Posted on 09/30/2005 3:31:28 PM PDT by patriciaruth
From Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
"So, how did Roe v. Wade trigger, a generation later, the greatest crime drop in recorded history?
"As far as crime is concerned, it turns out that not all children are born equal. Not even close.
"Decades of study have show that a child born into an adverse family environment is far more likely than other children to become a criminal. And the millions of women likely to have an abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade--poor, unmarried and teenage mothers for whom illegal abortions had been too expensive or too hard to get--were often models of adversity. They were the very women whose children, if born, would have been much more likely than average to become criminals. But because of Roe v. Wade these children weren't being born. This powerful cause would have a drastic, distant effect: years later, just as these children would have entered their criminal primes, the rate of crime began to plummet.
"It wasn't gun control or a strong economy or new police strategies that finally blunted the American crime wave. It was, among other factors [including building more prisons and incarcerating criminals with longer sentences], the reality that the pool of potential criminals had dramatically shrunk."
Have you read the book?
It doesn't focus on a utilitarian approach to social issues. It tries to analyze with data and mathematics what are true causes and true effects and how things interact.
With the information one can make moral or amoral judgments about what to do to improve a situation.
It debunked both liberal and conservative assessment of problems. And it tried to analyze which solutions were working and which weren't.
It went into the problem of black kids not doing well on tests because it was "white" to do that. It exposed teachers who cheated for their inner school kids on their tests rather than teaching them.
Abortion is not a solution to crime. But it does expose that dysfunctional teenagers who get pregnant are not the best parents. Abortion is not a solution for that. Preventing the pregnancy in the first place or adoption may be better solutions.
It merely exposes a fact. What moral choices we make to deal with that fact exposes us.
Crime rates mostly have to do with poverty. Blacks have a much higher poverty rate than whites (another discussion we don't need to get into now) so logic dictates they will also have a much higher crime rate.
Those of you believing crime has something to do intrinsically with race need to take a hard look at yourself.
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Crime rates mostly have to do with a lack of morals. But there is a strong correlation between race and crime rate. There is also a correlation between poverty and crime rate.
Bennett could not realistically say, if you abort those with poor morals, you will reduce the crime rate.
I have not seen anyone claiming that crime has something to do intrinsically with race. But there are obviously certain cultural problems in the black community. Fatherless families, etc.
If I have to be labeled a "racist" because I think abortion is wrong, then so be it. I belong to a party that has championed Civil Rights in this country for 41 years, and I belong to a party that believes life is sacred and should not be destroyed, or done away with by convenience.
You need to do your homework..so you don't appear the idiot.
The average welfare recipient of 2005 has a higher standard of living than the average American during the Depression.
And an ENOURMOUSLY higher standard of living than the average person living in India
Some might say that poverty causes crime. My opinion is that poverty and crime are both co-symptoms of a pathological culture that has taken root, that holds work and education in contempt
What principle do you believe he lacks?
Have you misread this to believe that he is for abortion for any reason?
How much of the problems in the poor black community is the result of misguided policies of the welfare state and pandering by Democrats?
Please, enlighten me. I heard what he said. I know about the book too. Maybe he should do some research before he takes the word of a couple of left wing hacks.
But suppose that the use of complicated mathematical models is itself a form of junk science, and all the more dangerous for the social attitudes and public policy arguments that people then feel are "justified" because mathematics is, after all, "pure science," and "numbers don't lie." These models and studies have no proven predictive capability regarding policy conclusions and behavior causation. The proof is obvious: the next models and studies that come out reveal completely different "facts" and so reach different conclusions. The predictions that these sophisticated mathematical models (multiple regression, multidimensional analysis, etc.) make are no better than random chance. Look at the data and arguments on global warming, for example. The same may then be said about abortion/race/crime studies, the causes of poor educational performance, crime and gun control, etc. So the game of statistical "up-yours" goes on and on, back and forth. A GIVEN MODEL IS GOOD ONLY WHEN IT CAN PREDICT TRENDS IN DATA OUTSIDE OF ITSELF. That much, mathematically speaking, IS certain, and in this sense, numbers indeed do NOT lie. Mathematics IS a REAL science. It CAN be done, but where are the social scientists with the integrity and chutzpah to risk reputation and career and cherished theories?
1) Absolved the "Great Society" policies and leftist ideas about society for the blame which they deserve.
2) Denied credit for lower crime to ideas that actually contributed to it.
3) shifted the arguments from the first two points, to "how beneficial" abortion is.
And to boot, he gave credence to negative stereotypes about conservatives.
But mostly he demonstrated even smart people can say incredibly stupid things if they choose not to think.
The fact is the abortion of babies, black or otherwise, did not lower crime one bit. If crime was higher, it was due to destructive policies and destructive ideas about society that had a terrible impact on society. Black babies are no more likely to commit crimes than any other baby, however babies brought up under certain conditions will be prone to these negative influences.
"he was stupid for having an adult discussion on the radio...."
---That, in a nutshell, may be just how far we've fallen.
The Dems, starting, ooooo, say, somewhere after the end of 2001, have been promoting this idea of a "chilling" effect on our freedom of speech emanating from this Administration in its pursuit of the War on Terror, and as a way to exert its hegemony on "the American Mind". This is what Freud called "projection", made all the more pathetic in that the Left doesn't even WANT to know what Bennett said, or what the context was.
All they really want is a never-ending stream of OPPORTUNITIES to demagogue an issue, "act" outraged ( they ARE acting!),and continue the piling-on of imagery and impression so that eventually enough people will be left with some vague "bad taste in the mouth" about Republicans.
So that I am led to believe that their overarching objective is precisely to chill all discussion of certain subjects. All they care about is the attack, and how to get maximum effect out of it. They certainly couldn't care less about discussing the actual issue.
It is precisely because the LEFT is guilty of it that they search for any potential opportunity to smear a Republican or Conservative with it---in this Bennett example, all that matters is for the media to half-report it, and then to dutifully report the hand-off of "outraged" reactions from Pelosi to Kennedy to whomever--"shameful", "despicable", "irresponsible",,etc. etc. Even the Administration, hanging its head sheepishly, has chimed in with "inappropriate". I have ZERO faith in this Administration if it 1. Didn't bother actually looking into what was said, and the context of what was said, and what was REPORTED to have been said, and 2. STILL doesn't understand that it SHOULD HAVE answered EVERY baseless Democrat charge, judgement, and rhetorical foray with their OWN correction. The Dems have lately been in one of their relentless attack modes in which every conceivable potential image is manipulated for maximum negative effect, for as long as it can be managed. Usually they lose interest when it is finally proven that for example there is nothing behind the charges against Delay, or whoever this week's victim it. Of course this will happen, in six or eight weeks, but by then all the useful negative "value" will have been squeezed out of is, and they will have moved on to something else, something equally baseless, and ultimately it is all the most sickening and shameful spectacle of nothingness and irrelevance and just watching it makes me ashamed to be associated with these people, who have the nerve to call themselves Americans.
I am coming to some conclusions reluctantly.
The liberal activist left are traitors at heart.
Allah is Satan.
Levitt in Freakonomics stated that his analysis showed Roe v. Wade (not abortion across the board, but abortion made available to the poorer more dysfunctional teenagers) was one of the main causes of the dropping of the crime rate in the 1990's.
He analysis also showed a correlation with building more prisons, convicting criminals and giving them longer sentences, more police on the streets, and the bursting of the crack cocaine bubble. He could find no correlation with strict gun control, innovative policing strategies, concealed carry permitting, increased use of capital punishment [because it is still not carried out much, he said], or improvement in the economy (unless it is correlated with being able to afford to build more prisons.)
He also, like you, asked why crime had begun climbing in the early 1960's, and concluded that "one of the major factors pushing this trend was a more lenient justice system." But unlike you, he felt that getting back to punishing criminals and building and maintaining prisons and longer sentences just put us back to where we were before. His analysis led him to conclude that Roe v. Wade was the hinge factor that lowered the crime rate even more.
So this economist didn't
1) Absolved the "Great Society" policies and leftist ideas about society for the blame which they deserve.
2) Denied credit for lower crime to ideas that actually contributed to it.
Mathematics is not a science. It is a tool used in science.
Couldn't believe I saw that on TELEVISION!
Didn't he also say that legal gambling was pretty far from what Kennedy did, too? I was silently cheering.
I don't know. This author and analyst is an economist. His great interest is the economics of crime, and how criminals calculate the risks they take to benefit themselves with criminal behavior.
When I took sociology in college, it was a hodgepodge of conjecture and opinion, and nothing much like science. That was 40 years ago. I don't know if anything has changed since then.
Do you actually believe that? You actually believe "Freakonomics" is appropriate title of a scholarly work?
Yet, another dodge.
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