Rangel made an ass of himself once again. This time on Fox News Sunday. Here is the interesting part of the discussion:
WALLACE: Congressman Rangel, you caused quite a stir this week when you said that you’re going to introduce a bill to reinstate the draft. Here’s what you said this week in a newspaper article. Let’s take a look. “The great majority of people bearing arms in this country, for this country in Iraq, are from the poorer communities in our inner cities and rural areas.”
But a recent and very detailed study by the Heritage Foundation, Congressman, found the following and I’m going to put that up: 13 percent of recruits are from the poorest neighborhoods. That’s less than the national average of people living in those neighborhoods. Ninety-seven percent of recruits have high school diplomas. Among all Americans, the graduation rate is under 80 percent. And blacks make up 14.5 percent of recruits for the military; the national average is 12 percent.
Congressman, in fact, contrary to what you’ve been saying, isn’t the volunteer army better educated and more well-to-do than the general population?
Video: Rangel says men join the army only if they can’t have “a decent career”
I want to make it abundantly clear: if there’s anyone who believes that these youngsters want to fight, as the Pentagon and some generals have said, you can just forget about it. No young, bright individual wants to fight just because of a bonus and just because of educational benefits. And most all of them come from communities of very, very high unemployment. If a young fella has an option of having a decent career or joining the army to fight in Iraq, you can bet your life that he would not be in Iraq.
Allahpundit asked: does being a trader at Goldman Sachs qualify as “a decent career”? I was thinking of:
#’s indicate combat veterans
#Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI)
U.S. Army 1945-47
Robert Bennett (R-UT)
National Guard 1957-61
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)
Army Reserves 1968-74
#Thomas Carper (D-DEL)
U.S. Navy 1968-1973
Navy Reserve 1973-1991
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
U.S. Navy 1959-61
Jon Corzine (D-NJ)
USMCR 1969-1975
Larry Craig (R-ID)
National Guard 1970-72
Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT)
Army Reserve 1969-75
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Air National Guard 1967-73
Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
#Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
U.S. Army 1967-68
Tom Harkins (D-IA)
U.S. Navy 1962-67
Navy Reserve 1968-74
James M. Inhofe (R-OK)
U.S. Army 1954-56
#Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Medal Of Honor
U.S. Army 1943-47
Johnny Isakson (R-GA)
National Guard 1966-1972
Jim Jeffords (I-VT)
U.S. Navy 1956-59
Navy Reserve 1959-1990
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
U.S. Army 1969-
Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
U.S. Army 1951-53
#John Robert Kerry (D-MA)
U.S. Navy 1966-1970
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Army Reserve 1958-64
Frank Lautenburg (D-NJ)
U.S. Army 1942-46
Richard Lugar (R-IN)
U.S. Navy 1957-60
#John R. McCain (R-AZ)
U.S. Navy 1958-81
*POW Vietnam 1967-73
Frank Murkowski (R-AK)
US Coast Guard 1955-57
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
U.S. Army 1968-1970
Pat Roberts (R-KS)
U.S. Marine Corps (1958-62)
Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
Army Reserves 1973-86
Arlen Specter (R-PA)
U.S. Air Force 1951-53
#Ted Stevens (R-AK)
Army Air Corps 1943-46
Craig Thomas (R-WY)
U.S. Marine Corps 1955-59
#John R. Warner (R-VA)
U.S. Navy 1945-46
Marine Corps 1950-52
Marine Corps Reserves 1952-1964
#Jim Webb (D-VA)
U.S. Marine Corps 1964-1972
Ass’t Sec. of Defense 1984-1987
Secretary of the Navy 1987-1988
Our latest Liberal posters have already decided that the Heritage foundation study is off the mark. Armed with their Liberal Democrite talking points, they surely know more about the topic than the Heritage people.
Robert-they can argue it all they want, but the study is accurate..I have a question..what background do cops and firemen come from?
The Heritage foundation used the same stats as the NPP and came to radically different conclusions. The NPP published a response to the HFs findings but, mysteriously, any reference to the NPP response has been absent from this website….
Ask and ye shall receive: The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis recently published a study on troop demographics.[1] That study’s conclusions appear to perfectly contradict those of a similar study by the National Priorities Project (NPP).[2] Both studies analyzed the same Pentagon data and employed the same kind of zip code analysis of recruits’ homes of record. Many reporters and policymakers have asked how to interpret these two findings. This paper discusses how and why they differ. In short, NPP’s data is accurate, but its primary conclusion is misleading.
The Conflict
On November 1, NPP announced the release of its online database with a press release headlined “Military recruiters enlist lower and middle income youth.”NPP’s analysis is based on Department of Defense data on Army, Navy, Air Force, and Army Reserve enlistees in FY 2004. According to the press release, “Lower and middle-income communities experience higher military enlistment rates than higher income areas.”It also included a charged quote from the NPP’s executive director: “As the Iraq War continues and the number of soldiers killed and wounded mounts, this data makes clear that low- and middle-income kids are paying the highest price.â€
The NPP analysis received extensive coverage, including a front-page headline and large chart in the Washington Post.[3] The Post accepted NPP’s conclusions unchallenged:
[T]he military is leaning heavily for recruits on economically depressed, rural areas where youths’ need for jobs may outweigh the risks of going to war.
All of the Army’s top 20 counties for recruiting had lower-than-national median incomes, 12 had higher poverty rates, and 16 were non-metropolitan.
On November 7, the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis released its 21-page “Who Bears the Burden?”report on military recruitment. This report uses Department of Defense data on all active-duty enlistees in FY 1999 and the January to September period of 2003. The report’s key finding is that “There are slightly higher proportions of recruits from the middle class and slightly lower proportions from low-income brackets,”and its lead author (also the author of this paper) suggested that “Congress needs to remain steadfast in opposing coerced conscription and expose the myths of racial and class exploitaÂtion in military recruiting.â€
How could two analyses of similar data differ so widely in their conclusions? A look at the NPP study’s underlying methodology answers this question.
Flawed Reasoning
Almost all of NPP’s findings are based on an analysis of what it calls the “top 20 counties by recruitment rate,”which forms the basis the Post’s chart. NPP reasons that because these counties are rural and rural areas are poorer on average, recruits are therefore poorer than average, which suggests exploitation. This reasoning is flawed. Serious researchers and statistically literate journalists would not use a non-random sample of twenty counties to represent the state of the military.
Common sense suggests that a handful of counties with small populations will always have the highest recruitment rates. It only takes one enlistee in a county with only twenty equivalent youths to achieve the top ranking. Indeed, four of NPP’s top twenty counties had just four enlistees, and the average per county was 14.[4] In all, NPP’s top twenty counties accounted for just 275 recruits, less than two-tenths of one percent of all the recruits in 2004. By contrast, the zip code area 28314 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, was the home of 111 recruits in 2003, more than any other ZIP code in the nation.
NPP should contrast its data with similar data from either (1) the “bottom twenty”counties or (2) some other time period. If one considers the bottom 20 counties, the same “poor, rural”concentration will result. Counties with zero recruits will tend to have small, rural populations with lower-than-national-median incomes.
This is easy enough to confirm: there were over eight-hundred 5-digit areas with zero recruits in both 1999 and 2003, resulting in a tie for the “bottom”recruitment rate. Unsurprisingly, the average household income of these zip codes is lower than the national median.
When ranked in terms of total population, the absolute bottom zip code is 02215, an urban neighborhood that abuts the “Harvard Bridge”in Boston and had zero recruits. The average household income for the “bottom 20 zip codes”is $22,724. That is, the 20 largest U.S. neighborhoods with no enlistees have median incomes that are half the national median.
In contrast, the zip code with the highest recruitment rate is 78254, just outside of San Antonio, Texas. That neighborhood has a median household income of $76,000. This finding flies in the face of NPP’s analysis.
A Comprehensive Approach
To fully understand the nature of military enlistment, one must take a comprehensive approach and employ statistics that include the entire recruit population. What makes the comprehensive data so impressive is that for every two recruits who came from the poorest 20 percent of neighborhoods in 2003, three came from the richest neighborhoods.
Several aspects of the NPP approach are commendable, particularly its searchable database of counties- and high schools-level recruitment. But the sad fact is that most of the NPP analysis is based on “top 20 county”figures that are not representative. Policymakers should be especially wary of the conclusions that the rural nature of the military is any different this year than previous years.
And finally, there is no logical dissonance that military recruits generally come heavily from both rural and wealthier neighborhoods. While rural areas tend to be poorer, not all are. More to the point, urban and suburban areas still provide four out of every five enlistees. Arguing that the military is disproportionately rural and therefore made up of individuals from low-income families is no better logic than arguing that the military is disproportionately black and therefore made up of individuals from low-income families. It is true that blacks make up a disproportionate share of military recruits, but the blacks that enlist tend to be better educated and from wealthier neighborhoods than comparable civilians. Only with a comprehensive analysis of the recruitment data are conclusions of this sort possible. On this, NPP falls short.
Here’s a link to the actual NPP response (rather than yet another link to the HF):
Once again, the stated aim of the HF is as follows: “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.”
You don’t think that there could be a slight bias in their study, do you? I’m willing to accept that the NPP could be biased if you’ll return the favor…
edited by Peejz. Follow proper link rules which I have gone over and your link stays…until then yours and anyone else that can’t follow the rules will be edited.
A slight bias for what purpose? Even if the study has a slight bias, the facts are as they are. NPP did not do an accurate job on their study.
A slight bias for what purpose?
To “formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.” This is, after all, the explicitly stated bias of the heritage foundation.
Even if the study has a slight bias, the facts are as they are.
But the interpretation of the numbers, and not the numbers themselves, is what’s being disputed. I’m sure that you see the difference.
NPP did not do an accurate job on their study.
That is indeed the HF’s position; contrarily, the NPP argues that the HF has not done an accurate job with their own study. So far, the NPP has had the last word; perhaps we’ll see an HF response shortly.
Yes I do see the differance and realize that NPP assumed in their study..
For the sake of their study they assume that the recruits are from a family of 4 and they are also assuming that these people in the rural areas have no assets…
Solarc,
Why do object to a strong national defense??/That says volumes about how anti-american you are.
9.
PCD,
Ask Eisenhower.
Solarc,
I know what you are talking of, TWO sentences taken out of context from Ike’s farewell speech. I’m old enough to have heard it. Now, have you read it in its entirity? Or is this something else you got from your left wingnut websites?
PCD,
I’ve read it, and I find it pretty depressing that you’re actually over thirteen.
I assume that you understand my point at least.
I find it odd that you equate military adventurism with a strong national defense, especially given the former’s consequences:
Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of “professionalized” terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director’s think tank.
Iraq provides terrorists with “a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills,” said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. “There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries.”
Your support of this sort of thing proves without a shadow of a doubt that you hate America. Why don’t you move to China, commie!
Solarc,
You are full of Bullmanure!!! The America hater is YOU! Shove your white flages up your… Better yet, shove Rangel up there, too.
All you have proven is that you don’r read for content. You defend taking quotes out of context and declaring yourself some sort of victor. Pathetic!
I may not spell this right, Bung Hao!
PCD,
Why don’t you just admit that you want to see America destroyed by terrorists. Traitor!!
SOLARC,
Thank you for demonstrating you are na emptyheaded anus. You are worth less than shitto. Typical of the Kos Krew. They get that bastard rich while repeating their class warfare cries across the Internet. Putzes!
PCD,
I see no reason to have a discussion with a traitor.
I’m sure that you’d be much happier at American Jihad dot come or something.
Don’t spread your hate in my country!
Solarc,
What is YOUR country? Mexico? Cuba? Somalia?
PS, John Kerry is a traitor who should be shot just like Ted Kennedy for being a traitor.
PCD,
I’m an American. Based on the specific character of you’re innumerable grammar and spelling mistakes, however, I’d imagine that you hail from somewhere in the former Soviet Bloc.
Thus, I conjecture that frustration over your humiliation during the cold war is driving your hatred of my country and your desire to see it destroyed by terrorists.
Solarc,
You are a jerk with San Francisco values. At best you are Kos Clown. You’ve done nothing in your life, and you live off of your parents. YOu have an entitlement mentality. You cannot survive with out the government to dole out money taken from the producers of society.
You are the typical mental midget turned out by other mental midgets with tenure.
At least I’m not a traitor. Does your family know that you’re a traitor, PCD? I bet that they’d be so disappointed.
At least I’m not a traitor. Does your family know that you’re a traitor, PCD? I bet that they’d be so disappointed.
solarc,
you are a sick joke. you aren’t even a very good troll.
23.
The truth hurts, doesn’t it PCD.
Not only are you unable to make an argument (or compose a grammatical sentence), you’re hurting my country with your support for terrorists. People like you should be hung for treason.
PCD doesn’t support the terrorists. PCD is not part of the 5th column working tirelessly to undermine America in the WOT. So post #24 couldn’t be more WRONG, imo.
12-I’ve read it, and I find it pretty depressing that you’re actually over thirteen. odd that a person that uses these e-mails for himself: solarc@fuckmail.com and solarc@anallyrapingPCD.com, would even try to accuse someone of the maturity level of a 13 year old.:roll:
I’m so happy that someone actually noticed my e-mail addresses. I thought that they were just slipping off into the ether.
You have to admit, PCD brings all of this on himself by never making an argument or writing a coherent sentence.
It would appear that the Heritage Foundation has the advantage here. The have exposed the error in NPP’s methodology.
Instead of attacking the source, they proved HPP methodogies false.
This is all one could ask for in a counter argument.
“You don’t think that there could be a slight bias in their study, do you?”
Does the Heritage Foundation and HPP have bias? They sure do. However, that is irreleevant, as the HF provided logical arguments to expose NPP’s methodolgies.
So, thus far I see that HPP’s conclusions are flawed via the methodolgy they were arrived at- now where is the argument that HF’s methodolgies are flawed, thus rendering those conclusions invalid?
now where is the argument that HF’s methodolgies are flawed, thus rendering those conclusions invalid?
In the NPP response pasted in on another post.
29- #8 contains the link to NNP.