However…I do think that the left lives in a bubble sometimes, and fail to get tracking amongst the working class. Working class people really do want proper police protection, and deserve it.
Sure crime statistics are down, but everything has become very uncomfortable. Some homeless guy gets on the bus, drunk, with his stained clothing inside out, and maybe on drugs and now you have to worry if they are going to stab you.
Yes, police should not harass homeless people, but now you have 20 average people on the bus worried that they’ll be stabbed. This mild level of anxiety is constant.
The left has asked the working class to take on a disproportionate amount of burden, yes it’s better to have out treatment for addiction, and not arrest the unhoused, but the working and lower middle class do feel the pinch of this policy affecting them.
The working class, blue collar residents, see Trump make these proclamations and desperately hope something breaks in their favor. It won’t Trump is not a capable manager.
The left isn’t asking the working class to take on any burdens, or ignore problems. Perhaps you’re thinking of liberals? The left is constantly pointing at the root causes of these problems, and begging people to turn their anger towards the people responsible, rather than those most victimized by the system.
If it’s only one guy, and not a bus full, then that’s demonstrative of progress. Go look at the MTA back in the 80s, when whole gangs roved the system. It hasn’t “become uncomfortable”, it’s become more comfortable and safer.
This is the problem, crime is literally at super lows for almost everyone alive in the country. You were far more likely to get mugged/stabbed/raped in the 90s than you are today, so why are you feeling more uncomfortable now?
The simple answer is because we hear about it more now. Two things are driving this, A) The population is higher, so there are more total incidents (even if the rate is lower) and B) For-Profit “News” knows that these kinds of stories get more views/clicks (and therefore make them more money) so you hear about each and every single one of them.
Feeling more uncomfortable now is irrational.
The “left” is trying to educate the populace about this, but people as a whole (working class or otherwise) are stupid as fuck, don’t understand how statistics work, and are literally being taken advantage of by these for-profit groups and politicians because of it. There’s not a lot that can be done to change that except to improve education for children, but the Right has been doing everything they can to harm education for decades now.
Feeling uncomfortable is not irrational. Being anxious to take public transit, out of fear of encountering a mentally ill person that might act out violently, is actually a common fear. There is a stigma about talking about this. Careful about finding yourself in an echo chamber.
Here’s a study with a TON of data in it, and in the entire dataset where they looked at attacks on public transit(not just buses) from 2004 to 2021, they found 139 attacks, and 22 fatalities in the US.
Quite literally more people die in bus crashes each year, than are even injured from random attacks over this entire study period.
Being afraid of one of those attacks is Irrational unless you are also more uncomfortable getting on the bus just because of the likelihood of a crash.
Commonality has nothing to do with it, being afraid of spiders in North America is also extremely common, and completely Irrational. That’s why it’s called Arachnophobia (a phobia is a fear that is persistent and IRRATIONAL)
Literally from the first page of the report you cite
“While we noted the surge in random violence against passengers in all countries, including but not limited to the
United States, the structure of MTI’s database simply did not lend itself to proper analysis of the phenomenon
And the sources of data were inadequate and unreliable. Fearing that partial reporting would result in incomplete
and potentially misleading conclusions, in 2021 we decided to cease counting these events in our database while
we explored new data sources and database configurations that would allow us to better capture, analyze, and
portray the events. What this means is that the shift from terrorist to anit-social violence throughout the world, but
particularly in the United States and perhaps some of the other economically advanced countries, is far greater
than what we include in this report. which is why we call for a more robust accounting, and better strategies, for
dealing with this problem.”
It states the opposite of what you think it states!!!
No it doesn’t state the opposite. You are throwing out the entirety of the data just because the researchers admit that it may not be fully complete. They report exists because… their data is still mostly valid and gives important information.
Even if the real numbers were 50x the values they listed, which is absolutely absurd and obviously it’s not that bad, each year it would add up to less than 5000 attacks per year and only 68 deaths, across a country of 320 million people. Or about 1.5 people per 100,000 get attacked, and about 0.02 people per 100k die. That’s WITH me counting it at 50 times the value!
More people die to lawnmowers than that… (about 75 per year)
About 5000 Americans choke to death on food every year.
45,000 die in Vehicle accidents.
There are far more common things that will injure or kill you than getting on a bus and getting attacked, and unless you are worried about all of those first and change your behavior to reduce the risk, then worrying about this one to the point of changing your behavior is irrational.
If every time you went home, and had to step over a half naked homeless guy holding a half broken glass bottle, sleeping on your porch, your mental health would go into the toilet. That’s how people feel riding the subway everyday.
Yes, his is fascism and should not happen.
However…I do think that the left lives in a bubble sometimes, and fail to get tracking amongst the working class. Working class people really do want proper police protection, and deserve it.
Sure crime statistics are down, but everything has become very uncomfortable. Some homeless guy gets on the bus, drunk, with his stained clothing inside out, and maybe on drugs and now you have to worry if they are going to stab you.
Yes, police should not harass homeless people, but now you have 20 average people on the bus worried that they’ll be stabbed. This mild level of anxiety is constant.
The left has asked the working class to take on a disproportionate amount of burden, yes it’s better to have out treatment for addiction, and not arrest the unhoused, but the working and lower middle class do feel the pinch of this policy affecting them.
The working class, blue collar residents, see Trump make these proclamations and desperately hope something breaks in their favor. It won’t Trump is not a capable manager.
As has the right, this is because our options are theocratic or secular plutocracy, both are pro-corporate/billionaire
Democrats abandoned labor long ago, and Republicans never have been pro labor in my lifetime.
The left isn’t asking the working class to take on any burdens, or ignore problems. Perhaps you’re thinking of liberals? The left is constantly pointing at the root causes of these problems, and begging people to turn their anger towards the people responsible, rather than those most victimized by the system.
That is a correct read and more accurate. These are policies of the Democrats, not a guiding principle of the left.
If it’s only one guy, and not a bus full, then that’s demonstrative of progress. Go look at the MTA back in the 80s, when whole gangs roved the system. It hasn’t “become uncomfortable”, it’s become more comfortable and safer.
“everything has become very uncomfortable”
This is the problem, crime is literally at super lows for almost everyone alive in the country. You were far more likely to get mugged/stabbed/raped in the 90s than you are today, so why are you feeling more uncomfortable now?
The simple answer is because we hear about it more now. Two things are driving this, A) The population is higher, so there are more total incidents (even if the rate is lower) and B) For-Profit “News” knows that these kinds of stories get more views/clicks (and therefore make them more money) so you hear about each and every single one of them.
Feeling more uncomfortable now is irrational.
The “left” is trying to educate the populace about this, but people as a whole (working class or otherwise) are stupid as fuck, don’t understand how statistics work, and are literally being taken advantage of by these for-profit groups and politicians because of it. There’s not a lot that can be done to change that except to improve education for children, but the Right has been doing everything they can to harm education for decades now.
Tl;dr; Feels before reals
Feeling uncomfortable is not irrational. Being anxious to take public transit, out of fear of encountering a mentally ill person that might act out violently, is actually a common fear. There is a stigma about talking about this. Careful about finding yourself in an echo chamber.
Feeling uncomfortable when your risk of something bad happening is extremely low is quite literally how you define Irrational.
https://transweb.sjsu.edu/sites/default/files/Security Perspective 2022 (08.15)_0.pdf
Here’s a study with a TON of data in it, and in the entire dataset where they looked at attacks on public transit(not just buses) from 2004 to 2021, they found 139 attacks, and 22 fatalities in the US.
Quite literally more people die in bus crashes each year, than are even injured from random attacks over this entire study period.
Being afraid of one of those attacks is Irrational unless you are also more uncomfortable getting on the bus just because of the likelihood of a crash.
Commonality has nothing to do with it, being afraid of spiders in North America is also extremely common, and completely Irrational. That’s why it’s called Arachnophobia (a phobia is a fear that is persistent and IRRATIONAL)
Literally from the first page of the report you cite
“While we noted the surge in random violence against passengers in all countries, including but not limited to the United States, the structure of MTI’s database simply did not lend itself to proper analysis of the phenomenon And the sources of data were inadequate and unreliable. Fearing that partial reporting would result in incomplete and potentially misleading conclusions, in 2021 we decided to cease counting these events in our database while we explored new data sources and database configurations that would allow us to better capture, analyze, and portray the events. What this means is that the shift from terrorist to anit-social violence throughout the world, but particularly in the United States and perhaps some of the other economically advanced countries, is far greater than what we include in this report. which is why we call for a more robust accounting, and better strategies, for dealing with this problem.”
It states the opposite of what you think it states!!!
No it doesn’t state the opposite. You are throwing out the entirety of the data just because the researchers admit that it may not be fully complete. They report exists because… their data is still mostly valid and gives important information.
Even if the real numbers were 50x the values they listed, which is absolutely absurd and obviously it’s not that bad, each year it would add up to less than 5000 attacks per year and only 68 deaths, across a country of 320 million people. Or about 1.5 people per 100,000 get attacked, and about 0.02 people per 100k die. That’s WITH me counting it at 50 times the value!
More people die to lawnmowers than that… (about 75 per year) About 5000 Americans choke to death on food every year. 45,000 die in Vehicle accidents.
There are far more common things that will injure or kill you than getting on a bus and getting attacked, and unless you are worried about all of those first and change your behavior to reduce the risk, then worrying about this one to the point of changing your behavior is irrational.
If every time you went home, and had to step over a half naked homeless guy holding a half broken glass bottle, sleeping on your porch, your mental health would go into the toilet. That’s how people feel riding the subway everyday.
That simply isn’t the reality for almost anyone.
And we were talking about busses, not subways.