August 11, 2004
Side by Side
I was reading Kos the other day. Someone posted this map, which shows American deaths in action in Iraq by hometown.
There are dots spread fairly evenly and thinly across the Red States, while the dots are clustered around the big cities in the Blue states.
Some gabbling cretin on Kos' site chimed in (I'm paraphrasing, I don't want to g look it up to pull the quote) "so more people in the blue states are dying to keep the red state president in power".
So I decided to figure this out.
I spreadsheet breaking down the dead by state, then the ratio of dead per 100,000 people. And I found...
...that the rate of casualties is nearly identical between red and blue states.
Tropes killed while you wait.
Posted by Mitch at August 11, 2004 08:16 AM | TrackBack
Idiot. Look, I'm not a big fan of Dear Leader or of Gulf War II: The Vengeance--but the idea that soldiers from the "blue" states are dying to keep our "red state President" in power is insane.
What this does show is that soldiers come from the red and the blue states--neither has a monopoly on a willingness to serve. Which is appropriate, of course; no matter which side of the aisle we're on, we are, in the end, Americans.
Posted by: Jeff Fecke at August 11, 2004 10:15 AMThe cretin on Kos' site did not take into account that most Military installations ARE IN Blue states. Most of these guys are stationed at Bases/Posts in BLUE states. When military people are deployed to Iraq or Afganistan the Bases/Posts they are leaving are still the HOME BASE of these military members because that is where they will return to when they leave the sand box. But I guess the cretin on Kos' would not know or understand this since they have not now or ever served in the Military!
Posted by: ordi at August 11, 2004 11:56 AMHere is a link to a map of Military Bases in the Continental United States. You will notice that the majority of Military installations ARE IN BLUE States!
Posted by: ordi at August 11, 2004 12:00 PMhttp://www.cr.nps.gov/nagpra/DOCUMENTS/BasesMilitaryMAP.htm
Great work Mitch. Hope you posted it as a comment on Kos, not that anyone there wants to confuse the issue with actual facts. I'd go to his site and check but I'm eating.
Posted by: chris at August 11, 2004 04:03 PM