Jerry and I started this discussion at G2A MN / Fed Tax Games. I thought it deserves its own post.
"...blacks are arrested and sentenced at higher rates than whites because they are policed more heavily." G2A
"That statement requires that someone has tried policing white neighborhoods more heavily and found similar rates of crime. Obviously that has either not been done, or it has been tried and found not to be true. Therefore police are doing what they should be doing, working the areas with the highest rates of crime in an attempt to bring those rates down.
Now, it is unfortunate that pot possession was the subject of this study, because arguably it is a low-level crime (I will argue against its legalization, and will also argue that simply legalizing a crime is NOT the best way to reduce crime). But low-level crimes left unpunished can and do engender a disrespect for the law which leads to more crime. I am reminded of the great success Rudy Giuliani had as mayor of NYC with a very similar strategy. Overall, crime went down." Jerry
"Thank abortion, not Giuliani..." G2A
OK, then we are back to the hypothesis that blacks create most of the crime, since most of the abortions are to black women. Is that really what you want to prove?" Jerry
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G2A Correlation Does NOT Imply Causation
Personally I think being "Black" has little to do with any of this. I think a common history, some shared challenges, a culture/belief system, and a bunch of other factors make it hard for some people of all colors to escape poverty.
G2A Why are Poor People Poor?
G2A Stupidity and Welfare Fraud
G2A Blame vs Contributions
G2A Poor Kids Stupid or Unlucky
Now that the links are there...
What I want to prove is that Parents and Parenting matter more than any other factor. The second most important factor is the community and social norms in which the child is raised.
Now identifying the causal factors that enable a parent to be a great role model, that is more difficult.
I don't know if I have ever met a parent who's goal is to screw up their child.
That leaves us with parent's:
- who don't know what is important
- who have their own demons
- who have to work too much
and the kid's raise themselves.
In an ideal world all parents would be very balanced responsible intelligent caring people who are dedicated to and can afford to raise their kids to be very balanced responsible intelligent caring people.
Unfortunately God didn't make selective birth control part of the procreation process. In other words, parental capability doesn't determine who can get pregnant.
The next best thing is that Parents who have their own demons, feel unprepared and/or are overwhelmed can obtain a legal abortion. That is actually the responsible action given the fact they have been proven irresponsible by getting unintentionally pregnant in the first place.
Yet the religious right yahoo's want to force these irresponsible people to have the child even after they have proven themselves irresponsible.
As I always say... I am anti-abortion and pro-choice... I would rather put girls/boys on permanent birth control until they passed a parenting test, however I don't see that happening in our society.
You need a license to drive... And I think parenting is much more complicated and important.
By the way, I would also put older women and possibly men on that same birth control after they reached 35 or so. Why do we fight mother nature and risk birth defects...
There's actually a stronger correlation for reduction of lead than the legalization of abortion.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
MJ Lead Crime Link
That was a great read and it will be interesting to see if the benefits of less lead continue.
Here is Levitt's take on it.
Freakonomics Take on Lead
"What I want to prove is that Parents and Parenting matter more than any other factor."
Ok, then what if the kid does not have "parents," but merely "a parent"? If parenting is indeed the major causal factor, then it accounts for the over-representation of young black men in criminal pursuits, and the preponderance of unwed motherhood and abortion, both, in the black community. THAT, in turn, is the result of government policy as much as anything. And carried one step further, the low esteem for life represented by abortion cannot help but cheapen the respect for all life within the "culture" where it occurs, making crime more prevalent.
Here's something else about the relationship between lead and crime, or between abortion and crime, or between welfare spending and crime, take your pick. It was about that time-- 50 years ago-- that the national crime reporting statistics were changed. Reports of crime escalated rapidly because of the "better" reporting and then, as the system became commonplace, stabilized and started to show a reduction. In other words, it may be a simple statistical anomaly. So, IMHO, are we not better off starting out with the notion that crime is a bad thing that we wish to reduce? Then the question of "cause" can be ignored on the one hand, in favor of arrest and punishment, while on the other hand, we can consider why certain demographics seem to have higher crime rates, and remedy that through appropriate government action, if possible.
I don't think anyone has said that crime is good... And I didn't hear anyone recommending that we stop arresting or punishing criminals. (well I guess Laurie did... but only the happy pot heads...)
So it seems we can move on to helping those troubled demographics... Between the abortion and the lead free gas, it sounds like we have good start.
NAACP Prison Fact Sheet
Prison Stats
"Between the abortion and the lead free gas..."
I'm betting that lead free gas is only part of the lead problem, with lead paint being the other part, and that abortion is part of the PROBLEM, not the solution. And in my mind, both problems are strongly exacerbated by government welfare policy.
So do you see things as these articles do?
WT Liberalism against Blacks
Focus Origin
It kind of reminds of the problems Native Americans have faced. People with good intentions let them stay seperate from the new society, and poverty followed. Guilt makes people do foolish things sometimes.
Yep.
To me the largest single mistake made by the welfare state was made by LBJ, back in that time when all the curves started moving. Until that time, welfare was "AFDC"-- Aid to Families with Dependent Children-- or the Roosevelt-era term "Widows and Orphans fund." And the critical function of the welfare case worker was to show up unannounced and verify that there was no man living in the house. If there was, the kids became his responsibility, period. LBJ thought this was too demeaning (and perhaps it was, somewhat) and cancelled the practice. Nowadays, welfare keeps right on going even if there are additional children born in a house with "no man." And since you get more of what you subsidize, here we are, subsidizing single motherhood and one-parent families, and reaping the extraordinary costs of that destruction of social value.
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