Racial disenfranchisement in Florida: "Whose Votes Don't Count?: Analysis of Spoiled Ballots in the 2000 Florida Election"
James Simpson
provides independent verification that Allan Lichtman's statistical analysis
for the Commission on Civil Rights on disenfranchisement rates for
minorities in Florida is right on the money. Philip A. Klinkner, Associate
Professor of Government at Hamilton College, provides a strong case that
minorities were disenfranchised at a much higher rate than Whites,
controlling for socioeconomic and education levels, and other critical
variables : http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/KlinknerAnalysis2.html
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/default.html
Some of the more salient conclusions include:
"In areas where the combined result of multiplying the percent of voters who
are black by the voter margin for Bush is positive, there is a positive
correlation with spoiled ballots. To put it another way, not only does being
black matter in the model, it also matters where you are black. Strongly
Republican areas that also had a sizeable proportion of blacks had a greater
incidence of spoiled ballots. While this finding is only suggestive, it is
exactly what one would expect to find in a situation where racial
disenfranchisement is likely to occur--black voters are a sizeable part of
the electorate, but lacked the political power to ensure that their ballots
are counted accurately and fairly.
In conclusion, this analysis offers two important findings:
1. There is no evidence that higher rates of spoiled ballots resulted from
such individual factors as education and literacy. Instead, the factors
influencing spoiled ballots were systemic. Thus, rather than speaking of
individuals who spoiled their ballots, we should speak of individuals who
were placed in situations in which it was more likely that their ballots
would be spoiled. Furthermore, this finding indicates that any effort to
reduce the rate of spoiled ballots must focus on systemic
solutions--improved technology, more and better election workers, and
stronger efforts to investigate and prosecute any instances of corruption
and/or racial disenfranchisement.
2. Even after controlling for other factors, rates of ballot spoilage remain
higher in predominantly black areas than in other areas of Florida. As the
last model indicates, with all else being equal, for every 1-point increase
in the percentage of registered voters who are black, there was a .07
percentage point increase in spoiled ballots.
In addition, these rates were even higher where substantial numbers of
blacks were found in counties with large margins for George W. Bush. All of
this corresponds to and further reinforces the findings of the USCCR that
there is evidence of racial disenfranchisement in the 2000 election in
Florida. Consequently, it is important that federal authorities should
investigate this matter more thoroughly."
James Simpson
nutcase and author of "More Guns, Less Crime", to analyze Allan Lichtman's
statistical data and tried to claim Lott's analysis is more accurate than
Lichtman's. Dr. Klinkner analyzed Lott's analysis and found it fatally
flawed and failed to take into account critical variables:
"Adding Lott's variables to my model drops the adjusted r2 from .927 to
.922. In other words, adding in the variables that Lott claims have the most
explanatory power actually makes my model less, not more, powerful.
Furthermore, none of Lott's variables is statistically significant, and
their addition to the model causes only two of the original variables,
Op/P*BushMargin and Other*BushMargin, to fall out of significance. The
percent of registered voters who are black remains statistically significant
and the correlation coefficient remains largely the same as in my earlier
model.
In conclusion, Lott's findings do not hold up under scrutiny. Not only do
they under-explain the variance in the rate of spoiled ballots, but when his
variables are added to a more sophisticated model, they lack statistical
significance. As a result, nothing in Lott's analysis detracts from the
finding of the USCCR majority report or the analysis that I've offered
here." http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/KlinknerAnalysis2.html
Mary Rosh
you actually look at what Lott did. See:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=276276
I think that you will find that it is Lott who provides a much more
complete analysis of the problem. The goal of statistics isn't to
maximize the adjusted r2. There has to be some theory behind the
variables that are employed. In any case, Lott's work is the only one
that uses a panel (i.e., cross-sectional, time-series) data set which
allows you to account for differences across counties in a much more
thorough way. Lott's work has been praised by more than a few Nobel
prize winners, so I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<npu67.1177$O54.52...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com>...
Mary Rosh
that Klinkner can't even come close to getting is first critique
correct. If you read the text and look at the appendix of Lott's
paper you will see that his simple graphs are broken down by whether
there is a change in voting machines. Klinkner claims that Lott
doesn't account for any factors in that first simple analysis.
At least show that you have read Lott's work, before you go and parrot
what others have said.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=276276
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<npu67.1177$O54.52...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com>...
King Pineapple
news:23fa92fe.0107...@posting.google.com...
>
> At least show that you have read Lott's work, before you go and parrot
> what others have said.
Simpson IS a parrot.
Dave Hitt
>The research report below is very thorough and technically complex,
Save time by viewing the Readers Digest Condensed and Illustrated
Version: http://www.davehitt.com/temp/seal.html
---
"I did not have sex with that woman."
- Bill Clinton, after having sex with Monica approximately fourteen times.
"It was not my intent to perpetuate this"
- Steve Krulick, after starting fourteen new, off-topic threads on gun control in
alt.culture.ny.upstate
"it IS frustrating to want to discuss issues only to have the issues ignored for ad hominem attacks."
- Steve Krulick, after posting fourteen new, off-topic gun-control threads in alt.culture.ny.upstate
all containing ad hominem attacks; ten of them starting with name calling at the second *word* of the message.
James Simpson
> that Klinkner can't even come close to getting is first critique
> correct. If you read the text and look at the appendix of Lott's
> paper you will see that his simple graphs are broken down by whether
> there is a change in voting machines. Klinkner claims that Lott
> doesn't account for any factors in that first simple analysis.
I don't believe you have read Klinkner's analysis, because it's much more
thorough and takes into account more factors that Lott's. In addition, it
provides independent verification of Lichtman's statistical analysis for the
USCCR. In fact, Klinkner took into account all the factors Lott used, and
found that "adding Lott's variables to my model drops the adjusted r2 from
.927 to .922. In other words, adding in the variables that Lott claims have
the most explanatory power actually makes my model less, not more, powerful.
Furthermore, none of Lott's variables is statistically significant ... Not
only do they under-explain the variance in the rate of spoiled ballots, but
when his variables are added to a more sophisticated model, they lack
statistical
significance. As a result, nothing in Lott's analysis detracts from the
finding of the USCCR majority report or the analysis that I've offered
here."
Also, Why should we believe anything John Lott says? John Lott is a
FAR-Right extremist nutcase who wrote "More Guns, Less Crime", who "believes
that teachers should go to school armed, that putting minority police
officers on the beat causes murder rates to increase, that some crime is
good for society, that FAA safety inspectors are 'busybody bureaucrats,'
that dioxin and ozone depletion present no appreciable risk to humans or the
environment, and that there should be no regulation of smoking in
restaurants or on airplanes. Lott has a long and well-documented track
record of zealously advocating an extreme anti-consumer, anti-public safety
ideology. His view that arming the populace with concealed handguns will
reduce crime is just one more extreme view to be added to the list" (see
http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/wholott.htm)
Bottom line: John Lott is a nutcase and a partisan who has zero
credibility. That Thernstrom and Redenbaugh would enlist Lott, of all
people, in an effort to discredit the thoroughly researched report of the
commission, only shows how desperate the Repub's are to discredit the report
and prevent the truth from being revealed. Interestingly, on Washington
Journal on 6-8-01
(http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/hdrive/wj20010628.rm?start=1:07:39.0&en
d=2:02:11.4), thernstrom claimed she hadn't read Lott's book "More Guns,
Less Crime", which asserts that if more people owned guns there would be
less crime! John Lott is an extremist nutcase, end of story.
Also, why should we believe Thernstrom, when she has been caught lying about
the Civil Rights Commission's actions several times. She has stated that
Jeb Bush was "not allowed" to make an opening statement, when in fact (and I
know this because I bought videos of the commission's hearings from C-Span),
Jeb himself *elected* not to make an opening statement because could not
testify on 1-12-01, so he came a day early and had another commitment that
day also, so his time was short. It was Jeb's *choice* not to make an
opening statement, therefore, Thernstrom LIED in saying he was "not allowed"
to make an opening statement." In the commission's meeting on 3-9-01 (I
have that video also), it also came out that Thernstrom LIED to the press in
saying that the commission had "already written the report." When pressed
on this, since in fact the report had NOT been written, Thernstrom said
"what I meant was it was 'as though' the report had been written." Uh,
yeah, right.
The point here is, it is quite clear that Republicans will do *whatever it
takes*, including LYING and employing partisan nutcases like John Lott, to
discredit the commission's report. Mary Frances Berry got it right:
"Republicans are trying to throw sand in everybody's eyes so that what's in
the report -- its substance -- is forgotten or ignored." Sorry, but it
won't work, we won't forget and we won't ignore.
James
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/KlinknerAnalysis2.html
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/default.html
Mary Rosh
couldn't get his very first claim correct. Presuming the Klinkner
mentioned his most important point first, it is a pretty damaging
mistake and shows that he was more interested than political show than
in engaging in debate with people who have read both papers.
In any case, it is simply not true that Klinkner has accounted for all
the factors that Lott did. Take for example the very detailed data
that Lott presents in Table 6 that examines indepth the demographic
composition by gender, race, and age. But there are numerous other
examples. Lott's data in his earlier tables looks at the percent of
voters by race. Klinkner instead examines the percent of either
registered voters or only the percent of people in the general
population from the census. If you are examining whether non-voted
ballots are correlated with particular racial or ethnic groups who are
voting why not look at the share of those groups among people who
actually voted?
Lott also uses data from previous elections. Where does Klinker use
this data in his analysis? If Klinker has accounted for everything
Lott has done. where is this discussion?
By the way, Lott also accounts for the race of the county election
supervisor. Where does Klinkner account for that? Lott's main point
is that you are supposed to interact the party affiliation or race of
the supervisor with the percent of voters who are African-American.
Where is that variable in Klinkner's work?
Why don't you simply admit that you haven't actually read Lott's work
or otherwise admit that you make claims regardless of whether they are
true?
Finally, you haven't obviously read Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime.
If you had, you would know that the claims made by the Violence
Policy Center are false. His book responds to the particular claims
that the VPC is making about claims in his past work and he shows how
the organization selectedly quoted and changed the meaning of what he
said. What they did for the web site that you link to "ON LAW
ENFORCEMENT AND AFFIRMATIVE ACTION" is a bad joke. Lott was saying
the opposite of what they have him saying, but they don't put in the
entire quote. Are you willing to check? You can do so by
downloading the paper at:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=231100
Read the section on page 249 where he starts off saying "One point
should be mad every clear at this point." No one other than the
ideological groups like the VPC could misinterpret what he is saying.
He is saying clearly that it is the lower quality of all new police,
not the lower quality of African-American officers that is causing the
problem. The other VPC claims are just as false, but you would have
to read Lott's book to see that is the case.
What difference does it make whether Abigail Thernstrom has read
Lott's book? He has written several books and over 90 academic
articles. Given that you are the one who is making false charges, you
are the one who should have read his book. Possibly when you see how
the gun control groups who you believe so readily are such liars you
might rethink their other claims.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<dzD67.1245$iJ4.55...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com>...
James Simpson
news:xsz67.6632$Xn.7...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
That's ironic coming from you, PineLiar, considering that you parrot the
typical Republican line, while describing yourself as a "liberal". So, now
that it's clear you haven't killfiled me, how about responding to the
question: I am *still* waiting for you to
provide PROOF that the draft report of the US Civil Rights Commission on the
Florida election was "was leaked by the Dems". Remember, you didn't say the
report "may" have been leaked by Dems, you said, categorically, as though it
was proven fact, it "was leaked by the Dems". Provide the PROOF that Dem's
on the commission leaked the report, or admit it's you who is the parrot,
PineLiar.
James
James Simpson
news:fb8a2b3e.01072...@posting.google.com...
> I noticed that you didn't even respond to the point that Klinkner
> couldn't get his very first claim correct. Presuming the Klinkner
> mentioned his most important point first, it is a pretty damaging
> mistake and shows that he was more interested than political show than
> in engaging in debate with people who have read both papers.
You never specified what you meant by "the point that Klinkner couldn't get
his very first claim correct." Were you referring to this?:
"Lott shows that there is little if any relationship between the change in
percent of spoiled ballots between 1996 and the change in percent of voters
who are black between the same years. But Lott makes a critical error by
assuming that all other factors that might influence ballot spoilage
remained equal between 1996 and 2000."
> In any case, it is simply not true that Klinkner has accounted for all
> the factors that Lott did. Take for example the very detailed data
> that Lott presents in Table 6 that examines indepth the demographic
> composition by gender, race, and age. But there are numerous other
> examples. Lott's data in his earlier tables looks at the percent of
> voters by race. Klinkner instead examines the percent of either
> registered voters or only the percent of people in the general
> population from the census. If you are examining whether non-voted
> ballots are correlated with particular racial or ethnic groups who are
> voting why not look at the share of those groups among people who
> actually voted?
>
> Lott also uses data from previous elections. Where does Klinker use
> this data in his analysis? If Klinker has accounted for everything
> Lott has done. where is this discussion?
>
> By the way, Lott also accounts for the race of the county election
> supervisor. Where does Klinkner account for that? Lott's main point
> is that you are supposed to interact the party affiliation or race of
> the supervisor with the percent of voters who are African-American.
> Where is that variable in Klinkner's work?
Obviously you didn't read this section of Klinkner's report: "Furthermore,
I also entered several of Lott's variables, namely party of the county
election supervisor, percent Hispanic population, and county median income
into my earlier model and all came up as statistically insignificant."
Again, I do not believe you've read Klinkner's report. Did you even read
his data here:
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/Florida%20Data%202.pdf
OR analysis here:
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/KlinknerAnalysis2.html
Here are the variables Klinkner took into account in his analysis:
--Different types of voting systems
--Turnout
-- % of the votes cast in the county for Gore
--% Hispanic Registered Voters
--% Black Registered Voters
--Median Income
--Voters per Precinct
--Literacy levels
--Education levels
--Increase in Registration
--Increase in Voting
--county crime rates,
--% of elderly population,
--% of population under 25,
--party of the county election supervisor,
--% of population with less than a high school diploma,
--% of population with some college education,
--% of population in rural areas,
--% of population English-only speakers,
--county population density,
--% of blacks with less than 9th grade education,
--% of blacks with less than a high school diploma,
--% of blacks with some college education,
--increase in % of registered voters who are black from 1996 to 2000
It seems obvious that Klinkner took into more variables and has developed a
statistical model that is significantly more powerful than Lott's, as
evident in the greater r2 of .927 obtained by Klinkner, as compared to
Lott's r2 of .7859. I'm very tired now and will try to respond to the rest
of your post below tomorrow.
James
Mary Rosh
> "Mary Rosh" <Mary...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:fb8a2b3e.01072...@posting.google.com...
> > I noticed that you didn't even respond to the point that Klinkner
> > couldn't get his very first claim correct. Presuming the Klinkner
> > mentioned his most important point first, it is a pretty damaging
> > mistake and shows that he was more interested than political show than
> > in engaging in debate with people who have read both papers.
>
> You never specified what you meant by "the point that Klinkner couldn't get
> his very first claim correct." Were you referring to this?:
>
Klinkner's first claim was that "Lott begins his analysis by
suggesting that Lichtman's cross-sectional analysis is insufficient,
arguing that if African Americans were more likely to spoil their
ballots, then changes in spoiled ballots across time should closely
correlate with changes in the percentage of African Americans across
the same period of time. In a series of scatterplots, Lott shows that
there is little if any relationship between the change in percent of
spoiled ballots between 1996 and the change in percent of voters who
are black between the same years. But Lott makes a critical error by
assuming that all other factors that might influence ballot spoilage
remained equal between 1996 and 2000. This is extremely doubtful."
Do you agree with Klinkner that Lott assumed all other factors
remained equal in the two years? Lott's regressions looked at many
variables for the data from 1992, 1996, and 2000. Among them more
detailed demographic data than Klinkner examined (see for example,
Table 6) or changes in voting machines, income, poverty, etc.. Even
the very simple figures in the Appendix took account of the voting
machines used. How could Klinkner have missed something as obvious as
this and make it the first, and presumably most important, "error"
that he lists?
banjocat
> "King Pineapple" <saddl...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:xsz67.6632$Xn.7...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> > Mary Rosh <mary...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:23fa92fe.0107...@posting.google.com...
> > >
> > > At least show that you have read Lott's work, before you go and parrot
> > > what others have said.
> >
> > Simpson IS a parrot.
>
> That's ironic coming from you, PineLiar, considering that you parrot the
> typical Republican line, while describing yourself as a "liberal". So, now
> that it's clear you haven't killfiled me, how about responding to the
> question: I am *still* waiting for you to
> provide PROOF that the draft report of the US Civil Rights Commission on the
> Florida election was "was leaked by the Dems".
A pattern has emerged from Piney... As soon as someone holds him to
*his* self proclaimed standard regarding proving post, he makes up a
lame excuse to "killfile" them. Somehow he thinks that we will stop
exposing him as a hypocrite and liar.
Mary Rosh
You claimed originally that Klinkner had accounted for all the factors
that Lott had? Are you now backing away from that? You instead now
list out the variables that Klinkner used. You miss the points about
not using the rate that different groups actually voted versus
registered to vote, the information from previous elections, as well
as other points. Lott's point about the race or political affiliation
of the election supervisor was that it needed to be interacted with
the percent of voters who were African-American. Doing so creates a
new variable? Does Klinker do this? NO.
Possibly you don't understand statistics, which is fine. But the
issue that Lott was getting at wasn't that you couldn't find some
regression that proved what Klinkner wanted to prove, but how fragile
that result is. Klinker throws in many variables without any
theoretical discussion for why they are included in the way that they
are and does nothing to show how sensitive the results are. He does
not provide us with information on how many regressions that he ran so
that we can adjust the t-statistics. If you run a hundred regressions
to maximize the R2 and report only three specifications, you must
adjust the t-statistics for the fact that these three regressions were
not picked at random. Statistical levels of significance depend on
randomness. Again the point of regression analysis is not to maximize
the R2s. Klinkner doesn't deal with any of these issues. It is
essentially third or fourth rate statistics.
By the way, if you actually read Lott's work, you would find that
Klinkner can't even accurately report the R2's that Lott actually
finds (e.g., see Lott's Table 5), but in any case it is a side issue.
Klinkner doesn't even report whether his R2s are statistically
significantly different that those of Lott.
I am looking forward to you responding to these points and attempting
to defend you attacks on Lott and the third rate statistics produced
by Klinkner.
Tom Abbott
You mean you think the Republicans leaked it?
TA
James Simpson
news:vrqplt446f58hlrr2...@4ax.com...
I don't know who leaked it, and at this point no one does, there is no proof
on either side. Notice that Pineapple refuses to respond to the question.
My point was, Pineapple claimed, categorically, "Dem's on the commission
leaked the report". He didn't say Dem's "may" have leaked it. He said it
as though it was a proven fact Dem's "leaked the report". And in fact, I
found out he was simply paraphrasing a Bill Sammons article (without
providing the cite) from the Washington Times, an obviously conservatively
biased rag. Sammons made the same declaration that Dem's leaked the report,
even though this not a proven fact, he stated it as though it was fact.
Sammons also wrote "How Al Gore tried to Steal the Election". Gee, I wonder
if he's biased? In stating that Dem's leaked the report with absolutely NO
proof, Sammons has revealed himself to be a partisan hack with no sense of
journalistic ethics, furthering a political agenda rather than reporting the
news, and therefore not to be trusted to be fair and unbiased. Shockingly,
Sammons piece was not listed as an Op-Ed, but rather was in the "National"
pages of the Wash Times.
In another post (under thread "No Conclusive Evidence of
Disenfranchisement"), PineLiar states, once again, categorically, "This
report, whish she [Berry] has leaked 4 full days before it was supposed to
be released..." Notice, PineLiar states as though it's a proven fact, that
Mary Frances Berry leaked the report. Where is his proof of this? That's
right, PineLiar has none, but he doesn't let that stop him from spreading
propaganda.
Bottom line, there's a lot of propaganda flying around about the Civil
Rights Commission's report (guess it's making some people nervous?), and if
someone like PineLiar or Sammons is going to spout unfounded propaganda as
though it's proven fact, he should expect to be exposed for the liar he is.
PineLiar is constantly asking others for "PROOF", but always fails to
respond with his own *proof* ... probably because he has NO proof, but is in
fact a propaganda-spouting liar.
PineLiar and Sammons aren't the only Repub's spreading propaganda about this
report. Two of the commissioners, Thernstrom and Redenbaugh (appointed by
Republicans Hastert and Thurmond, respectively), have also been spouting
outright lies about the commission's actions, even going so far as to call
for Bush to fire Mary Frances Berry (and presumably appoint a Republican
chairperson):
Abigail Thernstrom: "The political appointees involved with this commission
should have resigned with the old administration. The Bush administration
should get them out."
Russell Redenbaugh (referring to Mary Frances Berry): "Her statements are
left-of-center, her political contributions are left-of-center. It's time
for President Bush to show some leadership and designate a new chair."
There would be an uproar from Repub's if a Democrat said that Thernstrom
should be fired for being "right-of-center". And rightly so, because that
amounts to no less than discrimination, to fire someone for their (alleged)
political beliefs. And yet this is exactly what Thernstrom and Redenbaugh
have done.
Finally, Abigail Thernstrom has been caught lying about the Civil Rights
Commission's actions several times. She stated that Jeb Bush was "not
allowed" to make an opening statement, when in fact (and I know this because
I bought videos of the commission's hearings from C-Span), Jeb himself
*elected* not to make an opening statement due to time constraints of his
schedule. It was Jeb's *choice* not to make an opening statement,
therefore, Thernstrom LIED in saying he was "not allowed" to make an opening
statement." In the commission's meeting on 3-9-01 (I have that video also),
it also came out that Thernstrom LIED to the press in saying that the
commission had "already written the report." When pressed on this, since in
fact the report had NOT been written, Thernstrom said "what I meant was it
was 'as though' the report had been written." Pretty weak cover there. So
Thernstrom was trashing the report to the press (which is not a very
collegial way of behaving toward fellow commissioners, is it?), three months
before the initial draft was released. I think the decent thing would have
been to talk out her differences during commission meetings, rather than
running to the press (I think that shows Thernstrom's bias right there).
Abigain Thernstrom had the temerity to say the report "lacked intellectual
integrity", and in the next breath admitted she "hadn't had time to read the
full report"?!?! The question is, why are Repub's so afraid of this report,
that they have been trying to discredit it since well before it's full
release?
James
James Simpson
lot of people, I research before posting, and I'll be researching this more.
I have to say though, that John Lott is obviously a partisan Far-Right
winger. Lott's credibility is seriously in doubt when he writes books like
"More Guns, Less Crime", and when he makes crazy statements like "the worst
thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash". Why should we believe
him, when he's got the extreme viewpoints? His views are not exactly
representative of the mainstream. It's obvious Thernstrom chose Lott
because she knew he, being a "conservative" like she, would make the
statistics agree with her position that there was no racially disparate
impact on the vote in Florida (well, beyond "voter error", that is. As
though the state made no mistakes and has no responsibility for the foul-ups
in the voting machinery).
The facts remain: There was a lack of interpreters (as required by law) for
Haitians and Hispanics, there were many more minorities who were denied the
right to vote due to DBT ChoicePoint's extremely inaccurate felon list
innocent, there were hundreds of Black students at Cook-Bethune College who
registered, but were told they weren't on the list when they tried to vote,
the missing ballot boxes in minority (coincidentally?) precincts, voters who
protested being denied the right to vote were NOT allowed to vote by
provisional ballot, thousands of other voters who registered but didn't show
up on the voting list, etc. etc. Even John Lott admitted minorities were
disenfranchised at a higher rate than Whites: "Mr. Schumer then wrung out
of Mr. Lott a defeated 'yeah' to the question of whether 'a greater
percentage of black and Hispanic people are turned away than, or don't get
to vote, than white people?'" (see
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/28/politics/28VOTE.html )
James
"Mary Rosh" <mary...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:23fa92fe.01072...@posting.google.com...
James Simpson
if Abigail Thernstrom truly wanted an objective, non-biased, non-partisan
analysis, she would have chosen a non-partisan statistician to analyze the
data. Instead, she chose John Lott, an far-right wing extremist who claims
that if more people carried concealed weapons the crime rate would drop, who
supports arming teachers, who has said "the worst thing people can expect
from dioxin is a bad rash". If Thernstrom truly wanted an objective
analysis, she would not have chosen John Lott; she would have chosen a
non-partisan statistician, with no far-out views (unlike Lott's extremist
ideas on guns and the environment). It would be the same as if the USCCR
had chosen left-winger Ted Kennedy to analyze their data! Get real,
Thernstrom and John Lott are partisans who are spinning the data to deny any
questioning of the legitimacy of Bush's (s)election. John Lott has simply
manipulated the data to make it seem that there was no racial disparity in
rates of disenfranchisement. This was apparent when Klinkner stated,
"Adding Lott's variables to my model drops the adjusted r2 from .927 to
.922. In other words, adding in the variables that Lott claims have the most
explanatory power actually makes my model less, not more, powerful.
why would adding Lott's lower the r2? Maybe because that was Lott's aim, a
pre-determined result contradicting Lichtman's (and now Kinkner's) findings,
to muddy the issue and call into question the legitimacy of the USCCR's
report.
Also, Lott provided his services free of charge, suggesting to me that he
was simply happy to have the chance to further his (and Thernstrom's)
right-wing political bias by trying to debunk the commission's report. That
seems very clear, I need no need statistics to see that. Why would Lott
offer his services for free, if he wasn't simply interested in furthering a
political agenda? Thernstrom's partisan bias has been quite obvious,
beginning only two months after the investigation began in January,
considering the way she began complaining to the press (about the commission
of which she is a member!) beginning only two months after the investigation
began in 1-01. With the extreme right-wing bias so evident in both
Thernstrom and Lott, and considering that Lott's data has now been
contradicted by two prominent experts in the field (Lichtman, Klinkner),
there's no reason to assume Thernstrom or Lott are in any way objective, or
that their data is to be trusted as genuine. Republicans have been trying
to spin that Lichtman is biased, but the fact is Lichtman hasn't been a
consultant to Gore for six years, and has in fact been a consultant to
Right-wingers like Giuliani and Atwater. Lichtman is a bipartisan
consultant, he's worked for both parties. Lott, on the other hand, is an
obvious partisan with some pretty kooky extremist ideas, like arming
teachers to prevent school violence. I think I believe Lichtman, Klinkner
and the Civil Rights Commission over partisan hacks like Thernstrom and
Lott.
As I said, It's obvious as hell that Repub's will do anything to try to
discredit the report, but it won't work, the truth is coming out. Now, if
only the House and Senate would pass a comprehensive voting reform bill
mandating uniform ballots and voting machinery for all states, as well as
increased funding for voter education and investigations of Voting Rights
Act violations as the commission has shown did occur in Florida. Remember,
it's not required to show "intent" to disenfranchise, the VRA only requires
that the if the conditions are such that minorities have their ballots go
uncounted at a higher rate than Whites, this qualifies as a violation of the
VRA. Clearly, this occurred in Florida, despite the denials of Republicans,
who would just as soon the system not change at all, since Republican
candidates are more likely to be elected if minorities are prevented from
having their votes counted, since minorities vote primarily for Democrats!
Duh. It's all so transparent, but Repub's will deny, and will probably
block any efforts to have mandates for states to institute uniform voting
procedures (probably arguing for "state's rights"). The fact is, if voting
procedures were uniform (ballots, voting machines), if translators and
foreign language ballots were always provided as required by the VRA, if
there were sufficient funds for voter education on making sure every vote is
counted, the result would be a huge increase in the number of votes counted
for the poor, the disabled, and minorities. And what would be the result of
that, considering that minorities vote primarily Democratic? More Democrats
would be elected. More Republicans would be lose, and they know it, and
that's why the system has not been fixed.
Republicans don't want all people, especially the poor and minorities, to
have their vote counted, because they know full well that minorities and the
poor vote mostly Democratic, since they know Repub's don't care about them.
That's really the bottom line of this whole debate. Republicans like the
system the way it is -- basically saying "those pesky minorities don't need
to have their votes counted, they won't vote for us anyway." BTW,
considering Klinkner's very thorough, detailed, and supported analysis, I
think it's pretty clear that your description of his study as "third rate
statistics" reveals your partisanship and willingness to twist the data to
further your own political beliefs. Bottom line is, John Lott is an
extremist and a partisan, who did his analysis for free (highly suspect),
and I and many others don't trust his analysis to be free of bias.
James
Mary Rosh
Yes, I think that Lott is a conservative, though I think that calling
him a "Far-Right winger" does nothing to advance the discussion and is
probably wrong. Unfortunately though, this was not my point in my
posting. I was responding to your use of the incorrect information
from the Violence Policy Center, information that you are continuing
to rely on for this post. Every claim that they made about Lott's
prior views that I was able to find involved a gross misrepresentation
of what he actually wrote. I did find the dixon quote that you list
below and Lott and another professor from Dartmouth were actually
citing a major academic study that examined the impact on health from
a major dixon spill in Italy.
Are you going to concede the points raised in my earlier e-mails that
Klinkner made easily shown major errors in describing what Lott did?
1) Is it true that Lott accounted for no other factors in analyzing
the effects across elections?
2) Did Klinker use all the variables that Lott used?
3) Did he accurately report the R2 values in Lott's study?
4) Did he really try to replicate the types of interaction variables
that Lott used?
This is besides the mistakes that Klinker made in basic statistics.
Mary Rosh
>
Again, I hope that you eventually respond to the factual issues and
the easily identified mistakes by Klinkner, but there is one other
response needed to your personal attacks on Lott. You attack Lott for
not accepting compensation, but isn't the normal attack that someone
got paid off to get a certain result? Lott was originally attacked in
is work on crime for being paid off by gun companies -- a charge by
gun control groups like Handgun Control (now the Brady Campaign) and
the Violence Policy Center which has been shown to be a lie. Now he
is being attacked because he isn't getting paid by Redenbaugh and
Thernstrom. By the way, I believe that there is a simple reason why
he wasn't paid by the commission. The Democratic majority provided no
money for research to the Republican minority. In any case, what
could Lott do to make you happy? The groups you love to cite (e.g.,
VPC) attack him for getting paid off when it isn't true. You now
attack him for not getting paid. Please, at least be consistent.
BitHead
wrote:
>I'm busy with work and will have to respond to this in a day or so. Unlike a
>lot of people, I research before posting, and I'll be researching this more.
>I have to say though, that John Lott is obviously a partisan Far-Right
>winger. Lott's credibility is seriously in doubt when he writes books like
>"More Guns, Less Crime", and when he makes crazy statements like "the worst
>thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash". Why should we believe
>him, when he's got the extreme viewpoints?
I thought you did your research before posting?
James Simpson
news:<9qa77.580$Nk2.10...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
> >
> Again, I hope that you eventually respond to the factual issues and
> the easily identified mistakes by Klinkner
What!?!? You've once again stated your opinion as fact. You have not
proved ANY "easily identified mistakes by Klinkner". You've only stated
this is your opinion. I believe Klinkner did an excellent and very thorough
job. Klinkner had the advantage of having the data from both Lichtman and
Lott available for his analysis, and he built on that data, possibly
slightly improving on Lichtman's analysis, and showing that Lott's analysis
is flawed. I have a couple questions for you: 1) What is your level of
knowledge of statistics? You act as though you have some special knowledge
in this area, but have not stated this explicitly. I don't claim to be an
expert in stat's, but I did take a graduate level course in Research &
Statistics some years ago, so I do have some knowledge here. Again I'm not
an expert, but what is your knowledge here? 2) Do you happen to work for
Lott in some capacity? Or are you a personal friend of his or something?
You seem to have a personal stake in defending Lott.
> but there is one other
> response needed to your personal attacks on Lott. You attack Lott for
> not accepting compensation, but isn't the normal attack that someone
> got paid off to get a certain result? Lott was originally attacked in
> is work on crime for being paid off by gun companies -- a charge by
> gun control groups like Handgun Control (now the Brady Campaign) and
> the Violence Policy Center which has been shown to be a lie. Now he
> is being attacked because he isn't getting paid by Redenbaugh and
> Thernstrom. By the way, I believe that there is a simple reason why
> he wasn't paid by the commission. The Democratic majority provided no
> money for research to the Republican minority. In any case, what
> could Lott do to make you happy? The groups you love to cite (e.g.,
> VPC) attack him for getting paid off when it isn't true. You now
> attack him for not getting paid. Please, at least be consistent.
There is a BIG difference between getting "paid off" (taking bribes) by gun
manufacturers, and getting paid for conducting a non-biased statistical
analysis for a non-profit governmental agency. Do you not see the
difference there? The former is unethical and possibly illegal, and the
latter is legitimate pay for legitimate services.
James Simpson
news:3b5e1b92.2286447@news...
I was referring to researching the statistics Lott came up with, Bittyhead.
It didn't take much searching to discover Lott's extremist, kooky views on
guns and the environment. Do you agree with Lott that "the worst thing
people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash"? Do you agree that FAA safety
inspectors are "busybody bureaucrats" we could do without?
BitHead
wrote:
>"BitHead" <eflo...@rochester.rr.com> wrote in message
>news:3b5e1b92.2286447@news...
>> On Tue, 24 Jul 2001 05:45:57 GMT, "James Simpson" <js...@flash.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >I'm busy with work and will have to respond to this in a day or so.
>Unlike a
>> >lot of people, I research before posting, and I'll be researching this
>more.
>> >I have to say though, that John Lott is obviously a partisan Far-Right
>> >winger. Lott's credibility is seriously in doubt when he writes books
>like
>> >"More Guns, Less Crime", and when he makes crazy statements like "the
>worst
>> >thing people can expect from dioxin is a bad rash". Why should we
>believe
>> >him, when he's got the extreme viewpoints?
>>
>> I thought you did your research before posting?
>
>I was referring to researching the statistics Lott came up with, Bittyhead.
Ah. So, you do make pronouncements before reseaching them.
It did rather look that way.
Just making sure.
Do carry on.
James Simpson
Bullshit. I did research before posting on his kooky views on the
environment and guns. Not surprisingly, you snipped and didn't answer the
questions: Do you agree with Lott that "the worst thing people can expect
Mary Rosh
> "Mary Rosh" <mary...@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:23fa92fe.01072...@posting.google.com...
> > "James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message
> news:<9qa77.580$Nk2.10...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
> > >
> > Again, I hope that you eventually respond to the factual issues and
> > the easily identified mistakes by Klinkner
>
> What!?!? You've once again stated your opinion as fact. You have not
> proved ANY "easily identified mistakes by Klinkner". You've only stated
> this is your opinion. I believe Klinkner did an excellent and very thorough
> job. Klinkner had the advantage of having the data from both Lichtman and
> Lott available for his analysis, and he built on that data, possibly
> slightly improving on Lichtman's analysis, and showing that Lott's analysis
> is flawed. I have a couple questions for you: 1) What is your level of
> knowledge of statistics? You act as though you have some special knowledge
> in this area, but have not stated this explicitly. I don't claim to be an
> expert in stat's, but I did take a graduate level course in Research &
> Statistics some years ago, so I do have some knowledge here. Again I'm not
> an expert, but what is your knowledge here? 2) Do you happen to work for
> Lott in some capacity? Or are you a personal friend of his or something?
> You seem to have a personal stake in defending Lott.
>
Again, I ask you to answer the questions that I have posed. These
questions don't even require statistical knowledge, but they do get to
the veracity of Klinker and also whether your earlier claims were
correct. They involve points that are very to identify:
1) Is it true that Lott accounted for no other factors in analyzing
the effects across elections?
2) Did Klinker use all the variables that Lott used?
3) Did he accurately report the R2 values in Lott's study?
4) Did he really try to replicate the types of interaction variables
that Lott used?
I do have a Ph.D. in economics. You are extremely emotional on the
issue of Lott and Klinker and have made all sorts of charges. Why are
you so emotional? Are you Klinker? Let's try to just stick to the
facts here.
> > but there is one other
> > response needed to your personal attacks on Lott. You attack Lott for
> > not accepting compensation, but isn't the normal attack that someone
> > got paid off to get a certain result? Lott was originally attacked in
> > is work on crime for being paid off by gun companies -- a charge by
> > gun control groups like Handgun Control (now the Brady Campaign) and
> > the Violence Policy Center which has been shown to be a lie. Now he
> > is being attacked because he isn't getting paid by Redenbaugh and
> > Thernstrom. By the way, I believe that there is a simple reason why
> > he wasn't paid by the commission. The Democratic majority provided no
> > money for research to the Republican minority. In any case, what
> > could Lott do to make you happy? The groups you love to cite (e.g.,
> > VPC) attack him for getting paid off when it isn't true. You now
> > attack him for not getting paid. Please, at least be consistent.
>
> There is a BIG difference between getting "paid off" (taking bribes) by gun
> manufacturers, and getting paid for conducting a non-biased statistical
> analysis for a non-profit governmental agency. Do you not see the
> difference there? The former is unethical and possibly illegal, and the
> latter is legitimate pay for legitimate services.
>
>
I just find it funny that you attack people charging that people got
paid off when they obviously didn't (you rely on claims from groups
like the Brady Campaign and VPC) even when they have been shown to be
so grossly incorrect. Then you attack him because the Democrats who
have a 6 to 2 majority on the Civil Rights commission will not provide
him with any compensation for what he did. Please, again, let's just
stick to the issue of whether the points that you and Klinker (or you
as Klinker) are claiming to be correct. If you continue on these side
paths, I will take it as evidence that you admit that Klinker can not
even honestly describe Lott's research.
BitHead
wrote:
>> Ah. So, you do make pronouncements before reseaching them.
>> It did rather look that way.
>> Just making sure.
>> Do carry on.
>
>Bullshit. I did research before posting on his kooky views on the
>environment and guns.
That is far from evident in your reply.
> Not surprisingly, you snipped and didn't answer the
>questions: Do you agree with Lott that "the worst thing people can expect
>from dioxin is a bad rash"? Do you agree that FAA safety inspectors are
>"busybody bureaucrats" we could do without?
The worth of FAA inspectors is over-rated, as is the damage of Dioxin.
... and the worth of liberals.
>
James Simpson
> On Wed, 25 Jul 2001 03:03:41 GMT, "James Simpson" <js...@flash.net>
> wrote:
>
> >> Ah. So, you do make pronouncements before reseaching them.
> >> It did rather look that way.
> >> Just making sure.
> >> Do carry on.
> >
> >Bullshit. I did research before posting on his kooky views on the
> >environment and guns.
>
> That is far from evident in your reply.
Coming from you, that means a lot. You never research anything or provide
cites for your opinions. You and Pineapple are a pair - you both spout
nonsense, provide no support for your views, and then criticize others who
do provide support for their opinions, give cites, etc. You won't do the
work to prove there is support for your views (probably 'cause there usually
isn't any support), and then you criticize those who do. Amazing.
> > Not surprisingly, you snipped and didn't answer the
> >questions: Do you agree with Lott that "the worst thing people can
expect
> >from dioxin is a bad rash"? Do you agree that FAA safety inspectors are
> >"busybody bureaucrats" we could do without?
>
> The worth of FAA inspectors is over-rated, as is the damage of Dioxin.
That's what I thought, you agree with kooky John Lott. Tell you what, how
about drinking a glass of dioxin, or taking a bath in it? Or just putting a
few drops into your bottled water every day? What's that? No?
> ... and the worth of liberals.
And what are conservatives "worth"? Raping the environment, yeah, they're
real good at that. Stopping aid to poor children, cutting funding to Head
Start programs for disadvantaged children who live in poverty, cutting
school lunch programs for poor children who lack proper nutrition? Sure,
conservatives are real good at that. So, conservatives are worth something,
um, now what would that be? Oh yeah, that would be a model for children of
how *not* to treat others when they grow up. Yeah, that's it. You're
worthy, Bittyhead!
Mary Rosh
This is a very disappointing discussion. You make emotional charges
by quoting false information from gun control groups web sites. I
answer them and you either simply quote them again or quote new ones.
Again, the Dioxin charge against Lott is another incomplete quote of
what Lott wrote from the Violence Policy Center. Professor Robert
Hansen from Dartmouth and Professor John Lott (then at the Wharton
Business School at the University of Pennsylvania) were citing a large
academic study that was done in Italy after a very large spill of
Dioxin had occurred. No cancers, no birth defects, nothing more than
a bad rash could be attributed to the spill. If Hansen and Lott have
a problem, it is that they were referencing research from academics at
Stanford, Harvard, and Cal Tech. Have you read the original journal
article that the VPC is selectively quoting parts of sentences from?
Why do you believe anything that VPC or Handgun Control (now the Brady
Campaign) have to say about Lott or his funding?
Again, I ask you to answer the questions that I have posed. These
questions don't even require statistical knowledge, but they do get to
the veracity of Klinker and also whether your earlier claims were
correct. They involve points that are very easy to identify:
1) Is it true that Lott accounted for no other factors in analyzing
the effects across elections?
2) Did Klinker use all the variables that Lott used?
3) Did he accurately report the R2 values in Lott's study?
4) Did he really try to replicate the types of interaction variables
that Lott used?
Do you concede that Klinker (assuming that you are not Klinkner) did
not accurately discuss Lott's research?
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<htM77.1292$sP2.23...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
BitHead
wrote:
>> >Bullshit. I did research before posting on his kooky views on the
>> >environment and guns.
>>
>> That is far from evident in your reply.
>
>Coming from you, that means a lot. You never research anything or provide
>cites for your opinions.
Demonstrably untrue.
>> ... and the worth of liberals.
>
>And what are conservatives "worth"? Raping the environment, yeah, they're
>real good at that. Stopping aid to poor children, cutting funding to Head
>Start programs for disadvantaged children who live in poverty, cutting
>school lunch programs for poor children who lack proper nutrition? Sure,
>conservatives are real good at that. So, conservatives are worth something,
>um, now what would that be? Oh yeah, that would be a model for children of
>how *not* to treat others when they grow up. Yeah, that's it. You're
>worthy, Bittyhead!
Much as you wail and scream, none of these programs are actually
helping the people they're supposed to be. They do however give
liberals something to wail and moan about.
James Simpson
First of all, regarding Klinkner's study of the election in Florida, in fact
he accounted for far more variables than Lott. You state that "Lott's data
in his earlier tables looks at the percent of voters by race. Klinkner
instead examines the percent of either registered voters or only the percent
LIE, and you know it. Klinkner accounts for many more factors than "the
percent of either registered voters or only the percent of people in the
I posted once before (and it's also at one of the links I posted), the many
factors Klinkner accounted for in his analysis. Klinkner not only examines
percent of voters by race, but also many other variables, including several
variables that Lott does NOT account for. Does Lott account for all these
variables?:
--Different types of voting systems
--Turnout
-- % of the votes cast in the county for Gore
--% Hispanic Registered Voters
--% Black Registered Voters
--Median Income
--Voters per Precinct
--Literacy levels
--Education levels
--Increase in Registration
--Increase in Voting
--county crime rates,
--% of elderly population,
--% of population under 25,
--party of the county election supervisor,
--% of population with less than a high school diploma,
--% of population with some college education,
--% of population in rural areas,
--% of population English-only speakers,
--county population density,
--% of blacks with less than 9th grade education,
--% of blacks with less than a high school diploma,
--% of blacks with some college education,
--increase in % of registered voters who are black from 1996 to 2000
As Klinkner states, "The ultimate test of any regression model is the amount
of variance in the dependent variable that is explained by the independent
variables." So yes Klinkner's higher r2 is meaningful! And yet you discount
the r2? This tells me you are biased and pushing a political agenda, rather
than objectively evaluating data (and yet you call me "emotional"?), as is
obvious with Abigail Thernstrom and John Lott.
Klinkner has provided independent confirmation of Lichtman's statistical
analysis, and even extended it by showing that the political party of the
election supervisor of each county is most highly correlated with spoiled
ballots by Blacks. This is critical:
"(T)hat ballot spoilage is likely to be highest in counties with high
percentages of blacks and low votes for Gore ... racial disenfranchisement
would be most likely in counties where there is a significant or at least
non-trivial percentage of black voters, but at the same time the county is
strongly Republican. In such cases there are enough black votes to create
political incentives for racial disenfranchisement and the black vote would
be more concentrated and identifiable." And in fact, Klinkner found that
"Counties that rank highest have a sizeable black vote and a larger
Republican vote. The lowest ranking counties have both a large black vote
and go strongly Democratic. To put it another way, not only does being black
matter in the model, it also matters where you are black. Strongly
Republican areas that also had a sizeable proportion of blacks had a greater
incidence of spoiled ballots." Klinkner further states that this "is exactly
what one would expect to find in a situation where racial disenfranchisement
is likely to occur--black voters are a sizeable part of the electorate, but
lacked the political power to ensure that their ballots are counted
accurately and fairly."
This is very significant, as well as logical and intuitive. Klinkner hits at
the heart of the matter: In strongly Republican counties with a significant
number of Black voters there would be "political incentives for racial
disenfranchisement and the black vote would be more concentrated and
identifiable." Klinkner concludes that rates of minority disenfranchisement
"were even higher where substantial numbers of blacks were found in counties
with large margins for George W. Bush. All of this corresponds to and
further reinforces the findings of the USCCR that there is evidence of
racial disenfranchisement in the 2000 election in Florida. Consequently, it
is important that federal authorities should investigate this matter more
thoroughly."
As to Lott, I've done a fair amount of research on his positions, and in
reading several of his articles and studies, it's very clear that he is a
partisan, lacking in objectivity. But beyond that, Lott has gone far beyond
the role of "researcher" to the role of *advocate*. As such, he's lost both
his objectivity and trustworthiness. Lott is the Rush Limbaugh of
statistics. He decides on his pre-determined result, and then manipulates
the statistics such that he gets the result that provides support for his
pre-existing Right-wing opinions on Affirmative Action, gun rights, and the
environment.
I'm sure you're aware, being an economist, that statistics can be used to
prove or misprove anything, that it is quite easy to introduce variables in
such a manner to manipulate the data to produce a pre-conceived result. I
believe this is what Lott does in order to further the same anti-affirmative
action political agenda that Thernstrom has been pushing for so long (gee, I
wonder why Thernstrom picked Lott to do the analysis?).
As to Lott's credibility (or lack thereof), here David Hemenway, Ph.D.,
Massachusetts Medical Society, has this to say:
"The title of this new book, More Guns, Less Crime, aptly describes his
conclusions. The core of the book is a large statistical study of state
'right-to-carry' laws. Between 1985 and 1992, 10 states, primarily in the
gun-dense southern and Rocky Mountain regions, moved from 'may-issue' laws
for carrying a concealed gun (police retain discretion about who gets a
permit to carry a gun) to 'shall-issue laws' (police must provide a permit
to virtually anyone who is not a criminal). Comparing crime trends in states
that did and did not change their laws, Lott concludes that shall-issue laws
reduce violent crime. In at least six articles published elsewhere, 10
academics found enough serious flaws in Lott's analysis to discount his
findings completely. These critiques are consistent with my own experience
in formulating models to assess whether state-level changes in the legal
drinking age affected youth crime, which convinced me that Lott's
statistical approach can sometimes yield invalid results.
The central problem is that crime moves in waves, yet Lott's analysis does
not include variables that can explain these cycles. For example, he uses no
variables on gangs, drug consumption, or community policing. As a result,
many of Lott's findings make no sense. He finds, for example, that both
increasing the rate of unemployment and reducing income reduces the rate of
violent crimes and that reducing the number of black women 40 years old or
older (who are rarely either perpetrators or victims of murder)
substantially reduces murder rates. Indeed, according to Lott's results,
getting rid of older black women will lead to a more dramatic reduction in
homicide rates than increasing arrest rates or enacting shall-issue laws.
Not surprisingly, Lott's model fails several statistical specification tests
designed to determine its accuracy, and other models lead to very different
results. For example, Jens Ludwig, an economist at Georgetown University,
uses a different statistical approach and finds that the movement to
shall-issue laws has, if anything, caused homicide rates to increase.
One would have expected that, given the problems with Lott's model, it would
have gone back to the drawing board. Instead, Lott decided to go public,
writing this book, holding press conferences, and presenting his results as
if they proved that permissive gun-carrying laws actually save lives.
Sometimes it is not the model that Lott uses but the data that are just
plain wrong. For example, in the one analysis not involving carrying laws,
Lott takes data on gun ownership from 1988 and 1996 voter exit polls and
purports to show that higher levels of gun ownership mean less crime.
According to the polling source, Voter News Service, these data cannot be
used as Lott has used them -- either to determine state-level gun ownership
or changes in gun ownership. For example, the data from the exit polls
indicate that gun ownership rates in the United States increased an
incredible 50 percent during those eight years, yet all other surveys show
either no change or a decrease in the percentage of Americans who personally
own firearms."
I know you tried to discount the VPC's critique of Lott. But in fact, Lott
did say that FAA inspectors are nothing more than "busybody bureaucrats
looking over [the] shoulders" of the airline industry (I noticed you did not
deny this). He did, in fact, write the book "More Guns, Less Crime",
putting forth his ridiculous, extremist belief that if more people carried
guns there would be less crime. He, in fact, did say "Allowing teachers and
other law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns in schools would not
only make it easier to stop shootings in progress, it could also help deter
shootings from ever occurring." He did, in fact, say "Preventing wealthy
people from influencing the opinion of the court in their favor will lead to
expected punishments that are too large for the wealthy". He did, in fact,
describe global warming, ozone depletion, and the need for wetlands
preservation as "environmental myths," and that Americans should "stop
worrying so much about the environment." He did, in fact, say that "To
force airlines to ban smoking on all flights thus makes smokers worse off by
a greater amount than it benefits non-smokers." The fact is, John Lott is
an extremist kook, with views far outside the mainstream.
Having now read several of Lott's papers, it's clear to me he's an even more
political figure than I thought. In <http://www.tsra.com/Lott33.htm> Lott
defends Right-winger fundamentalist John Ashcroft, who has been the most
controversial AG in years, having spoken at racist Bob Jones University, and
having practiced character assissination to block the nomination of Ronnie
White, a good man and dedicated judge. Ashcroft also wrote a friendly note
to Larry Pratt, the leader of Gun Owners of America, an extremist gun-owners
organization linked to racist groups, that's considered extremist even by
many conservatives. Pratt has also been linked to the KKK, the Aryan
Nations and militias. But since Ashcroft is rabidly pro-gun, he gets Lott's
support.
In <http://www.tsra.com/Lott28.htm>, Lott claims that "Bush's plan on taxes
tops Gore's Bush's plan on taxes tops Gore's". He's clearly taking
political positions, and in every case he sides with Right-wing
conservatives. Clearly, Bush's tax plan will result in deficits,
jeopardizing Social Security and Medicare, as well as a host of important
social programs, like Head Start. That Lott is an economist, and yet he
still supports Bush's tax cut, tells me he is an extreme partisan and not to
be trusted.
In <http://www.tsra.com/Lott27.htm> Lott supports Dick Cheney for voting
against laws against "plastic" guns or "cop-killer" bullets, saying they are
"bad laws ... placebo cures for imaginary ills." This is clearly an extreme
position. Once again, Lott reveals that he is in fact an *advocate*, not a
"researcher", when he concluded that "Mr. Cheney displayed a rare courage in
going against the tide." He also describes Bush's decision to support
legislation restricting city suits against gun makers as "courageous".
Clearly, Lott is *advocating* political positions! And we are to believe he
is an unbiased "researcher"? It's a sad joke.
In <http://www.tsra.com/Lott29.htm> Lott defends Bush's position on guns.
This, too, reveals that Lott is an partisan, political *advocate*, and NOT
an objective researcher.
In <http://www.tsra.com/Lott31.htm>Lott weighs in on the election
controversy, taking the view that, contrary to reports of racial
disenfranchisement as the deciding factor in Florida, it was the fact that
the media called the election early "ended up suppressing the Republican
vote", and concluding that a "conservative estimate of 10,000 votes is more
than the any additional votes that Gore might pick up from the manual
recounts in counties like Palm Beach, Boward, and Dade." It's quite clear
that Lott is a Bush partisan, and yet we are supposed to trust him to do an
unbiased statistical analysis of the issue of disenfranchisement in Florida?
Lott's statistical "data" is also far from being universally accepted. His
work has been widely criticized by a number of prominent researchers,
including "Jens Ludwig at Georgetown University; Daniel Black of the
University of Kentucky and Daniel Nagin at Carnegie Mellon University;
Stephen Teret, Jon Vernick and Daniel Webster, all of Johns Hopkins
University; Arthur Kellermann at Emory University; and Douglas Weil at the
Center to Prevent Handgun Violence". Consider Lott's book, "More Guns, Less
Crime", in which he asserts, as though his statistics prove this as fact,
that if more people carried concealed handguns, there would be less crime.
According to <http://polyticks.com/polyticks/beararms/liars/hgclott.htm>
"In the 29 states that have lax CCW laws (where law enforcement must issue
CCW licenses to almost all applicants), the crime rate fell 2.1%, from
5397.0 to 5285.1 crimes per 100,000 population from 1996 to 1997. During the
same time period, in the 21 states and the District of Columbia with strict
carry laws or which don't allow the carrying of concealed weapons at all,
the crime rate fell 4.4%, from 4810.5 to 4599.9 crimes per 100,000
population. The decline in the crime rate of strict licensing and no-carry
states was 2.1 times that of states with lax CCW systems, indicating that
there are more effective ways to fight crime than to encourage more people
to carry guns.
Furthermore, according to the CPHV analysis, violent crime actually rose in
12 of 29 states (41%) which liberalized their CCW [carry concealed weapons]
laws over the five years beginning in 1992, compared to a similar rise in
violent crime in only 4 of 22 states (18%) which did not change their CCW
laws. The disparity in the decline is even more obvious for rates of gun
violence. From 1992 to 1997 (the last five years for which data exists), the
violent crime rate in the strict and no-issue states fell 24.8% while the
violent crime rate for states with liberal CCW laws dropped 11.4%.
Nationally the violent crime rate fell 19.4%."
Reading his study on the Florida election, Lott immediately reveals his bias
in his title for the piece, using the term "Non-Voted Ballots" rather than
"uncounted" or "spoiled" ballots or "votes not read by the machines". The
term "Non-Voted Ballots" obviously implies that those ballots that went
uncounted were in fact not ever intended to be votes. In other words, Lott
is implying the voters had no "intent" to vote when, for example, the ballot
had hanging or dimpled chads. So from the outset, Lott has taken a biased
position, making it clear he does not believe the thousands of votes which
went up in smoke due to unreliable punch card ballots and other factors -
votes which may have won Gore the election - were votes at all. Lott's
position on this indicates his bias very clearly, making it quite obvious
his intent in doing his statistical "analysis" is to discount the idea of
racial disenfranchisement, and avoid any questioning of the vote count that
made Bush president.
I think it's clear Lott is advancing a far-Right agenda by manipulating
statistics to provide results that support his own opinions, such as "right
to carry" concealed weapons. Let's see, Lott is extremely pro-gun and
anti-gun control, very anti-affirmative action, pro-business/anti-consumer
... all the right-wing stereotypical views. And so he does a statistical
analysis effects of Affirmative Action in hiring police, in which he
concludes that Affirmative Action programs for hiring more minority officers
results in more crime. He concludes *specifically* that "hiring more Black
and minority police officers increases crime rates". I don't care what kind
of statistical methods he uses to "prove" such a sweeping and simplistic
statement, it's clear that in actuality Lott is attempting to "prove" or
provide so-called "empirical support" for the Right-wing view that:
1) Affirmative Action does not work,
2) That not only is it incorrect for Affirmative Action proponent's to
assert that hiring more minorities would help to reduce the crime rate
(since minority officers could better communicate with minorities in the
street), but that the opposite is true, that more minority officers hired as
a result of AA programs results in increased crime! This is obscene and an
insult to reasonable people. Yes, it's true that Lott clarifies (buried
many pages into the study, btw ) that he is referring to "lowering
standards" in hiring to comply with Affirmative Action mandates, however,
this is buried deep in the very long article. This allows those political
groups which wish to prove that Affirmative Action doesn't work, to use
Lott's so-called statistical "proof" that AA is counterproductive, resulting
in more crime!
3) That when Affirmative Action is in place, hiring more minority and Black
officers in particular (more women officers did not have this effect,
according to Lott) results in this increase in crime. He doesn't include
Whites or women in this equation, implying that even when hiring standards
are lowered, the number of White officers has no correlation to increased
crime rates. Lott specifically states that the crime rate increases only
when more Black officers are hired. In stating that Affirmative Action
results in an *increase* in the crime rate, Lott makes clear his
partisanship and bias. He is using his position as a "scholar" to further
his own political agenda, manipulating data to provide a pre-determined
outcome. I've seen bias in the media, such as partisan hack Bill Sammons who
wrote in the Wash. Times that Dem's on the USCCR "leaked the report",
stating this as though it's proven fact, when in fact there was NO proof of
this. I pointed out that it's equally likely a Republican leaked it in
order to discredit the report's findings, making it appear the commission is
biased and the report meaningless. But Lott is the first "scholar" I've
discovered who is using his position to further his political agenda,
presenting his manipulation of the data as though it's absolute fact. I've
read his papers, and he makes statements like ""
John Lott is obviously a political figure. He's doesn't simply present
data, but instead has written many articles *advocating* his extreme
pro-gun/anti-Affirmative Action positions. Lott's extreme views are not
representative of mainstream thought. Lott represents a minority. In this
article
<http://bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/politically-speaking/tidbits/lott01.htm>
Lott states
"During the 19 years covered in our study, states that past such laws saw
the number of multiple-victim public shootings decline by an average of 84
percent. Deaths from the shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent,
injuries by 82 percent."
Those statistics are NOT credible. They are in fact, so incredible, that it
makes it plainly obvious Lott is MANUFACTURING DATA. In fact, those
statistics have been widely assailed by many researchers. I could go on,
but this post is already too long and my time is limited, and I've already
spent many hours researching this. In the future, I'll likely post more on
Lott and his obvious partisan, political bias, that he is in fact not a
"researcher", but rather an *advocate*, who is not objective or trustworthy.
The bottom line is, it's obvious that his so-called "statistical analysis"
of the election is not worthy of consideration due to his obvious bias.
Being a psychologist, I'm pretty good at sniffing out bias, and Lott
positively stinks of bias and partisanship. Is it any surprise that all his
statistics "prove" that Affirmative Action not only doesn't work but results
in more crime, that "More Guns" equals "Less Crime", or that in his analysis
of the election he finds no evidence of minorities being disenfranchised at
a higher rate than Whites? It's no surprise to me, because Lott is no
researcher, he is in fact a partisan *advocate*, completely lacking in
objectivity.
Mary Rosh
The problem with arguing with you is that you make charges, I provide
evidence that they are wrong, and then you provide a different fact
that is unrelated.
You originally claimed "In fact, Klinkner took into account all the
factors Lott used." Do you deny that you claimed this? The listing
of variables below isn't responsive to this claim. This is the claim
that I was challenging.
In an earlier post you quoted Klinkner as saying "adding in the
variables that Lott claims have the most explanatory power actually
makes my model less," but again you never respond to my question: "Did
Klinker use all the variables that Lott used?"
You never respond to whether Klinkner accurately described Lott's
research. "Is it true that Lott accounted for no other factors in
analyzing
the effects across elections?" as Klinker claims. "Did he accurately
report the R2 values in Lott's study?"
I know that you now what to argue about who accounted for the most
variables, but the point that I raised before is that in statistics
you need a theory for why you are including variables. Klinkner lists
out a bunch of variables and then throws them into a regression. Lott
made two points: 1) the purely cross-sectional regressions are very
sensitive to the specifications used (Klinkner does nothing to deal
with this) and 2) advanced statistical work these days uses panel data
sets (combining cross-sectional and time-series data).
As to maximizing the R2, it is always possible to get a high R2.
Klinker is nuts to say "The ultimate test of any regression model is
the amount
of variance in the dependent variable that is explained by the
independent
variables." Let me give you a simple example. Suppose we ran a
regression to explain how the stock market moves up and down. Can I
find a variable that has nothing to do with it that explains 100
percent of the variation in the market? Sure. Does it mean anything?
No. How can you do that? Take all the prices of the 1000s of
products at you local major supermarket. They are going up and down
all the time. For any given time period there is probably one
product's price out of all those 1000s, or the combination of a few
products prices, that will just happen to vary with the overall
market. OK, so the R2 is really high. Is that the ultimate test?
Klinker needs to present some theory for why he is including the
different variables and the different interactions that he is
including. He also needs to discuss how sensitive his results are.
He does neither.
Finally, Lott is a conservative and he is probably a Republican,
though I have read that a decade ago he was a Democrat. Are you
really going to define people who support the President and the Vice
President of the United States as extremists? So he supports them,
what does that have to do with validating his work? Klinkner and
Lichtman are Democrats. Lichtman worked on the Gore campaign. If you
have access to Nexis, you can also look at all the U.S. Newswire and
PR Newswire pieces that Klinkner has put out trying to comment on the
election last November and supporting Gore. If Lott is disqualified
because he supported Bush, then Klinkner and Lichtman must be
disqualified for exactly the same reasons. If that is how you make
judgements, be consistent.
I have instead tried to argue based on who is being honest. Lott
wrote his piece before Klinkner so he didn't discuss Klinkner's work,
but Klinkner does discuss Lott's work and it is pretty easy to see if
he discussed it correctly.
As to all the other material that you are pulling off gun control web
sites, read Lott's book. I haven't taken the time to check out the
busybody quote, but I have seen all the other claims by the VPC and
they are all misleading distortions of what he said. If you actually
go and look up the complete quote from Lott and not simply rely on the
VPC, I will listen to what you have to say.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<Cpk87.1622$vg1.35...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
Dave Hitt
>There is a BIG difference between getting "paid off" (taking bribes) by gun
>manufacturers, and getting paid for conducting a non-biased statistical
>analysis for a non-profit governmental agency. Do you not see the
>difference there? The former is unethical and possibly illegal, and the
>latter is legitimate pay for legitimate services.
So if a researcher gets paid by someone you don't like, it's a bribe.
But if they get paid by someone you *do* like, than its good research.
Thanks for clearing that up.
---
"I did not have sex with that woman."
- Bill Clinton, after having sex with Monica approximately fourteen times.
"It was not my intent to perpetuate this"
- Steve Krulick, after starting fourteen new, off-topic threads on gun control in
alt.culture.ny.upstate
"it IS frustrating to want to discuss issues only to have the issues ignored for ad hominem attacks."
- Steve Krulick, after posting fourteen new, off-topic gun-control threads in alt.culture.ny.upstate
all containing ad hominem attacks; ten of them starting with name calling at the second *word* of the message.
James Simpson
First, it's a complete falsehood that Allan Lichtman campaigned for Gore.
The fact is, Lichtman was a *paid* consultant to Gore over 6 years ago. He's
done no work for Gore for 6+ years. However, more recently Lichtman has
provided his consulting services to Right-wingers Rudy Giuliani and Lee
Atwater. Lichtman is a bipartisan consultant, he's worked for both Dem's
and Repub's. He works for pay, not to advance any ideology of his own. I'm
rushed for time, and am still researching Lott, so I'll respond in a day or
two. What I'm finding in my research is that Lott is far from being
universally respected in his field, his theories and his use of statistics
have both been roundly criticized. I notice you had no comment on Dr.
Hemenway's critique of Lott's work, in which he states that "Lott's model
fails several statistical specification tests designed to determine its
economist, that it's *extremely* easy to manipulate data, throw in certain
variables or whatever, in order to make the results provide "proof" of
anything. This is why I believe Lott is a fraud who is simply manipulating
data in order to provide "proof" of his right-wing extremist views. Anyone
who truly believes, as Lott does, that "More Guns" equals "Less Crime", is
clearly an extremist, far outside the mainstream. As a psychologist, I know
that a *responsible* researcher, one who is interested only in furthering
knowledge and not a political agenda, would never have stated,
categorically, "More Guns, Less Crime". Ethical researchers know the limits
of statistical analysis, and the complexity of the ever-changing world we
live in, and behave accordingly, couching statements in qualifying terms --
i.e. "More guns *may* decrease crime". But did Lott behave responsibly?
NO. As Dr. Hemenway states, instead of being cautious and reasonable, "Lott
decided to go public, writing this book, holding press conferences, and
presenting his results as if they proved that permissive gun-carrying laws
believe Lott's clear bias, and his cavalier, unethical jumping into the
breach to proclaim unsubstantiated findings of "More Guns, Less Crime",
without multiple independent investigators coming to the same conclusion,
reveals him to be an ethical researcher who is doing nothing more than
MANUFACTURING DATA to provide "empirical support" for his Right-wing views.
I'll also post more on Klinkner's study. You stated that Klinkner simply
"lists out a bunch of variables and then throws them into a regression."
variables, as well as links to the sources of the stat's he uses for his
regression analysis. I don't believe you read this
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/KlinknerAnalysis2.html
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/default.html
If so, you may want to read it again, because Klinkner provides a clear
explanation for including the variables.
One quick matter, as to your implying that Klinkner incorrectly reported
Lott's r2, I noted that Lott very recently updated his report (on 7-15-01),
and the tables are now different. Christopher Edley said that when Lott
presented his analysis to the Senate Rules Committee on 6-27-01, his report
was only "6 or 7 pages long, and it's not very good work. It was actually
kind of sad. Several of the senators reacted derisively to Lott and the
work he's done in another areas [referring to "More Guns, Less Crime"].
Frankly, the methodology he used simply doesn't stand up. Even the dissent
does not disagree that there are important and substantial disparities in
the rate at which ballots were thrown out, rejected, spoiled, based upon
race."
So, Lott's report has been changed, it's increased from about 6 pages to 23
pages. Klinkner obviously only had access to, and was referring to Lott's
initial report. When he updated it, evidently his r2 changed also. After I
do more research, I'll have more to post soon. In the meantime, you have
stated, "you make charges, I provide evidence that they are wrong, and then
you provide a different fact that is unrelated." That's a bit arrogant, but
beyond that you have provided no such evidence, beyond pointing out that on
page 249 of Lott's study on Affirmative Action he clarifies "we are talking
about the impact on crime of hiring 'additional' blacks". Regardless of
this clarification, Lott's stated conclusion, the conclusion that will be
quoted in the press and used by political groups for political purposes, is
that hiring more Black officers "reduces the quality of both new minority
and new non-minority officers. The most adverse effects of these hiring
policies have occurred in the areas most heavily populated by blacks." That
is the "buzz" statement that will be used by Affirmative Action proponents,
and I think Lott knows it, because he is clearly anti-Affirmative Action.
Anyway, you also state that Lott's dioxin statement was in reference to an
Italian study, but you provide no link to said study. You also provided no
refutation to any of the other quotes from Lott cited by VPC. Please
provide proof that VPC misrepresented the following statements by Lott
(preferably with links). Maybe you can explain, because these are direct
quotes, and I can't imagine any context that would make them sound any less
extremist and kooky:
"Preventing wealthy people from influencing the opinion of the court in
their favor will lead to expected punishments that are too large for the
wealthy".
"To force airlines to ban smoking on all flights thus makes smokers worse
off by a greater amount than it benefits non-smokers."
"Allowing teachers and other law-abiding adults to carry concealed handguns
in schools would not only make it easier to stop shootings in progress, it
could also help deter shootings from ever occurring."
FAA inspectors are nothing more than "busybody bureaucrats looking over
[the] shoulders" of the airline industry"
Lott's description of global warming, ozone depletion, and the need for
wetlands preservation as "environmental myths."
Lott's statement that that Americans should "stop worrying so much about the
environment."
I look forward to your responses, maybe you can clear up the above quotes
from Lott.
James Simpson
"I believe Lott's clear bias, and his cavalier, unethical jumping into the
breach to proclaim unsubstantiated findings of 'More Guns, Less Crime',
without multiple independent investigators coming to the same conclusion,
reveals him to be an ethical researcher ..."
Obviously, that should read "unethical" researcher "who is doing nothing
more than MANUFACTURING DATA to provide 'empirical support' for his
Right-wing views." I hate typos, I'm just a little bit perfectionistic.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message
news:C7q97.2074$Ur4.61...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com...
Mary Rosh
Campaign" up until recently. Personally I don't care that he is a
hard core leftist, any more than I care about whether Lott is a
conservative Republican. Your need to engage in personal attacks
rather than discuss the merits of the original post is trying my
patience.
The discussion on dioxin is from the EPA Journal. I don't have a web
site for it, though I guess that you can go to your local university
library and get the issue.
As to the affirmative action issue, I gave you the web site address.
As far as I can tell you haven't bothered to actually look at the
content of the paper. Admittedly groups like Handgun Control (now the
Brady Campaign) and the VPC will take things out of context, but
anyone who reads the paper will see that Lott is saying that it is
wrong for anyone to give the interpretation that you attribute to him.
He specifically warns against that interpretation. I don't know what
else to tell you on that.
As to the other quotes read Lott's book, the second edition. You
might notice that many of the claims involve quotes that are only a
few words long. Doesn't that bother you? I guess not.
As to Hemenway, I said that you can read Lott's second edition which
discusses it. Hemenway couldn't even get the years right for the
study, the number of states studied, the states that changed there
laws, etc.. There are many studies that have found effects as large
or larger than Lott on concealed handguns. No one has found a
significant bad effect.
I am not interested in debating the gun issue here because it wasn't
what this tread was about.
As to your defense of Klinkner, I have read both versions of Lott's
reports (it had been posted at the SSRN web site earlier). The length
has remained virtually the same. The seven pages was the length of
the text, and it was 7.5 pages before. It is now 8 full pages. The
changes involve an addition at the very beginning of the paper. The
introductary paragraph wasn't there before. The regression results
are unchanged. The last several tables are exactly the same as they
were before. In any case, the version that Klinkner references is the
one that we have been discussing. I checked the link that he provides
in his paper. The discussion that you quote ignored all the tables
and figures that Lott had.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<C7q97.2074$Ur4.61...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
James Simpson
news:308a9abe.01080...@posting.google.com...
> Lichtman's web site listed himself as a paid consultant to the "Gore
> Campaign" up until recently.
Another false statement. Lichtman's web site does not say "up until
recently", it gives no line on when he was a paid consultant to Gore. The
fact is, it's been 6+ years since he did any consulting work for Gore.
During that 6 years, however, Lichtman has provided his consulting services
to Right-wingers Rudy Giuliani and Lee Atwater.
> Personally I don't care that he is a
> hard core leftist, any more than I care about whether Lott is a
> conservative Republican.
Oh please. Lichtman is not a "hard core leftist", he's not any sort of
political figure. Lichtman is a specialist in the quantitative analysis of
historical trends, and author of "The Keys to the White House, 1996." He's
simply a *paid* consultant to both Repub's and Dem's. His services are in
high demand by both parties, because he's highly competent, respected, and
has been called as an expert witness in over 60 federal voting rights cases.
Exactly how many times has Lott been called as an expert witness in federal
voting rights cases? That's right, none. Just looking at the resumes of
the two men, it's obvious to me that Lichtman is immensely more respected
than Lott, and thought of as unbiased and objective, qualities sorely
lacking in Lott. In contrast, Lott has chosen to author the book "More
Guns, Less Crime", a completely unsupportable, categorical assertion that if
more people carried concealed weapons there would be less crime.
Frankly, I don't think John Lott is worthy of serious consideration or
discussion, and the following will be my last comment on him. This is the
bottom line as regards John Lott's unethical, unscientific pronouncements.
As a psychologist trained in the scientific method, I know that a
*responsible* researcher, one who is interested only in furthering knowledge
and not a political agenda, would never state, categorically, "More Guns,
Less Crime". As I said, ethical researchers know the limits of statistical
analysis, and the complexity of the variables involved in measuring issues
like "crime" or problems in voting across a large state (like Florida). So
serious, ethical researchers are careful to *always* couch statements in
qualifying terms -- i.e. "More guns *may* decrease crime" -- knowing that
very few things are completely, 100% provable. Do you honestly believe that
Lott behaved as a responsible, cautious researcher when he stated,
categorically, as though it had been 100% proven, "More Guns, Less Crime"?
Responsible researchers know that, prior to making any sort of definitive
conclusions on a subject, it's absolutely essential to wait for multiple
investigators to come to similar conclusions. Lott did not wait for other
investigators to conclude that "More Guns" leads to "Less Crime". Instead,
As Dr. Hemenway states, instead of behaving as a cautious and responsible
scientist,
"Lott decided to go public, writing this book, holding press
conferences, and presenting his results as if they proved that
permissive gun-carrying laws actually save lives."
This one fact alone completely discredits Lott and makes it abundantly
clear he's nothing more than a partisan fraud who is willing to MANIPULATE
DATA in order to "prove" his Right-wing views are correct. Lott is not a
responsible, serious researcher, but rather is a politicized figure selling
his extremist right-wing partisan views with so-called "statistical proof"
provided by, that's right, none other than himself! True scholars and
researchers will never accept Lott as a legitimate researcher, because he
makes outrageous pronouncements like "During the 19 years covered in our
study, states that past such laws ["right to carry" gun laws] saw the number
of multiple-victim public shootings decline by an average of 84
percent. Deaths from the shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent,
injuries by 82 percent."
"Deaths from the shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent"?!?!
Really?!?! This is outrageous! Those statistics are NOT credible. They
are, in fact, so incredible that it makes it plainly obvious Lott is
MANUFACTURING DATA. Considering the numerous outrageous, categorical,
unsupported assertions Lott has made, and attempted to provide "proof" of by
manipulating data in order to ensure a pre-conceived result, in my view Lott
is not a legitimate researcher or scientist, and he has no credibility. I
believe Lott is using his position as "scholar" to further his right-wing
political agenda,
presenting his manipulation of the data as though it's absolute fact. He's
not a respected or ethical researcher, in my view. Therefore, his analysis
of what occurred in Florida carries absolutely no weight.
I've provided evidence that a number of serious, respected researchers
disagree with the way Lott presents his data, and have in fact come up with
very different results given Lott's data, as well as the obvious fact that
Lott has been irresponsible in making categorical pronouncements, without
independent confirmation by other investigators, that "More Guns, Less
Crime". And yet you continue to support Lott?
BTW, I noted you never were able to explain away Lott's numerous extremist
statements like "Allowing teachers and other law-abiding adults to carry
concealed handguns in schools would not only make it easier to stop
shootings in progress, it could also help deter shootings from ever
occurring", "Preventing wealthy people from influencing the opinion of the
court in their favor will lead to expected punishments that are too large
for the wealthy", and "To force airlines to ban smoking on all flights thus
makes smokers worse off by a greater amount than it benefits non-smokers."
I understand why you can't defend these statements, because it doesn't
matter in what context Lott made these statements, his views are clearly
extremist and outside the mainstream. Lott's extremely pro-gun,
pro-corporate/anti-consumer, and anti-environment views are not
representative of the majority views in this country, and for that, I'm
thankful.
Mary Rosh
subject of this tread -- that is the Racial disenfranchisement in
Florida research on Florida. Lott responds to the quotes from the
Violence Policy Center in his book. If you didn't think his responses
to those partial quotes were adequate, you could say so. Instead you
keep on repeating that I haven't responded to the attacks. You are
pathetic. You are unable to defend your attacks on Lott's research so
you resort to personal attacks. I have said before that is not what
this tread is on. It is on the research. Hemenway's quote is a joke.
I have read Lott's book and other material. If there is some press
conference that Lott gave, provide some proof for it.
I am concluding that you view yourself as having lost the debate on
the issue for this thread. You are reduced to bizarre and irrational
claims that Lott is "MANUFACTURING DATA." What academic has claimed
that? Unlike his critics, Lott has given out his data to anyone who
has asked.
Since you want to keep focusing on the gun issue, let me just note
that no academic has found evidence that concealed handgun laws
increase violent crime. Many have found that they reduce crime.
It is too bad that you have wanted to debate everything other than the
studies at issue.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<RJra7.478$WZ3.20...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
James Simpson
opinion about the shoddy and unscientific nature of John Lott's so-called
"research". I have backed up my statements with facts, numerous cites, and
examples. And yes, Lott's other research is germane to discussion of his
study of the Florida election, because his other work betrays, not only a
partisan advocate, but one who's data, and conclusions from that data, has
been disputed by a number of prominent researchers as being false and
misleading. You've called me "emotional" and "pathetic", when I've called
you no names whatsoever. This indicates to me that you realize you've lost
the debate, that it *is* obvious from Lott's categorical pronouncement that
"More Guns, Less Crime", that Lott is in fact a fraud and not an unbiased
researcher. Lott is not a scientist, because he fails to follow the most
basic principles of science, namely caution and extensive use of qualifiers
in drawing conclusions from research (i.e. "More guns *may* decrease crime
.. in these specific instances ... in this geographic area" etc.).
The scientific method is the process by which scientists, collectively and
over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent
and non-arbitrary) representation of the world. Lott does not follow the
scientific method, because he draws categorical, unqualified conclusions
like "More Guns, Less Crime", a conclusion that, on it's face, is both
sensationalistic (easily, and unfortunately, effectively, used by gun rights
advocates to push their agenda) as well as overly simplistic. Lott's
simplistic, unqualified conclusions reveal his bias, as well as his
willingness to bypass the scientific method to achieve the results he seeks.
What troubles me most is this, I truly believe Lott is manufacturing his
data to fit his pre-conceived result, providing statistical "proof" for his
right-wing extremist views, particularly on gun rights and affirmative
action. He just so happens to be extremely anti-affirmative action, so he
does a statistical study on the effect of affirmative action in hiring
police, and concludes that affirmative-action "hiring more black and
minority police officers increases crime rates". He just so happens to be a
strong gun rights advocate, so he does more research and concludes, again
categorically, "More Guns, Less Crime". Lott just so happens to be a Bush
supporter, so works his magic research once again, and finds that there was
no evidence, whatsoever, that minorities were disenfranchised at a higher
rate than Whites in Florida. I see a pattern here, and I'm not buying it.
The fact is -- and this is not just my opinion, this is obvious from
objective facts --Lott does not adhere strictly to the scientific method of:
1) Waiting for multiple investigators to come to the same conclusions before
making pronouncements, and 2) Always stating conclusions with qualifiers and
notes of caution, knowing there are no absolutes and that some other unknown
variable may be the true cause. Instead, Lott states his conclusions
categorically as though what he says is 100% true. A true follower of the
scientific method never makes categorical pronouncements the way Lott has -
"More Guns, Less Crime". That's as categorical and simplistic as you can
get!
I'm sorry if you're taking this personally, but you are not John Lott. Lott
is a public figure, and therefore subject to public criticism. If he
adhered to the scientific method and did not make unqualified, simplistic,
categorical pronouncements, I and others wouldn't have to point out the
unscientific, shoddy, plainly biased nature of his "research". As a
psychologist, I've been trained extensively on the scientific method: The
importance of replication by other researchers before attempting to draw
conclusions, and always remaining cognizant that conclusions must always,
always, always be stated with qualifiers. So it just irritates me to no end
when I see someone like Lott, who is obviously intelligent, waste that
intelligence and try to pass himself off as a serious, scientific, unbiased
researcher, when in fact Lott does not follow the scientific method. Lott is
clearly an extremely partisan advocate who, I believe, is abusing his
position as "scholar" and "researcher" by manipulating data in order to
provide a result that supports his own pre-conceived opinion. None of those
qualities add up to respectable, trustworthy, scientific researcher.
Following the scientific method is absolutely critical in producing results
that are credible, by minimizing the influence of bias or prejudice in the
experimenter when testing a hypothesis or theory. Lott fails at this most
basic step of the scientific method, because his biases come through loud
and clear -- "More Guns, Less Crime" -- Therefore, his "research" is not
credible and not taken seriously by serious scientists. This is what I was
referring to when I mentioned that Abigail Thernstrom had said she hadn't
read "More Guns, Less Crime". It was clear that Thernstrom was trying to
distance herself from that book, knowing that it not only lacked mainstream
acceptance, but that the book vividly illustrates Lott's categorical,
simplistic, biased pronouncements, revealing him to be, not a serious
scientist interested only in furthering knowledge, but rather just another
partisan advocate who has bypassed the scientific method in favor of
sensationalistic conclusions that will sell books and garner fame.
You say "no academic has found evidence that concealed handgun laws increase
violent crime. Many have found that they reduce crime." Well, at least you
state your opinion with qualifiers, not categorically like Lott. If only
John Lott had qualified his conclusions, rather than phrasing his
conclusions in both simplistic and sensationalistic terms like "More Guns,
Less Crime", he might have be respected as an unbiased researcher.
Unfortunately, Lott is seen as biased by serious researchers who follow the
scientific method and refuse let their bias to affect their research. It's
clear that Lott has allowed his personal bias to influence his research and
the conclusions he makes. The fact is, Lott does not follow the scientific
method. Instead, he states his conclusions in categorical,
sensationalistic, unscientific, overly simplistic terms. Therefore, he has
lost credibility in the scientific world.
Lott's study of the Florida election is tainted by the same bias and lack of
credibility. Lott's conclusions are counter to numerous analyses of
rejected ballots by news organizations and prominent researchers like Allan
Lichtman. Based on all the other research of what occurred in Florida, it
doesn't take a statistician to see that Lott has manipulated the data,
indeed twisted the data, to throw doubt on what obviously occurred in
Florida: The disenfranchisement of a statistically significant greater
percentage of minority voters than White voters. Chistopher Edley described
Lott's report as only "6 or 7 pages long, and it's not very good work. It
was actually kind of sad. Several of the senators reacted derisively to
Lott and the work he's done in another areas [referring to "More Guns, Less
Crime"]. Frankly, the methodology he used simply doesn't stand up. Even the
dissent does not disagree that there are important and substantial
disparities in the rate at which ballots were thrown out, rejected, spoiled,
based upon race."
Considering the mountain of evidence (poorly trained poll workers, lack of
voter education, greater use of inferior voting technology in districts with
a high percentage of minorities, lack of provisional ballots, the fact that
although Blacks make up only 13% of the population of Florida they
nonetheless comprised 44% of wrongly identified felons who were denied the
right to vote, etc), and the numerous reports, replicated by *several*
investigators, of the massive disenfranchisement of minorities and the poor,
Lott's conclusions make no sense at all. Common sense, not statistics, makes
it clear that minorities votes went uncounted at a far greater rate than
Whites in Florida, and I find it abhorrent that so-called "scholars" like
Lott would manipulate the data in order to defend Bush against any
questioning of the legitimacy of his election. I believe this is what
partisans like Lott and Thernstrom are doing, but thinking people will not
be fooled by the dust they are throwing. Mary Frances Berry summed this us:
"Republicans are trying to throw sand in everybody's eyes so that what's in
the report -- its substance -- is forgotten or ignored." But it won't work.
We won't forget or ignore the massive disenfranchisement of innocent people,
who just happened to be disproportionately minorities and the poor.
Mary Rosh
Why are you so emotional on this? Why do you focus so much on
personal attacks on Lott and an emotional defenses of Klinkner? Why
don't you want to debate the contents of the papers?
I have told you several times that I am not interested in debating
these personal attacks. I want to debate what this tread is on
"Racial disenfranchisement in Florida." Repeating Chistopher Edley's
charges after I had already addressed it is not very useful.
It is not true that it clear that minorities votes went uncounted at
a far greater rate than Whites in Florida and as Lott shows even if
you believe it, the problem to the extent it occurred to place in
counties where the Democrats control the electoral process.
But for the sake of argument I will argee that what you claim is
happening to African-American voters. It proves what I always
thought: Democrats are racist! They are disqualifying
African-american votes. I leave it to you to explain it to me why the
non-voted ballot rates is three times higher in the counties that the
Democrats control.
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<Aw6b7.778$2i4.39...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
James Simpson
> Klinkner (I mean James):
>
> Why are you so emotional on this? <snip>
Oh Mary, now this is sad. That you once again accuse me of being
"emotional" indicates that you are aware you've lost the debate, and so the
only thing left is to go ad hominem. I won't go ad hominem, I won't call you
"pathetic" as you did me, but I have to say your response is pathetic and
incomplete. You obviously can't refute, and so you have no response to, the
fact that Lott does not follow the scientific method, that he has made
numerous categorical, unqualified pronouncements like "More Guns, Less
Crime", and that as a result he has lost credibility in his field. I'm not
debating "personal attacks", I'm simply commenting on the fact that Lott
fails to follow the scientific method. That's not a personal attack, it's a
fact.
Read about the scientific method here
<http://cos.colstate.edu/stokes/Scientific%20Method.html> , and I think
you'll have to admit that Lott does not follow the most basic, most
important principles of the scientific method, namely: 1) Waiting for
multiple researchers to provide *replication* of results before making
pronouncements, and 2) Always stating conclusions with qualifiers and notes
of caution, knowing there are no absolutes and that some other unknown
variable may be the true cause. As I said, following the scientific method
is critical to ensure that the results obtained are a true representation of
what actually occurred, rather simply a fulfillment of the experimenter's
bias, as we see clearly in Lott's work. It's critical to minimize the
influence of bias in the experimenter when testing an hypothesis or theory.
And I think it's very clear that Lott fails at this most basic step of the
scientific method, his bias has infected his conclusions, and therefore his
work lacks validity and reliability, as well as creditability (as was
evident in the disrespectful response from several senators to Lott's
appearance at the Senate Rules Committee hearing on 6-27-01).
As to your statement "It proves what I always thought: Democrats are racist!
They are disqualifying African-american votes." I don't know why I should
bother responding to such a sarcastic, irrational statement, but the fact is
that, of course Democrats are often elections supervisors in poorer counties
with a high percentage of minorities. This is because minorities and the
poor vote primarily Democratic (knowing that Republicans only care for the
rich). It's also true that poorer counties have less money to spend on
voting machinery and voter education, which naturally results in more under-
and over-votes, due to a combination of inadequate voting technology,
inadequate or non-existent voter education, poorly trained poll workers, and
lack of a sufficient number of poll workers resulting in long lines (causing
a significant number of people giving up and not voting). In the USCCR
hearings, one Florida election official, when asked if polling places had
written material advising voters of their rights, she replied "we don't have
money in the budget for that". If there was sufficient funding for basic
issues like informing voters of their rights and upgrading voting machinery
in poorer counties, the disparity in uncounted votes (these are true votes,
believe it or not, not "non-voted ballots") between poor and more affluent
counties would disappear. So no, Democrats are not racist, it's just that
poorer counties, which obviously lack sufficient funding for voting systems,
tend to vote primarily Democratic and so have Democratic elections
supervisors. To summarize: Poor counties > Primarily Democratic >
Democratic elections supervisors > Lack of funding for voting technology and
voter education > Resulting in more uncounted ballots than affluent (often
Republican) counties with sufficient funding for voting systems. Surely
this logic is not beyond you.
Actually, I don't even believe most Republicans are racist. I do believe,
however, that Republican leaders would just as soon minorities not vote,
because they know full well that minorities vote primarily Democratic. This
is why I expect Bush and Repub's to delay and fight against having federal
mandates for election reform, because Republicans know that if voting
reforms are mandated, many more votes by minorities will be counted, and
those votes will go mostly to Democrats, with the result that Repub's will
lose more elections. I bought the videos of the USCCR hearings in Florida,
and what I discovered was that everyone, from Jeb Bush on down passed the
buck, because Florida has a "decentralized" voting system in which specifics
of the voting process are left up to individual county supervisors, who may
lack funding to do everything required to ensure that every vote is counted,
and who may, through inaction (such as not providing voter education or info
on voter's rights), effectively disenfranchise thousands of mostly minority
and poor voters. What occurred in
James
http://www.usccr.gov/vote2000/stdraft1/main.htm
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/KlinknerAnalysis2.html
http://www.hamilton.edu/news/florida/default.html
James Simpson
should read: This is what I believed occurred in Florida. It wasn't a vast
conspiracy that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters in Florida,
but rather, a broken system in which individual counties are left to find
the money for adequate voting technology and voter education, when they in
fact lack such funding, with the result that those living in poorer counties
(primarily minorities) ended up with outdated voting machines and lack of
voter education (among other deficiencies, like lack of disabled access),
and therefore a higher rate of uncounted ballots. There was, as the USCCR
and Dr. Lichtman's statistical analysis showed, a disparate negative effect
on minorities, since minorities primarily reside in poorer counties with the
above mentioned deficiencies that resulted in many minorities being
disenfranchised. Therefore, there were violations of the Voting Rights Act
in Florida, since minorities were disparately effected, no matter how much
conservatives like Thernstrom and John Lott would like to obscure the facts
with a smokescreen of accusations, denials, and manipulated statistics that
purport to contradict the *obvious* fact that minorities were
disenfranchised at a significantly greater rate than Whites.
James
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message
news:fZob7.918$YW4.46...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com...
BitHead
wrote:
>I forgot to finish my last sentence (I'm tired, gotta get to bed). It
>should read: This is what I believed occurred in Florida. It wasn't a vast
>conspiracy that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters in Florida,
>but rather, a broken system in which individual counties are left to find
>the money for adequate voting technology and voter education, when they in
>fact lack such funding, with the result that those living in poorer counties
>(primarily minorities) ended up with outdated voting machines and lack of
>voter education (among other deficiencies, like lack of disabled access),
>and therefore a higher rate of uncounted ballots. There was, as the USCCR
>and Dr. Lichtman's statistical analysis showed, a disparate negative effect
>on minorities, since minorities primarily reside in poorer counties with the
>above mentioned deficiencies that resulted in many minorities being
>disenfranchised. Therefore, there were violations of the Voting Rights Act
>in Florida, since minorities were disparately effected, no matter how much
>conservatives like Thernstrom and John Lott would like to obscure the facts
>with a smokescreen of accusations, denials, and manipulated statistics that
>purport to contradict the *obvious* fact that minorities were
>disenfranchised at a significantly greater rate than Whites.
Washtonton Post and CNN reporting:
World ends tommrow.
Blacks and other minorities hardest hit.
James Simpson
If you have nothing to contribute, why bother? If you can't address the
issues honestly, you waste your time, and everyone elses. Go get a room
with Pinecrapple already. Both never contribute anything of substance,
making stupid sarcastic comments that sidestep the true issues (it's called
denial), and Pineapple pretends (he lies, actually) that he's a "liberal".
What a waste.
Arch Stanton
BitHead wrote:
> On Mon, 06 Aug 2001 04:41:43 GMT, "James Simpson" <js...@flash.net>
> wrote:
>
> >I forgot to finish my last sentence (I'm tired, gotta get to bed). It
> >should read: This is what I believed occurred in Florida. It wasn't a vast
> >conspiracy that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters in Florida,
> >but rather, a broken system in which individual counties are left to find
> >the money for adequate voting technology and voter education, when they in
> >fact lack such funding, with the result that those living in poorer counties
> >(primarily minorities) ended up with outdated voting machines and lack of
> >voter education (among other deficiencies, like lack of disabled access),
> >and therefore a higher rate of uncounted ballots.
Leaving aside the word "vast", why do you assume that this lack of "voting
technology" and "voter education" in "poorer counties" isn't precisely the
"conspiracy" you deny?
> There was, as the USCCR
> >and Dr. Lichtman's statistical analysis showed, a disparate negative effect
> >on minorities, since minorities primarily reside in poorer counties with the
> >above mentioned deficiencies that resulted in many minorities being
> >disenfranchised. Therefore, there were violations of the Voting Rights Act
> >in Florida, since minorities were disparately effected, no matter how much
> >conservatives like Thernstrom and John Lott would like to obscure the facts
> >with a smokescreen of accusations, denials, and manipulated statistics that
> >purport to contradict the *obvious* fact that minorities were
> >disenfranchised at a significantly greater rate than Whites.
>
> Washtonton Post and CNN reporting:
> World ends tommrow.
> Blacks and other minorities hardest hit.
>
--
Arch Stanton
"Sometimes I think this whole world is one big prison yard.
Some of us are convicts. The rest of us are guards." - Bob Dylan
Indiazxxx
Arch Stanton <r694...@prolificom.net> wrote in message
news:3B6F9858...@prolificom.net...
This is an interesting headline. The fact that Blacks are hardest hit means
that most, like 98.5%, of blacks that are lighter skinned have mitochondrial
DNA from an african ancestor.
The fact that so many black women were raped by white men makes it so that
the headline is not really that informative. Of course black african women
were fucked the hardest.
And yes, they probably were gang-banged. So what is the point of CNN and
the WP putting that headline into the public arena?
I think the CNN and WP are trying to set everyone in panic. The prisons of
America are filled with the byproduct of rape. There is no population on
the planet that is the offspring of rape like blacks in America. So is this
some kind of revolution for the CNN and WP?
I think what they are trying to do is "set the clock back."
This is a tactic that is probably used to gain southern democratic voters
who were disenfranchised during the ol' route 66 days. What they want to
portend is that poor whites can in the next election reach out into the
government cofers because all their plantations were taken away and their
black rape victims liberated.
It's just a tactic these media guys like to play around with. Often they go
through historical periods and it's really easy to see those patterns.
There will probably be more headlines like that. The goal is really to gain
white voters by taking them on a time trip . . . the dangerous thing is that
it's not that difficult to fool the white bumpkins into following whatever
the pinheads at the CNN and WP want them to do.
BitHead
wrote:
>> Washtonton Post and CNN reporting:
>> World ends tommrow.
>> Blacks and other minorities hardest hit.
>
>If you have nothing to contribute, why bother? If you can't address the
>issues honestly, you waste your time, and everyone elses.
Oh, I think I just did.
And you fully understad the point I'm making, else you'd not be
responding in your holier than thou manner.
Further, you know I'm right.
James Simpson
>
> > On Mon, 06 Aug 2001 04:41:43 GMT, "James Simpson" <js...@flash.net>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >I forgot to finish my last sentence (I'm tired, gotta get to bed). It
> > >should read: This is what I believed occurred in Florida. It wasn't a
vast
> > >conspiracy that effectively disenfranchised thousands of voters in
Florida,
> > >but rather, a broken system in which individual counties are left to
find
> > >the money for adequate voting technology and voter education, when they
in
> > >fact lack such funding, with the result that those living in poorer
counties
> > >(primarily minorities) ended up with outdated voting machines and lack
of
> > >voter education (among other deficiencies, like lack of disabled
access),
> > >and therefore a higher rate of uncounted ballots.
>
> Leaving aside the word "vast", why do you assume that this lack of "voting
> technology" and "voter education" in "poorer counties" isn't precisely the
> "conspiracy" you deny?
You're right, of course. I meant to say there is not absolute *proof* of a
racist conspiracy (short of a videotape where an election official says
"let's set up roadblocks to stop Blacks from voting", it's almost impossible
to prove such a conspiracy). I do believe it's quite likely that state
officials, who have been involved in this process for many years, are very
aware of ways to make it hard for minorities to vote, and these methods seem
to involve simple inaction (not providing voter education), neglect (not
upgrading voting machines in poorer counties) etc., rather than directly
barring minorities from voting (which would be easier to prove). This is
what I've learned from watching the USCCR hearings. Mary Frances Berry put
it this way: "I get the feeling that voting in Florida is kind of like,
there's a 'Goodie box', and you want to get what's inside the box, but you
can't get to it. Or, it's kind of like the old librarian who doesn't want
let anyone to check out books."
In other words, the "conspiracy" (which I think it's clear has been going on
for many years, in many states, not only in Florida) seems to be one of
making it difficult, putting up obstacles, for minorities to vote, because
Republican election officials very know that minorities, especially Blacks,
vote 90% Democratic. In the 50's and early 60's, it was poll taxes and
"literacy tests" for minorities, quizzing minorities on the constitution to
determine whether they had the right to vote, etc. Now, it's an unequal
system, in which poorer counties (again where many minorities reside) get
the cheaper voting technology with higher error rates, no voter education,
refusal by poll workers to provide a second ballot if a voter makes a
mistake (as required by law), lack of poll workers leading to long lines,
"felon purges", etc., while more affluent counties (predominantly
Republican), which have more funding for voting systems, get the better
voting machines with lower error rates, more info on voting rights, better
trained poll workers, etc. etc.
It's obviously an unequal system (can anyone say "Equal Protection
violation"?). How is it *not* an Equal Protection violation when different
counties use completely different voting machines (punchcards vs. optical,
etc.) which have wide disparities in error rates (funny, the Supreme Court
had no comment on this issue)? But how does one prove this is a conspiracy?
Hopefully, Dem's will win out and the Conyers-Dodd "Equal Protection of
Voting Rights Act", which *mandates* federal standards for voting (to ensure
that poorer counties have equal resources to more alluent counties) will
pass. However, Bush and Repub's in congress are already reported to be
against federal mandates, probably the old "state's rights" argument. Of
course, I think it's crystal clear the real reason Republicans are against
federal mandates in voting is that they know that if voting systems are
equal for all, regardless of race or socioeconomic level, then Democrats
will win more elections, since it will be minorities and the poor (who vote
mostly for Democrats again) who will benefit so that more of their votes are
counted, with the result that Repub's, including Bush in 2004, will lose
elections big-time.
James
Mary Rosh
For your interest, the US Civil Rights Commission appears to have put
up both Lott's report (dated July 15) as well as Lichtman's response
(dated July 16), though it looks like both files have only been put up
during the last couple of days. You claimed before that Klinkner
simply had an early version of Lott's paper and that is the reason he
got so many things wrong. Well that excuse won't work this time. The
USCCR put up both pieces and even date Lichtman's after Lott's. In
addition, they put both up just now and by the date that the
Commission uses Lott's paper must have been given to them on July
15th.
http://www.usccr.gov/vote2000/stdraft1/lott/lott.htm
http://www.usccr.gov/vote2000/stdraft1/ap10.htm
You should read them both because it is very instructive about how
Lichtman debates.
1) Lichtman claims that Lott does not account for literacy, and
Lichtman makes a big deal about this. . You can verify this yourself
by looking at the bottom of Table 3.
2) Lichtman can't accurately report Lott's R2s. Some of Lott R2s in
Table 5 get as high as .86.
3) Lichtman claims that he accounts for many more variables than Lott
does. May be my addition is pretty bad, but I count more than a few
of Lott's regressions that have more variables. For example, see
specification 7 in Lott's Table 3.
4) Lichtman incorrectly states Lott's findings on the relationship
between political affliliation of election supervisors and nonvoted
ballots by African-Americans. Lott's F-tests are reported clearly.
There are four other incorrect claims by Lichtman, but who is
counting? Can you explain to me why the
"James Simpson" <js...@flash.net> wrote in message news:<qg_b7.1313$Z06.59...@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>...
Obwon
report:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.pfaw.org/issues/democracy/federalist/index.shtml
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Obwon
On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 20:45:22 GMT, "James Simpson" <js...@flash.net>
wrote:
>To Mary Rosh,
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Learn from the mistakes of others. |
You can't live long enough to make |
them all yourself. |
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@