Last week, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, a formerly great American daily newspaper, darkly warned its readers that the greatest threat facing the USA in modern times is the grave danger of conservative white supremacists who” …seek out, hunt, and kill their prey.” The extent to which this happens is open to question, and perpetrators of this type of mayhem should be prosecuted and placed behind bars, where they belong. The Post-Dispatch, however, in their gleeful enthusiasm to bash the “…repulsive individuals” who, according to the paper, are the “…biggest domestic terror threat to America”, ignores what is happening in their own backyard.
In the January 19th edition, Tony Messenger, the
newspaper’s former editor and current columnist-at-large, trotted out
statistics that proved, to his own satisfaction, that white supremacist
violence constitutes a clear and present danger to the peace and tranquility of
our great republic.
When using statistics of this sort, a number of cautions
are in order. First of all, some incidents of Islamic terrorism have, at the
urging of a former President who shall remain nameless, been classified as
“workplace violence”, thereby skewing the numbers considerably.
Also, when
trying to use numbers to prove or disprove a certain point, one should remember
Benjamin Disraeli’s epigram warning of “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”.
Still, Mr. Messenger plunges ahead with great certitude, and even greater
self-satisfaction, confident that he is correct..........To Read More....
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