Why I don't like Mississippi (Southaven, Olive Branch: section 8, safe, bills)

[BradfromNO]

On what must SURELY be the time when randy8876 is leaving us here in MS,
he said he'd be gone in two years, and it's been JUST over two years now,
I'd like to answer his arguments, 40 pages ago. Of course he has PROBABLY
married a cute lil Mississippi girl by now and has a bunch of kids that he will
hate forever because they were born in MS, lol.

hehe, 40 pages of defense and counter-slam.

If the north hadn't utterly DESTROYED the entire area you claim is all together
in a fraternity of dirty, ignorant slums and slum dwellers, (and more states, too)
maybe we could be a little closer to your standards today. But you see, you guys
had a massive head start. I hate a lot of the things in your original list, too.
But I have heard the yankee superiority argument my whole life. You are dumb,
we are smart, what's with you people? Its a bit tired. And you did manage to predict
most of our responses....one simple phrase from the 70's. Love it or leave it. We all DO
appreciate your service. Most 'nice' places don't allow military installations, due to the
stereotypes YOU probably would like to say are all hogwash. Military people have all the
money, they are rude, they destroy property, drink excessively, impregnate our daughters
and leave town, treat locals like crap and say its THEM that are mistreated. I have heard
em all, because I was both a southerner AND a young airman in NC. FACT IS, none of it is
fair. But now the internet lets you lay it all out there, but I am not sure FOR WHAT PURPOSE?
Just to get it all out of your system? You could do that on a legal pad and spare people the
insults.

[Delta-SSiPP]

Originally Posted by green_mariner

I have heard things about Mississippi from other people who have lived there. Alot of the reviews weren't so nice.

What is more disturbing about what reminded me of Prom Night in Mississippi is this: it took place in 2008.

Yeap!

[i35vagabond]

Originally Posted by randy8876

Oh, and before you go off on crime stats:
America 3465/100k people
MS 4004/100k people
Hawaii 3936/100k people
WA 3998/100k people
Japan 1917/100k people

Yes, MS is just a tad higher than the other states I've lived in. But when you compare a city in WA with 30k people vs. one in MS you see the massive difference. Small towns and cities usually have lower crime, but in MS the crime rates are baffling.

Here are some of the individual cities:
Meridian 5582/100k
Jackson 8405/100k
Gulfport 6420/100k
Vicksburg 7855/100k
Biloxi 6279/100k
Hattiesburg 4832/100k
Tupelo 5351/100k
Greenville 6192/100k

And the crime is just a fraction of my complaints about this state.

My guess it's demographics. If there was any small towns in the state of Washington that had similar demographics as Mississippi's small towns, the crime statistics would probably be pretty much the same.

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by i35vagabond

My guess it's demographics. If there was any small towns in the state of Washington that had similar demographics as Mississippi's small towns, the crime statistics would probably be pretty much the same.

It's more economics than demographics.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

It's more economics than demographics.

Can the two really be separated?

Demographics means including gender, age, ethnicity, knowledge of languages, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location. That, according to Wikipedia.

If some of the above factors are above or below normal, wouldn't that have a direct impact on economics? Almost without exception I can see how each one of the elements can skew the final tally, and in Mississippi's case, result in a higher crime rate than average for the U.S.

Just to give a ridiculous example, how high would the crime rate be if an area was overly populated by wealthy white 38 year old women joggers who were self employed and owned their own home on a lake?

OK. Zero.

But jump to the reality of Mississippi demographics and both the economics and the crime rate go with it. Take those same demographics, apply them to some other state and the crime statistics would (I think) be comparable to Mississippi.
Another way of saying it would be, Take a city in the U.S. with demographics close to say, Meridian, MS, and that other city will have an economy similar to Meridian.

Wrong!

[Desert kid]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

Can the two really be separated?

Demographics means including gender, age, ethnicity, knowledge of languages, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location. That, according to Wikipedia.

If some of the above factors are above or below normal, wouldn't that have a direct impact on economics? Almost without exception I can see how each one of the elements can skew the final tally, and in Mississippi's case, result in a higher crime rate than average for the U.S.

Just to give a ridiculous example, how high would the crime rate be if an area was overly populated by wealthy white 38 year old women joggers who were self employed and owned their own home on a lake?

OK. Zero.

But jump to the reality of Mississippi demographics and both the economics and the crime rate go with it. Take those same demographics, apply them to some other state and the crime statistics would (I think) be comparable to Mississippi.
Another way of saying it would be, Take a city in the U.S. with demographics close to say, Meridian, MS, and that other city will have an economy similar to Meridian.

Wrong!

I agree with this.

But randy's been gone for years already, banned almost shortly after he joined, and by this point he has to have left the state. Why bump his thread?

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by Desert kid

I agree with this.

But randy's been gone for years already, banned almost shortly after he joined, and by this point he has to have left the state. Why bump his thread?

Maybe someone didn't know he was long gone. And - like it or not - we still get a lot of people who love to hate Mississippi. Including a fair number who have never been here.

People are strange, sometimes....

[GrandviewGloria]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

Can the two really be separated?

Demographics means including gender, age, ethnicity, knowledge of languages, disabilities, mobility, home ownership, employment status, and even location. That, according to Wikipedia.

If some of the above factors are above or below normal, wouldn't that have a direct impact on economics? Almost without exception I can see how each one of the elements can skew the final tally, and in Mississippi's case, result in a higher crime rate than average for the U.S.

Just to give a ridiculous example, how high would the crime rate be if an area was overly populated by wealthy white 38 year old women joggers who were self employed and owned their own home on a lake?

OK. Zero.

But jump to the reality of Mississippi demographics and both the economics and the crime rate go with it. Take those same demographics, apply them to some other state and the crime statistics would (I think) be comparable to Mississippi.
Another way of saying it would be, Take a city in the U.S. with demographics close to say, Meridian, MS, and that other city will have an economy similar to Meridian.

Wrong!

Excellent observations. And you're right. It is difficult to separate demographics from economics.

I've been using the quip, "Demographics are destiny". However, the original author, Arthur Kemp, an International Risk Consultant and Author from Rhodesia (who ought to know...) put it, "Demographics is destiny". (The English have notions differing from ours, regarding Subject-Verb Agreement).

(...and as a result of my contact with German co-investors, at odd hours all through my day, I seem to have developed a compulsion to capitalize the oddest words...)

[Desert kid]

Originally Posted by Listener2307

Maybe someone didn't know he was long gone. And - like it or not - we still get a lot of people who love to hate Mississippi. Including a fair number who have never been here.

People are strange, sometimes....

That or they don't feel special enough, and try to ignorantly put others down.

I loved MS because I felt a weird sense of "home" when I went there, not badmouthing Louisiana mind you (still love the Oak Alley Plantation, New Orleans and Cajun Country), but Mississippi just stuck to me somehow.

[Listener2307]

Originally Posted by Desert kid

...........I loved MS because I felt a weird sense of "home" when I went there............... but Mississippi just stuck to me somehow.

I knew a lady who said that to me once. She was from New york; lived there all her life. But while she lived there, married someone from New York, and had family in New York, she somehow just didn't feel like a New Yorker. She wasn't Catholic or Jewish. Didn't have much religion at all, really, just never found something that worked for her. Her job sent her traveling the world.

Then she went to Portland, Oregon. It was the strangest feeling, she said. Like she was home at last after being gone for a long, long time. We were good friends (actually we had a secret crush on each other, but we were both married...) so I pressed her to try to explain it. She was very reluctant to use the term reincarnation, but in the end I did get the "R" word out of her....

I guess that would be a different thread.