Bill Bennett demostrates he is a racist

9/29/05 6:00:17 PM

Make no mistake yourself

The statement was a correct statement.

You may dislike the speaker and suspect the motives of the speaker for picking that example. But when you say that people cannot say the truth because you don't like to hear it, that's called censorship.

Regards,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,188

9/29/05 6:11:30 PM

Mandatory enforced abortions will lead to lower crime rates?

Post #227,193

by jb4

9/29/05 6:20:40 PM

Uh, Ben...Read me in my posts, dude!

Please show me in that post where I 1) said Bennett should not have said that, or 2) where I call for any kind of censorship.

You been taking BeeP pills?

If Bennett wants to expouse racist, sexist, classist, neoconist or just plain butt-stupid (and note: that an inclusive 'or') sentiments publicly, he is perfectly within hist rights to do that (at least, today he is...). And I'm perfectly within my rights to call him a racist, sexist, classist, neoconist, or just plain butt-stupid individual for doing so (and that is also an inclusive 'or").

And, BTW, what makes Bennett's statement "truth"?

Post #227,209

9/29/05 8:37:40 PM

You claim the statement is racist. I claim it is factual.

I am attributing to you one motive. I am attributing to you the common belief that one should not be allowed to say racist things.

Whether or not you really meant that, I cannot tell. But I can tell you that there are many who do use "racist" as a code-word in exactly that fashion.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,280

by jb4

9/30/05 9:47:02 AM

C'mon Ben...you know me better 'n that!

I've never advocated anything resembling prior restraing to speech. Lord knows, we have enought racists running around allegedly "running" things; how would you propose to muzzle them? (If you did, the entire Republican leadership, and all their talk-radio proxies would never be allowed to speak again...<sarcasm>Hmmmm...maybe you've got something there...<\\sarcasm>

The only PC I support is the one sitting on my desk. Is that clear enought for you?

Post #227,317

9/30/05 12:04:00 PM

Thank you for the clarification.

For the record, I hadn't known you better than that, else I would have reacted differently.

Sorry,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,271

by boxley

9/30/05 9:24:22 AM

want to explain why stating a fact makes you racist?

"the reason people don't buy conspiracy theories is that they think conspiracy means everyone is on the same program. Thats not how it works. Everybody has a different program. They just all want the same guy dead. Socrates was a gadfly, but I bet he took time out to screw somebodies wife" Gus Vitelli

Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 49 years. meep
questions, help? [link|mailto:pappas@catholic.org|email pappas at catholic.org]

Post #227,281

by jb4

9/30/05 9:49:14 AM

Fact? What fact?

Show me how "abort[ing] every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down" is a fact. Go ahead...I'll wait...

Post #227,287

by boxley

9/30/05 10:05:48 AM

Of course crime rate would go down

removing a percentage of any population will cause the crime rate to go down at the preportionate population level. Substitute latin asian white or amerindian for black and the statement is still valid.
thanx,
bill

Post #227,312

9/30/05 11:31:38 AM

What do you mean by rate?

Crime is usually measured in units like "murders/rapes/burlary/etc per 100,000". Which would not change just by changing the population.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,367

by boxley

9/30/05 2:59:29 PM

youts cause crime,removing youts lessens crime

Post #227,382

9/30/05 4:02:06 PM

True!

My understanding is that NYC's falling crime statistics in the 90s was largely due to shifting demographics. Fewer teenagers and young adults per capita => less crime.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,390

by Ashton

9/30/05 4:34:14 PM

Now we're Getting somewhere!

ZPG was a stealth acronym -

If we eliminate all new homo-sap births
(since few animals are ever convicted of crime, except in certain backwoods churches)
- a seeming oxymoron can be:

A Crime-free world community! ~60ish years later.

Post #227,198

by tuberculosis

9/29/05 6:55:54 PM

Other correct statement - legalizing drugs will act similar

so?

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect"   --Mark Twain

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."   --Albert Einstein

"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses."   --George W. Bush

Post #227,288

9/30/05 10:06:28 AM

Can we see even a hand-waving proof of that?

bcnu,
Mikem

It would seem, therefore, that the three human impulses embodied in religion are fear, conceit, and hatred. The purpose of religion, one might say, is to give an air of respectibility to these passions. -- Bertrand Russell

Post #227,313

9/30/05 11:40:25 AM

I didn't think so.

Post #227,319

9/30/05 12:06:51 PM

Gimme time to type!!!

When I am browsing forums, going to deal with my son, and continuing to browse forums, it takes me time to post things! Just because I don't respond to you first doesn't mean that I won't respond!

For the record, at the time that you posted this jibe, I was typing up your requested response.

Regards,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,356

9/30/05 2:02:22 PM

Okay.

Haven't read your hand-wave yet, but I saw you'd replied upstream and didn't look at active users.

Post #227,380

9/30/05 4:00:42 PM

Look at timestamps!!!

You replied about 10 minutes after my upstream reply. If I'm doing something else, I could easily get interrupted and be gone for 3 hours in the middle of going through a forum.

If I haven't got to you in a day or so, THEN complain. Anything less than that and you're being an idiot or worse. In case you didn't know, I actually have a life, and responding to everything immediately is not my top priority.

Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,738

10/3/05 12:10:17 PM

Touchy, aren't ya?

Don't know about your "life", but if that's all it takes to set you off, you must be under tremendous stress.

Post #227,316

9/30/05 12:02:52 PM

Sure

Nationally blacks are imprisoned at a higher rate than any other ethic group, in 1997 they averaged 9.6 times the rate that whites did. While bias in our criminal system has to be responsible for some of that, it is certainly not responsible for all of it. Of course there are mitigating circumstances like poverty, social stress, etc. But the fact remains that nobody can honestly look at the numbers and deny that blacks proportionately commit more crime than other ethic groups.

Aborting all black babies would remove that subset of our population. If you remove a subset of the population that commits more than the average amount of crime, the average will go down. ie The crime rate will fall.

For further anecdotal support, compare Canada and the USA. I know that historically Seattle and Vancouver were very similar cities. But Vancouver was far safer. (I don't know how this changed with Chinese immigration. I suspect that the discrepancy remained, but some of the historical similarities are obviously gone.) In a famous study in the 80s it was found that when you looked at just the white population in Vancouver and Seattle, they had very similar homocide rates. The safety discrepancy was almost entirely explainable from the fact that Seattle has, which Vancouver does not, a significant black population with a high crime rate.

In short, the USA without its black sub population would be a safer place than with its black sub population. That does not justify killing all blacks, nor does it mean that all blacks are prone to being criminals, nor does it mean any number of other statements that people are likely to misinterpret into there.

The same could be said for many other groups. For instance one could legitimately argue the same for aborting all teenage moms, all hispanics, all people on welfare, all people with a felon for a parent, and so on.

To add further context, remember that Bill Bennett was talking about a book named Freakonomics which came up with statistical evidence that legalized abortion has lowered the crime rate. Which would be easily explained if disadvantaged moms preferentially seek abortion. But if you are truly pro-life, then justifying abortion this way seems like a sick joke - you are justifying a great crime to reduce petty crime.

In short, the argument that it is good to have legal abortion because you abort some fetuses who might otherwise become criminals can also be used to support forced abortions. The fact that we, as a society, find the latter argument repugnant mirrors how repugnant many find the former repugnant.

Cheers,
Ben

PS Another interesting mirror of Bill Bennett's argument is the debate over whether it is OK to abort fetuses who will be disabled, for instance who have Down's Syndrome.

PPS I support legalized abortion, but not because of this particular argument for it.

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,335

by pwhysall

9/30/05 12:53:35 PM

I dunno

If you removed the blacks, then you'd remove the black criminals. I'll buy that.

What I don't buy is that that void of criminality would remain unfilled, so the effect may be to transform black criminality into some other criminality, with no net gain in safety or reduction in crime percentages.

Post #227,341

9/30/05 1:14:08 PM

That one is admittedly harder to prove

Certainly there are some economic drives towards crime. For instance black markets create economic incentives for gangs, which creates criminal activity of various kinds. (See the War on Drugs. See previously Prohibition.)

However a lot of crime is less organized and is more the result of desperate people leading desperate lives. I don't see there being a compensatory effect saying that if you get rid of people who commit crime now you'll inevitably produce lots more. And having a permanent underclass who knows full well that the color of their skin means that they'll never really get a fair shake in life is a big source of desperate people.

If you want statistical evidence that crime is reduced by keeping people who are at risk of becoming criminal from being born, then I'll have to point at the same book that Bennett was criticizing. Freakonomics demonstrated that reductions in crime rates were correlated with legalized abortion previously. It further demonstrated that in neighbouring states which legalized abortion at different times, the one that saw it legalized first saw crime rates start to fall first, which indicates that legalized abortion was a cause of the improvement, and not a coincidence.

That suggests to me that aborting people really can reduce the crime rate. Of course, as I've noted multiple times, the end does not justify the means.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,349

by drewk

9/30/05 1:39:18 PM

Wouldn't last

Suppose a permanent underclass is responsible for a disproportioniate amount of crime, and that it's because they know they're in a permanent underclass. Even if you abort all of them, within two generations someone else will have to be the permanent underclass. There's always a permanent underclass. Prominent physical differences just make it easier to pick one.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,374

9/30/05 3:51:19 PM

Then show me Canada's permanent underclass

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,377

by drewk

9/30/05 3:54:42 PM

I don't know Canadian society that well

But I've heard they don't have a great record with their indegenous population.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,383

9/30/05 4:05:37 PM

They don't but...

the indigenous population as a fraction of the overall population is nowhere near blacks as a fraction of the USA. Their corresponding impact on Canadian crime statistics is likewise far less than the impact of blacks on US crime statistics. See, for instance, the comparison between Vancouver and Seattle that I was just talking about.

In short I do not see the existence of a large, permanent underclass to be a necessary feature of Western capitalistic democracy. If you disagree, then explain to me why Canada's demographics in this respect are so different than what you see in the USA.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,386

by drewk

9/30/05 4:21:08 PM

I'm not talking about capitalism, but about human nature

There's always an "us" and a "them". If there are classes in a society, the underclass will have some common characteristic that makes them easy to identify. Race is easy in a pluralistic society.

So the U.S. has enormous disparity between the haves and the have-nots, and enough different races to populate plenty of strata in between.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,397

by Ashton

9/30/05 5:17:51 PM

Confirmed! 'He who is not One Up is One Down'

The gospel according to (author of) [link|http://hattie-jacques.idoneos.com/| School for Scoundrels], starring Alistair Simm.

A recommended romp on the DVD - Anytime.

School for Scoundrels (1959-England)

Published: 01 November, 2002

marketplace, click here... \tOur price: $33.95
Buy one from zShops for: $29.95
Sales rank: 12745 \t
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He who is not one up is one down! This movie, 5-up!

"... the moment when Adam bit into that apple. At which moment, the first loser was born. Yes, the pattern was set. The world was divided not into male and female, that's a mere superficial division of minor importance. No, there is another division, another dichotomy more basic, more profound. At that fateful moment, the world was divided into winners and losers, top men and underdogs. In a word, the one up and the one down." --from Professor Potter's lecture at the College of Lifemanship, Yeovil.

Or How To Win Without Actually Cheating. That's the subtitle of School For Scoundrels, this brilliant piece of British comedy from 1960, a title my father saw long ago and which I got him for a Christmas present, with a screenplay by Peter Ustinov no less adapted from three Stephen Potter novels.

Poor Henry Palfrey! Clearly, he's constantly in a one-down position to the whole world. In a flashback, we see how despite being an executive in his late uncle's firm, he's dominated by his chief clerk Gloatbridge, who treats him like a non-entity. He literally bumps into the girl of his dreams, April Smith, a stunning but sweet, clean girl who's a brunette version of Betty Grable. However, a rascally, gap-toothed, smooth-talking acquaintance, Raymond Delawney, impresses April with his savoir-faire in wines and food, and even his snazzy Bellini sports car. Palfrey ends up getting a lemon and horribly losing a tennis match, where Delawney replies with a plummy "hard cheese!" every time he misses a point, causing him to lose face in front of April.

He thus enrolls in Professor Potter's classes on lifemanship. What is lifemanship? It's "the science of being one up on your opponent at all times. It's the act of making him feel that somewhere, somehow, he's becoming less than you, less desirable, less worthy, less blessed." After graduating in classes of gamesmanship, onemanship, businessmanship, and that most important one, woo-manship, he gets back at those who caused him to lose face, and how! Next time I find somebody's who a life of the party, I'll use Potter's technique in deflating him/her. If Dingle, the gangly student in the class where that technique was demonstrated is familiar, that's Jeremy Lloyd, who would have a bit part jumping up and down in a club in A Hard Day's Night and the co-writer of Are You Being Served? in the 70's, and Allo Allo in the 80's.

There are some misogynistic references on the "woo-manship" part, where Potter advises Henry to use a blase attitude to April in one scene. "Leave her alone and she'll come back home wagging her tail." Ouch, but good ones, Prof!

Ian Carmichael (Henry) would later be known to American audiences watching PBS's Mystery as Lord Peter Wimsey in the Dorothy Sayers series. Terry-Thomas (Delawney) has another one of his comedic supporting roles, and it's incredible to see how he's suave when with poise, to a point where his frustration causes him to lose his temper. But hands down, veteran Alistair Sim as the impish Potter steals the show with his characteristic expressive eyes, toothy grin, and droll wit. Janette Scott shines as April, showing she could handle adult roles as well as child roles (James Stewart's super-intelligent daughter in No Highway In The Sky). Six years later, she'd have singer Mel Torme as her second of three husbands.

Being someone constantly in a one-down position to the world, taking Potter's class would've been better than all those years I wasted in college. If I could do it all over, I'd take those classes and be one-up on everyone. However, Potter leaves the audience with a final warning: "once sincerity rears its ugly head, lifemanship is powerless." Me sincere? From now on, never! This movie is clearly one-up-up-up-up-up!

Are *You* ....?.... Bluish?

Post #227,409

9/30/05 6:30:49 PM

Slavery also used to be defended as inevitable...

due to human nature. For some reason, you don't see so many people using that defence any more, do you?

Whenever I hear a claim that something is inevitable "because of human nature" I always pass it through a BS filter that checks whether the speaker is just saying this because they don't have a real argument and can't imagine things being different than they are. This BS filter is rejecting your argument right now. In part because I lived somewhere where your description fit a lot less than it does in the USA.

It is not obvious to me that the underclass must be easily identifiable. It is not obvious to me that race is always going to be the flashpoint. In fact my suspicion is that, in due course of time, increased mobility will result in our all becoming a fairly homogenous mixture of races.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,433

by drewk

9/30/05 9:25:07 PM

Where did you see me defending it?

Humans are a social animal. They like to be part of a group. For the concept of "group" to have meaning, there has to be the concept of "other". Any disagreement so far?

I'd suggest that humans are also lazy. This means they'll take the easiest available way to define "other". In the U.S., that's currently race.

It is not obvious to me that race is always going to be the flashpoint. In fact my suspicion is that, in due course of time, increased mobility will result in our all becoming a fairly homogenous mixture of races.

And when that happens, race won't be the easiest way to identify the "other". Like Bulworth [link|http://www.thecontext.com/docs/2933.html|said], "We've got to keep fucking each other till we're all the same color."

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,443

9/30/05 10:01:55 PM

"defended" might be the wrong word

Though I really meant "defended the existence of", not "defended the practice of".

That is, this used to be used about slavery in the form, "Sure, slavery might be a terrible thing for slaves. But it is inevitable that some races are more capable than others, and the more capable ones will subject the less to their will." This doesn't say that slavery is right, just that it is inevitable (and hence trying to get rid of it is useless).

You are arguing that there will always be an easily identifiable underclass, and in a pluralistic society the underclass will tend to be defined by race. I am saying that I consider the arguments to be similar in form, and I disagree with the conclusion of both.

About your reasoning, there are several gaps.

First of all it is quite possible to define the group to which we belong as "all humans" or "all mammals" or some other inclusive category where the "other" is relatively unimportant.

Secondly the definition of "us" and "them" does not necessarily lead to defining "them" as intrinsically horrible - consider sports teams for instance. Sure, a Yankees fan might tease a Red Sox fan, but you aren't going to find many Yankees fans who think that Red Sox fans are awful people because they root for the wrong team.

Third, the existence of an easily identifiable and identified ethnic underclass does not necessarily lead to that group being depressed into a long-lived underclass situation. For instance in US history the Irish, Italians, Greeks, and many other ethnic groups were once clearly disadvantaged, but then as groups worked their way out of it. (Only to turn on later waves of immigration...)

Blacks in the USA are in an unusual situation. They are disadvantaged and remain that way, for generation after generation. Why? My biggest guess as to why is that many blacks feel that they are owed because of a long history of things that have been done to them. And my second biggest guess is that many blacks have no hope that things will improve.

When you focus on grievances past - no matter how justified your outrage may be - you don't go about building a better life in the present. And when you don't have hope, you again don't take steps that would let you have a better life in the present. These are twin millstones around any individual or ethnic group that suffers from them.

But those are both just my guesses. I don't really know why blacks stay poorly off while other ethnic groups whose objective circumstances start off similar manage to improve their lot.

There is some interesting research on this that I saw, which I can't find at the moment. The research found that in a number of countries a sharp distinction can be drawn between minorities whose situation stays the same from generation to generation, and those whose lot improves. When you see both in the same population, the ones who stay poorly off tend to be ones who either didn't choose to be there (eg blacks transported here by slave traders) or ones who didn't choose to be part of the dominant society (eg displaced indigenous people). The ones who do well are immigrants who chose to immigrate.

What I found interesting about the research is that when in country A you have 2 ethnic groups, one of which does fine and the other of which is perennially disadvantaged, if members of both emmigrate to country B, then in country B, both do equally well! Apparently changing external expectations about what you can and cannot do can break dynamics of persistent failure.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,446

by Ashton

9/30/05 11:05:15 PM

I may have noticed another aspect

(of many such discussions.)

All these ruminations appear to converge eventually upon ~ What does it mean to be human? (and a perhaps expected corollary: where Social Darwinists mean to focus upon any detail as would fragment any such unifying idea - felt as anathema.)

No, I won't attempt answer, either - but I've noticed a theme within many P.K. Dick stories, whatever the main action-plot:

As: Blade Runner / Do Androids Dream ...
I thought it was Boffo that the protagonist runs off with a 'replicant'! - begging all sorts of questions whether say, 'ersatz memories' can produce a continuity of character / sense of Self? - indistinguisable-enough from the usual genesis.

And it is not much of a stretch to compare that plot with MLK's dream of, "little black and white boys/girls holding hands", some.. day.. For the concretized amongst us -- a replicant would be a less formidable hand-holding partner than a ___ [fill in despised ethnicity of a time/place].

In the story: the replicant was a more human(e) partner than - the city-full of "humans" being fled! May we suppose that Dick called that, a minor-QED of sorts?

(We Don't 'Know' what 'Makes Us Human' or, since prose is Never really enough) -

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot

or maybe these two:

We know too much, and are convinced of too little. Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

It wasn't just 'communism' all enigma-wrapped in conundrum paper.

Post #227,447

by drewk

9/30/05 11:08:59 PM

Lots of disagreements

This doesn't say that slavery is right, just that it is inevitable (and hence trying to get rid of it is useless).

No. I think it's fair to say most of us believe death is inevitable. That's not at all the same as saying we shouldn't try to get rid of it.

You are arguing that there will always be an easily identifiable underclass, and in a pluralistic society the underclass will tend to be defined by race.

No. I'm saying that humans tend to draw distinctions between "us" and "them". I'm also saying that in a society with large disparity among classes -- such as ours today -- there will tend to be one most-disadvantaged group. Finally I'm saying that in these circumstances, obvious racial differences become an easy way to define who gets to play "most-disadvantaged" this generation.

First of all it is quite possible to define the group to which we belong as "all humans" or "all mammals" or some other inclusive category where the "other" is relatively unimportant.

Quite possible, and in my opinion totally contrary to the way social dynamics really work.

Secondly the definition of "us" and "them" does not necessarily lead to defining "them" as intrinsically horrible - consider sports teams for instance. Sure, a Yankees fan might tease a Red Sox fan, but you aren't going to find many Yankees fans who think that Red Sox fans are awful people because they root for the wrong team.

You're not much of a sports fan, are you? Go to Philadelphia some time when the Eagles are playing the Steelers, and wear a Steelers jersey to the game. Oh, make sure your insurance is up-to-date.

Third, the existence of an easily identifiable and identified ethnic underclass does not necessarily lead to that group being depressed into a long-lived underclass situation. For instance in US history the Irish, Italians, Greeks, and many other ethnic groups were once clearly disadvantaged, but then as groups worked their way out of it. (Only to turn on later waves of immigration...)

No. Turning on later waves of immigrants was precisely how they worked their way out of it.

My biggest guess as to why is that many blacks feel that they are owed because of a long history of things that have been done to them. And my second biggest guess is that many blacks have no hope that things will improve.

While my gut feeling is that both these factors really do contribute, without some data to back it up this is uncomfortably close to saying, "It's all their own fault."

What I found interesting about the research is that when in country A you have 2 ethnic groups, one of which does fine and the other of which is perennially disadvantaged, if members of both emmigrate to country B, then in country B, both do equally well! Apparently changing external expectations about what you can and cannot do can break dynamics of persistent failure.

I'd like to see the specifics. I suspect any two ethnic groups from most countries would be seen in the U.S. as the same. i.e.: Arabs, Persians, Sikhs and frequently Indians are all commonly lumped together in the U.S.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,451

9/30/05 11:33:40 PM

On that last bit...

Remember that Star Trek episode, [link|http://www.starfleetlibrary.com/tos/tos3/let_that_be_your_last_battlefield.htm|Let that be your last battlefield]? The one with Bele and Lokai?

Well, being able to distinguish differences between ethnic groups is something that we don't seem to be very good at. (At least I'm not.) It's sort of funny because the human brain is so very good at recognizing faces...

We have a CNA who's worked for us for nearly a couple of years. She's originally from Ethiopia. Let's call her Missy. For a while we had some additional temporary aids helping out. They were generally originally from Mali or Ghana. Their skills varied. Once Missy was telling us about some difficulty she had with one of the other aids and said under her breath, "Oh, those Africans!" :-/

I think you're right that most Americans (and most people?) would lump broadly similar looking strangers together in their minds. I think all of this helps to demonstrate the truism that discrimination must be taught. That is, kids quickly develop the concepts of Me, Family, and Others. Others gets modified over time (friends, acquaintences, enemies, etc.) and I think it's these modifications that leads to us having knee-jerk reactions to people of certain groups. There's nothing innate about us that makes us fearful of people who look "different" - it's a cultural thing.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,457

by drewk

10/1/05 12:51:31 AM

I don't know about that

I suspect the suspicion of "other" is instinctive. It's just who gets classified as "other" that's taught.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,499

10/1/05 12:02:24 PM

You might have a point - see "stranger anxiety"

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,477

by boxley

10/1/05 9:47:19 AM

ethiopian comment, they are racially distinct

she was discussing their racial background not geographic :-)
thanx,
bill

Post #227,500

10/1/05 12:18:21 PM

We do have several disagreements

First of all I'll grant that I am not a sports fan. It may well be that sports fans are even stupider than I had thought.

I disagree on how ethnic groups worked their way up. It wasn't by turning on others, it was by getting a leg up in work and education so that they became better off. Turning on others seems to me to be a side-effect, not a cause, of their improved circumstances.

And yeah, what I said is awfully close to saying that it's their fault. Which it isn't of course. But I am saying that I believe that there are specific dynamics within the black community that contribute to the persistence of their problems.

Before disagreeing, let's compare blacks and Chinese. Both started in the USA as desperately poor groups, very racially distinct, who were strongly disliked by mainstream society. Both are still racially distinct and there is plenty of racism directed at both. But the Chinese are economically doing a lot better, and are the focus of less crime, than blacks. Why?

I don't really know the full answer. But my personal guess is that differences in attitude within the ethnic group are a big contributer.

Finally, I can't find the study, so I can't give details. But my recollection is that you're right - after emmigration the fighting ethnic groups wound up in a society that couldn't tell the difference between them. (Though they continued to dislike each other...)

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,476

by boxley

10/1/05 9:44:12 AM

go to the nearest reservation....

Post #227,498

10/1/05 12:00:12 PM

Granted, but in numbers and societal impact...

they aren't nearly as big an issue as blacks are in the USA.

Note that I'm leaving out economic impact. The economic impact of the majority ignoring their property rights is insanely large, particularly in British Columbia. But that is a topic for another time.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,345

9/30/05 1:31:19 PM

Wait a minute...

In short, the argument that it is good to have legal abortion because you abort some fetuses who might otherwise become criminals can also be used to support forced abortions. The fact that we, as a society, find the latter argument repugnant mirrors how repugnant many find the former repugnant.

AFAIK, nobody (not even the authors of Freakonomics) are arguing that it's good to have legal abortion because it reduced crime rates.

The discussion of abortion and crime is in the chapter [link|http://www.freakonomics.com/ch4.php|Where Have All the Criminals Gone?] (excerpts). They present evidence that it's not increased law enforcement, or tougher sentences, or a stronger economy and lower unemployment, or whatever else that is commonly cited as the reason. Rather, it's greatly correlated with the changes after Roe v. Wade. In short, it's not a tract that advocates abortion as a way to reduce crime. It presents evidence that some of the commonly held explanations for the drop in crime rates don't hold up.

It may be a fine distinction, but I think it's important. To let abortion opponents (like Bennett) twist the results into an argument (for even hypothetical) forced abortion (in an attempt to thereby discredit legal voluntary abortion) strikes me as a travesty.

I still think it's incorrect to stretch evidence from a time of legal voluntary abortion to one of mandatory abortion and claim that the proposition obviously holds.

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,351

by drewk

9/30/05 1:41:12 PM

Right, he disproved the argument they didn't make

And he didn't even do it well.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,357

9/30/05 2:09:34 PM

Man, you took me literally.

That really is first rate hand-waving. Drewk points out the obvious flaw in your reasoning (the supposition that "if we could only get rid of the underclass..."). The problem is, of course, that you cannot. It is a part of our socio-economic system. In order for capitalism to work well, there must always be a class of "forever to have nots." Consequently, even if you did kill every member of the underclass, a new one would develop. Which, in turn, would lead to rising crime rates.

Post #227,361

by imric

9/30/05 2:21:05 PM

"Forever to have nots?"

This is not NECESSARY to capitalism. Have nots, yes. Postulating capitalism forever, forever there must be some who have not, relatively speaking. This population need NOT be the same individuals.

You imply that capitalism must have 'have nots' that can never escape; this is NOT necessary to capitalism.

This does not logically follow, though this is one of the areas where we should clean up our implementation of capitalism.

Should you insist that it IS necessary to capitalism, I will insist on logical proof, NOT mere hand-waving on your own part... :-)

[link|http://www.runningworks.com|

]

Imric's Tips for Living

Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.

Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.

Post #227,375

9/30/05 3:52:23 PM

Let me be a little more clear.

If we agree that for capitalism to "work well" it must mature, then (I think) clearly an underclass will develop. And the longer capitalism is allowed to live, the more entrenched that underclass becomes. Up to the point where there is no escape, in fact.

Post #227,385

by imric

9/30/05 4:17:41 PM

I don't see it

Any more than I see the need for communist societies to be dictatorships.

I believe that our society, based in capitalism can be improved. I do NOT see any need for an 'entrenched' underclass in capitalist society. For some to have more, some must have less, in a society of finite resources. I do NOT think this even implies an underclass. Now, I'm not saying that we don't HAVE an underclass in our (flawed) implementation of capitalism; we do. I'm saying that capitalism does not imply underclass, and lack of an underclass is not mutually exclusive with capitalism.

Socio-economic movement in our country is impaired, yes. It doesn't have to be that way, though.

[link|http://www.runningworks.com|

]

Imric's Tips for Living

Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.

Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.

Post #227,737

10/3/05 12:05:37 PM

If it doesn't have to be that way, can you ...

give an example of a pure Capitalist state (iow, one without significant socialist influence) in which a permanent underclass does not exist?

Post #227,739

by drewk

10/3/05 12:11:28 PM

Sure

Right after you show me a pure communist state without a permanent underclass.

Oh wait, there is not pure communist state. Just as there is no pure capitalist state.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,740

by imric

10/3/05 12:12:51 PM

Nope!

Of course, that says absolutely nothing.

Unless, of course, you are going to say that because something isn't, and hasn't been, that means it cannot be. In which case I'll just laugh, and laugh...

[link|http://www.runningworks.com|

]

Imric's Tips for Living

Paranoia Is a Survival Trait
Pessimists are never disappointed - but sometimes, if they are very lucky, they can be pleasantly surprised...
Even though everyone is out to get you, it doesn't matter unless you let them win.

Nothing is as simple as it seems in the beginning,
As hopeless as it seems in the middle,
Or as finished as it seems in the end.

Post #227,478

by boxley

10/1/05 9:50:58 AM

entrenched underclasses are good for business

the cops, social workers, prison workers would all have to find real jobs if there was not a designated underclass. What would america's crime statistics and prison population be if all non violent drug and alcohol convictions were removed.
thanx,
bill

Post #227,481

10/1/05 9:57:14 AM

Henry Ford would argue with you.

Post #227,363

by drewk

9/30/05 2:29:28 PM

That's not *Ben's* reasoning

I'm sure he can defend himself, but Ben never said he agreed with that line of reasoning. He's just laying out the argument that Bennett was aluding to. The whole issue, without getting into the specifics that keep derailing this, is: Statistics sometimes point to facts that we wish weren't true. If we base policy decisions solely on a pragmatic analysis of these statistics, we end up doing things that are simply unacceptable.

Bennett used a clumsy analogy to try to make this point. The specific analogy may have had some racist assumptions built in. It also controlled for the wrong factor, rendering the analogy invalid in any case. And it was in service of discriditing a policy that the majority of the population supports.

For his argument to work, he would first have to convince that majority that their position was as morally unacceptable than the straw man he set up. His whole chain or reasoning has more assumptions than the rapture.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,373

9/30/05 3:49:39 PM

You should read him in his posts.

The statement was a correct statement.

You may dislike the speaker and suspect the motives of the speaker for picking that example. But when you say that people cannot say the truth because you don't like to hear it, that's called censorship.

[link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=227184|http://z.iwethey.org...?contentid=227184]

The statement he was defending as a "correct, true" statement was this:

But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

Now, I know it's impossible that coming to the conclusion that aborting every black pregnancy would result in a lowered crime rate involved much in the way of reason, but I'm not the one who said the statement was a "correct, true" statement. If, as you say, Ben's reasoning is different, why did he claim the statement was true and correct?

Post #227,376

by drewk

9/30/05 3:52:59 PM

9/30/05 5:13:10 PM

Because it is

To the extent that any prediction based on statistics can be called "true", that statement is true.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Edited by drewk Sept. 30, 2005, 05:13:10 PM EDT

Expand All History

Post #227,378

9/30/05 3:58:55 PM

Speaking of handwaving...

you are engaged in a lot more than I am.

I gave a concrete argument which pointed at the paltry statistics that can be gathered on a topic such as this which nobody wants to be honest about. You've given me an introduction to a communist rant.

What I said to Drew applies doubly to you. Find me Canada's economically significant permanent underclass (boxley, hold, I know the example that you're about to name but it simply doesn't have the same overall societal impact within Canada that blacks do in the USA). And if you find that there are structural differences between Canada and the USA, then reconcile that with your theory that those differences are intrinsic to capitalism.

Regards,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,389

9/30/05 4:29:39 PM

What about this...

[link|http://www.cjnews.com/pastissues/00/feb17-00/front5.htm|Toronto's Underclass].

With the co-operation of Toronto shelters and with the permission of his photographic subjects, Bareket accompanied the Anishnawbe Health Toronto and the Salvation Army Street Patrol on their 4 a.m. forays on the streets of Toronto. He visited numerous shelters and "hidden places" where the homeless live.

What he saw - and photographed - is disturbing: a couple living for two years in a four-by-five doorway alcove; a father and son squeegee team; people living in a public bathroom in a park; a 17-year-old girl living in a shelter after her boyfriend kicked her out for getting pregnant; drug and alcohol addicts; a mentally ill women lying in a pool of her own urine. In short, a glimpse of those occupying society's lowest rung.

Bareket acknowledges that many have made poor life choices, "but being a drug addict or an alcoholic should not be a reason for being on the street.

I don't want to argue over what "Canada's economically significant permanent underclass" means to you and me. The way I use those terms, I don't think that America has one either (e.g. permanent means unchanging to me).

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,406

9/30/05 6:19:00 PM

What does "permanent" mean to you?

In the USA, blacks have been an economically disadvantaged group since before the USA was a country. Furthermore, everyone that I know expects this to continue to be true in another 50 or hundred years. I call this permanent. I admit that in a thousand years the situation may resolve itself. But on the scale of human lifetimes, it is permanent.

Sure, individual blacks may succeed. But as a group?

Now I'll agree that Canada has desperate people. But they are a smaller a fraction of the population, and are generally not as desperate as disadvantaged people in the USA. Nor are is any large ethnic minority so obviously a significant fraction of them.

Why does this matter? Well here is a joke that I've heard from multiple black women:
Q: What is the difference between a black man and a large pizza?
A: The large pizza can feed a family of four.
Imagine being a black boy growing up with jokes like this being told by your mom. Would you feel motivated to even try? Many don't, and the cycle continues for another generation.

As far as I've seen, this does not happen on a large scale in Canada.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,420

9/30/05 7:32:01 PM

Briefly...

A "permanent underclass" to me means something like the [link|http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0306/feature1/|Untouchables in India]. A class status that is based soley on birth, that is enforced by the dominant culture and laws that existed for years or generations, and that is unchanging. While for generations that was the case for blacks in America, I do not believe that's the case now.

Sure, individual blacks may succeed. But as a group?

To my mind, blacks in America do not represent a permanent underclass. Mobility into the middle and upper economic classes is possible for black men and women in America. Is it more difficult for them than for whites? On average, yes.

Imagine being a black boy growing up with jokes like this being told by your mom. Would you feel motivated to even try? Many don't, and the cycle continues for another generation.

Women who are fond of jokes like that often have personal experiences that enhance the meaning. I would think, though, that if a young child were to hear his mother tell such a joke, he could take it as a counter example of how to behave differently to make his mother happy.

As far as I've seen, this does not happen on a large scale in Canada.

I'll not argue with your observations.

All I can say is that the difficulties faced by blacks in America are much less than they were about 5 decades ago. Poverty in America has much less to do with race than it did about 5 decades ago.

In college I read [link|http://www.pbs.org/fmc/interviews/wilson.htm|William Julius Wilson]'s [link|http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226901297/103-9187968-0443030?v=glance|The Declining Significance of Race]. Although I don't recall much of the details, I think he presents a strong case that the title is correct.

FWIW.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,426

9/30/05 8:16:30 PM

Then we differ on what permanently means

And I'm also less optimistic than you are about the social mobility that blacks enjoy today. I agree that it is more than they did 50 years ago. But I suspect that it slipped in the last decade, and I don't see it going away in the next century.

As for your theory about how kids would be affected by that joke, I agree that the women who told it to me had cause to be unhappy, but I also think that the projects are full of black kids whose reaction is the opposite of the one that you'd hope for.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,480

by boxley

10/1/05 9:56:43 AM

I would then argue for frenco canadians to hold the place

of blacks in canadian society. They have their bill cosby's and Terrel Owens but in parts of canada outside quebec and the north they are deemed equal but separate in how the other half treats them. I well remember one racist joke from Montreal, why does America have a black problem and we have a french problem, because America got first pick. Although when I was there I found dealing with the french folks a little more trustworthy than the anglo's
thanx,
bill

Post #227,496

10/1/05 11:58:05 AM

Not comparable

While I agree that there is English-French conflict, the French do not form a violent economic underclass in the same way that blacks do in the USA. For instance checking [link|http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/040728/d040728a.htm|http://www.statcan.c...0728/d040728a.htm], Quebec has a crime rate that is lower than the Canadian average. (Which is in turn lower than the US average.) While Quebec is not the most economically prosperous part of Canada, it is also not the worst.

In fact, going by ethnic jokes, the most disliked ethnic minority in Canada are the Newfies (people from Newfoundland). There are good historical reasons for that. But again, they don't form a violent economic underclass. (They do tend to be poor though - they were never that well off in the first place and the collapse of the fisheries was very hard on them.)

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,535

by boxley

10/1/05 6:43:13 PM

well ya were a west coaster, lets have jake weigh in on this

from my observations in the seventies the french in canada were regarded as inferior when it came to jobs, and government plums, Anglo's from Quebec treated them with a little more respect than others, particularly Ontario. As a poor subclass they certainly were not offered the opportunities that Anglos did, they had a strict glass ceiling except in areas where a vote got you a job. When they did start seeking their own destiny draconian measures were brought to bear. Compare the crime stats circa 1972 you will find that the bank robbery capitol of the world was Montreal. I am assuming much has changed now the anglo's have to take the french seriously.
thanx,
bill

Post #227,807

by jake123

10/3/05 3:50:18 PM

Things are very different now

The late sixties and the seventies marked the end of the Church's social dominance in Quebec, in part because the Quebecois realised that the Church was complicit in holding them down so it could be the big fish in the small pond, through its iron control over the educational system as well as politics via the pulpit.

Nowadays in Quebec (for the most part) it's the Anglos who are in the subservient position... outside of certain super-wealthy enclaves, but that doesn't count in Westmount because there the ethnicity and religion are green.

Simply put, there aren't very many jobs left in Quebec (not even in Montreal) where English is the only required language, but there are many where one has to speak French to get in the door, let alone to get ahead.

As the Quebecois have realised that they have become "maitres chez nous" their perspective on "les anglos et les ethniques" have relaxed quite a bit, enough so that when Parizeau made a crack about ethnics and the money vote on the night of the '95 referendum it ended his political career. The hardcore nationalists are seen as dead enders by most of the Quebecois now.

In the broader national context, well, it's easy to find bigots anywhere, and anti-French bigotry certainly exists, but not like it used to (eg- it used to be perfectly acceptable to crack Frog jokes here where I grew up, but now they are very rare), and I can certainly speak from personal experience when I tell you that there are people in Quebec who hate "les tetes-carrees" no matter what. Then of course there's the West, and in particular Alberta, but I'm a complete heathen to them as someone from Ontario who lives in Quebec... the worst of both worlds! "Nuke them eastern bastards, THEN let them freeze in the dark!" ;)

Nope, the real problem with racism here are First Nations, followed by black people. However, even there, the situation is improving, though I think I'll be dead before the problem is.

--\n-------------------------------------------------------------------\n* Jack Troughton                            jake at consultron.ca *\n* [link|http://consultron.ca|http://consultron.ca]                   [link|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca|irc://irc.ecomstation.ca] *\n* Kingston Ontario Canada               [link|news://news.consultron.ca|news://news.consultron.ca] *\n-------------------------------------------------------------------

Post #227,132

by Andrew Grygus

9/29/05 3:02:09 PM

Jessie Jackson is a racist too.

To quote (with possible minor rewording), "You're walking down the street at night and hear footsteps behind you. You look back and are relieved to see it's a white man".

It's that bad. Blacks have created for themselves a culture of criminality (which a lot of white kids are now attracted to) and are held prisoner to that sacred "black culture" all are forbidden by PC to criticize.

It has been noted that blacks successful in business and other fields include a very high percentage of immigrants who are not prisoners of the "culture". So long as blacks adhere to this "black culture" they will remain an unredeamable underclass.

I think about the stupidest example of PC I've ever encountered was (in East West Journal I think) about 25 years ago. A young woman of the bleeding heart sort said she was stopped in her car and a black man approached. Her immediate thought was to roll up the window and lock the door, but then she realized how prejudiced that was. She said she was so ashamed and thinks she has now conquered such "non PC" thought and it will never happen again. She did admit though, that he poked a revolver up her nose and took her purse and car, but that was irrelevant to her sin.

[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]

Post #227,133

by drewk

9/29/05 3:12:16 PM

Other cool PC issue

Just heard on the radio today. They're doing a eulogy for [link|http://www.jtbf.org/five_firsts/Motley_C.htm|Constance Baker Motley], the "first African-American woman appointed to the federal judiciary". And they said the same thing I just quoted in from the bio, "African-American".

Her parents are from the West Indies. In the Carribean. Nowhere close to Africa. She's either West-Indian-American, or she's black. You know, like she would have called herself.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,139

by tuberculosis

9/29/05 3:25:44 PM

Where do you suppose the people in the West Indies came from

Post #227,141

9/29/05 3:34:38 PM

China.

[link|http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/03/04/nexp04.xml|Telegraph.uk].

;-j

There were natives in the West Indies before the slave trade, of course...

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,140

by Andrew Grygus

9/29/05 3:31:38 PM

It's not Africa that's the problem . . .

. . since all those we call "blacks" came from Africa. Some say the problem started because those sold out as slaves were not exactly from the upper crust of African culture (they were called "rednecks"), but this so called "black culture" is pretty much American grown.

[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]

Post #227,142

by JayMehaffey

9/29/05 3:47:43 PM

Well, yes

To quote (with possible minor rewording), "You're walking down the street at night and hear footsteps behind you. You look back and are relieved to see it's a white man".

Well, yes, but Jackson was man enough to admit there is something seriously wrong when he has that reaction and that there is something wrong with a society that causes people to have that reaction.

It's that bad. Blacks have created for themselves a culture of criminality (which a lot of white kids are now attracted to) and are held prisoner to that sacred "black culture" all are forbidden by PC to criticize.

It has been noted that blacks successful in business and other fields include a very high percentage of immigrants who are not prisoners of the "culture". So long as blacks adhere to this "black culture" they will remain an unredeamable underclass.

I agree, up to a point. In my opinion the worst part of "black culture" is not the glorification of crime. White culture often treats the Mafia the same way, and while it is bad it is not fatal. The real problem is the part of the culture that says doing good in school and working hard to get ahead is giving in to White society.

The trick that nobody has figured out is what to do about it, or how to do it in a way that won't be hijacked by racists.

Jay

Post #227,147

by Ashton

9/29/05 4:13:22 PM

The question a racist always has to ask,

but so few possess the guts -

Had the Founding Puritans managed to enslave folks of more Caucasus-origin, re their pigmentation [??]

What excuse then - for the Slaveholder to Hate the slave?
(That conundrum expressed so pithily all the way back to Pliny the Younger (or maybe Older - I get so confused.))

(We *know* why the Slaveholder hates the Slave -- hell, they even got that one right in one o' them Cecil B. deMille Epics -- maybe in the mouth of a young Tony Curtis, IIRC)

Embarrassment is the precursor to feeling authentic Shame, in a normally-functioning group: but *this* is the USA; Shame has disappeared along with Integrity and other useful nouns. I no verbs

Post #227,154

by folkert

9/29/05 4:34:26 PM

They called them indefinitely indentured servants.

--
[link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg],
[link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ i_wethey
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Post #227,159

by bepatient

9/29/05 4:41:23 PM

Wrong. Proves hes a statistician

That is what the statistics say will happen.

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition}

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]

Post #227,169

9/29/05 4:54:54 PM

Are all statisticians racist, then?

Post #227,171

9/29/05 5:03:11 PM

A poor one though.

Going back to the original [link|http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006|link]:

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

In [link|http://www.freakonomics.com|Freakonomics] they present evidence to back up their belief that [link|http://www.freakonomics.com/ch4.php|legalized abortion helped reduce the crime rate]:

How, then, can we tell if the abortion-crime link is a case of causality rather than simply correlation?

One way to test the effect of abortion on crime would be to measure crime data in the five states where abortion was made legal before the Supreme Court extended abortion rights to the rest of the country.

In New York, California, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii, a woman had been able to obtain a legal abortion for at least two years before Roe v. Wade. And indeed, those early-legalizing states saw crime begin to fall earlier than the other forty-five states and the District of Columbia. Between 1988 and 1994, violent crime in the early legalizing states fell 13 percent compared to the other states; between 1994 and 1997, their murder rates fell 23 percent more than those of the other states.

But what if those early legalizers simply got lucky? What else might we look for in the data to establish an abortion-crime link? One factor to look for would be a correlation between each state's abortion rate and its crime rate. Sure enough, the states with the highest abortion rates in the 1970s experienced the greatest crime drops in the 1990s, while states with low abortion rates experienced smaller crime drops. (This correlation exists even when controlling for a variety of factors that influence crime: a state's level of incarceration, number of police, and its economic situation.) Since 1985, states with high abortion rates have experienced a roughly 30 percent drop in crime relative to low-abortion states. (New York City had high abortion rates and lay within an early-legalizing state, a pair of facts that further dampen the claim that innovative policing caused the crime drop.) Moreover, there was no link between a given state's abortion rate and its crime rate before the late 1980s-when the first cohort affected by legalized abortion was reaching its criminal prime-which is yet another indication that Roe v. Wade was indeed the event that tipped the crime scale.

There are even more correlations, positive and negative, that shore up the abortion-crime link.

On the other hand, Bennett makes a wild statement and provides no evidence to back it up. In fact, he criticizes Freakonomics yet he would have to use some of the same evidence to support his proposition if he was really interested in proving it. Levitt and Dubner don't know enough to make their argument, but Bennett knows.

In short, he knows the answer independent of the evidence. Good statisticians don't work the way Bennett did.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,173

by drewk

9/29/05 5:10:58 PM

You're right, but for the wrong reason

The statistics in the book clearly correlate increased abortion rates with decreased crime rates. Bennett combines this with the statistical fact that black youths are more likely to be convicted of crimes than white youths.

He then glosses over the fact that abortion rates represent a self-selecting sample based on complex social and economic factors, and that black vs white conviction rates may be partially due to a racially motivated justice system.

He was trying to make a perfectly valid point about the danger of relying too heavily on a statistical correlation, but then made the even larger mistake of improperly combining statistics from unrelated surveys.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
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Post #227,179

by Ashton

9/29/05 5:50:47 PM

Superbly stated reason why -

(With the exception of one Potiphar Breen, exempt because he's a Statistician, in a story.)

No One should be allowed to 'quote statistics' in an argument -
without a License
Acquired Only following:
5-years limited operation,
with a small Learner-plate velcro'ed to upper lip.

Post #227,187

9/29/05 6:10:03 PM

A slightly different view.

Too many of the right-to-lifers regard abortion as something forced upon women by ogres of various sorts. When it fact in the vast majority of cases it's a choice among several options that a woman faces. It's a decision made by a woman.

Bennett said:

But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.

That is not be supported by voluntary abortion statistics.

Why not?

1) It would have to be coerced abortions.
2) Many people would resist.
3) Some of the people who resist would do so violently.
4) Some of the people who resist would flee.
5) Some of the people who resist would go into hiding.
6) Some of the people who resist would have forged documents drawn up.

2-6 would result in an increase in crime (breaking the law). It's not at all clear that the crime rate would go down under such a (stupid) policy.

None of these things were relevant in the statistics used in Freakonomics.

Drew writes:
He was trying to make a perfectly valid point about the danger of relying too heavily on a statistical correlation, but then made the even larger mistake of improperly combining statistics from unrelated surveys.

I think you give him too much credit in this instance. I don't see any mention of crime statistics in his answer.

His comments seem to be very disjoint. (The discussion seemed to be about Social Security initially.) Sure, in social sciences it's impossible to control for everything and hard to know causality. But to then make the leap that because he doesn't believe the availability of legal abortion led to lower crime rates that he knows that enforced abortion would cause crime rates to drop is more than a slip up, IMO. It's letting himself be blinded by propaganda about the evils of abortion. (That abortion is always forced abortion.) It's not a matter of him presenting invalid evidence, he offers no evidence to support his position. (At least not in the excerpt that I've seen.)

My $0.02.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,199

by Ashton

9/29/05 6:58:00 PM

Both your views are 'right' IMO

but about different facets of the Stat Problem, IMO.

Drew's - as simply limns the places to seek defects in any such A --> B --> C 'deduction', especially when pulled out-of-ass from unrelated dbases, say.

Yours - because well, via Einstein at best, and for just one:

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Any extrapolation of numbers into the ephemeral world of intermixed personal-dreams? 'valuez', Repo- (and even less scurrilous..) propaganda slogans

- as are so frequently intermixed in the same sentence, let alone paragragh; especially in Murican polotico-speak -

guarantees bogosity.

ie Even if the stats are gotten-Right: there is no / can be no "Ergo We Should next do This: ___" - except in very elementary cases involving say, 'triage' of bloody masses of the marginally-alive?

(If a math problem cannot be expressed clearly in words, to the minimally math-ept: the author of the formula is apt not-to comprehend what he thought she was 'showing' - that's My mantra.)
cf. ~~ any Dick Feynman essay, as my evidence. 'Math' includes Stats.

Post #227,203

by drewk

9/29/05 7:45:25 PM

I think you're misunderstanding his point

The book shows an inverse corellation between abortion rates and crime rates. Some people have suggested this supports a specific policy.

He was saying that if you rely solely on the statistics, you could support a policy of genocide on the grounds that a certain race is more highly represented in crime statistics.

If you think a single statistical measure is enough to support a specific policy, he's right. That, I think, was his point.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,461

by bepatient

10/1/05 4:37:39 AM

Bingo

And,unfortunately for the originator of this thread, that leap of statistical logic doesn`t make him a racist.

If you push something hard enough, it will fall over. _{Fudd's First Law of Opposition}

[link|mailto:bepatient@aol.com|BePatient]

Post #227,547

by Ashton

10/1/05 7:50:30 PM

Yes, but be-Not a smug Boolean-head - I know it's Hard, here

As a public performer (especially) - or even as a mere paid-polemicist - his task was to follow the advice of that General,

Gentlemen, if an order can be misunderstood, it Will be misunderstood.

Ordinary, and/or intelligent people do not parse like a Ben Tilly et al. Muricans are as innumerate as they are lately prone to other forms of illiteracy, dumbth.
For premeditatedly inserting such a loaded blabword as race (gratuitously? may be a fair inference; or a darker one, equally) - he was doubly-charged with Making The Exact Point about blind application of Any statistical datumoid:

And He Failed To Do That.

~Everyone here - cleaned up his act *For Him*, ex-post-facto: begging the original inferences many may make: from his long history of (not so Cute) didactic Right-religio utterances. (Maybe he can read some of Shockley's r-r-rebuttals in a similar vain vein.)

Let him Eat flak with the yes, buts.. and, I didn't mean That! ...
Maybe his next scriptural pronouncement shall come with a tad less Swaggart-swagger?

[But I. Doubt. That.] too. Ocelot/spots/permanent

Post #227,548

by drewk

10/1/05 7:58:39 PM

From you, that's ironic

He was making a valid point about the inadequacy of simple solutions to complex problems. But he made the point at a level his average listeners -- and every talking head with an axe to grind -- didn't or wouldn't get. And you're slamming him for not realizing it would happen and dumbing it down appropriately.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,554

by Ashton

10/1/05 8:39:06 PM

Et tu captain clarity: Not. At. All.

NOT Dumbing-it-down. WTF did I remotely imply That?

Is that IT with you - terse/compressed OR dumbed-down == those are the Two Options?

What he omitted was:
*Introducing his example* with some of the explanatory prose ~ to that of most posts here. Not optional IMO, and that opinion based on as much experience as anyone here, I wot -- on the consequences of introducing a damaged, almost-unuseable, by previous misuse: Loaded Slogan-word, Without any Preamble.

Didn't I fucking say this just now? Or do you get Only naked symbolic expressions (and all the rest of English is just ... tooo messily imprecise to bother with?)

>> Most Folks Do Not Do Boolean Well <<
*This* is an aberrant group!
He WASN'T Talking to *US*

There, now - was that so hard?

Post #227,574

by drewk

10/2/05 7:57:51 AM

If by "slogan word" you meant "racism" ... he didn't say it

Ash, we went through a very long thread with several people going into great length to lay out what we knew he meant. We got it the first time, as proven by the fact that his later explanation was pretty much exactly what we'd been saying. And even after all that, someone here -- someone who had probably read all the re-statements -- still introduced that explanation as "spin".

Do you really think any amount of preface or explanation would have allowed him to make that point without it being taken the wrong way? In the U.S. today, you can't talk about racism without being branded a racist by someone. You can't explain, "This is what some people think," without being accused of thinking it by someone. If you understand it, you must believe it.

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]

Post #227,591

10/2/05 11:39:00 AM

[Raises hand]

You rang?

And even after all that, someone here -- someone who had probably read all the re-statements -- still introduced that explanation as "spin".

[link|http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=spin|Spin]:

7. To provide an interpretation of (a statement or event, for example), especially in a way meant to sway public opinion: \ufffda messenger who spins bogus research into a vile theology of hatred\ufffd (William A. Henry III).

I would categorize Bennett's later explanation as spin. Why?

1) We were commenting on a Jay's quote from a web site that included the whole quotation from Bennett. We can't be accused of taking the statement out of context.

2) What little context that was provided from the web site was:
a) The discussion stated with Social Security.
b) A caller introduced Freakonomics and abortion.
c) Bennett made a (IMO) false analogy about what Freakonomics said about the reasons for the drop in crime.
d) Bennett did not provide any evidence to support a proposition that he knows to be correct.

3) Bennett was criticized elsewhere (I doubt that he reads IWeThey ;-) and issued statement of elaboration to sway public opinion about what he said and what he meant. (Spin has a derogatory connotation, but it does not have to be nefarious.)

My criticism of Bennett's statements were based on my belief that 1) you can't know what would happen as the result of a coerced extreme policy by pointing to evidence from voluntary individual actions by people. 2) That it was supporting an attack on the authors of Freakonomics and abortion rights by building a strawman.

In the U.S. today, you can't talk about racism without being branded a racist by someone. You can't explain, "This is what some people think," without being accused of thinking it by someone. If you understand it, you must believe it.

Yes, you can talk about racism without being branded a racist. William Julius Wilson isn't branded a racist. He's been called naive and wrong and so forth, but not racist AFAICS.

No I don't think Bennett is racist. I think he made a stupid comment. Saying it was just a thought experiment using the Socratic method or that he was talking about the problems of race in America (when he was in (IMO) supporting a caller who was attacking abortion) doesn't make his statement any less stupid, IMO.

Hope that helps clear things up.

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,615

by Ashton

10/2/05 4:31:19 PM

Oohhh.. spinning the def'n of spin!

Just. Kidding. !!

Agree with your analysis, but reiterate:

1) Had he not left-in the context - those allusions you mention.

2) He might.. have (successfully) made the same statement, with the 'race' SYMBOL used, even - as a Forceful illustration of the consequences of the ignorant use of 'statistics' (a pandemic that; as long as I've been around the planet.) If he didn't Realize That :-0 -- then he's dumber than a neo-post.)

3) BUT NOT WITHOUT some primer! of the sort synthesized here.
Not a lot of words - just a few Clear Ones: a fucking Preamble.
As in,

say what you are going to do;
do it.
say what you (tried to do) did.

prologue
log
postlude

Post #227,589

by boxley

10/2/05 11:22:18 AM

Did you hear the entire thread of his show?

the statement stood for stats dont prove a dam thing and heres why
no more, no less.
Yes, he is a pedantic asshole with the compassion of a bored dilletant.
thanx,
bill

Post #227,216

by JayMehaffey

9/29/05 10:18:00 PM

I would suspect both

After reading what was written here, I went back to look at what Bennett said. I would hazard a guess that Bennett probably didn't mean for it to sound the way it did, it was just a horribly inappropriate argument. However, I would guess that there is some underlying racism there.

Statistically speaking, his argument would be better if he never brought up race at all. If you believe Freakonomics, just forcing the poorest 25% to have abortions would have a bigger impact on crime. But for some reason Bennett felt the need to bring race into it.

However, there is also an even worse way of reading it. First Bennett said that he thinks the book is wrong. And then he said he knows that aborting all black babies would reduce crime. Read that way, he is literally saying that blacks are more likely to be criminals, no matter their income or social status. While I doubt that is what Bennett had in mind, it would be one way of reading what he said.

Jay

Post #227,220

9/29/05 10:47:15 PM

No, he is not "literally" saying what you claim he is

He is literally saying that blacks are more likely than average people to become criminals. A glance at jail statistics underscores his point.

He is not saying that blacks are more likely than average people when you factor in incomes or social status to become criminals. In fact the point that he was trying to make was that one should not say that doing something is OK just because it would reduce crime. In this context the reason to use a shocking example is to underscore the point that the described course of action is not OK.

If this makes no sense to you, think about [link|http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html|A Modest Proposal] and read it again.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,223

by Ashton

9/29/05 11:04:17 PM

No argument with your qualified restatement, except -

*UNLESS* such a 'mind experiment' (the least loaded connotation one might assign?) IS expressed in terms very close to yours:

It indeed leaves open all those inferences - and any speaker who does not know this: is asking for the result he is apt to achieve. And a person with as many didactic remarks within his public record (and in a little book on ~ how You should live) - needs to be even more astute. After all - he lives for/within Public pronouncements.

Not everyone speaks as carefully as do you: like, maybe 94.7% don't?

Bennett is speaking from no vacuum; we bloody well Will take any speech from him - in context of previous speech, especially that which invites innuendo. And from his homilies (and how he does or does not practice what he feels he just must preach.)

[link|http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0306.green.html| Speaking of hypocrisy..] or maybe just the overhead of preaching (?)

Post #227,227

9/29/05 11:08:37 PM

You don't understand. Gambling is a Virtue. :-)

Post #227,398

by Ashton

9/30/05 5:20:01 PM

I know.. Guido 'told' me.

Post #227,436

by drewk

9/30/05 9:27:21 PM

Jesse weighs in on Bennett (new thread)

Created as new thread #227435 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=227435|Jesse weighs in on Bennett]

===

Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
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Post #227,449

9/30/05 11:12:53 PM

This thread reminds me of a classic PG essay (new thread)

Created as new thread #227448 titled [link|/forums/render/content/show?contentid=227448|This thread reminds me of a classic PG essay]

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,473

by andread

10/1/05 8:56:56 AM

Just an idiot not a racist

if forced to choose between the 2 I'd choose to be racist
but Bill has no choice

A

Play I Some Music w/ Papa Andy
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Post #227,479

10/1/05 9:55:53 AM

:-)

I don't think he's an idiot myself. He's very bright. But he's not open to evidence that he's wrong in some of his views.

I don't think he's racist either (at least not as I understand the term). But I do think that he has a blindness in his views on race and poverty. If he had said, "... crime would go down if we aborted all male children ..." his point would be just as valid (not that I agree that it is as valid as he does, for reasons already given) but would not have resulted in as much criticism.

He does not seem to be well suited for a live radio talk show. Such a person needs to be able to make a cogent point quickly. Perhaps he just needs more practice.

He has more [link|http://www.bennettmornings.com/agnosticchart?charttype=minichart&chartID=11&formatID=1&size=3&useMiniChartID=true&destinationpage=/pg/jsp/general/featured.jsp#0|spin] on his comments, after he had more time to refine them. He also went off on the deep end (in his comments on Hannity and Colmes - scroll down).

I'm sure his ratings and subscriptions have increased dramatically after this incident... :-/

Cheers,
Scott.

Post #227,495

10/1/05 11:42:42 AM

Spin?

What he said he meant was my initial impression of what he meant. Given that, I believe that I read his intention correctly up front, and he is now clarifying what he actually did mean.

That isn't spin in my books.

Cheers,
Ben

I have come to believe that idealism without discipline is a quick road to disaster, while discipline without idealism is pointless. -- Aaron Ward (my brother)

Post #227,497