Posted on 10/24/2009 4:30:56 PM PDT by Rufus2007
We'll have to wait and see if the so-called outside-the-box thinking once praised by some of liberal media elites will get the same reception with this latest edition.
In 2005, University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner released the book "Freakonomics" that provided cover for the pro-abortion movement in America by suggesting legalized abortion lowered crime and had a positive impact on society.
However, in their new book "SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance," Levitt and Dubner blame what is generally accepted to be a liberal cause, women's liberation, for the rise of high-end prostitution in America and a failing public education system. The authors appeared on ABC's Oct. 23 "20/20" to elaborate on their theories.
...more (w/video)...
(Excerpt) Read more at newsbusters.org ...
Putting a lot of criminals in jail lowered the crime rate.
I thought this was a particularly juicy quote:
“America’s education system has been split into two markets - the haves and the have-nots. At the bottom are mostly public schools, horribly broken since the ‘70s.”
This is exactly why we don’t want/need a public health plan:
public schools aren’t keeping private schools on their toes with innovations in cost-cutting or excellence. It’s quite the opposite, and naive to think that a public health plan option would be any different. Yet Nancy Pelosi and now Harry Reid keep insisting that such an option be included as part of Obamacare.
I know liberals who believe abortion is responsible for the drop in crime. They will only say it very privately and when no persons of color are present.
The book Freedomnomics by John Lott points this out. It also points out that abortions were going on even before Roe vs Wade. Even legitimately by doctors in states where abortion was legal.
I think "Freakonomics" is gee whiz, parody garbage, but this new finding from these clowns is rather amusing.
One other thing, the Liberals, including Leavitt, don't have the guts to say that it is abortion of black babies that lowers the crime rate. John Lott of Freedomnomics takes issue with this; however, when Bill Bennet accepted the Liberal view on this and mentioned that abortion was still evil even if it lowered crime, the Liberals savaged Dr. Bennet even though he spoke what they were all thinking.
When it became easier for bright, talented women to get higher paying jobs in corporate American rather than teaching, the best and brightest stopped teaching (a generalization, I know, so don't flame me about your brilliant mother who is a teacher).
My grandmother was a brilliant woman with a Master Degree in Education who spent her career teaching (from the 1920's to the 1960's) Home Economics to high school girls in a West Texas town of 1200. Were she alive today and at the same age, she would probably be a doctor.
Don't misunderstand and think I wish women weren't in the workplace - I'm just stating an obvious result of the changes which have taken place in our society.
It is true, black children are aborted at a much higher rate than any other race. Poor little fellers.
Frankly, I think one of them sits on the Supreme Court-- Ruth "Bad-Girl" Ginsburg. How else does one explain her bizarre remarks about the kind of people who would be aborted because of Roe v. Wade?
Its really a rather ignorant argument by the Freakonomics authors.
By about 1977, roughly one third of American pregnancies were ending in Abortion. 20 years later, that age demographic of 18-25 was beginning to emerge. This age group commmits the overwhelming majority of murders and crimes.
By annihilating this age group it was inevitable that there would be a bubble of reduced crime.
It really proves nothing about abortion and a lot about killing lots of people.
You know, if we killed everyone, there’d be no more crime at all. No hunger or disease, either.
I think the Judge Dredd comic book already addressed that...
However, the writers of Freakonomics admitted that it was a VERY inefficient way of reducing crime. I forget the number of abortions for every murder prevented, but it was very high.
They dodged the question about the dead baby, though.
You make a good point, but I think one of the real problems since the seventies concerning decline in public school performance is the lessening of the standards and discipline. High standards and tough discipline make better students. I went to parochial schools grades 1-12, but I remember my public school friends recounting stories of some of their tough teachers who wouldn't take crap from the students. And the parents backed the teachers. Those days seem to be gone.
The NEA is to blame.
Good point.
Those school standards and discipline, along with morality, should not have been lowered anyway. Why?
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