cumulative risk of personal harm but there are also the side benefits of less exposure to some crass elements of American culture and less stress in dealing with others in everyday life. Try it, it works!

Anon87 said...

Note to anyone reading: don't walk around staring into a phone, oblivious to your surroundings. You may as well have a sign around your neck saying "ROB ME PLEASE!"

Anonymous said...

Ya know, I was struck by lightning while riding a motorcycle once. This is an event much more improbable than getting mugged, just the lightning alone, much less the motorcycle.

However, while I continued to ride the motorcycle, I would never right through a thunderstorm again.

I guess that is profiling and most people would think it wise (and even wiser if I gave up the motorcycle completely).

MacGyver's Duct Tape said...

Liberals suffer from willful blindness to the point of stupidity when it comes to things like stop and frisk. They view the issue as, 'Murder, rape and armed robbery are much lower now so we don't really need this thing that sometimes hurts a poor sweet innocent black guy's feelings when he's only dressing like someone who's keeping it real', ignoring blatant cause and effect; a more realistic view incorporating all the facts would be, 'Murder, rape and armed robbery are much lower now since stop and frisk began, so we shouldn't get rid of a policy that is working just because of the occasional minor inconvenience to a black guy who wants to dress like he's about to commit a felony. Murder, rape and armed robbery are serious crimes so we should not be so cavalier in subjecting ourselves or others to such risks just to avoid a few hurt feelings in a group which brings it upon itself'.

The unfortunate thing in all of this is that because people are having an easier time now, it tends to cause some, especially younger people who never experienced anything else, to support the liberal view. Liberalism seems to arise in white people when they haven't been victimized; after a mugging or two, they change their minds. The best thing for NY liberals would be to spend summer camp in a ghetto in Detroit, and for N. Cali liberals to spend summer camp in a poor neighborhood in Oakland. Maybe we could call it a Community Outreach summer camp, to help disadvantaged neighborhoods and encourage liberals who want to absolve their white guilt to attend. But unlike most of these Outreach events, instead of just working there a few hours during daylight you have to actually live there.


candid_observer said...

Equally important but not explicitly stated in Douhat's account is that we care not only about crime committed against us, but against our loved ones.

That of course makes an already bad set of statistics vastly worse. Given the sorts of numbers you've quoted, the average semi-extended family might easily expect over a dozen cases of crime perpetrated against them.

Anonymous said...

This just in... news.com.au is calling the Chris Lane murder an "anti-white" "hate crime".

Svigor said...

On the other hand, it's completely reasonable for black youths to be terrified of all the roving white racists like George Zimmerman out to gun them down.

This is why I don't take leftists and liberals seriously on ideological or intellectual grounds. Because it all comes down to power:

1. The power to tell everyone not to fear blacks or other minorities, on pain of cultural death; that fear is for weaklings, etc.
2. The power to tell everyone to fear white people and men.
3. The power to make sure nobody makes too much noise about the blatant contradiction without paying a high price.

Canadians are highly overrepresented in the field of professional ice hockey, but it would be ridiculous for anyone to walk around Alberta presumptively asking strangers on the street for autographs.

It would be more absurd to walk around Canada asking old black women if they're hockey stars than to ask young white men.

When you treat everyone as a suspect, you get a lot of false positives.

When you treat no one as a suspect, you've got a lot of false negatives. And those are much more dangerous than false positives.

That’s why above and beyond the obvious injustice of it, stop and frisk isn’t wise policy.

Nonsense. And the idea that lefties and libs are concerned with injustice is laughable; they propagate it on a systemic level every day.

Minorities might commit most of the crime in U.S. cities, and be the likeliest victims of it, and that’s a problem with a lot of causes that should be addressed in a lot of ways.

So, he just torpedoed his entire argument by admitting that blacks are the biggest perpetrators of crime.

But over a span of years, your odds of experiencing at least an attempted robbery or an attempted assault are pretty good.

And libs and lefties have made it their mission to make sure that you don't have the means at hand to defend yourself and stand your ground, should this likely event ever occur.

But they're on the side of the angels. To paraphrase Marky Mark: "how fucked up are you?"

As an aside, I find it fascinating how often the subtext of "you're white, you should be the adult in the room, you should take the high road because you're supposed to be better than blacks" comes through in left/lib boilerplate. I.e., you're white, so you should just hand over your wallet, pay the hospital bills, issue the calls for peace and harmony, turn the other cheek. And how viscerally they respond to the "fuck that shit" attitude among whites. "But, but, but (you're white)! You should be better than that!"

rightsaidfred said...

Is Brian Beutler the end game of modern PC? Or will it get even worse? Will the proper man be expected to purposely expose himself to vibrant crime?

This is akin to Imperial Japan where TPTB are telling us to charge a machine gun nest.

Anonymous said...

Born 1974. Victim of 3 burglaries, 2 bike thefts, 1 case of insurance fraud/hit and run, 1 mugging, 1 carjacking at gunpoint, 1 instance of extortion by NYC moving company, 1 car break-in/radio-cd player theft

I think that totals 9, and I am only 39. Only two crimes were by a non-diverse individual, and that was the shifty round faced Ukranian working the moving company scams, and a well dressed 50's ish white businessman who took me with a fake address and fake insurance when he hit my car.

My wife only had the joy of four years of vibrancy and got to be a part of both vehicle crimes listed above and a subway pick-pocketing on her own.

Nothing since we fled vibrancy in 2001.

But yeah, no need to profile. ANYONE might come along and burgle your house, steel your kids bike, or hold you up at gunpoint. (/sarcasm)

Cail Corishev said...

I'd be in the 13%, as would most people I know, living in a very low-crime small town. I suppose some of those "3 or more" people must be far into the "or more" and blowing the curve.

Anonymous said...

Why defend S&F for NYers when they would never tolerate it in your community?
Let liberals be robbed, beaten, or killed by blacks.

Cail Corishev said...

"But a recent confluence of events....has left me feeling like I have something to share."

Huh, turns out he was wrong about that.

Anonymous said...

I'll bet Beutler racially profiles the city by avoiding most black areas and living in the white part of town.

He says the 'correct' things to cover up the 'incorrect' things he actually DOES.

Aaron Gross said...

Brian Beutler seems to be looking at the incident rationally, even if he draws the wrong conclusions. Similarly, Ross Douthat is thinking rationally when he criticizes Beutler's argument.

The only one looking at it irrationally is Steve Sailer. It's right here: "The only thing we have to fear is inference itself." But what should one infer from this anecdote that you didn't know already? In other words, what additional information does it provide that's not already available in well-known crime statistics?

Arguably, none at all. Knowing that black kids in hoodies shot you on this particular night (but not on lots and lots of other nights when you were walking there) doesn't tell you anything new. It's irrational to base your future behavior on a single, traumatic experience rather than on risks estimated from a large range of experience.

Steve's suggestion is like suggesting that you "draw the right inference" about flying on airplanes because you just survived a crash: understandable, but irrational.

Chicago said...

He titles it as being what he "learned" from his experience of being shot. Perhaps he could also learn to stop stereotyping whites, as in "mostly privileged, mostly white". Everybody white is always "privileged". Perhaps it's because they get the opportunity to pay for everyone else as well as having to support themselves. The word has become another one of these overused buzzwords. Not being able to learn is probably why he's their political writer.

agnostic said...

Support for racial profiling is an opportunistic infection that strikes victims of NAM crime. Making it through NAM crime inference-free proves your ideological immune system is far stronger than others. Writing about it in the media signals your superior health to others.

agnostic said...

Libs talk funny about stats and logic when it comes to profiling. Producing false positives = illogical, captain.

But of course, producing false negatives should also = illogical, captain. Why did you give that shady guy the benefit of the doubt?

Intro stats says cutting down on one type of error raises the other. Which type we want to cut down on, and to what degree, given what we think we know about the effects of that decision -- there's nothing more subjective than that. Logic and objectivity has nothing to do with it, no matter what decision we make.

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see victimization rates by a state-by-state or even count-by-county basis.

Just what are the lifetime odds of crime victimization in small town mid-western USA or Maine or Vermont, for example?

Compare that to rates in LA, Chicago, DC or NYC.

Yes, yes,yes, geographic locale is 'just a proxy'.

Anonymous said...

Adams Morgan is (or was when I was in DC last) the gayest and whitest part of DC. The two thugs who rolled the guy didn't live there.

So: two black thugs travel to the gayest and whitest area of DC to prowl dark alleys looking for white and likely gay men to roll, and buddy doesn't see a race angle here.

Okay.

Stuff Black People Don't Like said...

If you've never read "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail" by Hunter S. Thompson, the chapter 'Can Georgetown Survive the Black Menace' is incredible.

Allow me to quote from it:

"Life runs fast and mean in this town. It’s like living in an armed camp, a condition of constant fear. Washington is 72 percent black; the shrinking white population has backed itself into an elegant-looking ghetto in the Northwest quadrant of town – which seems to have made things a lot easier for the black marauders who have turned places like chic Georgetown and once-stylish Capitol Hill into hellishly paranoid Fear Zones.
Washington Post columnist Nicholas Van Hoffman recently pointed that the Nixon/Mitchell Administration- seemingly obsessed with restoring Law and Order in the land, at almost any cost – seems totally unconcerned that Washington, D.C., has become the “Rape Capital of the World.” One of the most dangerous areas in town is the once-fashionable district known as Capitol Hill.
This is the section immediately surrounding the Senate/Congress office buildings, a very convenient place to live for the thousands of young clerks, aides and secretaries who work up there at the pinnacle. The peaceful, tree-shaded streets on Capitol Hill look anything but menacing; brick colonial townhouses with cut-glass doors and tall windows looking out on the Library of Congress and the Washington Monument…
When I came here to look for a house or apartment, about a month ago, I check around town and figured Capitol Hill was the logical place to locate. “Good God, man!” said my friend from the liberal New York Post. “You can’t live there! It’s a goddamn jungle!”
Crime figures from “The District” are so heinous that they embarrass even J. Edgar Hoover. Rape is said to be up 80 percent this year over 1970, and a recent rash of murders (averaging one every day) has mashed the morale of the local police to a new low. Of the 250 murders this year, only 36 have been solved… and the Washington Post says the cops are about to give up.
Meanwhile, things like burglaries, street muggings and random assaults are so common that they are no longer considered news. The Washington Evening Star, one of the city’s three dailies, is located in the Southeast District – a few blocks from the Capitol – in a windowless building that looks like the vault at Fort Knox. Getting into the Star to see somebody is almost as difficult as getting into the White House.
Visitors are scrutinized by hired cops and ordered to fill out forms that double as “hall passes.” So many Star reporters have been mugged, raped and menaced that they come and in fast taxis, like people running the gauntlet – fearful, with good reason, of every sudden footfall between the street and the bright-lit safety of the newsroom guard station….
Getting beaten in Congress is one thing – even if you get beaten a lot – but when you slink of out of the Senate chamber with your tail between your legs and then have to worry about getting mugged, stomped, or raped in the Capitol parking lot by a trio of renegade Black Panthers… well, it tends to bring you down a bit, and warp your Liberal Instincts.
There is no way to avoid “racist undertones” here. The simple heavy truth is that Washington is mainly a Black City, and that most of the violent crime is therefore committed by blacks – not always against whites, but often enough to make the relatively wealthy white population very nervous about random social contacts with their black fellow citizens.
After only 10 days in this town I have noticed the Fear Syndrome clouding even my own mind: I find myself ignoring black hitchhikers, and every time I do it I wonder, “Why the fuck did you do that?” And I tell myself, “Well, I’ll pick up the next one I see.” And sometimes I do, but not always…

countenance said...

This Buelter says that crime is going down then complains that one in three black men will go to prison. Duh stupid, maybe these two things are related.

This is what happens when you prostrate your mind to ideological cults. I've contended for awhile that holding so tenaciously to an abstract ideology that you advocate things that hurt you (and "you" could mean either individually or collectively) or fail to see threats to you is a form of mental illness.

Anonymous said...

http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/dead-souls-of-a-cultural-revolution/

One kid really looks like Obama 35 yrs ago.

Anonymous said...

The joke used to be that a conservative was a liberal who had been mugged by reality.

But the hard-core liberal cadre, the commissars of liberalism, they can get mugged by reality over and over again and, like a soviet commissar watching one five-year plan after another collapse in ruins, they respond by doubling down on zealous adherence to the creed and denouncing running-dog imperialist warmongers (or "privileged white racists") with even greater fervor.

Anonymous said...

Slate should be embarrassed to publish a piece like that, something "reasoned" as if it were written by not very bright 12year old girl....but then again, it's Slate so my mouth shouldn't be hanging open.

Anonymous said...

Correction: Salon, not Slate...as if it mattered

Rex Little said...

Your characterization of Beutler is unfair. He "didn't learn anything" because there was nothing to learn. He already knew what the statistics say about minorities and crime before he was shot, and he didn't think that justified stop and frisk. We may disagree with his view, but the fact that being a victim didn't cause him to change it is admirable.

David said...

> There just aren't any reasonable inferences to be drawn from that fact.<

But there are plenty of unreasonable ones, including that his one experience teaches us a lesson.

Anonymous said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/23/notre-dame-begin-accepting-illegal-immigrants/

Surrendering Irish.

Anonymous said...

http://www.wnd.com/2013/08/disney-brings-lesbian-moms-to-tv/

Anonymous said...

Spokane is only 2.3% black but this was done by blacks.

http://americanoverlook.com/black-teens-savagely-beat-wwii-vet-to-death/102972

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokane,_Washington#Demographics

Harry Baldwin said...

I found the Beutler essay fascinating for its glimpse into the mind of the committed liberal. The old cliche had it that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. Today's liberals are determined to refute that: "Yes, I've been mugged--more than that, I've been brutalized and shot, but I'm proud to say my views have not changed! I continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the black victim class against you hateful conservatives!"

Notice Beutler described his attackers as "both black, both wearing hoodies, characters culled from Richard Cohen’s sweatiest nightmares." He had to get a dig in at liberal columnist Richard Cohen, whose recent faux pas was to mention the appalling black crime rates, showing himself to be a quisling in the face of the conservative menace. It sounds like Beutler himself had some sweaty nightmares after his ordeal, but he demonstrated his more noble nature by refusing to draw inferences from it.

The firearms trainer John Farnham describes someone like Beutler as a VBC--a Victim By Choice. He is unarmed, does not have a combat mindset, and chooses to eschew normal precautions against criminal predation such as avoiding dark streets in bad neighborhoods. Yet when faced with a pair of VCAs (Violent Criminal Actors [again Farnham]), Beutler imagines he can assert himself against them, refusing to hand over his iPhone, as if he were in some sort of reasonable discussion. Doesn't he understand that, as a VBC, he has no basis on which to defy a VCA? VBCs need to understand the consequences of their choice: someone asks you for your property, you give it to them. You have forfeited the right to make an issue of it.

Anonymous said...

I love the guy's ludicrous analogy of Canadians and the NHL to blacks and crime. There are about 35,000,000 people in Canada and about 700 professional hockey players in the NHL. Multiplying this by ten (more then the total population of the USA) would come to about 7,000 black criminals in an America with 350,000,000 people. And this would also have to assume every single criminal in the U.S. was black too.

Anonymous said...

I hope this guy never has kids. He's actually apologetic for 1- being on the street at night, 2- wanting to get something to eat, and 3- using his phone.
Well, I guess he can crawl under his bed and sob softly and call himself the Great American Liberal Hero. Or he can wise up and accept the world for what it is.

Anonymous said...

It's fascinating how these whip-smart journalists go to top universities, then suddenly become unable to comprehend basic concepts of probability when it challenges their worldview to do so.

The statistics they pluck out are hilarious. The average person goes through their average day in DC without getting shot? That is beyond stupid reasoning. And the only reason there isn't more crime in DC is because all these white kids like Yglesias and Beutler, once they've gotten their taste of Adams-Morgan and a couple of kids, move to Bethesda (or Woodley Park or Chevy Chase if they still want to delude themselves by saying they "live in DC")

Paul Mendez said...

So, the average American would suffer at least 1.59 violent crimes in a lifetime...

When you consider that a majority of Americans live in relatively un-vibrant suburban and rural areas, the average urban American must experience several multiples of that.

As a life-long city boy, I spend every waking moment in "Condition Yellow," instinctively assessing the threat potential of every person I see.

Oklahomans prepare for tornadoes. Coloradans prepare for wild fires. Floridians prepare for lighting. City dwellers prepare for crime.

Anonymous said...

Looks like this fool learned nothing from a violent episode that could have easily left him either crippled or dead.

Anyway, if he wants to waste his life living in some overrated urban dump like Washington DC or NYC, risking death when walking back from bars or even a late night at the office, then let him do so.

Anonymous said...

We have a nominee for the Amy Biehl award this year.

Anonymous said...

OT: Steve's review of Elysium is added to the bottom of Elysium wikipedia page.

vinteuil said...

Wow. In the annals of moral exhibitionism, this is one for the record-books. A truly dizzying performance.

Shorter Brian Beutler: I learned nothing from the near-death experience that resulted from my refusal to notice patterns - and neither should you, if you want to be as totally cool and morally pure as me!

Do you suppose he's walked drunk on Euclid Street in the wee hours of the morning since his...unfortunate event?

If not, why not?

Where is the Molière who will give this Tartuffe, and the monstrous regiment of his confederates, the literary drawing & quartering that they so richly deserve?

Pat Boyle said...

I've been waiting for you broach the topic of casting the Trayvon Martin movie. But so far nothing?

The only White-Hispanic movie star that I can think of is Lorenzo Llamas but he isn't quite right for Zimmerman - is he?

There are a lot of black stars available however including the ubiquitous Morgan Freeman. He's about the right height for Trayvon Martin but maybe a tiny bit too old. Also he probably isn't better than Llamas at MMA style combat so the final fight might lack verisimilitude.

Rachel Jeantel is another casting challenge. I'm thinking Eddie Murphy in one of his fat suits.

For Al Sharpton the only person I can think of with the requisite street preacher chops is Robin Williams.

Albertosaurus

Anonymous said...

The study calculated that at those rates, 83 percent of Americans could expect to be victims of an attempted robbery, rape or assault at least once as an adult; 40 percent could expect to be injured in a robbery or assault; 72 percent of households could expect to be burglarized and 20 percent could expect to have a car stolen, and 99 percent of the population (that is, everybody) could expect to experience some kind of personal theft.

The US has apparently been a 3rd world country since the 70s. I don't see how any country can claim to be 1st world with these kinds of numbers.

Anti-Democracy Activist said...

"Take people’s fear out of the equation and the logical artifice collapses."

A typical leftist logical fallacy in action. Reducing their opponents' arguments to emotion lets them trivialize them as irrational - maybe even a sign of mental illness (where this leads, considering the history of Soviet psychiatry, is chilling). Thus the left's emphasis on the emotional state of their opponents - "racism", "hate", "greed", and "fear". These aren't counter-argument; they're an excuse for not having to defend against counter-arguments: "I don't have to provide logical defenses against your criticisms, because you're a big meanie".

The specific fallacy here is the inference that fear is not ever a perfectly rational, logical, justifiable, or even necessary reaction to certain circumstances. Pilots don't fly their airplanes into tornadoes because they fear crashing if they do - would we want it to be otherwise? Similarly, firemen wear heavy fireproof gear because they fear getting seriously burned if they don't; doctors test donated blood because they fear giving a patient HIV or hepatitis if they don't; investors do due diligence on investments because they fear going bankrupt if they don't. These are all examples of actions motivated by fear; and yet they are all perfectly rational and necessary. If a fear is based in reality, you're a fool not to act on it.

So yes: take the fear out of the equation and the logical artifice collapses. But if the fear is logical, then there is no argument to be made for taking it out, any more than there is an argument for pilots to "man up" and start flying their planes into tornadoes.

IA said...

If Buetler had been a woman, gay, or a tranny the attack would have made the WaPo. Plus, he could have reported it as a "hate crime" (he and Matt were holding hands). DC, in 2012 had over 1200 hate crimes - closest state Connecticut with about 350 - with a special police unit and stiffer penalties. But, being a hetero white male no such luck. However, he can use the trannies, et. al., as an advance guard, clearing out the blacks and expanding the growing white territory being reclaimed in the capitol city. Like the wealthy but decadent prince in a kung fu movie who lets lower class fighters take on the bad guys, the zeitgeist demands Beutler appear empathetic to both sides.

Conatus said...

All those numbers make my head spin. Let's keep it simple for us old LaTourette guys.
Crime has gone up 400% since 1960 and then come down about 150% since 1991, so we are still 250% up in crime so I figure we still have two and half times greater chance of being a victim than in 1960. I wondered what happened then?
Wikipedia, Crime in the United States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
"After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1991."

But still the Wikipedia entry does not seem to mention the fifties. I thought it was 5 times since the 50s and therefore we would have more than a 350% greater chance of having our dignity stripped from us while we handed over our goods since when we were living in the bad old days of a 90% YT America.

Anonymous said...

There might not be a lot of NHL hockey players out on the streets of Toronto at any given time, but there are a lot of nogoodniks out and about on the average urban street after midnight. A lot of them are black and dressed in hoodies.

onsierl said...

Today on a BART train going into Oakland I had my pepper spray at the ready. The occupy-type kid next to me (he looked like Ned the communist from Seinfeld) asked me, "why do you need that?"

a very knowing American said...

Another installment in the series "Thomas Bayes, racist" or maybe "Reverend Bayes versus Reverend Bacon."

Steve Sailer said...

"Reverend Bayes versus Reverend Bacon."

That's good.

Anonymous said...

He's basically saying that he's incredibly stupid.

Anonymous said...

Isiah Whitlock Jr. As Ben Crump
Angelica Houston as Angela Corey
David Cross ( Tobias Funke) as Bernie de la Rionda
Michael Pena as George Zimmerman
Barack Obama as Trayvon Martin

Anonymous said...

For libs, it's about the unwillingness to concede that all the social science and hard science data(biology, genetics, evolutionary biology, etc.) is against almost all that they believe.

Unfortunately, their political opponents, the conservatives, don't know how the hell to use that data publically....or, the political class of conservatives is not even familiar with said data.

Cail Corishev said...

Brian Beutler seems to be looking at the incident rationally, even if he draws the wrong conclusions.

What conclusions? That we shouldn't judge an entire group based on one incident? No one's doing that. Stop-and-frisk, and even outright profiling, are based on lots of lots of incidents, and finding commonalities between them and using those to prevent future crimes by watching for the same attributes.

That crime is actually rare? Apparently not rare enough, according to the voters of NYC and their representatives. It's nowhere near as rare there as it is where I live, which is one reason I live here and not there.

That he's better than us because being shot by a couple of black guys in hoodies hasn't made him racist like it would most people? Ah, now we're getting to the point of the article. This is an excellent example of Steve's contention that anti-racism and other PC causes are really a way for liberal whites to one-up each other. This isn't about his superiority over the vibrant youths who shot him, or even over racist whites out in the hinterlands; it's about his superiority over Richard Cohen. Major, major racial sensitivity points scored there. Cohen would have to get shot by some vibrant youths himself -- and then go visit them in prison and forgive them John Paul II-style and then campaign for their release -- to leapfrog back ahead of him in the more-non-racist-than-thou stakes.

Anonymous said...

Euclid St. was notoriously dangerous when I lived in DC (most of the 2000s). Thug central walking down it, would NEVER do it at night. The trainer at my gym lived there (white guy) answered a knock on the door at night and got home invaded by a crew of thugs who tied him and his roommates up.

There were constant incidents of violence in Adams Morgan, almost always with black perpetrators (maybe 5% Hispanic, meaning Salvadoran in Adams Morgan / Mt. Pleasant.) Incredibly brutal (residents of my apartment complex beaten savagely right outside the door at 6 PM, etc.). And calculated -- they'd troll the residential streets around 18th St (where the bars are) and attack groups from Northern Virginia or Maryland walking back to their cars. Incredibly savage attacks. Barbaric. You'd see them walking around, scoping out who to get next. On the street over from me a gang of thugs walked right up to a barbecue some people were having on their front porch, drew guns, and took all their stuff. Utter barbarism.

The mindset of these young journalists in DC is: I'm going to live in Adams Morgan because it's exciting, yes (the nightlife is excellent) but also to prove a point (they've been pumped with "anti-racist" propaganda their whole lives) that they're not racists. But sometimes they get the shit beat out of them.

I was one of these people. Was amazed when I moved to DC how different things really were than what my teachers, the media, etc. had told me my whole life.

Anyway, like I said in a comment above: Beutler can say now that his view of race and crime hasn't changed, but of course that's just puffery. He'll be living in Bethesda or Chevy Chase or Cleveland Park once he has kids, and won't hesitate to call the police if he sees someone looking like the guy who shot him trolling around his neighborhood.



Harry Baldwin said...

Do you suppose he's walked drunk on Euclid Street in the wee hours of the morning since his...unfortunate event?

Good question. If not, I suppose he's drawn an inference or two.

Today on a BART train going into Oakland I had my pepper spray at the ready. The occupy-type kid next to me (he looked like Ned the communist from Seinfeld) asked me, "why do you need that?"

Proper answer: "Because f--k you."

Anonymous said...

Two other quick things: if you live in Adams-Morgan like Beutler did, fear of black crime is constant. If you're walking anywhere after dark, you're 100% aware of it. If you're not, and even if you are, you can easily get Beutlered. Violent crimes committed by young black males happen every single weekend in A-M.

Last point: the only reason the crime statistics aren't much higher than they are now in DC, which is very high, is because this ever-present fear of crime keeps so many people either away from A-M altogether (they stay in Upper Northwest or the suburbs -- you can have a great time out in Arlington, VA, with an exponentially lower risk of crime) or they do things like walk in groups on brightly-lit streets, etc. And of course lobby the cops to increase their presence on those streets.

Anyone like Beutler who says they don't think about black crime every time they go outside at night in A-M is posturing.



Anonymous said...

Let's get to the root of the problem. "Turn the other cheek." That is where and when self-defense started to become a crime. Never mind that liberals seem to have consciously abandoned this particular ideology....

Anonymous said...

To the Anon who wrote: "Adams Morgan is (or was when I was in DC last) the gayest and whitest part of DC. The two thugs who rolled the guy didn't live there.

So: two black thugs travel to the gayest and whitest area of DC to prowl dark alleys looking for white and likely gay men to roll, and buddy doesn't see a race angle here."

You must be confusing Adams-Morgan with Dupont Circle. Dupont Circle is very gay and very white, while Adams Morgan is not noticeably gayer than any other part of white DC and it is much more ethnically diverse (Dupont is expensive to live in) and still has a major thug component.

Svigor said...

being half Jewish, I couldn't join the Klan.

Only cuz NYC wouldn't tolerate the Klan:

You: hey guys, I'm in, sign me up.
Them: you kinda look Jewish. You Jewish?
You: nope. Italian Protestant.
Them: sign right here.

Didn't even the Nuremberg Laws count half-Jews as non-Jews?

I used to carry...John Derbyshire's The Talk

Anyone who's going to CC should be following Derb's rules (they're just common sense) anyway. Those who are of the personality type that tempts them to disregard Derb's rules because they're carrying probably shouldn't CC.

You may as well have a sign around your neck saying "ROB ME PLEASE!"

Yep. Sad to say, people this oblivious to situational awareness probably need a good mugging. Getting shot's a bit much, though. Libs are so dumb they'll stop and stand there and talk when vibrant youths intercept them on the street.

and even wiser if I gave up the motorcycle completely).

Yep. I always make a point of refusing to sympathize with people who tell their tales of woe about riding motorcycles on public roads. I usually tell them the idea that they give a rat's ass about their own safety is laughable.

Liberalism seems to arise in white people when they haven't been victimized

Elite manipulation aside, liberalism is a luxury good, plain and simple. The ideology of spoiled children. There was a study some time back that showed that as adversity increases, so do authoritarianism and religiousity, and vice-versa. In essence, liberalism is decadence.

Why defend S&F for NYers

My sentiments exactly. Send it through the courts, let it be vigorously challenged, and ultimately decided by the Supreme Black Robes. If they shoot it down, fine by me. If they let it stand, fine by me. But either way, it'll be sauce for the goose and the gander.

Producing false positives = illogical, captain.

But of course, producing false negatives should also = illogical, captain. Why did you give that shady guy the benefit of the doubt?

Of course, false positives aren't really a bad result here, either. Blacks bring very little good into any white person's life, generally speaking. Crime ain't the only negative them bring along with them. What are the positives? Whatever they are, they're way out-classed by the negatives.

The firearms trainer John Farnham describes someone like Beutler as a VBC--a Victim By Choice.

Indeed, libs' goal seems to be to take away the choice and just force everyone to be victims. Robbery is essentially a death threat: "give me your stuff or I'll attack you"; since we cannot know whether the attack will result in injury, permanent injury, or death, when subjected to robbery, we must logically assume the attack will result in death. So stand your ground laws are simply the legal enshrinement of the obvious fact that we have the right to defend ourselves against deadly threats to ourselves.

This right, and its enshrinement, drives libs nuts. That's the kind of people we're dealing with.

suddenly become unable to comprehend basic concepts of probability when it challenges their worldview to do so.

Gun-controls libs, by definition, announce their inability to read the plain English of the 2nd Amendment. They write entire essays on the subject.

The average person goes through their average day in DC without getting shot? That is beyond stupid reasoning.

"Yes, Mrs. Jones, we're sorry for your loss. But really, your son's death was a statistical blip, and not very important. He walked around just fine for 7300 days before he was shot and killed. We like those odds."

Lorenzo Llamas but he isn't quite right for Zimmerman - is he?

Maybe Jeffrey Wright. He's a bit too black for the role, but he's not far off, he looks kinda like Zim, and he has that slightly morose look.

Matt Gaffney said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Beutler does make a legit point but pushes it to the point of PC meaninglessness, and I suspect he can entertain such notions because he's privileged and protected and has been able to afford to live in the parts of the city and hang with the kinds of people who give him no trouble.
So, for him, it was indeed a fluke. What he fails to realize is that this kind of craziness is part of daily occurrence for many poor blacks and poor whites(who are stuck in blackening areas).

Beutler has a legit point in that it would indeed be unfair to racially profile all blacks simply because black crimes tend to be higher. After all, majority of blacks don't commit violent crime.
And I would never defend Stop and Frisk because NYers would never tolerate such policy in a conservative town or city; they sure condemned Zimmerman's 'racial profiling'.

But Beutler is a fool to think that racial profiling is about targeting ALL blacks as potential criminals. No, people in the criminal justice system come to be experts at suspecting who may or may not be trouble. One can tell by dress, way people move or look around, attitude, and etc.

So, racial profiling in NY or elsewhere was NEVER about patting down all blacks. It was about focusing on young black males who seem suspicious. Even so, I can see how even this is problematic since the majority of suspicious seeming types may not be up to anything bad.
But nothing is certain or perfect in public policy. It's always a case of gain some and lose some.
Beutler could made an intelligent nuanced argument against a policy like Stop and Frisk but he just had to go into self-righteous narcissistic mode. Basically, he's showing himself as a noble liberal because he got shot by blacks but he still isn't racked with 'irrational' fear of all blacks.

BUT, ever since the incident happened, is he more careful about venturing into trouble spots? Is he happy that DC is becoming whiter and less black? Is he supportive of Section 8 housing policies? Is he for gentrification?

You see, he can afford to be a noble liberal because so much of the social and economic factors are favoring gentrification of DC at the expense of blacks who are being driven out.
Indeed, gentrification and section 8 housing are actually far more racially targeting and effective against blacks than stop and frisk. They basically target dangerous blacks for wholesale removal. But since it's done through housing policy than by police patting blacks down, people often miss the racial angle of these policies.

So, would Beutler be so glibly narcissistic and self-righteous(and holier than thou) if DC was NOT improving thanks to gentrification and section 8 housing(both of which continue to push blacks out of the city) and if he'd been attacked few more times in the past 2 yrs? Surely he must know that many white folks who cannot afford what he can--to live in the good part of the city and shmooze with the right kind of people--may suffer several times a year from black threats, brutality, and thuggery as it's a racial fact that blacks are naturally stronger and more aggressive than whites.

Whiskey said...

Anon, a WWII Vet in Seattle, a White guy in 1% Black Dylan OK, tried Derby's rules and they did not work.

Nor, will Derb's rules be available, Obama is through HUD and Holder stuffing every insufficient diverse neighborhood with Section 8 "Diversity" housing and inhabitants. Expect vibrant diversity near you!

So, the idea is to adopt a hoodie, dark glasses, anonymous (not personalized, mass market) baseball cap, be ready to flee, or fight, like an old West gunfighter. Reading the autobiography of John Wesley Hardin, its fascinating. He often simply ran away from fights that were unequal, and had a large network of kin and pals to hide him and move him around to avoid arrest.

Anonymous said...

Funny that liberals like Beutler blame the 'right' for the crime obsession. It's liberal NYers who supported Stop and Frisk. It's the liberal whites and homos who've set up whitopias like Portland and Seattle. It's white and Jewish liberals who choose to live in places in San Fran while doing everything to keep most blacks in Oakland.
It's white liberals and Jews who would rather hire Mexicans as nannies and waiters than blacks. It's white liberals who stay out of Detroit. It's liberal cities like Chicago that are so segregated along racial lines though just about everyone voted Democratic.. It's liberal Jews who live most apart from blacks. White liberals use homosexuals to gentrify cities so that poor blacks are driven out. Washington DC is very segregated and white liberals live in their own enclaves. And 90% of the city is Democratic, and yet.... Beutler accuses the 'right' of the crime obsession.

He's really talking about white middle class and working class, not the 'right'. It's more a class issue than an ideological issue.
Both Republican and Democratic members of lower middle class and working class are obsessed with crime since they don't have the economic means to escape to safe areas when black crime rises in their neighborhoods, and they don't have the means and clout to use gentrification and section 8 housing to drive out dangerous blacks as does the affluent liberal community of which Beutler is a part.

The affluent white/Jewish/homo community, both Democratic and Republican, are less 'obsessed' with black crime since they can afford to live in safe areas. So, Beutler has actually more in common with George W. Bush whereas working class Democratic whites and working class Republican whites have more in common with each other in their fear of black crime.
Beutler isn't really talking about the 'right' and 'left'. He's talking as a rich white guy who can afford to live safely away from black crime. Though he was a victim, he knows he has the means to live in the nice parts of the city and avoid dangerous places, and in this, he is no different from a rich conservative white who also pontificates about MLK, as if black thugs today give a shit about what MLK said.

But poorer whites, regardless of ideology, know the reality... and Beutler doesn't give a shit since he's got it all and living the good life. But it's not enough for Beutlers of the world to hog all the privilege. They have to hog the moral righteousness too. I'll believe him when he moves his ass to Detroit, Gary, or the dark side of Philadelphia. If he doesn't, he's a racial profiler as a resident.

Anonymous said...

Beutler must be BUTLER white style.

Anonymous said...

"The only thing we have to fear is inference itself."

heh

Anonymous said...

The only one looking at it irrationally is Steve Sailer.

All your comments are passive-aggressive potshots at Steve.

Anonymous said...

The problem with stop & frisk in New York is the New York media want to be safe from violent crime themselves while actively denying other people that same safety.

TheLRC said...

Paul Menendez above said:

As a life-long city boy, I spend every waking moment in "Condition Yellow," instinctively assessing the threat potential of every person I see.

Oklahomans prepare for tornadoes. Coloradans prepare for wild fires. Floridians prepare for lighting. City dwellers prepare for crime.


So true, except it should read 'American city dwellers'. I live in Hong Kong, one of the world's safest cities. Tokyo and Singapore are similar. You can walk around where you want, when you want, without looking over your shoulder, in most big Asian cities (although there are exceptions, I should note).

It's hard to assess how valuable this is, but I can say the benefits in lower stress and just pure enjoyment are immense.

Americans pay very high prices.

Anonymous said...

Beutler has this article up, attacking conservative reactions to the killing of Chris Lane: http://www.salon.com/2013/08/22/no_chris_lane_is_not_trayvon_martin/

It's something I've been seeing too often from liberals- they're not comparable because Zimmerman was let off with no charge. That's a remarkable level of dishonesty there, as if the media didn't drum up a non-existent white on black racial angle, demonize Zimmerman, and prance around with the certainty of Trayvon's innocence and Zimmerman being let off due to racism/ineptitude/etc. They didn't ask that the case simply be reviewed- Maria Roach and Sybrina Fulton's petitions, which combined netted over TWO MILLION signatures didn't ask for that- they wanted him to be arrested. Everyone was SO SURE little Trayvon did nothing wrong. They injected far more into this case than outrage over Zimmerman being let off.

And let's not even go into all the desperate attempts to find racism on Zimmerman's part- one of these black teens admitted he hated white people on Twitter and said he beat up 5 in retaliation for the Zimmerman verdict. Another had a black power sign on his facebook wall. Nothing as juicy as that existed for Zimmerman, and still doesn't. Beutler omits all of that, however.

Never underestimate liberals, who even after suffering deeply at the hands of the black underclass they sanctify, to have their heads as far up their asses about them as they did to begin with.

Anonymous said...

"I suppose some of those "3 or more" people must be far into the "or more" and blowing the curve."

When a neighborhood gets integrated most of the white families who can afford to move away move away after a few violent incidents. The people that stay are on the one hand people aged 40+ whose kids have already gone and who don't want to move away from their memories and on the other the poorest / dumbest of the white familes. The children of the second group are crime victims 1000s of times - literally 1000s. They can be attacked every day for years.

There really is nothing worse than being one of the last few white kids in a project.

It's impossible to understand just how evil the media is unless you know about that.

Grotto Boys said...

"The only one looking at it irrationally is Steve Sailer. It's right here: "The only thing we have to fear is inference itself." But what should one infer from this anecdote that you didn't know already? In other words, what additional information does it provide that's not already available in well-known crime statistics?

Arguably, none at all. Knowing that black kids in hoodies shot you on this particular night (but not on lots and lots of other nights when you were walking there) doesn't tell you anything new. It's irrational to base your future behavior on a single, traumatic experience rather than on risks estimated from a large range of experience.

Steve's suggestion is like suggesting that you "draw the right inference" about flying on airplanes because you just survived a crash: understandable, but irrational."


-This isn't like having a phobia of cats because you had 1 bad experience with one hissing at you in kindergarten. Getting this wrong even once can kill you. A more rational view is to weigh in potential costs. If you've experienced first hand a dangerous crime at the hands of young black males, that SHOULD be considered strong evidence to avoid putting yourself at risk by unnecessarily interacting with them in the future, particularly in situations that multiply the danger (late night, being in ethnic neighborhoods, etc). The costs are too high compared to the rewards.

Furthermore, its obviously based on a nearly endless mountain of evidence. Its more about the 'straw that broke the camel's back', and what makes you decide to finally accept, counter to the dominant myth, that too high of a percentage of blacks are violent thugs to unnecessarily be around them.

Cameron T. said...

"Today on a BART train going into Oakland I had my pepper spray at the ready. The occupy-type kid next to me (he looked like Ned the communist from Seinfeld) asked me, "why do you need that?"

Proper answer: "Because f--k you.""


- Another proper answer: 'Because brain-f**ked liberals like you have made it so that I have to carry it'

Coca said...

Perhaps Delbert Belton would have a different opinion on whether profiling is bad.

McGillicuddy said...

Salon is the liberal end-game.

Anonymous said...

I used to live in DC in several different neighborhoods: Georgetown ($$$), South of Dupont Circle ($$), Eastern Market ($ -- our house was burglarized but nothing was taken), Shaw ($). New Year's Day, a car full of crooks came the wrong way down my street in Shaw and walloped a pillar, almost taking out a fire hydrant. It was great watching D.C. cops pull freshly car-wrecked "suspects" by their jackets onto the pavement.

I say if you live in D.C., you have to own a gun -- NO QUESTION. See my blog below for how to register a shotgun, rifle, or handgun. Remember: no evil black rifles (military-pattern rifles with mag capacity over 10), and there is ONE (1) Federal Firearms Licensee who overcharges due to no competition.

Svigor said...

Speaking of casting, Ben Affleck is the next Batman. Whoever's going to be DP had better stock up on bicarb, he's got a man's job ahead of him lighting that one.

Anonymous said...

Why they stay in Bethesda:

"A Bethesda man was beaten and robbed early Saturday morning in Adams Morgan by three men who yelled, “This is for Trayvon Martin,” before attacking him, police said.

The incident is being investigated as a hate crime and robbery, according to D.C. police spokesman Araz Alali.

Three black men approached an adult white male from behind while he was walking in the 1700 block of Euclid Street NW at 1:26 a.m. Saturday, police said."

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-07-27/local/40864655_1_hate-crime-three-perpetrators-trayvon-martin

Jonathan Silber said...

Beutler..'ll be living in Bethesda or Chevy Chase or Cleveland Park once he has kids, and won't hesitate to call the police if he sees someone looking like the guy who shot him trolling around his neighborhood.

And a rash of break-ins in his gated community out there may motivate him to volunteer for the neighborhood watch and call the cops on anyone looking suspicious.

Anonymous said...

Something funny happened the other day in NW DC. A black teen tried to steal a SWPL females Iphone as she left her job at a non-profit, I think it was helping deaf kids or blind kids or something along those lines.

Anyway, the young man used a knife for the robbery and dropped it while in the process of relieving her of her property. The woman picked up the knife and stabbed him multiple times.

The 15 year old, bloodied and scared, ran to the nearest fire station and was subsequently arrested.

I wonder what conclusion she has drawn from her brush with vibrance?

Steve Sailer said...

"But what should one infer from this anecdote that you didn't know already?"


Oh, in the case of this 25-year-old male victim: He could have inferred: That I'm not bulletproof, that it can happen even to me, and that there are a lot of people out there -- women, children, older people, the handicapped, and so forth who are even more vulnerable to crime than I am.

Porodian said...

James Kilpatrick, writing nearly a half century ago, had a more fitting accurate view about how we should view current black crime than Bleuler: "The law-abiding majority of this country, imperfect as it is, ought to put a hard question to large elements of the Negro community: When in the name of God are you people going to shape up?”

ben tillman said...

Blacks are more than a hundred times more likely to attack strangers without provocation than are Whites, which is what we really care about when we talk about urban crime and "racial profiling". Typical dissembling from Beutler's ilk.

David said...

Aaron Gross, neither you nor Beutler are rational. Beutler set up a straw man that realist views on crime are drawn from only one crime incident, such as the one which happened to him. His straw man argument then is that he is more logical than the realists. But realist views on crime are drawn from a great many examples, not just one. (Douthat provided some of them in statistical form.)

How is it reasonable at all to presume that realist views on crime are drawn from only one incident?

Such is the problem with sophomore logic. Starting from a false premise, it reaches an absurd conclusion and then the sophomore intones: "But all the rules of logic were observed...." That's the opposite of reason.

ben tillman said...

Canadians are highly overrepresented in the field of professional ice hockey, but it would be ridiculous for anyone to walk around Alberta presumptively asking strangers on the street for autographs.

He can't seriously believe such a fatuous comparison. What is the cost of a type II error in his idiotic scenario? Nothing. And what is the cost of a type II error when dealing with possible criminals? Possibly death. This guy is obscenely disingenuous.

ben tillman said...

But Beutler is a fool to think that racial profiling is about targeting ALL blacks as potential criminals. No, people in the criminal justice system come to be experts at suspecting who may or may not be trouble. One can tell by dress, way people move or look around, attitude, and etc.

You left out sex and age.

Anonymous said...

"Most people can't seem to internalize what the statistics mean: most minorities are not criminals, but most criminals are minorities."

I offer this analogy. Some snakes are venomous and some are not. I can't tell which just by looking at them. So I play it safe and avoid snakes altogether.

ben tillman said...

More from Brian Beutler:

"As a Jew I feel I have a right to call myself the 0.2 percent, except with respect to my chosen profession."

Cail Corishev said...

"So, racial profiling in NY or elsewhere was NEVER about patting down all blacks. It was about focusing on young black males who seem suspicious. Even so, I can see how even this is problematic since the majority of suspicious seeming types may not be up to anything bad."

That's true, and I'd certainly be annoyed if I were a black man living in NYC who got patted down a couple times a year because I decided to run down to the corner grocery wearing jogging clothes.

And yet, I have to wonder: if it became commonly known that the cops were shaking down all white men wearing baseball caps and wife-beaters because profiling shows that they're unusually likely to be meth dealers, how long would it take for law-abiding whites to avoid dressing that way?

In other words, if you're a law-abiding young black man in NYC, and you ride the subway wearing a hoodie pulled down over your face, aren't you pretty much asking for it? And if you're doing it out of stubbornness as a sort of civil disobedience, don't you want to get frisked to waste the cops' time?

Anonymous said...

Brian Beutler seems to be looking at the incident rationally, even if he draws the wrong conclusions.


If he drew the wrong conclusion, that's a pretty good tip off that he's not thinking rationally.

Harry Baldwin said...

the young man used a knife for the robbery and dropped it while in the process of relieving her of her property. The woman picked up the knife and stabbed him multiple times.

Getting between SWPLs and their iPhones is like getting between a mama grizzly bear and her cubs.

Anonymous said...

So, the idea is to adopt a hoodie, dark glasses, anonymous (not personalized, mass market) baseball cap, be ready to flee, or fight, like an old West gunfighter.

Except it's nothing like the Old West. In the Old West, you could defend yourself against your assailant, incapacitate him, and be done with it and go about your merry way.

Here, the lone victim is being attacked by an entire mob, not just the "youths" physically attacking, but the entire political, legal, and media establishment which will set upon him afterwards.

Anonymous said...

It appears I linked the wrong article, though they both have the same message:http://www.salon.com/2013/08/23/the_rights_obsession_with_black_crime/

Anonymous said...

Except it's nothing like the Old West. In the Old West, you could defend yourself against your assailant, incapacitate him, and be done with it and go about your merry way.

The Old West was surprisingly civilized precisely because there was no "law", and people had the right (almost the obligation) to defend themselves.

Anonymous said...

The author is the kind of idiot that will be tweeting under his bed about how society's breakdown is the fault of "evil kkkkonservatives" right before he's culturally enriched to death.

Anonymous said...

Ben Tillman, we Jews are better at you and yours at pretty much everything, for which reason we're overrepresented at pretty much everything worthwhile, including writing, thinking, making money, making movies, etc ad infinitum - so stop trying to make the world more dangerous for me and mine just because you want to be a schoolyard bully and this as close as you can get without going to prison.

I'm glad as hell that Beutler got what he deserved (and continues to deserve) on account of his enabling random acts of violence. People like you, on the same hand, are also attempting to enable violence but on a more systematic scale.

You won't succeed.

But your sickly attempt at it is what's keeping "race-conscious" Jews like myself from jumping head first into joining you in the intellectual pool that you repeatedly putrify.

Mr. Anon said...

Maybe Buetler would be more angry if still had his f**king spleen. In all honesty, can he really say that he does not now avoid black males in hoodies? What would this idiot have to do to learn a real lesson? Have his lungs ripped out by the Wolfman?

Silver said...

Aaron, the additional information Beutler acquired is the firsthand knowledge of what it feels like to be the victim of a violent assault. "Crime victim" is no longer a distant, abstract category. He can now factor this new knowledge into the equation when weighing up the costs and benefits of pretending to enjoy the presence of large numbers of black people.

Who knows, he may even come to the realization that at no point in history was it ever morally mandatory for non-blacks to permit their communities to be destroyed in the name of pretending to enjoy the presence of large numbers of blacks.

Btw, how many black immigrants is Israel taking this year?

Thought so.

Anonymous said...

"Liberals suffer from willful blindness to the point of stupidity when it comes to things like stop and frisk. "

This is a complete mischaracterisation. Liberals know exactly what they are doing. Look at how they ensure their children are educated safely. Look at how they ensure that living among the diverse is someone else's problem.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

""The only one looking at it irrationally is Steve Sailer.""

All your comments are passive-aggressive potshots at Steve."

Quite true. Aaron Gross' arguments are disingenuous to the point of being outright deceitful. He has also explicity insulted nearly everyone who posts here at iSteve - having as much as said that we are all ignoramuses. There is really no reason to pay attention to him at all.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

Ben Tillman, we Jews are better at you and yours at pretty much everything,...."

Accept - apparently - grammar and/or typing. By the way - does your list of things you are better at include usury, pornography, and hypocrisy?

Anonymous said...

Anon87 said...
Note to anyone reading: don't walk around staring into a phone, oblivious to your surroundings. You may as well have a sign around your neck saying "ROB ME PLEASE!"

8/23/13, 4:53 AM
===========================

Not necessarily. I walk through the white, middle class parts of my city reading books. I'm small, female, look younger than I am and no one has harmed me. The areas being colonised by coloured people, as well as the lower class areas are a different matter. But it's an indication of the class of *people* in an area, whether or not people feel safe enough to zone out.

Jonathan Silber said...

A good example of Liberal superior "nuanced" thinking that their racist Conservative inferiors cannot grasp, much less perform: "If I stop walking drunk in the dark of night through the black ghetto while on my iPhone,
just because I was shot there in the course of being robbed, the Conservatives will have won."

Anonymous said...

Is the 3rd bullet lodged in the brain?

Anonymous said...

It need happen only ONCE for you to be dead or crippled for life.

rightsaidfred said...

Steve's suggestion is like suggesting that you "draw the right inference" about flying on airplanes because you just survived a crash: understandable, but irrational.

We rationally fear flying; we realize it is an inherently dangerous thing; we take extreme measures to make it safe; we closely examine each mishap.

It is the same with Black crime. When liberals tell me otherwise, I think they doth protest too much.

Dan Kurt said...

Blacks are Blacks every place you find them: the leopard doesn't change its spots.

My question is, when will some White population awaken to the reality of Blacks being so dangerous that they must be REALLY controlled as in segregated, transported, or expelled?

Dan Kurt

p.s. 1960s, Ivy, year 1 mugged by Black teen on Campus mid afternoon cops took information and shrugged. Year four week before graduation, on campus in afternoon hit from behind by group of blacks stomped upon wallet emptied racially taunted again cops took down information and shrugged. My answer: don't live with or associate with blacks much. No muggings since.

Anonymous said...

meanwhile...Friday August 23rd, 2013 :: 01:38 p.m. EDT

Miami Shores Police are asking for the public’s assistance in identifying two individuals suspected of two armed robberies within Miami Shores Village limits over the last ten days. These robberies have occurred during the late evening to early morning hours, specifically between 10 pm and 1 am.

The subjects appear to be targeting people just arriving home or who are outside during these hours. In one case, the subjects forced the victim back into their home where the victims were threatened with weapons.

We believe one group is responsible for several of these, including a home invasion robbery earlier this week in neighboring, El Portal.
The suspects are described as two black males, age 18-25, about 5-foot-8 with a thin build. Both suspects were wearing hoodies and appeared at the residence on foot.

Dan Kurt said...

Not the conservatives, the Republicans--the stupid party: big money RINOs. The Big Money Democrats and Big Money Republicans have been captured by Liberal culture. How can their lock on politics be broken before the USA is destroyed, that is the Real question.

Dan Kurt

Svigor said...

"why do you need that?"

"Why do you have to ask?"

"As a Jew I feel I have a right to call myself the 0.2 percent, except with respect to my chosen profession."

He pinged my Jewdar (politics and name), but his pics didn't confirm so I didn't say anything.

In other words, if you're a law-abiding young black man in NYC, and you ride the subway wearing a hoodie pulled down over your face, aren't you pretty much asking for it? And if you're doing it out of stubbornness as a sort of civil disobedience, don't you want to get frisked to waste the cops' time?

Yep. All blacks have to do to stop giving whites/cops an excuse to profile them is stop "keepin' it real." Stop dressing like thugs. Presumably so few of them do so because they're okay with the consequences.

Ben Tillman, we Jews bla bla bla

Nobody works as mightily to invoke violence against Jews as Jews do. Starting with your silly "pattern recognition equals ovens" schtick. By plugging up the steam vent, you do everything you can to make the pressure cooker explode. You're well on the way to making America into Weimerica.

As for your abilities, nobody's knocking Jewish talent, but the proof's in the pudding; all the dumber Jews live in Israel, while all the smarter Jews live in America. Smart Jews want to live away from the all-Jewish homeland, among Europeans, while dumb Jews stay stuck in Israel with only Jews to keep them company.

The fact that Jews get hysterical when Europeans suggest they have for themselves what Jews have for themselves in Israel is pretty suggestive; that little is more important to Jews than having the right to live among Europeans.

Jews have benefitted far more from Europeans than Europeans have benefitted from Jews. The modern world would not be much different if Jews had never existed, but the modern world would not even be here if Europeans had never existed.

But your sickly attempt at it is what's keeping "race-conscious" Jews like myself from jumping head first into joining you in the intellectual pool that you repeatedly putrify.

Nonsense. Nobody stops Jews from pursuing their political goals, except Jews.

Stop getting up to no good, and we'll have nothing to point out.

Anonymous said...

Never underestimate liberals, who even after suffering deeply at the hands of the black underclass they sanctify, to have their heads as far up their asses about them as they did to begin with.

A lot of these people are atheists, of whom it needs to be said that many still need an object of worship, since organized religion has failed their personal test. Beutler, like many liberals, has adopted the entire black race as his object of worship.

Anonymous said...

There are black interest groups OUTSIDE the Democratic party that force the party to address black issues.

There is no white interest group outside the GOP to force the party to address issues essential to white folks.

Political parties generally push ONLY elitist positions and give consideration to the masses ONLY WHEN the masses force the issue.

It was grass roots anti-immigration-ism that forced the GOP to derail Bush's amnesty.
We need a grass roots white consciousness organization like the NAACP. Unless the party is pushed by such organizations, don't expect the party--ruled by whore politicians--do do anything for you.

And voting isn't enough. You must vote and shout.

Just Another Guy With a 1911 said...

"BRIAN BEUTLER'S DAY OFF"

(Alternative Working Title: Water Will Wet Us and the Fire Will Burn)

Coming SOON to a theater near you!

FADE IN:

INT. TYPICAL SUBURBAN CLASSROOM -

Students stare vacantly at teacher standing in front of black board.

TEACHER(Ben Stein):

(monotonously)

Now class

(beat)

can any one here tell me, tell me,

(beat)

what happens when you're walking in Adams Morgan late at night and

(beat)

you are approached by two blacks, both wearing hoodies, characters culled from Richard Cohen’s sweatiest nightmares?

THE CLASS IS SILENT

CLOSE UP - STUDENT WITH HEAD ON DESK DROOLING.

TEACHER:

(continues in languid, unhurried and monotonous tone)

Can anyone tell me? Anyone?

LONG PAUSE. CLASS IS SILENT.

TEACHER (BEN STEIN):

This is important. It may save you from getting shot with a small,

(beat)

shiny object...

(beat)

Anyone?

(beat)

Beutler...

(beat)

Beetler...Beutler...Can anyone tell me were Mr. Beutler is.

STUDENT # 1:

(snapping her gum and looking at her I-PHONE as she answers)

In the hospital visiting his friend Matt. The one with no spleen. That's gross!

TEACHER:

OK. Thanks. Now where were we again...Ah yes..

FADE OUT

Anonymous said...

Why are republicans pushing to section 8 programs in rich neighborhoods in blue states? Why arent republicans on television condemning NY democratic leaders as racists for supporting stop and frisk?

Anonymous said...

can we draw an inference from what neighborhood he lives in?

Anonymous said...

"After all, majority of blacks don't commit violent crime. "

About a third of young black men are involved in the criminal justice system: in prison, on parole, on probation. The percentage that are or HAVE been in the past is even higher.

Apologists will say that many of those were "only" for drug crimes, but I wouldn't really trust a former drug slinger on a dark street at night, either. And odds are that the honest black men are home watching Downton Abbey or at the church function instead of being on a dark street, dressed like a criminal, with a couple of their buddies, scoping out the prey.

So the odds are actually pretty good that around half of the young black men you see on an urban street at night are criminals, either active or "retired."

Anonymous said...

So the odds are actually pretty good that around half of the young black men you see on an urban street at night are criminals, either active or "retired."

I'd say they were in between jobs rather than retired.

torporify said...

"Ben Tillman, we Jews are better at you and yours at pretty much everything,...."


I am as puzzled by this as I am by the Asian-worship that goes on here. Nothing against Asians; they their intelligence is not all that much greater (if greater at all), but their self-discipline and focus is superior. But they are exceling (if indeed they are) in a world largely created by Europeans. Do you really think China would be what it is today if left to its own devices of a few centuries agao? They weren't going anywhere. Now I understand the Koreans never admit the innovations taken from the "west." At least the English had the grace to call porcelain "China" after they figured out how to make it themselves through lengthy trial and error.
Jewish contributions are significant and impessive for their numbers; I like conversing with Jews, always have. I'm attracted to them, or at least the ones who are not exclusive. But in the in the field of science and technology, they are not above what would be expected of a well educated cohort with an average IQ (for whatever reasons) is somewhat above 100. We owe most of the modern technology to European gentiles, not jews.
Still, whether due to to nepotism, cronyism, or genuine capacity, Jews do dominate many fields. It is good to hear someone of that cohort simply admit it.
btw, I am not in any way anti-Jewish. I'm not anti-anyone as long as they behave civilily. But I just look at the facts.

Sean said...

Years ago there was a young woman (from Minnesota I think) shot dead by a 16 year old black mugger in New York, after she sarcastically asked if he was going to shoot her and her friends.

Beutler made a mistake about what they were after, and he nearly died as a result. They actually HID the gun, and then shot him three times when Beutler told them to get lost (because he didn't see a gun). They wanted an excuse to shoot someone. Acting scared is the best policy.

Beutler isn't splenetic, but then again, he doesn't have a spleen.

Anonymous said...

Blacks in NYC are understopped when you look at their crime rate.

Anonymous said...

Rachel Jeantel is another casting challenge. I'm thinking Eddie Murphy in one of his fat suits.


Or Oprah Winfrey?

Anonymous said...

"At least the English had the grace to call porcelain "China" after they figured out how to make it themselves through lengthy trial and error."

I think the Chinese term for America is mih guo, meaning beautiful state/kingdom.

Anonymous said...

I sent the author the following email.

Hi Brian,
You say "I take more cabs than I used to". I also am thinking you don't walk down "dimly lit one-way streets with [violent histories]"
any more. With all honesty Brian, is that not a form of racial profiling?

The following is his reply.

"Nah, it's about not taking unnecessary risks, even if the risk is not especially great in absolute terms. I'd say there's a differences between the steps civilians take when they sense they're in danger and law enforcement policy."

Huh, what the heck does that mean? Sounds like more liberal bafflegab.