>Some elections are determined in the mad rush of a campaign’s final days. And others are effectively over before they begin. In New York, the Democratic supermajority in control of the legislature made two fatal mistakes driven by arrogance and incompetence that sealed the fate of its congressional candidates many months ago. Those mistakes point up the dangers of one-party rule, especially when it becomes so entrenched and beholden to its most activist wing — and in this case causes some Democrats to vote Republican just to break that stranglehold.

That's unsurprising to anyone who wasn't wrapped a denial bubble with deeply seated biases. It'd be obvious to anyone who did just a minute of unbiased reflection on the results of NYC mayoral primaries/election.

Many have warned about such collective delusion for a long time, including in this sub, far earlier than the midterms were even relevant.

There’s granular data like https://data.cityofnewyork.us/Public-Safety/NYPD-Complaint-Data-Historic/qgea-i56i

That only addresses a fraction of repeat offenders, though.

It's a rather timid progress, but progress nonetheless.

​

>Notably, however, lawmakers refused to introduce a “dangerousness” standard into bail considerations.

"Refused" is quite an understatement.

Stewart-Cousins threatened to hold climate change and gun control bills hostage in order to block adding a dangerousness standard.

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/ny-state-of-politics/2022/02/08/stewart-cousins-urges-progressive-advocates-to-defend-bail-law-changes

>She urged advocates to send emails and push back against calls for changing the law, such as allowing judges to consider "dangerousness when determining whether a person accused of a crime should be remanded to a local jail.
>
>...
>
>Stewart-Cousins in her talk with the activist group warned issues like gun control, efforts to curtail climate change and further criminal justice law changes are at risk of not getting done if the opponents of the bail law are successful.

Courts in NJ have a public safety discretion though.

​

>Glad you totally ignored the entire point of our conversation and pivoted upon realization that your stats didn’t say what you purported them to say at all....
>
>I think now would be an appropriate time to apologize for lying about what your statistics said.

Are you saying that "concerns about crimes shouldn't be dismissed" is a lie?

>Now it’s time for you to do the heavy lifting and actually advocate for the policies that are demonstrated to do this.

I'll ask again: what policies do you believe have been demonstrated to reduce crime victimization?

>Now it’s time for you to do the heavy lifting and actually advocate for the policies that are demonstrated to do this.

Alright, now that we established that there's a valid concern about crimes in NYC, I think that's where most people would inject some fear-mongering comment against "tough-on-crime". But thank you for not doing that.

What policies do you believe have been demonstrated to reduce crime victimization? Given that we are talking about the disparity of victimization here.

>...you're the one who broke the measuring sticks in the first place! You are the one who cherry-picked exclusively Black people in New York and compared them to a group including Black and non-Black people in Florida. Why weren't you using the same measuring stick in both instances?

I'll try one last time.

There are 4 numbers here:

• Overall murder rate in NYC.
• Overall murder rate in Jacksonville.
• Murder rate of Blacks in NYC.
• Murder rate of Blacks in Jacksonville.

I'm claiming that the fact that the "Overall murder rate in NYC" is lower than the "Overall murder rate in Jacksonville" should not be used to dismiss crime concerns.

I'm supporting that claim with the fact that there's at least one segment of the population in NYC that does not enjoy that standard, namely, "Murder rate of Blacks in NYC" is worse than "overall murder rate in Jacksonville".

You're claiming that "Murder rate of Blacks in NYC" should really be compared to "Murder rate of Blacks in Jacksonville" instead. Is it your conclusion that this comparison can be used to dismiss crime concerns?

>In your analogy, what you're doing is comparing the rate of accidents involving just children in New York to the rate of accidents involving both children and adults in Jacksonville. That simply makes no sense.

What separates children and adults is not the color on their skin.

There's obviously a historical disparity in victimizations based on the skin color. We all know of that.

Do you think such historical disparity is a good (ethical/moral) argument to continue using two separate measuring sticks?

I suggest you reflect on that for a minute.

How about an analogy:

To enter a ride in an amusement park, a child needs to be taller than the measuring stick, otherwise they may get injured.

What we have today:

• Two measuring sticks, one for blacks and one for whites.
• As a result, many blacks kids are getting injured compared to white kids, because the measuring stick for blacks is broken.

My argument is: we shouldn't have two measuring ticks. Just one that is safe for everyone equaly.

Your argument: the amusement park across the street also has a broken black measuring stick, and it's even more broken!

You're pretty deep into the fear-mongering rhetoric against the return of "tough-on-crime". Not what I've been advocating.

I think you know how a person sounds from the outside when their mind is wrapped by fear-mongering of crimes. I wish you could see how you sound.

I'm kind of disappointed that you're back at disingenuously mischaracterizing other people's comments to create straw arguments.

If you have strong ideas, you could be doing the opposite: make an iron man argument instead.

I'm not sure if you will ever understand the above.

​

>Earlier today, you used Lee Zeldin as an example of a moderate Republican.

I cited Zeldin as a republican who moved less than an inch towards the center (exact words I used).

But you are mischaracterizing that as a "moderate Republican" lol

>You’re using two different measuring sticks.
>
>Black people in New York are safer than Black people in Jacksonville. White people in New York are safer than white people in Jacksonville.

You're the one using two measuring sticks: murder rate of blacks in Jacksonville and murder rate of whites in Jacksonville.

I'm only using one: the murder rate of any person in Jacksonville.

>Black New Yorkers face relative to their white peers.

• 15.3 blacks murdered per 100,000 blacks in NYC
• 0.8 whites murdered per 100,000 whites in NYC

>Did Progressives really give up on advocating for reforms, or do you just not like their proposals because they’re not right wing enough?

The advocacy changed from advocating for reforms to defending the status quo.

Because progressives in power don't need to advocate anymore, when they can exercise the power to walk the talk instead.

​

>They’re actually spending a lot of time defending the policies they enacted from attacks from the right and the center, in case you haven’t noticed.

So the criticisms, valid or invalid, are to blame for the reforms being stopped?

>You know all those New York Post articles about bail reform you’re in always in the comments for? How are supporters of progressive policies benefitting at all from these programs being rolled back? Please be for real right now.

It's very simple.

Fear-mongering about "reforms being rolled back" is what's benefiting those politicians.

Note that I'm not saying anything about rolling anything back, but you're framing it that way here because such fear-mongering message is deeply entrenched in your mind at this point.

​

>What issues? Who are the “advocates”? How are they benefitting? This vague progressive boogeyman shit is exhausting.

Like opposing de-escalation training for the police... to benefit from headlines of police brutality?

Like reducing the police force in NYPD, causing a predictable increase in police violence (inversely correlated with under-staffing of police departments)... to benefit from headlines of more police brutality?

Like erasing gangs database... to benefit from more headlines about more violence in Riker's?

Like disseminating mistrust in the police, to cause more POC youth on becoming first-time offenders... to increase the number of people who have an encounter with the broken justice system?

You ask who? The list is large. AOC, Tiffany Cabán, Steward-Cousins, and many more.

>... to portray crime in New York as worse than crime in Jacksonville. We’re all incredibly cognizant of racial inequities.

Do you think that's honestly true, given that you were part of the crowd arguing that NYC is simply safer than Jacksonville? As if NYC was uniformly safer than Jacksonville?

I'll even set aside the whole discussion about population densities.

​

>However, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to compare the conditions of Black people in New York to a group including non-Black people in Jacksonville.

Jacksonville became one measuring stick for public safety in the debate about safety in NYC.

So now, if it turns out many in NYC are worse-off compared to that measuring stick, the problem is the measuring stick?

​

>Black people are also the subject of inequities in Jacksonville. Just as they are in New York. Pointing out how white people are better situated in other places says nearly nothing about the relative conditions between Black people in the two places.

In other words, "good enough" for blacks?

>Then maybe let’s support efforts that encourage racial equity in the justice system, like bail reform.

So why not continue the reform in the criminal justice system?

The courts are still slow, DAs are being overwhelmed and same with public defenders.

The "reformers" took power, did a half-ass job, and switched towards defending the status quo real quick.

It's almost as if some politicians actually benefit from perpetuating the issues, while posing as the "advocates".

>Comparisons are very helpful. And so are trends. It doesn't mean you can ignore crime. But perspective is important.

So far, I've only seem such comparison being used to downplay the issue.

People are not honestly asking about how blacks are victimized in Jacksonville to find a way to fix the problems in NYC. They are asking that to relativize and dismiss the problem we have here by making the case that it's "good enough".

​

>Is crime worse in NYC compared to the rest of the state? Is it worse than other cities and/or states? Is it worse for certain racial groups? Or is it worse because of new laws? Or is it because of the pandemic? Higher unemployment? Inflation? Because certain practices were discontinued?

By acknowledging there's a problem, and asking those questions, you're a bit ahead of the curve. Thank you for that.

>They are real issues and impact quality of life in the city but are they crimes?

A bit odd for you to bring that up in a conversation about demographic disparities in murder victimization.

>But it is better, that's the comparison. A black person has a higher chance of being murdered in Jacksonville than in NYC.

You can celebrate NYC, as many do, because you can believe that's good enough. Many people will buy that argument.

I just wish we can live in a world where "good enough" doesn't depend on the color of one's skin.

>That's right. He ran on a police friendly platform. How's that working out? I'm not surprised much hasn't changed under him.

Violence was accelerating when Adams took office. He brought back the violent crimes units and other measures, but it's clear that he is facing resistance from Albany to reform certain laws, let's see if any of that changes the trajectory.

​

>Since you were comparing the numbers to Jacksonville, what do those splits look like? Also, can you share your data source?

This is where I disagree with most people, because there are two separate questions:

1. How bad is it for X group?
2. What's "good enough" for X group?

The first one should be measured using demographic breakdowns, surely.

The second one should not depend on demographic breakdowns, and absolutely not by segregating the standards of what "good enough" is for each group, lest we will simply continue perpetuating the disparity.

I'm all ears for your argument about how NYC is not racist when it comes to public safety.

>This is the comparison that matters, not a shithole town in Florida.

I agree with you.

But did you just miss the whole crime narrative prior to the election comparing NYC to random republican states?

I'm basically saying: NYC is not uniformly better than said shithole town in Florida. Maybe we should collectively get off the high-horse for a moment.

Well, thank you for giving us a perfect example of double-standards.

When the standard of public safety that each person deserves is based on their color.

Also, if you have the option to take a temporarily leave from school, consider doing so if that will help reduce the pressure and give you a breather.

That may delay your education plans, but sometimes it's better to progress slowly, than risk collapsing catastrophically.

I mean, if you got a good landlord, sure. But that’s hardly the norm..

Let’s just be clear that minority who captured the market is in the NYC Council and in Albany making laws, while posing as “advocates” for tenants.