Map Accuracy?

[minionofmidas]

Think about what changing the categories might create...yeah, exactly, possibly some fewer swing states, nothing else. I fail to see how fiddling that way creates a more polarized picture.
Equal intervals don't actually make much sense in creating a meaningful map. Percentiles are much better. Natural breaks are even better. Not that I know whether his map obeyed any of these.
And I'd like to know what the maximum is. Maybe he should have used a few shades more.
But, yes, of course, this map is trying to make a cheap political point, ie how similar this map is to the current political alignment in the US, and is leaving out such subtleties.

[12th Doctor]

#1  There is no way that one can know the acctual number of lynchings that went on in any state. 

#2  Statistics that we have show that, not only in the west, but also in the south, there were just as many whites lynches as blacks.  It was a common punishment for all criminals.

#3  A lynching is basically any act of hanging some one from a tree or other non-specialized structure and leaving them to strangle, which is only seperated by a "hanging" by the fact that a "hanging" is meant to break the neck of the "condemed" and is conducted from an established gallows.  Therefore, Califonia, Utah and Nevada only escape the list, because they were wealthier areas, with a better established populace and thus people were "hung" rather than "lynched".

Not to mention the other flaws of the map, that were mentioned before and also the fact that I fail to see why this matters for today's purposes.  The map stops at 1965 and a vast majority of lynchings probably took place long before that.

Let's talk about how native New Yorkers used to treat the Irish, because that has about as much relavence to the modern era.

[minionofmidas]

#1  There is no way that one can know the acctual number of lynchings that went on in any state. 

#2  Statistics that we have show that, not only in the west, but also in the south, there were just as many whites lynches as blacks.  It was a common punishment for all criminals.

Al's link says different.

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Or does it...? Look at the polarization of Mississippi's voters along racial lines. Then look at the polarization of New York's voters along confessional lines. Then try and repeat that dumbass comment.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Think about what changing the categories might create...yeah, exactly, possibly some fewer swing states, nothing else. I fail to see how fiddling that way creates a more polarized picture.
Equal intervals don't actually make much sense in creating a meaningful map. Percentiles are much better. Natural breaks are even better. Not that I know whether his map obeyed any of these.
And I'd like to know what the maximum is. Maybe he should have used a few shades more.
But, yes, of course, this map is trying to make a cheap political point, ie how similar this map is to the current political alignment in the US, and is leaving out such subtleties.

The problem is the highest and lowest values; why 1-3 for the first? That's dodgy as hell. I suspect the higher limit plays a similer trick, but I don't especially want to wade through statistics on lynchings.

I'm *not* denying that most lynchings happend in the South, what sort of idiot would deny that, what I hate about that map is the distortions to make it "fit" with the states that voted for Bush.

O/c this can be played both ways, I bet if you got the stats by county, it would show more lynchings in counties lost by Bush than won by him (most lynchings happend in the Black Belt IIRC). And it would be just as intellectually dishonest.

[??????????]

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Or does it...? Look at the polarization of Mississippi's voters along racial lines. Then look at the polarization of New York's voters along confessional lines. Then try and repeat that dumbass comment.

Wow Lewis you're getting pretty partisan lately. Of course supersoulty is 100% correct on this but I wouldn't expect a foreigner to understand that.

[Ebowed]

option 3

[Rob]

O/c this can be played both ways, I bet if you got the stats by county, it would show more lynchings in counties lost by Bush than won by him (most lynchings happend in the Black Belt IIRC). And it would be just as intellectually dishonest.

Excellent point.

[minionofmidas]

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Or does it...? Look at the polarization of Mississippi's voters along racial lines. Then look at the polarization of New York's voters along confessional lines. Then try and repeat that dumbass comment.

Wow Lewis you're getting pretty partisan lately. Of course supersoulty is 100% correct on this but I wouldn't expect a foreigner to understand that.

Anything that shapes the present has relevance to the modern era. This issue does.
This isn't to say "Republicans are obviously all evil because they get the votes of the grandsons and great-granddaughters of the lynchers of that era." Now that'd be a stupid and partisan comment on the subject.

[angus]

Opebo (our favorite molestor apologist) posted this a while back. Do you think this map is accurate at all?

only in this warped scenario would Indiana ever be called a "swing state"  I can't imagine the usual use of the phrase being applied to that particular bit of flyover country.  I don't know whether its accurate, of course.  After even The Economist fell prey to one of a rash of Bush-Country/Flyover-country jokes, we have all become somewhat skeptical, I'd imagine.