You do realize that violent crime is way down since 1980? Here's the FBI statistics. Liberals, though I'm not one myself, understand that very well. From 1980 to present day we've had neoconservative Presidents and neoliberal Presidents. Crime is way down. It isn't a liberal or conservative thing. There are many reasons for this decrease, but one of the more interesting ones I've read is abortion. The rates starting really going down when most white males (the group that commits the most violent crimes) would have reached their early 20's, in the early 1990's, but since abortion had been legal since the early 70's, they never existed to reach that age and commit crimes. Interesting theory.
Here are the statistics since 1960: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm Johnson's "Great Society" program began in 1964. Crime almost tripled in the next 16 years. In the next 34 years it went down a bit from the tripled value. It's cost us, folks paying taxes, $21 trillion dollars for that result. It's worse now then when we started throwing money at the problem. Yes, it has gone down since 1980, but hardly way down.That's not progress. How much of that crime reduction since 1980 is due to the get tough on crime mindset during the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton years? Communities were sick and tired of crime and demanded that something be done. Now everyone is bitching that we locked to many people up and crime is spiking again because we're not locking people up for committing crimes.
I'm on my phone but white males don't commit most violent crimes. It depends on how you want to chop up what counts as a violent crime, which political stats always do, but even if you slice it in the most minority friendly way possible whites (probably due to being relatively wealthier) are at the least representative of a smaller percentage of violent crimes when correlated to demographics. But this issue isn't even about crime specifically. Housing projects. Racism is always the problem. Opportunity. Education fixes everything. People only turn to crime because of glass ceilings. Etc etc etc. Not that any of that is outright wrong, but the simplistic approach rarely ends up resolving anything. I totally believe in the abortions theory, but it has nothing to do with why people are dumping money into endless pits.
During that time period, our population went up about 100 million, and the total number of crimes went down 25%. I'm not sure how you call that 'hardly way down' - that is huge.
That may well be part of the reason. My contention, in refutation of your original one, is that crime has gone down, not up over the last 40 years. Having a 'safety net' is not the reason for the increase in overall crime. If we want to discuss the reasons for the crime rate dropping, I'm happy to do so. But that wasn't my original point, nor am I claiming that there aren't multiple reasons for the drop in crime, it's complicated. But helping people better their situation doesn't lead to more total crime, and that was my point. Edit: Kampf, the statistics show that overall whites commit more crimes. It may well be because they are a larger percentage of the population, but again, whites -as a group - commit the majority of crimes in America.
As I already repped VI, that's one of my favorite abortion fun facts. But, the version of the theory I know SHOCKINGLY doesn't place the blame on all of those would-be white men, but has more to do with providing an option for not placing an unnecessary burden on poor families by getting stuck having more kids they can't afford, or for families of any economic bracket to have a kid they don't want and therefore don't exactly treat well, since poverty and fucked up home situations are such big factors for crime. I've heard there's a chapter in Freakonomics about this if anyone's interest is piqued, but I haven't read it so I don't know what his version of the correlation is.
Uh...Blacks are 13% of the population. According to those statistics they commit over 50% of murders and about 65% of robbery. As a demographic they are way over represented for their population. Yes VI, whites do commit more crimes total in some categories, however, until recently "White" included pretty much everyone not black. So what we have left is 13% of the population committing violent crime at a rate that is hugely disproportionate to the population.
Have we bettered anyone's situation? "In 1960, some 5% of all births were to unmarried mothers. That number rose to 11% by 1970, and by 1990 it had jumped to 28%. By 2000, the share of births to unmarried mothers was 33%, and since 2008, it has remained at 41%." For minorities those rates are now up to 75%. Which leads to this: http://phys.org/news/2010-07-crime-linked-out-of-wedlock-births.html
Ok, what you said was: And they don't. Or they do. Depending on what you want to count as a violent crime, but it's not in any kind of proportion to their demographics. And as Audrey just posted, the abortion statistics actually aren't about white males. They're involved, but it's thought to have had a larger impact on minority communities. The theory is fairly complex, but the general premise is that impoverished mothers who can't afford children were not having them, hence a higher impact on poorer, minority communities. It also deals with the difficulties of mothers having children out of wedlock, which are much more frequent among minorities. That's still a major problem today. Raising a kid on your own, when you don't have a degree, while having to pay all the bills, having to restrain some hormonal spiking adolescent boy in a gang neighborhood, and getting to rely on haphazard government aid that is inconsistent at best is fucking hard. A child born out of wedlock does not necessarily mean the father is absent, but you can bet he is a lot more often than to children born in marriage. I actually think this is the biggest issue preventing minority upward mobility today, and not racism. Racism definitely factors in, but it is being addressed and we've seen great strides. What the fuck is anybody doing about fatherless children? Oh right, Republican: "Retarded rant about black family values." Liberal: "That's racist."
I'm not sure that I understand the connection people make between kids being born out of wedlock/single parent households and crime. If it's that same economics issue, then yes I get it, but it never seems to be talked about like that, and if so it's a weird misdirected labeling of a different problem. To me, that argument has always read as much more of a hand-wringing over the erosion of Traditional Family Values for Traditional Family Values' sake than to have an actual impact. And as someone who does not mourn Traditional Family Values whatsoever (and was raised in a single parent household) I just don't get it. It also tends to come off as pretty sexist towards men to me. (Of course I've heard spins on it that are sexist towards women as well.) I also don't know what the solution to that theory is supposed to be. (Especially since it's very rarely from the same type of people who support what, to me, are clear solutions to help what they care about surrounding this issue like sex ed, birth control and abortion access, and, yes, welfare programs that would benefit those single parent households.) Typically the people I hear talking about it are essentially getting at shaming people for having sex before marriage, when it comes down to it, whether or not they're saying that out loud. But I also hear people talking about it who I have more faith are basing it on something that's not nonsense? I've just never actually heard what that is. I'd also like to point out that, well, white people can be poor. Whenever I've been talking about economic effects of these types of things with both this topic and the abortion theory I mean it (and I'm pretty sure these theories are intended to mean it) as an issue of class rather than race.I'd also also like to point out that white people can have single parent households and white men can walk out on their families too. And again, the presumed ill effects of that seem to be much more linked to class than race. And if it does come down to an economics/class issue but it keeps getting talked about as a minority issue, that's the part that people take umbrage with (if I'm even thinking of the same things that have been alluded to a few times). Issues with class and issues with race are pretty linked, though, so I see where things get muddled. It's just....interesting, I guess, to see where the blame ultimately gets placed depending on who's talking.
It's class and racism too, I wasn't try to say that it wasn't. While I don't give a shit about traditional family values either, I do think that in *most* situations children benefit from having two parents rather than just one. There's a difference between a single parent who has a good job, lives in a good neighborhood, can afford quality day care/health care/etc and a single mom working for minimum wage and living in the projects. As for as it being sexist towards men, I mean, I don't know, but fathers who barely acknowledge their kids' existence are pretty shitty people in my opinion. A lot of people got mad at Don Lemon when he brought this issue up, but he wasn't talking out of his ass. The stats aren't coming from some political bias. Spoiler: born out of wedlock by race Racial or ethnic group Percent of births considered "non-marital" Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders 17 percent Non-Hispanic whites 29 percent Hispanics 53 percent American Indian and Native Alaskans 66 percent Non-Hispanic blacks 73 percent The criticism leveled at him was a pretty good example of what I think is the problem with the current mentality: What lacks intellectual rigor is dismissing this right the fuck out of hand because it doesn't fit with your narrative. The left doesn't seem willing to address any issues involving poverty or minorities unless the totality of the blame is placed on factors outside their control. It's a really misguided approach, and the fact that other factors exist doesn't make it any less disingenuous. Poverty plays a role in children born out of wedlock, but it really doesn't seem to account for the whole explanation of those statistics. If there is a solution to this problem it would probably start with real, comprehensive sex education, and not funding inner city schools so poorly. The disparity between public schools in wealthy areas of a city vs poor is shocking at times. There's a lot of other ways, but it probably at least starts with admitting that 73% of children born out of wedlock isn't a good thing. I really disagree that children with impoverished single parents aren't at a greater disadvantage than those with two parents. Less income, boys might completely lack a male role model, the struggles between balancing work and time with your children becomes much more difficult. It's a situation that's inevitably going to lead to problems in my mind. That's not to say single mothers in that situation can't make it work, but it certainly is harder. Edit: The way Republicans rant about this issue ranges from thinly veiled racism to pushing some archaic religious agenda, and really isn't helping.
She, like 32 million other people were hacked. I don't think she posted those things but I don't give a shit either way. I'm so tired of this special-ed sideshow.
This is too funny. 3% of Americans wait until marriage to have sex. But the majority of Americans (or at least half) still think abstinence is effective. I guess it's technically correct that in the unusual scenario someone both wants to pursue abstinence and succeeds it would reduce things like teen pregnancy, but the level of hypocrisy is astounding.
Kids just use loopholes when it comes to abstinence. Two, to be precise. Because on prom night they can cap their romance with "Let's remain pure, so put it in my ass. Then I'll blow you." Because as past results show, kids are far more likely to engage in those particular activities when they sign abstinence pledges.
I wonder how many bright eyed young Bernie supports have just become completely disillusioned with politics? Between the claims that the Dems rigged the elections and Bernie's platform of anti-establishment, anti Wall St...only for him to turn around and support the literal embodiment of an Establishment, Wall St candidate...man that's got to suck. I honestly feel bad for the good Bernie supporters. The assholes that rioted, blocked traffic, and attempted to suppress free speech though...fuck them, they got what they deserved.