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The disparity goes back over 100 years. Even in 1914, a city such as Philadelphia had 10X the homicide rate of London. The best book I have read on the subject is Raymond Fosdick's "Crime in America and the Police" https://archive.org/details/crimeinamericapo00fosd I think the reasons he points out in the 1910's still basically are the same reasons the crime rate are higher today.

Edit: also, the best book I have read on the more modern problem of violence and urban decay in northern American cities is "Devil's Night" by Ze'Ev Chafets http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Night-Other-Detroit-Vintage-ebo...




Interesting, at least the first chapter seems to say that it's due to having a much more diverse population - is that pretty much the tl:dr?


[deleted]


I'm not disagreeing with the general premise but stuff like "lots of rules, those who don't follow the rules are shunned and usually do not reproduce because no one in the group wants them" is interesting in what I think it makes people imagine vs reality.

As an American who hadn't lived aboard I'd read that and think "Wow, that place must be pretty boring". But, living in Tokyo for many years, while I certainly see those elements, especially in business, the reality is I feel more free here than the USA.

You can drink anywhere, parks, streets, etc unlike the "freedom USA". You can party as long as you want. There's no curfews (California has a 2am curfew on liquor so almost all clubs close before 2am. NYC has a 4am curfew, Tokyo has no curfew. Most clubs/bar are open til 5-6am and there are plenty of places to party after). On top of which there are stores/clubs/groups that cater to nearly every interest.

I'm not trying to suggest Tokyo is better. I'm only trying to clarify that "more rules" doesn't directly translate into "less freedom". It could just as easily be the rule "do whatever you want as long as you are responsible about it" where as in the USA as far as I can tell there are way more rules (ie, laws) trying to restrict what you can do. Maybe those are in response to the issues you brought up though where because of diversity people don't feel connected to each other and therefore don't feel a responsibility to be responsible about their activities so laws are added to try to reel them in.


I meant "cultural rules", not "bureaucratic".


> They have unstable family structures, little to no culture, little to no rules, and no care for education.

I wonder how that could possibly happen after 350 years of forcible familial separation, extermination of cultural practices, arbitrary rules enforced at crack of a whip and gunbarrel, and prohibition from receiving education.


● And Jews went through 2,000 years of persecution, expulsion, finally a holocaust, and didn't even have their own country again until recently when Israel was created.

● And Europeans went through thousands of years of inter-european wars, a plague that killed off 1/4 of the population, 2 world wars, muslim invasions, and mongolian invasions. Not to mention suppressing education and science and causing centuries of dark ages due to religious extremism.

● And Cambodians went through a genocide where Po Pots waged a communist war against all intellectuals, teachers, and high achievers that killed off 25% of the cambodian population.

● And Bulgarians went through 500 years of Turkish rule which included mass killings and slavery and left "its culture shattered and separated from Europe for 500 years". Followed by devastating communism.

● Those educated in more than just American History know that this list goes on and on and spans thousands of years. Everyone's been through hell. Suffering is not an excuse of one's own problems.

Blaming problems on others does not empower a group to fix problems within it's own community. Plus, the groups with the problems we discussed (lack of family structure, culture, education, etc) have them even in countries that did not "separate them for 350 years, exterminate their cultural practices, whip them or prohibit them from receiving education".

Vilifying one group and victimizing another doesn't help anyone. You just did the very thing I described in my original post "Homogenous societies [...] are more responsible for their failures and successes than diverse societies. They have no one to blame but themselves. They cannot pass off their suffering or their problems onto others. [and force themselves to improve]"


One interesting difference is that all the groups you mentioned succeeded in forming their own independent countries which they now control as the dominant group, after the period of oppression in question: modern Israel, Cambodia, Bulgaria.

I wonder what the achievement rates look like for groups for which that isn't the case, who still live in a country controlled by another group? For example, Kurds in Turkey.

If we take Israel as an example, the way post-Holocaust Jews empowered themselves to fix their own oppression was to create a new country they controlled, win a war of independence defending it, and then emigrate there en masse. A parallel philosophy has at times also been popular among Black Americans, in that case known as Black Nationalism or Afro-Nationalism (subtly different terms depending on the focus), i.e. that Black Americans should control their own destiny in their own country, which requires, as a prerequisite, declaring independence from white-controlled America. But that movement has not been successful, in part because of the lack of any agreement on where the country would be located (various locations in both North America and Africa have been proposed), and in part because the Integrationist philosophy, holding that Black Americans are Americans, not a separate nation, has eclipsed Afro-Nationalism in popularity. There have been experiments in setting up an African-American state in Africa (Liberia), and also attempts to set up Black-controlled enclaves within the United States (one of the goals of the Black Panther movement), but they have been mostly unsuccessful. Actually the viewpoints of the Black Panthers on cultural cohesion and healthy communities sound not too different from what you've been mentioning in this thread.


[deleted]


It's hard to find someone to talk to calmly about these things.

It is even harder to find people who will write politically incorrect opinions under their real name. Frankly, I would advise against it. The internet is written in permanent ink.


No there is more to it than that.




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