Why don't we look at empirical studies completed by real scientists and published in peer reviewed research publications instead of posting obfuscated statistics. This is a study published in Quarterly Journal of Economics. "Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime." ------------------------------------------------ The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime John Donohue, Steven Levitt NBER Working Paper No. 8004* Issued in November 2000 NBER Program(s): CH LE PE We offer evidence that legalized abortion has contributed significantly to recent crime reductions. Crime began to fall roughly 18 years after abortion legalization. The 5 states that allowed abortion in 1970 experienced declines earlier than the rest of the nation, which legalized in 1973 with Roe v. Wade. States with high abortion rates in the 1970s and 1980s experienced greater crime reductions in the 1990s. In high abortion states, only arrests of those born after abortion legalization fall relative to low abortion states. Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime. *Published: Donohue, John J., III and Steven D. Levitt. "The Impact Of Legalized Abortion On Crime," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2001, v116(2,May), 379-420. http://www.nber.org/papers/W8004 ----------- Download the PDF here. http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf Enjoy.
"Obfuscated" = "I don't like the sound of that". The very same thing has been put to Levitt. First he stuttered, then he stammered, then he admitted he'd made an error - but promptly introduced a whole new data set that he claims substantiates his earlier conclusion. Whatever. I'd prefer to trust my lying eyes and the above data I posted. You sound very sure of yourself: can you explain them away with your theory? Or you'll just put your faith in Levitt, 'cos you like the guy? By the way, Levitt's an economist, not a scientist. But who cares, the man's promoting your pet views, so anything flies.
Hell no! If you figure you've got a read on a guy, pop a cap in him. Fuck due process. After all, Bin Laden's crimes weren't a symbolic attack on precisely the freedoms we value in the West, like freedom from the threat of execution without trial for even the most heinous murderer. Were they. Finding, trying and hanging Bin Laden and then rebuilding exact replicas of the Twin Towers wouldn't be the best message we could send to the rest of the world. Would it. All that money we spent on the Nuremburg trials... fucking waste, wasn't it? After all, there was no message, no adherence to a higher standard, no staking out of a position on the moral high ground involved. Was there.
The fact is there is much more to crime rate than abortion rates. You can use your eyes. I like to use common sense. Common sense says that drug addicts have children who will predominantly grow up to be useless members of society. Relate your data with economic growth and job opportunities. Along with increased incarceration rates and tough on crime laws. If I have the time and inclination I will post these charts later in the week. To assert that reduced abortion equals reduced crime rates, without taking into account the above two factors, is absurd at best. Anyway you are the one asserting decreased abortion equals decreased crime. I am pointing out your faulty logic.
Sure, I don't mind being wrong. What I am really keen on challenging is the assertion that abortion cuts crime (which I think I've done). But if Levitt can advance a theory long on speculation but short on evidence, why can't I?
You're barking up the wrong tree, Nik. Sure, according to western standards, I'd be wrong to shoot him, but wouldn't it be a greater moral outrage if I shot a Mexican illegal?
You didn't say anything about moral outrage in your post above. You asked if you would be subject to the same moral censure. The answer is, clearly, yes. Even though the idea that the state can execute a human after due process is currently being debated, ask the father of a murdered child about it and you'll get a sure answer, in many cases. Now, if a father goes out and kills the man that raped and murdered his 12 year old daughter, that's wrong. No one is outraged - we applaud him and hopefully any jury in the world sentences him to time served and sends him home to try to put his life back together, but it's still wrong, and he is subject to the same moral censure as any other killer; it is wrong to kill. If you act unilaterally to murder another human, that's wrong. I am not saying it is always hard to understand, but it is wrong. No, it's not 'more wrong' to shoot a Mexican illegal than to shoot Bin Laden. Interestingly, a theme in your posts seems to be your rejection of the idea of a universal set of values. Your application of values seems to change depending upon the race or status of the people you are talking about. Your evaluation of the morality of an act seems to depend on the identity of the actor. Moral relativism is a slippery slope. I hope you have good snowshoes. At any rate, I am not sure what any of this has to do with your contention that raping one category of woman is 'less of an offence' than raping another category of woman. Your introduction of the criminality theme clouds things a lot. Unless... no, even you wouldn't dare suggest that since prostitution is illegal in some countries/states/counties...
Well, he would be, probably. Should he be? I would disagree. Oh, definitely. We might like Western values to be universal, but people are too different for that to ever work. Some can never really be adapted to them. Depending on the values in question, I don't even accept them myself. (Like holding homosexuality to be the equal of heterosexuality. I'll never accept that.) No, on the identity of the victim. I though it would be interesting to hear view on it. Anyway. The point is that raping a nun is a graver moral offense than raping a whore. You addressed this with an appeal 'moral censure', but that, as you seem to agree, is beside the point. A rapist might incur the same penalty for practical purposes, but that doesn't say anything about whether raping a nun is graver than raping a whore.
Recent paper by jem finds that legalized abortion is linked to escalation in prices of certain asset classes -- stocks and real estate --- as well as lower transactions costs. www.clickheretoseemyspeculation.com
I think that the advocate's position, in general, is frivolous. The child is an innocent, and if the man doesn't want to risk having a child, then he has the option of having his tubes tied, so as to completely prevent the possibility. However, there are certain corner cases which I believe have great validity, and which have been rejected unfairly by the courts whenever they have arisen. Example which has actually occurred, and for which the court provided no relief whatsoever: Woman has affair with next door neighbor while married. Child is born and husband believes it is his. Woman waits until statute of limitation for contesting paternity expires, and then she divorces her husband, and moves in with next door neighbor. Husband discovers child is actually the neighbor's, who is now free of the duty of child support. Result. Divorced husband must pay 19 years of child support and healthcare/daycare for a child not his, and his spouse receives the support money while married to the child's real father -- who is entirely relieved of the duty of support. In any other situation, this would be a clear cut criminal fraud, and the woman would be convicted and sentenced to 10 years for trying to con her husband. It arguably violates the 13th Amendment prohibition of involuntary servitude, because the husband is being legally coerced to labor on behalf of another without first being convicted of a crime. But, it's all about the child, so the courts will do nothing. And, instead of jail, the woman is living high on the hog and the husband has been !@#$ on entirely. Not justice of any kind, in my book.