Obama gets it wrong comparing crime in Chicago to the war in Iraq!

[ddeclue]

re: Obama bemoans 'epidemic of violence' – this article (July 15th 2007) has a major flaw in that it failed to call Obama on making a very faulty comparison.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/07/15/politics/p132635D02.DTL&type=politics

By NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ
Associated Press Writer

”CHICAGO - Standing before a church congregation that has witnessed
inner-city violence firsthand, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack
Obama said Sunday that more must be done to end a social ill that is
"sickening the soul of this nation."

Obama told churchgoers at the Vernon Park Church of God on Chicago's
South Side that too many young lives are being claimed by violence and
more must be done to combat the problem…

......

Nearly three dozen Chicago students have been killed this year, according to Chicago Public Schools. Obama said that figure is higher than the number of Illinois serviceman who've died in Iraq in 2007....”

OBAMA was comparing apples to oranges folks - domestic crime vs. the war in Iraq - but apparently AP reporter didn't see or failed to comment on the very faulty numerical comparison Obama just made:

While there is certainly an epidemic of violence recently (my town of Orlando has had record murder rates in the last few years) Obama is totally wrong in this argument (comparing youth deaths in Chicago to IL soldiers killed in Iraq) because he isn't comparing like sized populations!

There are far more student aged persons in Chicago than there are Illinois soldiers in Iraq so this is a totally invalid comparison and it is the exact same type that Republicans use to argue that Iraq "isn't so bad" when the reality is that Iraq is much worse than anything anywhere in the U.S.A. - it's a WAR ZONE in Iraq folks!

There are a total of 160,000 U.S. troops give or take in Iraq - only a small portion of these come from the state of Illinois probably no more than a few thousand - according to this Congressman's website there are only 2400 ING soldiers in Iraq:

http://www.house.gov/list/hearing/il10_kirk/natlguardreservists.html

According to this website there have been 129 Illinois based casualties in the war.

You would need to extrapolate the number of IL casualties by the ratio of ING soldiers in Iraq to the average population of student aged residents of Chicago over the past few years to get a reasonable comparison...

According to this website:

http://chicago.about.com/b/a/215535.htm

There are 200,962 students of approximately high school age (15-19) and another 239,252 of approximately college age (20-24). That's about 440,000 persons of "student" age in Chicago or about 183 times as many ING troops as in Iraq.

Therefore to compare apples to apples you'd need to multiply the 129 IL soldier deaths in Iraq by 183 times to get a reasonable estimate (23607 since March 2003) for comparing the crime rate in Chicago vs. deaths in Iraq.

In other words if there had been approximately 23,607 murders in the metro Chicago area since March 2003 then Obama would right in claiming Chicago were worse than Iraq.

But there HASN'T BEEN... Obama's off by over an order of magnitude when we compare apples to apples.

According to this website:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20061222/ai_n17073001

there have been about 450 murders a year over the last several years- even if we allow for a spike of 25% in the last year - in the 53 months since the war began in Iraq there would have been only 2100 murders in Chicago.

In other words Chicago only has about 8.89% the murder rate per capita of those ING soldiers killed in Iraq - 2100 vs. 23,607.

and THAT is why this is fallacious reasoning and why Obama is wrong to go around saying it.

It's the same kind of rhetoric Republicans have repeatedly used to falsely claim that Iraq was less dangerous than (pick a city) - Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, NYC and now we can add Chicago to that list.

Crime in cities is certainly up all across the boards and an issue we need to address as Democrats but until we start having 600 to 1,000 murders a month in major American cities, nothing that is happening here even comes close to what is happening in Iraq and we should refrain from making this invalid comparison!

Respectfully,

Doug De Clue
Orlando, FL

[maximusveritas]

1. Sorry you spent so much time, but you're way off here

Obama simply said that more kids died in Chicago than Illinois serviceman in Iraq. That's a correct statement. He didn't say Chicago was more dangerous than Iraq, which seems to be the argument you're trying to refute. So you just wasted your time arguing against an argument he didn't make. Oh well.

[Colobo]

2. Exactly.

[ddeclue]

3. It's an INVALID comparison...it's apples and oranges...

and it is is not an "argument" that he made but rather a faulty comparison and he apparently can't do the math and see why it's not fair to make such a comparison.

Obama made Iraq sound safer than Chicago... do you really think that's true? Well of course it's not...Iraq is at least 10x as dangerous as the "mean streets" of Chicago and I'm pointing out why Obama's comparison is both wrong and dangerous because it leads to faulty conclusions and thereafter to faulty responses.

We have to put things into proper perspective or we will be likely to treat crime in Chicago as the burning issue of our time when in reality the war is much worse.

Doug D.

[maximusveritas]

6. The comparison is correct; Just because one can draw faulty conclusions

doesn't change that.
Obama's not responsible for what faulty conclusions others may possibly draw.

Obama's point was obviously not that crime in Chicago is a more pressing issue than the war. It was that we should be spending more time on it than we currently do. Seeing that we spend almost no time on it at the present, I think that's a good goal.

[ddeclue]

15. No Obama's comparison was INCORRECT...it's apples and oranges.

It's not CLEAR what Obama's point was it and a lot of math challenged folks will walk away making EXACTLY the wrong conclusion, i.e. that Iraq is worse than Chicago - it goes to Obama's ability to communicate clearly... He should have said crime or murders are up X% in Chicago over 2005 and never mentioned Iraq.

Doug D.

[jefferson_dem]

16. Nobody, ...not even Obama, would suggest that Iraq is safer than Chicago.

Sorry.

[ddeclue]

19. but OBAMA DID suggest that with his comments!

He may not have intended to do so but that's EXACTLY what he did by comparing the two in the misleading manner that he did..

Doug D.

[ecstatic]

7. LOL nt

[Imagevision]

4. OBAMA was comparing apples to oranges folks? > nah-nah I totally believe you don't

understand what yopu're reading, try it again and let us know what you come up with?

[ddeclue]

5. Then you are totally wrong....

the math is the math... and you apparently are math challenged too..

I understand he's talking about crime which IS a real problem all over the country not just in Chicago but his comparison is a terribly terribly flawed one. If he wanted to make a VALID comparison he would say the murder rate in Chicago is up by X% over last year and THIS would be both valid and prove his point that crime us up. Instead he made a very sloppy flawed comparison between a REAL war zone and a domestic crime wave - NOT even CLOSE to the same thing... do 600 people a month show up dead in the streets of Chicago shot in the head and thrown in the ditch or with holes drilled in their heads by power drills? Certainly car bombs and suicide bombers are extremely uncommon in Chicago but they happen every day in Baghdad.

As I said it was a very poor comparison for Obama to make and he deserves to be called on it.

And YES I definitely appreciate the crime problem as it is up here too and I've lived in and near big cities like Atlanta, Detroit, and Miami and in fact lived downtown Atlanta for about 10 of my 12 years there (1984-1996) when it had a reputation as the "murder capital" of the nation.

Doug D.

[beaconess]

8. You really don't get it. But many others do

Obama (or any other candidate) can't expect everyone to understand or agree with everything he says. But I'm sure a significant number of other people fully understand his point.

[NYCGirl]

9. Yes, a few of us have been responding on the same thread he posted in GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1342946

[ddeclue]

12. No YOU don't get it... it's not that hard...you don't compare apples and oranges...

[beaconess]

17. The fact that you think this is apples and oranges shows just how much you don't understand

But many of us do. So you can carry on all you want, but you're getting nowhere trying to convince us that what he said is wrong - in fact, all you're doing is further demonstrating that you're having a difficult time grasping a concept that goes beyond the basics.

[ddeclue]

18. No the fact that YOU DON'T see this as apples and oranges that shows just how much YOU don't underst

and...

and if I fail to convince you then that is YOUR fault for not grasping basic fractions...not mine... the math is the math..

Many of you would be wrong...sorry... What he said IS wrong...his sentiment is correct his statement is wrong... it trivializes the war but does nothing for crime...

YOU apparently fail to get beyond the basics if you can't understand why it's not valid to compare whole numbers of deaths instead of comparing per capita deaths...

Obama should have said crime in Chicago is up X% and NEVER have made any comparison to Iraq...

[illinoisprogressive]

10. reread this again. he is not comparing to Iraq. really.

[ddeclue]

13. Then why mention IRAQ?? So you are wrong he IS comparing to Iraq...

[zulchzulu]

11. Reading Comprehension? Down the hall and to the right...big letters, can't miss it

:crazy:

[ddeclue]

14. Tell me how reading comprehension goes for you - apparently you've failed math too..

I scored 660 on my SAT verbal out of 800 and that was my low score...math was 750...

You don't compare apples and oranges... You and Obama don't get it..