Recently, I posted about the 10 most Dangerous Cities and how they all had Democrat mayors and representatives except for one Republican (out of 19 Democrats). So Justin commented, "I'd be curious to see the political make-up of the ten safest cities." I was curious too.
Here are the 10 safest cities. In the list is: 11 Republicans, 8 Democrats and 1 non-partisan.
Here is some helpful information:
The list, according to Morgan Quitno’s website “is based on a city’s rate for six basic crime categories: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and motor vehicle theft. All cities of 75,000+ populations that reported crime data to the FBI for the six crime categories were included in the rankings.”
This year’s survey considered 371 cities, using final 2005 FBI statistics that were released Sept. 18, 2006.
It is interesting to note that the higher the concentration of people, the higher probability the representatives of the population are liberal/Democrat. That is why these lists are helpful. Because you can see that New York City dropped from the most dangerous city list years ago when Rudy Guliani (Repubican) became mayor and that St. Louis is the most dangerous city now and has been represented by Democrats for a long time. Generalizations aren't helpful to some people but I believe it's the philosoply of liberalism versus conservatism that adopted either helps or hurts a city.
Liberalism breeds dependency and conservatism teaches self reliance. We conservatives are not heartless. We understand the need for helping those who can't help themselves like the non-able bodied, elderly or children. We believe it is better to teach a man to fish than give him fish. It is born of love that we have this philosophy. Democrats could do well to engage us in this line of reasoning instead of attacking us as mean spirited or being against the poor. Sure, many Republicans aren't very articulate and may have the philosophy of love but are unable to express ideas well enough or positively enough to persuade Democrats but there are plenty of Republicans and conservatives who have been talking about this philosophy long enough that I do blame Democrats/liberals for not opening their hearts and minds and listening to what we are saying also. These Democrats/liberals/journalists just continue to attack conservatives as uncaring as opposed to looking at the results of their ideas and seeing the poor results of their ideas.
For rank and file Democrats, I understand the appeal of voting for those you think are more 'caring'. But for those who have access to information or are leaders like journalists and elected Democrats, we can only speculate as to why you attack conservatives as uncaring and continue developing the same type of solutions which result in poor results. It seems to us that 'caring' would require a look at results and then honestly discussing what might change the poor results to good ones.
We all want our children to grow up to be independant and self-reliant young adults. We see time and time again what the result is of overcaring parenting where the children are fed everything, given everything and sheilded from consequences. Poor choices are made by these children more frequently and a sense of accomplishment is seldom attained. And if sheilded from consequences even more dire results are likely.
I remember when my oldest daughter was in 2nd grade, she was starting to take longer and longer to do homework. She was asking me leading questions and basically having me do her homework for her as that is what she did with mom. I realized quickly what was going on. I started asking my daughter if she understood the assignment. If she didn't, I'd ask her to read aloud the assignment. Through conversation and questions I made sure she understood the assignment. But I affirmed to her that I want her to finish that assignment as I want the answers or the report or the problem solving to be her work, her words, her effort. The days of me the father scanning the story for the answer to the reading comprehension question for her were now over and for the betterment of her future. She started reading the story and answering the questions as she knew how.
A few posts ago, I posted about how federal spending has increased in ALL categories of spending from 2001 through 2005. This has been the case every year for over 6 decades. What does that mean? On the scale of -10 to +10 this country's government has essentially moved to the left every year for over 6 decades.
On a political scale -10 would be maximum government and +10 would be anarchy. Obviously there is a happy medium (zero) but this country and it's elected representatives and Senators and President have basically led this country more to the left of center (bigger government) every year for over 6 decades. We have not had an actual movement to the right (in terms of size of government). When you hear Democrats and journalists scream (or talk) about the 'far' right or staunch conservatives or hard right governing this country, you know these are the folks without perspective. Libertarians want a cut in the size of government to the tune of 80%. That would be hard right. Republicans have governed and legislated to the left of center, just not as far left of center as the Democrats do (as measured by totalling up the amount of spending in proposed legislation - a good barometer that journalists generally avoid).
Ownership and earnings go a long way towards a better environment, better education, and less dependency.
If a person is given a home (as in Section 8 housing), the new home is within a year or so in poor shape. Care is not given to the home as it would've been if it was earned or their was some incentive to take care of (through ownership). The environment suffers when things aren't taken care of. Materials are wasted instead of taken pride in and made to last. Pride leads to learning more and accomplishing more. Dependency leads to complacency and no sense of urgency about learning. This is the same result I discussed in a post that I discussed the 'living wage'. If I was earning a 'living wage' back when I worked part time at Pizza Hut in my teenage years, what incentive would I have had to better myself, to join the Navy, to get a degree, to obtain the certifications that I've obtained, or to have the 18 year career in computers that I have had? I knew there was no future in making pizza - except to enjoy at home with my daughters.
I've gone a little long here, but my intent was to contrast the philosphies of liberalism with conservatism and try to explain why I think the safer and more dangerous cities are represented the way they are. I know that liberals are generally "well intentioned". That isn't the question. The question is what solutions should we implement to get good results?
