kak·is·toc·ra·cies. Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens. Origin of kakistocracy. Greek kakistos, worst, superlative of kakos, bad; see caco– + –cracy.
This is a new word for me, to be added to other -cracies such as the diametric meritocracy, and unacceptable -cracies such as plutocracy and theocracy. Most troubling about the current US kakistocracy is its fundamental practice of passing off lies as alternative facts. Indeed, such alternative facts can lead to completely misguided policies that unfortunately resonate with a certain portion of the population. The list of such prevarications is too long to even summarize here, and grows daily. However, I would like to examine the executive order on banning certain immigrants.
The President's pretense for the EO is to "make America safe." Although I realize that many Trump supporters are immune to facts, let's just have a look at some data. First, let's review the number of terrorist killings in the US since the 9/11 attacks - in the fifteen years after 9/11, jihadists have killed 94 people inside the United States, right wing extremists have killed 50 and left wing extremists, 5.
Next, here are data that summarize the foreign born terrorists by country of origin, total number of terrorists and total number of deaths from 1975 to 2015. Note that to date, in 2017, not a single Syrian has killed anyone in the US via a terrorist attack. The nations on the President's banned list have produced zero terrorist killings in the last decade or so. Even Obama critic-in-chief Charles Krauthammer believes that the EO immigration ban is "stupid."
And here are the actual
US mortality numbers for 2014:
So, given the data, what would a rational proposal to "keep Americans safe" look like? Since suicide is the 10th leading cause of American deaths, and homicides are right up there as well, it would seem worthwhile to implement policies that would lower such deaths. This of course would require a serious discussion about controlling the possession of guns, and we all know that that won't happen in the near future. Indeed,
this administration wants to, among other things, loosen any requirements for gun purchases by the mentally ill, and lower the restrictions on silencers and imported weapons. That should really help solidify these data!!!
