As some of you may have already heard, the state of North Dakota is currently experiencing a politically incorrect and politically inconvenient economic boom in the midst of Obama’s national economic program of stagnation. Thanks to the discovery of oil and a government’s willingness to get out of the way so industrious, risk-taking individuals can go after it, North Dakota is now a working, breathing, real-life repudiation of everything Obama and his media worshipers stand for.  

This of course makes news outlets like the New York Times uncomfortable. After all, should the news get out that doing the exact opposite of ObamaNomics actually creates prosperity — good heavens, the entire charade might crumble!

What to do? What to do?

Ahh, attack the culture!

Like we saw during this last presidential election, the Left and the media are now hoping to win it all based on divisive cultural issues. If you can’t defend Obama’s dismal economic record, scream RAPE, right? And now, since ND’s economic boom is not only mocking most every Left-wing economic idea out there, and doing so with something as evil as oil, the NYT has obviously decided it needed to pretend that all this success is bad for — you guessed it — women!

 Here’s the headline:

An Oil Town Where Men Are Many, and Women Are Hounded

Here’s the anecdotal evidence:

WILLISTON, N.D. — Christina Knapp and a friend were drinking shots at a bar in a nearby town several weeks ago when a table of about five men called them over and made an offer.

Christina Knapp said she and a friend received a degrading proposition from some men in a bar.

They would pay the women $3,000 to strip naked and serve them beer at their house while they watched mixed martial arts fights on television. Ms. Knapp, 22, declined, but the men kept raising the offer, reaching $7,000.

“I said I make more money doing my job than degrading myself to do that,” said Ms. Knapp, a tattoo artist with dark streaks in her light brown hair, a bird tattoo on her chest and piercings above her lip and left cheekbone. …

Many said they felt unsafe. Several said they could not even shop at the local Walmart without men following them through the store. Girls’ night out usually becomes an exercise in fending off obnoxious, overzealous suitors who often flaunt their newfound wealth.

Here are the cryptic statistics:

Prosecutors and the police note an increase in crimes against women, including domestic and sexual assaults.

In other words, it’s a total hit job by an effete news outlet terribly uncomfortable with all this illiberal, oily, Red State, manly-man oil-working going on. Bottom line: If the government isn’t subsidizing cosmopolitan metrosexuals, it simply can’t be a good thing.

What I decided to do was something the NYT didn’t, and that was to look at actual statistics. And what I discovered was why the NYT didn’t report them: because those statistics blow this Red State hit job right out of the water.

First off, that “increase in crimes against women” mentioned above? In the town of Williston, the town in the piece’s byline and ground zero in this boom, the incidents of rape per 100,000 have increased from 14 to 15 between 2008 and 2011. In 2003, the year the oil boom began, it was 11.

But here’s the kicker: An apples to apples comparison of Williston and the NYTs own home city reveals that your chances of being “hounded” with a forcible rape are almost exactly the same in both.

However…

Without an influx of manly men working for the evil oil industry,  the rape rate in New York City has increased dramatically over the last four years: from 10.7 per 100,000 in 2008 to 13.3 in 2011.

So I guess a city buried in Obama-worshipping metrosexuals is where the real nightmare for women is expanding.

Funny that.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC