Abortion and Crime

[Rouzbeh]

I recently finished a book called Freakonomics by Levitt. It was co written by an economist and a Times journalist. The book isn’t really an economics book, but more like a collection of stories making connections about social issues by use of statistics. It was very entertaining and the only chapter that I had to plough through was the one about the names, in case anyone’s read it.

There’s a very interesting section in this book about the reduction in crime in the 1990s in the US. It cites the legalization of abortion in the 70s and links it to the overall crime drop as the generation that would’ve been committing the crimes was no longer there. Certainly, if a mother is going to take the step towards abortion, she probably has good reason. I thought this was a very intricate link and probably caused “outrage” in the Christian community that prizes quantity over quality when it came out. There was also a little section about the murder rate according.

I’m curious as to what people may think. What the arguments are against, and what potential reinforcements there may be for it.

[Peter_Kropotkin]

The basic idea was that the mother would have an abortion and not have the 4th or 5th child, the unwanted one.
Any child who is unwanted is more likely to be not loved and lacking that love, the child is more likely to turn to gangs
or crime. Christians hate anything that forces them to think they might be wrong which is why they hate science, as
witness by the bush administration attacks on science. Give the pretty straight forward evidence of this phenomena,
the pro-life party is in favor of unloved children and the damage on society those unloved children cause.
Love the fetus hate the child seems to their motto.

Kropotkin

[Liteninbolt]

Love the fetus hate the child seems to their motto.

Jonathan Swift wrote about using babies for food during lean years. I guess both statements make as much sense.

[Mark090480]

I’m also in the process of reading that book. Eugenics for economic solution is noting new. Hilter just made it unfashionable, but soon no one will know who he is.

Primary schools could ditch traditional lessons in favour of teaching children how to use social networking sites such as Twitter, it emerged yesterday.

In the biggest education shake-up for 20 years, pupils would no longer have to learn about the Romans, Vikings, Tudors, Victorians or the Second World War.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article … culum.html

A councillor has been suspended from the Conservative Party after suggesting euthanasia as a way to cut the cost of caring for vulnerable children.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/engl … 317618.stm

Baroness Warnock: Dementia sufferers may have a ‘duty to die’
telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ … o-die.html

I think Huxley wrote, when we see waxed bodies in art galleries then human life has been degraded. Was he right?

Charles Galton Darwin’s - The Next Million Years (How to Kill Off Excess Population) (1953)
scribd.com/doc/236608/Darwin … ation-1953

” But there is also the possibility of an internal revolution. This would come about if means were discovered of deliberately altering human nature itself … here it must suffice to say that the prospects do not seem at all good. There is first the extreme difficulty of making such changes, and the probability that most of them would be for the worse, and secondly, if by chance a revolutionary improvement should arise, it seems all too likely that the rest of mankind would not tolerate the supermen and would destroy them before ever they had the time to multiply. It is mainly the belief that there will be no revolutionary change in human nature that emboldened me to write this essay.”

“Still for the sake of the distant future something can be attempted more profitable than has been usual hitherto. Attempts at improving the lot of mankind have all hitherto been directed toward improving his conditions, but not his nature, and as soon as the conditions lapse all is lost . The only hope is to use our knowledge of biology in such a way that all would not be lost with the lapse of the conditions. The principles of heredity offer an anchor which will permanently fix any gains that there may be in the quality of mankind.”

Despite being concerned about the over-population of the world he had four sons and one daughter.

Then peaking into history we see the poor houses in the U.K were really ways to kill off the poor.

I once saw an add for Eugenics in the USA on YouTube, made in the 20s or 30s. I can’t find it now.

[Mark090480]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5Tuu8JI2xU&feature=related[/youtube]

this is part three, worth watching all of it.

[Mark090480]

George Bernard Shaw Defends Hitler, Mass Murder, some stuff about Eugenics.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ&feature=related[/youtube]

[Rouzbeh]

Interesting videos. I think the title of “shaw defends hitler” is misleading as apparently he was anti-nazi and not anti jew. He was rather a “classist”. Anyway, there have been plenty of influential intelligent people who have said the wrong things, take Watson as a very recent case.

Apart from eugenics and mass culling/sterilization of the unfit, abortion’s link to crime is very interesting. There’s no actions forced on the mother, she decides to do it. The matter is why should society pay for the fact that the mother’s an irresponsible person? Why should someone potentially be harassed, intimidated, and even murdered by the product of someone else’s irresponsibility when the mother herself realizes that having a child at that point in her life would be unproductive? Case in point, there’s a 20 year old girl in my uni who has a child. She has a preference for “tough” guys and most of her time is spent at the uni while her family has disowned her. She struggles with finances, lives on a government loan, has little time to spend with her child and often lashes out at the child, especially when it needs constant attention and her work/exams do too. In hindsight, she now says she should’ve had an abortion. What kind of child is she bound to bring up?

[Mark090480]

Shaw was in favour of the Nazis but not ant-jew. He thought people should die based on need and not race. He was also a Fabian socialist. Most people don’t know, but there is not much difference between Socialists and Fascists. Karl Marx was the first to advocate holocaust, said in the film too. Not for the Jews but for the inferior types. Shaw is mentioned briefly in this film and his pro Nazi Stance. But maybe off topic. Putin tried to ban it.

video.google.com/videoplay?docid … viet+story

Abortions link to crime is just a slippery slope and does not address the fundamental issues. Why not just address why poor people commit crime? I guess they’re not all inferior. Why is it that the USA has the highest teenage pregnancy rate etc…?

[Rouzbeh]

But then it seems that you think “legalization of abortion was the cause of a reduction in crime” necessarily leads to eugenics and a brave new world. If the mother wants to get an abortion, she probably has good reason. That’s all there is to it. An external authority claiming to know the criteria under which a living self aware human being should be killed is nothing at all like preventing a cell clump’s growth.
If you’ve recently read the BBC, you’ll notice a springing of articles about population control. I think it’s fantastic that it’s finally being discussed. Malthus may’ve been proven wrong but it’s pretty silly to think that the earth has an infinite capacity to sustain human life. Not even considering the considerable reduction in the life standards of countries where populations have boomed out of control (i.e. India) and the drastic impact of lower crop yields (i.e. 80% increase in price of rice since last year). Stalin and Hitler may’ve had graphic methods of control, and for the wrong reasons, but keeping populations static by education and cultural change is ultimately an advantage for the people. This argument though, is still separate from the legalization of abortion.

[Mark090480]

I’m not against abortion at all, just not doing it for the sake of crime. People should do what is best for them.

There is more than enough food around, just look at the EU and USA dumping it and the money they pay to farmers to not grow food. Climate change is possibly bogus too, I’m not sure yet.

Time, 1974
Another Ice Age?
time.com/time/magazine/artic … -1,00.html

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved
telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu … roved.html

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm? … 4616db87e6

[Rouzbeh]

I’m a tenant on a yearlong contract. The house I’m in is privately rented but shares the doorway with a house that is still owned by the council. My flatmates and I have been repeatedly harassed and threatened by our neighbor’s 29 year old unemployed son for no apparent reason. After we went to the police, he came with his vicious looking dog and a hammer in hand threatening to hit me in the face if I called them again. I’m perfectly fine with abortions if it means I don’t have to regularly endure astronomical stress levels in my own house. Again, it is not a forced option, but the money that the government pays for the rent and the daily costs of individuals like this would’ve gone to more deserving people if this woman had been sensible enough not to be a lone parent from an early age living on benefits. What she may think is best for her is not what’s best for the rest of society.

Moving on. It seems pretty sensible that a reduction in forest areas coupled with high emissions output undergoing exponential increase for over 100 years should lead to a higher concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, ending in higher heat reflection back onto the earth’s surface, and therefore higher temperatures. To be honest, I take the word of the majority of academics and other professionals in engineering and science who agree that climate change is occurring over a minority who claim otherwise, on a site whose bias is emphasised by the titles of their experts: “first woman with phd in…the most preeminent scientist of the last 100 years [disagrees with global warming]” .
For that single telegraph article, there are dozens of BBC articles documenting the various aspects of climate change, from polar ice caps diminishing to reduced marine populations as water acidity increases due to CO2 absorption by oceans.
As for the 1974 article, science is not absolute, it changes continuously. Lobotomies were still being performed in the 60’s as legitimate medical operations! Anyways, I’m sure you know journalists have a duty to write eye catching titles, even if the content doesn’t wholly back up the claim and the research is not fully verified.

[Mark090480]

I agree that unemployed people, who have kids are more likely to grow up unemployed and social misfits. There is a more fundamental question about our society that causes it. Why not just address that? Couldn’t you substitute unemployed son for black guy? Aren’t they more likely to cause crime too?

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. – Noam Chomsky

I agree global warming could be true but there appears to be more dissent and it’s growing. Not everything is what it seems at least.

Climate change rhetoric spirals out of control
telegraph.co.uk/comment/colu … ntrol.html

[Rouzbeh]

@Mark090480

I agree that unemployed people, who have kids are more likely to grow up unemployed and social misfits. There is a more fundamental question about our society that causes it. Why not just address that? Couldn’t you substitute unemployed son for black guy? Aren’t they more likely to cause crime too?

If you take the liberal position on that matter, you’ll connect black crime with higher poverty levels in the black community, and so no it’d come back to the same thing. It’s been clear that I’m not advocating mass culling of segments of the human population, but that abortion in those segments where poverty and domestic issues have the highest prevalence appears to have a causative relation with a long term reduction in crime. It has nothing to do with drugs and immigrants. It’s a pretty rational thing not to want people in society who won’t think twice about taking a hammer to other peoples’ faces. And let’s face it, how many people like Chomsky continue to live in poverty stricken neighborhoods? What do these quotes mean when you fear walking home at night?

Another telegraph article! Just looking at the comments, you don’t need to have any previous bias as to the readership of the paper to guess who it’s written for (i.e. “Obama the communist”). I don’t know how much dissent is really “growing”, but any notable science and engineering book will attest to the truth of global warming. The only real disagreements are as to whether or not it’s caused by man. Again, just looking at the majority of people who don’t believe in global warming, we’re left to our own conclusions.

But, even assuming that global warming were false, we’re faced with the finite nature of fossil fuels and the low efficiency and subsequent pollution associated with conventional coal power plants. Global warming is an incentive to develop alternative energy sources.

[Mark090480]

If you take the liberal position on that matter,

On what matter? Anti-abortion is not liberal.

ou’ll connect black crime with higher poverty levels in the black community, and so no it’d come back to the same thing. It’s been clear that I’m not advocating mass culling of segments of the human population,

The black population of an average EU country and the UK I know is around 5%, no mass cull needed.

It’s a pretty rational thing not to want people in society who won’t think twice about taking a hammer to other peoples’ faces.

I have always agreed with that? What is wrong with my proposal, sort out the broken society? If I knew that I might agree with you.

And let’s face it, how many people like Chomsky continue to live in poverty stricken neighborhoods? What do these quotes mean when you fear walking home at night?

Who cares who said it, point is there is no need to fear. What you read in the paper is not real life, I guess that was his point.

Another telegraph article!

Are you saying it was false?

Again, just looking at the majority of people who don’t believe in global warming, we’re left to our own conclusions.

Most people use to think the earth was flat and that seemed like common sense too, no?

But, even assuming that global warming were false, we’re faced with the finite nature of fossil fuels and the low efficiency and subsequent pollution associated with conventional coal power plants. Global warming is an incentive to develop alternative energy sources.

Global warming seems more about control and taxes to me.

EU to propose €150bn climate tax on rich nations
irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre … king82.htm

Is the mail OK

Coming soon: the fridge that power chiefs can switch off to save energy
A domestic refrigerator that can be turned on and off by the electricity supplier without the homeowner being aware is to go on trial.
dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ … nergy.html

Welcome to Communist UK

[Rouzbeh]

If you take the liberal position on that matter, you’ll connect black crime with higher poverty levels in the black community, and so no it’d come back to the same thing. It’s been clear that I’m not advocating mass culling of segments of the human population,

@Mark090480

The black population of an average EU country and the UK I know is around 5%, no mass cull needed.

If you don’t separate my sentence, I was trying to say that crime among black people = crime among poorer people. The reason there’s high crime among black people is that they’re more vulnerable to poorer environments.

And let’s face it, how many people like Chomsky continue to live in poverty stricken neighborhoods? What do these quotes mean when you fear walking home at night?

Who cares who said it, point is there is no need to fear. What you read in the paper is not real life, I guess that was his point.

But there is. The whole point of that statement was to emphasise that I don’t feel safe in my own house. Rhetoric about fear of immigrants etc is really irrelevant when I have a real problem without needing to analyse it. The police approach is strictly reactive so unless he actually does something, I’m free to be intimidated without any repercussions.

Another telegraph article!

Are you saying it was false?

A journalist from a right wing paper choosing what to write about. The facts are not necessarily false but their selection leads to false conclusions (i.e.“immigrants commit crimes”; so do other people).

Again, just looking at the majority of people who don’t believe in global warming, we’re left to our own conclusions.

Most people used to think the earth was flat and that seemed like common sense too, no?

The point again was that it’s mostly uneducated and/or right wingers who don’t believe in global warming. As I’ve already pointed out, most engineering/scientific literature takes global warming as fact; with the only dispute ever being over whether or not it’s manmade.
[/quote]

But, even assuming that global warming were false, we’re faced with the finite nature of fossil fuels and the low efficiency and subsequent pollution associated with conventional coal power plants. Global warming is an incentive to develop alternative energy sources.

Global warming seems more about control and taxes to me.
EU to propose €150bn climate tax on rich nations
irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre … king82.htm

Is the mail OK

Coming soon: the fridge that power chiefs can switch off to save energy
A domestic refrigerator that can be turned on and off by the electricity supplier without the homeowner being aware is to go on trial.
dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ … nergy.html

Welcome to Communist UK

The control of energy expenditure is certainly the beginning of a communist nation. Especially knowing that the USSR, the biggest communist system in history, was known for its high waste of energy (i.e. lights being left on during the day). It’s a trial. I don’t think there’s a big conspiracy to control your life through your refrigerator.
As for the taxes, what methods other than economic incentives would you suggest to control emissions?
Force is unnecessary when behavior can be more easily controlled with incentives. Want to go into the City? No worries, just pay the very expensive daily tax and go ahead. Alternatively, you can force even/odd plate numbers which will cause more controversy without any benefits.

[Andrej]

Is the center point of this argument the matter if abortion is a crime, or the two -abortion and crime- on a separate level?

[Mark090480]

If you don’t separate my sentence, I was trying to say that crime among black people = crime among poorer people. The reason there’s high crime among black people is that they’re more vulnerable to poorer environments.

Well, isn’t that the very thing I’ve been trying to say all along? I don’t even know what the debate is anymore.

The whole point of that statement was to emphasise that I don’t feel safe in my own house.

Statistically, you’re safer now than 10 years ago. Difference now is that people are pumped full of fear, hence the quote seems true. I’m not saying people aren’t scared I’m saying they are, but is it justified?

A journalist from a right wing paper choosing what to write about. The facts are not necessarily false but their selection leads to false conclusions (i.e.“immigrants commit crimes”; so do other people).

All media outlets are bias, the Telegraph being one of them. I am just trying to analyse what I read, sure some is misleading “immigrants commit crimes” but I think that link was not. I read a variety of papers on the net and try to filter out what seems true.

The point again was that it’s mostly uneducated and/or right wingers who don’t believe in global warming. As I’ve already pointed out, most engineering/scientific literature takes global warming as fact; with the only dispute ever being over whether or not it’s manmade.

Those people in the links were neither uneducated or right wingers. Also google Al gore, he refuses to even debate this. I have said that most scientific literature promotes it as fact, like in the 1970s they thought the earth was cooling. We both know science changes, which is good. So why all this control when it’s not 100% and not 100% humans caused it. You don’t find that strange?

youtube.com/watch?v=vgB8LAwlH8w

as the link says this is political not scientific.

youtube.com/watch?v=xFE2t-d9 … re=related

for the most part the media gives only half a story. repeat something enough and people believe it.

I don’t think there’s a big conspiracy to control your life through your refrigerator

If the Soviet union would have done that we would have laughed, when we do it, its great. I don’t get it.

As for the taxes, what methods other than economic incentives would you suggest to control emissions?

As you have said were not even sure humans are doing this so why are we being taxed? A true scientist must point to the actual mechanism of cause-and-effect, not just the symptoms. I’m not saying global warming is false, I’m saying no one knows and it’s not hard fact.

[Mark090480]

A charity is calling for a nationwide campaign to protect the UK’s mental health after a survey suggested people were growing ever more anxious.

The poll of 2,000 adults for the Mental Health Foundation found 77% found the world more frightening than in 1999.

The charity described a “culture of fear” in which the media and politicians fuelled a sense of unease.

But one sociologist said the campaign risked becoming a “self-fulfilling prophecy” making people more anxious.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7988310.stm

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

@ Mark090480

In mankind there is a total fear of peace.
Peace is stasis. Stasis is death.

[Rouzbeh]

Andrej, abortion as a crime doesn’t happen enough to make a significant contribution to crime levels. Legalization of abortion led to a dramatic decrease in overall crime.

If you don’t separate my sentence, I was trying to say that crime among black people = crime among poorer people. The reason there’s high crime among black people is that they’re more vulnerable to poorer environments.

@Mark090480

Well, isn’t that the very thing I’ve been trying to say all along? I don’t even know what the debate is anymore.

You said:

@Mark090480

Why not just address that? Couldn’t you substitute unemployed son for black guy? Aren’t they more likely to cause crime too?

The response was to that statement; if I was suggesting killing people for economic reasons, which I didn’t, then a lot of black people would die but not because they’re black but because they’re poor. You were introducing a racial element to the argument which I considered to be irrelevant.

The whole point of that statement was to emphasise that I don’t feel safe in my own house.

@Mark090480

Statistically, you’re safer now than 10 years ago. Difference now is that people are pumped full of fear, hence the quote seems true. I’m not saying people aren’t scared I’m saying they are, but is it justified?

You’ve already forgotten that my neighbour threatened me with his dog and with a hammer pointed in my face asking me if I was going to call the police.

A journalist from a right wing paper choosing what to write about. The facts are not necessarily false but their selection leads to false conclusions (i.e.“immigrants commit crimes”; so do other people).

@Mark090480

All media outlets are bias, the Telegraph being one of them. I am just trying to analyse what I read, sure some is misleading “immigrants commit crimes” but I think that link was not. I read a variety of papers on the net and try to filter out what seems true.

But the telegraph…!
It was citing a few examples that would back up a claim that it wanted to make about warming being untrue. And it should be noted, just because they thought something was happening then to realize that some other phenomenon is in fact taking place, doesn’t make the newer observation just as incorrect. It is if anything going to be subjected to more study to avoid a repeat of those errors. In that way, science’s progress is like a tangent line, it’s not always spot on, but it tends to close in over time.

The point again was that it’s mostly uneducated and/or right wingers who don’t believe in global warming. As I’ve already pointed out, most engineering/scientific literature takes global warming as fact; with the only dispute ever being over whether or not it’s manmade.

@Mark090480

Those people in the links were neither uneducated or right wingers. Also google Al gore, he refuses to even debate this. I have said that most scientific literature promotes it as fact, like in the 1970s they thought the earth was cooling. We both know science changes, which is good. So why all this control when it’s not 100% and not 100% humans caused it. You don’t find that strange?
youtube.com/watch?v=vgB8LAwlH8w
as the link says this is political not scientific.
youtube.com/watch?v=xFE2t-d9 … re=related
for the most part the media gives only half a story. repeat something enough and people believe it.

What Al Gore as a politician does with his choice of politics is up to him. As above, science’s change is not in absolutes of wrongs and rights. It tends to close in. I don’t know what control you’re referring to when really the majority of scientists agree that it is taking place. Even the AP video link guy is quoted as saying that warming exists, with the political aspect being in reference to the media coverage and not his comments. The second link confirms my statement about the anti warming advocates being conservatives. I could give links to a range of media outlets detailing various aspects of global warming, but Google can do that without my help.

I don’t think there’s a big conspiracy to control your life through your refrigerator

@Mark090480

If the Soviet union would have done that we would have laughed, when we do it, its great. I don’t get it.

But the USSR was infamous for its high energy waste, so they wouldn’t.
And as stated, it’s a trial to see whether it works. Maybe if it’s adopted an opt-in service, it won’t be a government conspiracy.

As for the taxes, what methods other than economic incentives would you suggest to control emissions?

@Mark090480

As you have said were not even sure humans are doing this so why are we being taxed? A true scientist must point to the actual mechanism of cause-and-effect, not just the symptoms. I’m not saying global warming is false, I’m saying no one knows and it’s not hard fact.

It’s a natural phenomenon that’s taking place and our developed industries and the resulting high emissions output should end in higher heat radiation back onto the surface of the planet. It’s quite simple to show that temperature of a closed space can be mainteined using greenhouse gases. Doesn’t require any ingenuity for the experiment either. And under any of these carbon trading proposals, businesses bare the brunt of the tax unless you think it’s a right to drive a hummer in central london. Saying that it’s not “hard fact” is just a way to introduce doubt; it’s a global phenomenon, we don’t have a laboratory big enough to replicate the numerous variables that sustain our atmosphere; the majority of the scientific community agrees however that it is fact. Until evidence to the contrary that’s as compelling as the pro warming one is right now, it’s safe to trust the majority.