Gun-grabbing and safety
Cynthia Kandolf
>I will grant that children growing up without being "raised" tend to
commit
>crimes when they reach maturity. With no one to show a boy how to be a
man,
>then he will just be an overgrown boy when he grows up. But that
doesn't
>explain everything. Illegitimacy is pretty high in Europe too. I was
recently
>talking to my roommate from France, and he told me that getting
pregnant in
>France is no reason to get married, and it isn't frowned on (much).
The
>$64 question remains unclaimed.
Lots of children born outside of marriage here in Scandinavia, too.
Again, getting pregnant isn't considered a reason to get married, and
a one-parent home isn't considered unusual or anything to be ashamed
of. Many parents who do live together aren't married, so the number
of two-parent homes that break up and become one-parent homes is
higher than the divorce statistics would suggest. And yet the violent
crime rate here is lower than in the US.
One "explanation" i've heard is that even if these kids aren't growing
up in Ozzie-and-Harriet "ideal" homes, society around them is pretty
stable. They see little crime so they're not as likely to commit it.
A wonderful argument, whose only fault is that it's completely
circular. According to this model, the rise in violent crime should
never get started in the first place!
Perhaps the problem doesn't have one cause, but many little causes.
This seems to make sense to me, since no one factor has been found
that correlates perfectly with crime rates. And if this is true, then
looking for a single factor is only distracting people's attention
from the real root cause and the potential solution.
On the other hand, looking for a combination of factors that
individually would have little or no effect on crime rates is going to
need a longer attention span than most people have developed *sigh*.
-Cindy Kandolf
ci...@lise.unit.no
Trondheim, Norway
Alexandre Pechtchanski
>
>Murray (and Moynihan before him) pointed out that in certain sectors
>the family has almost disintegrated. The black illegitimacy
>rate is up over 2/3. The white rate is increasing at the rate of
>about 1% per year, and its up over 20% now, ie at about the same
>place the black rate was when Moynihan first pointed it out.
>
>There. Neatly tied back into a Dan Quayle topic.
And I can just imagine Murphy Brown's son becoming mugger or violent
teenager because he is so grieved by his illegitimate status (and,
of course, because of poverty and no way out except in gang)
Or maybe he'll blame all his family problems on Dan Quayle? }d-Q
-------
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Alex Pechtchanski, GCRC System Manager | Voice: (212) 241-1804
Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York | Fax : (212) 348-5811
internet: {pechtcha or system}@vaxa.crc.mssm.edu
or ap...@cunyvm.cuny.edu bitnet: appms@cunyvm
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Opinions? You call _these_ opinions?
Donald R. McGregor
>up in Ozzie-and-Harriet "ideal" homes, society around them is pretty
>stable. They see little crime so they're not as likely to commit it.
>A wonderful argument, whose only fault is that it's completely
>circular. According to this model, the rise in violent crime should
>never get started in the first place!
A quick look at the homicide rates shows them going from about 4.5 per
hundred thousand in 1962 to around 9 per hundred thousand by
1970-1975. Since then it's been bouncing around between 8 and 10
per hundred thousand. There seemed to be a decline between 1980
and 1985, but since then it has gone back up from about 8 to about 10.
Partially this is due to demographics. The boomers, pond scum that
they are, went through their violent years, which peak out
from about 18-30 or so. The average violent crime career is
around 7-9 years long. They've since aged and moved on to
other things, but the violent crime rate is still up there.
The current murder problem is overwhelmingly centered in inner
cities. The black violent crime rate is about 6X that of
whites (who are presumably off in suburbia or the country.)
The black arrest rate is pretty horrific; an astonishing
percentage of residents of some cities are in the criminal
justice system. It would seem that any examination of the
problem should start with this set or subculture.
Which brings us to the Scandinavians. What are the circumstances
of most single parents there? If a father is not typically
present, are there other people in the community to
"police" the kids, and generally induce them to be responsible?
Charles Murray's argument is that in the inner cities the
process of aculturation is never performed. A subculture of
single women with kids in the projects has formed; the
tone is set by packs of adolesents and post-adolescents,
with predictably tragic results. Fathers are absent,
and no other source of authority has emerged or substituted
for that.
I haven't read a whole lot in the area, but the theory has
surface plausability. If violence is worst in a certain
subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
family has to figure in that.
--
Don McGregor | ...and his wonder dog, Wederman.
mcg...@crl.com |
Donald R. McGregor
:>>the family has almost disintegrated. The black illegitimacy
:>>rate is up over 2/3. The white rate is increasing at the rate of
:>>about 1% per year, and its up over 20% now, ie at about the same
:>>place the black rate was when Moynihan first pointed it out.
:>>
:>>There. Neatly tied back into a Dan Quayle topic.
:>
:>And I can just imagine Murphy Brown's son becoming mugger or violent
:>teenager because he is so grieved by his illegitimate status (and,
:>of course, because of poverty and no way out except in gang)
I don't recall any people arguing that the violent crime is due
to the kid being ashamed of his status. Maybe you can point out
someone who has.
Anyway, single parent status inflicts some disadvantages that
can't be denied. Poverty, on average, for example. Most single
mothers don't have high-paying TV anchor jobs. The Atlantic
had an article shortly after the election titled, oddly
enough, "Dan Quayle Was Right" on the topic.
BTW, Our Illustrious AG, Janet 'Flamer' Reno, has been bashing
the TV networks lately about violence on TV, and asserting that
violence on TV leads to real violence in the street. Can you
compare on contrast this with Dan Quayle's dislike of other
messages on TV?
[She even wrote a TV movie script. I am
not making this up. From the WSJ:
"...It seems that Janet Reno had, the evening before,
told the world,via the "MacNeil/Leher News Hour" that
she had herself written a dramatic script exemplifiying
the socially responsive fare TV should be showing.
The hero of Ms. Reno's story is a "14-year-old kid" who,
whe explained, goes on to "raise two siblings while his
mother recovers from crack addiction." This hero gets
his mother into treatment, and three years later "the
mother goes to law school and he graduates a
valedectorian." She had offered the script free of
charge, the attorney general informed Jim Leher, who was
by now looking a trifle wide-eyed. ...
[I can just _see_ this movie getting reviewed by Joe Bob
Briggs--DM.]
Let us hope somebody does do a move about Ms. Reno and the
war on TV violence. Such a script could touch on so many
wonderful mysteries. For instance, where are the
entertainment world's stars and satirists--the same
who mocked Dan Quayle for months for his mild observation
that Murphy Brown's single motherhood denigrated
family values--now that another powerful agent of
government has spoken up about programming? Where, now,
are all those TV comedy writers who piled on the bandwagon
to sneer, "It's only a TV show, Dan"? Where now is Diane
English, creator of "Murphy Brown", who hugged her award
at the Emmy ceremony while worrying aloud that the vice
president's comment might mean a new McCarthyism? where
now are these friends of freedom, when it is Janet Reno
targeting shows and--something Dan Quayle never
did--threatening censorship? Such are the mysteries of
our time."
-------
1) She is probably being very realistic about her price
for the script. I think a percentage of gross is right
out, babe.
2) Needs a car chase and a couple ninjas.
Cynthia Kandolf
>Which brings us to the Scandinavians. What are the circumstances
>of most single parents there? If a father is not typically
>present, are there other people in the community to
>"police" the kids, and generally induce them to be responsible?
Just as in the U.S., the situation of single parents in Scandinavia
varies widely. Some have good support from families and neighbors;
others are more or less alone. Some can depend on varying degrees of
help from the other parent; some have been completely abandoned.
I don't understand the intention of the last sentence quoted above at
all. Before i can comment on it sensibly i really need to know...
1. Do you mean "if one parent is not present", or are we for whatever
reason only looking at mother-only homes?
2. Is it the situation where you live that two-parent homes typically
don't need support from other members of the community? (extended
family, neighbors, etc.)
3. How exactly do you believe a child is "induced to be responsible"?
Donald R. McGregor
>Donald McGregor writes:
>>Which brings us to the Scandinavians. What are the circumstances
>>of most single parents there? If a father is not typically
>>present, are there other people in the community to
>>"police" the kids, and generally induce them to be responsible?
>
>all. Before i can comment on it sensibly i really need to know...
>1. Do you mean "if one parent is not present", or are we for whatever
>reason only looking at mother-only homes?
>2. Is it the situation where you live that two-parent homes typically
>don't need support from other members of the community? (extended
>family, neighbors, etc.)
>3. How exactly do you believe a child is "induced to be responsible"?
These are unscientific observations, not intended to be definitive.
1. As a matter of practical fact, most single parent families have
the mother as the head of household. So "single parent families"
is for practical purposes "headed by a female." Murray was arguing
that the effective lack of males in the parenting role led to
adolescent males setting the tone in, for example, projects.
Probably if males headed most single parent households there
would be a different set of problems (rampant laying on the
couch in underwear until noon on Sundays watching football,
for example.)
2. Depends.
3. Involvement of adults with adolescents is probably a good thing.
The kid is still figuring himself out, and the adults provide
some guidance. The kid gets socialized into responsible behavior,
more so than if he were running with a bunch of other testoserone-crazed
kids of the same age all the time. If the kid is a functioning
part of the society he starts to feel pressure to behave in a
responsible manner. You can see this in smaller towns, where
most of the people know who's who. Misbehavior starts getting
some negative feedback, directed against the kid and the family.
In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
More likely than not the grandmother is a single parent too,
so there's no male there to provide direction and authority.
Other societal units--churches, schools, neighborhoods--
are in sad shape. So what we wind up with is a society ruled
by the mores of adolescent males.
The world of a white, middle class, college educated single
mother is very different. Usually she'll be in functioning
surroundings, have a decent income, and maybe have parents,
a church, or whatever around to help out.
--
Don McGregor | World's most dangerous USENET poster
mcg...@crl.com |
Mel Walker
wrote:
> BTW, Our Illustrious AG, Janet 'Flamer' Reno, has been bashing
> the TV networks lately about violence on TV, and asserting that
> violence on TV leads to real violence in the street. Can you
> compare on contrast this with Dan Quayle's dislike of other
> messages on TV?
>
> [She even wrote a TV movie script. I am
> not making this up. From the WSJ:
>
[a TV movie idea that would at least be better than "Full House" deleted]
>
> Let us hope somebody does do a move about Ms. Reno and the
> war on TV violence. Such a script could touch on so many
> wonderful mysteries. For instance, where are the
> entertainment world's stars and satirists--the same
> who mocked Dan Quayle for months for his mild observation
> that Murphy Brown's single motherhood denigrated
> family values--now that another powerful agent of
> government has spoken up about programming?
I guess most of these people realized that Dan Quayle was not threatening
government control of the media. For all his faults, he at least doesn't
seem to have major totaltarian leanings.
> Where, now,
> are all those TV comedy writers who piled on the bandwagon
> to sneer, "It's only a TV show, Dan"?
Worried that they might lose their jobs to government edicts.
> Where now is Diane
> English, creator of "Murphy Brown", who hugged her award
> at the Emmy ceremony while worrying aloud that the vice
> president's comment might mean a new McCarthyism?
Little did she realize....
> where
> now are these friends of freedom, when it is Janet Reno
> targeting shows and--something Dan Quayle never
> did--threatening censorship? Such are the mysteries of
> our time."
>
> -------
>
> 1) She is probably being very realistic about her price
> for the script. I think a percentage of gross is right
> out, babe.
>
> 2) Needs a car chase and a couple ninjas.
There's _nothing_ that can't be improved with a good car chase. :-)
--
Mel Walker mwa...@optics.wc.novell.com
"What if there were no hypothetical questions?" -- John Mendoza
Herbert Rutledge
|> For instance, where are the
|> entertainment world's stars and satirists--the same
|> who mocked Dan Quayle for months for his mild observation
|> that Murphy Brown's single motherhood denigrated
|> family values--now that another powerful agent of
|> government has spoken up about programming?
Did you happen to either hear or read Dan Quayle's speech to the
Commonwealth Club with it's "mild observation that Murphy Brown's
single motherhood denigrated family values"?
I did. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. He held Candice
Bergen responsible for the Los Angeles riots!
And it's bad, bad Murphy Brown
She gets those folks to torch their town
L.A. would be a better view
If she'd had only said, "I do."
People laughed at Quayle because he attacked a popular television program
and showed that he was ignorant of the story-line he was attacking! In
public life in this country, you do things like that at your peril.
--
_________________________________________________________________________
| | |
| Herbert Rutledge, aka Train | |
| Unisys Government Systems Group | "To post is human; to flame, divine." |
| Valley Forge Engineering Center | |
| P.O. Box 517, Paoli, PA 19301 | ---Alexander Pope |
| Internet: tr...@vfl.paramax.com | |
|_________________________________|_______________________________________|
gar...@ingres.com
and it still hasn't trailed off on a tangent, partisan-finger-pointing,
or apathy. I'm impressed.
In article <CINDY.93N...@lise5.lise.unit.no>, ci...@lise.unit.no (Cynthia Kand writes...
You are almost surely right. Blaming violence on the lack of "family
values" is, well, a Dan-like assertion. It might very well be a small
contributor, but it can't be taken as the leading cause. And more
importantly, is can't be legislated away. On the other hand, you can't
just outlaw hand-guns and expect the problem to go away either.
I guess what a person needs to do is to compare our nation
to a few countries with similar cultures and find out what they are
doing that is different.
>
>On the other hand, looking for a combination of factors that
>individually would have little or no effect on crime rates is going to
>need a longer attention span than most people have developed *sigh*.
Hey, I'm impressed that this topic is still being discussed.
>
>-Cindy Kandolf
> ci...@lise.unit.no
> Trondheim, Norway
>
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"And the radical, he rant and rage, singin' someone Gar...@Ingres.com
got to turn the page. And the rich man in his summer Garrett Johnson
home, singin' just leave well enough alone. And Always my opinions,
it's all too clear we're on our own." -Greatful Dead sometimes coherent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gar...@ingres.com
>>One "explanation" i've heard is that even if these kids aren't growing
>>up in Ozzie-and-Harriet "ideal" homes, society around them is pretty
>>stable. They see little crime so they're not as likely to commit it.
>>A wonderful argument, whose only fault is that it's completely
>>circular. According to this model, the rise in violent crime should
>>never get started in the first place!
>
>A quick look at the homicide rates shows them going from about 4.5 per
>hundred thousand in 1962 to around 9 per hundred thousand by
>1970-1975. Since then it's been bouncing around between 8 and 10
>per hundred thousand. There seemed to be a decline between 1980
>and 1985, but since then it has gone back up from about 8 to about 10.
>
>cities. The black violent crime rate is about 6X that of
>whites (who are presumably off in suburbia or the country.)
>The black arrest rate is pretty horrific; an astonishing
>percentage of residents of some cities are in the criminal
>justice system. It would seem that any examination of the
>problem should start with this set or subculture.
>
to "reform" these criminals? They go in with the same perspective and
job prospects as when they go in. Can you give some stats on how many
violent criminals are repeat criminals?
>I haven't read a whole lot in the area, but the theory has
>surface plausability. If violence is worst in a certain
>subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
>aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
>family has to figure in that.
I wouldn't say, "has to". If the subculture has certain environmental
similarities, and racial similarities, then you probably have more than
one issue on your hands.
>
>Don McGregor | ...and his wonder dog, Wederman.
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spencer V. PriceNash
>In article <CINDY.93N...@lise5.lise.unit.no> ci...@lise.unit.no (Cynthia Kandolf) writes:
>>
>>3. How exactly do you believe a child is "induced to be responsible"?
>
>These are unscientific observations, not intended to be definitive.
>
>In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
>lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
>or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
>are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
>the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
>we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
>extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
I disagree with this last point. The "void" that is to be filled is not
a void at all, unless one is looking inside from the outside. In cases
where different cultures are represented (the "outside" is one culture,
the "inside" another) the observers don't even notice that the "void"
they're talking can't be replaced because it never existed.
I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
have been that way for hundreds of years.
--
Spencer PriceNash spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us spe...@umcc.umich.edu
Dan Quayle via anon ftp: Quotes at umcc.umich.edu in pub/quayle, GIFs and
sound files at vaxa.crc.mssm.edu in quayle/gif and quayle/sound.
Donald R. McGregor
>>
>>In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
>>lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
>>or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
>>are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
>>the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
>>we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
>>extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
>
>I disagree with this last point. The "void" that is to be filled is not
>a void at all, unless one is looking inside from the outside. In cases
>where different cultures are represented (the "outside" is one culture,
>the "inside" another) the observers don't even notice that the "void"
>they're talking can't be replaced because it never existed.
>
>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>have been that way for hundreds of years.
The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
in the inner cities. It's not a question of just having the
male absent in an otherwise typical society. The stereotype
is that of the high school dropout mother, living alone in
the projects, from a family that was probably itself headed
by a single parent. She's on AFDC, and there are essentially
no functioning institutions, governmental or not, anywhere to
be seen.
Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
draconian consequences for a single mother, but also encourages
responsible behavior in a not-very-subtle way. The mother
has to get support from the community--family, church, friends--
to function. They're less likely to be tolerant of self-
destructive behavior like drugs. It also puts the mother
and the kid into routine contact with some people who are
likely to be responsible, so the kid is less likely to
be runnig wild. It effectively forces the mother to remain
at home, which is an unattractive option for any teenager.
and also puts the kid into contact with whatever extended
family there might be.
It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
of the bride, perhaps). The mother has an overriding interest
in getting married, and in not getting pregnant in the first
place.
Mothers and fathers unable to live up to their responsibilities
would have their children placed into foster homes or placed for adoption.
john white
DRM> @REPLYADDR mcg...@crl.com
DRM> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
DRM> From: mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor)
DRM> A quick look at the homicide rates shows them going from about 4.5 per
DRM> hundred thousand in 1962 to around 9 per hundred thousand by
DRM> 1970-1975. Since then it's been bouncing around between 8 and 10
DRM> per hundred thousand. There seemed to be a decline between 1980
DRM> and 1985, but since then it has gone back up from about 8 to about 10.
...
DRM> The current murder problem is overwhelmingly centered in inner
DRM> cities. The black violent crime rate is about 6X that of
DRM> whites (who are presumably off in suburbia or the country.)
DRM> The black arrest rate is pretty horrific; an astonishing
DRM> percentage of residents of some cities are in the criminal
DRM> justice system. It would seem that any examination of the
DRM> problem should start with this set or subculture.
...
DRM> Charles Murray's argument is that in the inner cities the
DRM> process of aculturation is never performed. A subculture of
DRM> single women with kids in the projects has formed; the
DRM> tone is set by packs of adolesents and post-adolescents,
DRM> with predictably tragic results. Fathers are absent,
DRM> and no other source of authority has emerged or substituted
DRM> for that.
...
DRM> I haven't read a whole lot in the area, but the theory has
DRM> surface plausability. If violence is worst in a certain
DRM> subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
DRM> aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
DRM> family has to figure in that.
More likely emergence of natural (genetic?) tendencies. Compare violence in
black inner cities with violence in black countries in Africa. Any bleeding
heart liberal who wants whites to be responsible is welcome to lower inner city
black area crime statistics by moving into said areas and taking all other BHL
with them. Put themselves where their mouths are. If they double the
population, they will halve the crime rate, no? Hey, fresh meat!
Regards, John
---
* Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
Spencer V. PriceNash
>In article <CG740...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us> spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash) writes:
>>>
>>>In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
>>>lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
>>>or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
>>>are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
>>>the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
>>>we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
>>>extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
>>
>>I disagree with this last point. The "void" that is to be filled is not
>>a void at all, unless one is looking inside from the outside. In cases
>>where different cultures are represented (the "outside" is one culture,
>>the "inside" another) the observers don't even notice that the "void"
>>they're talking can't be replaced because it never existed.
>>
>>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>>have been that way for hundreds of years.
>
>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>in the inner cities. It's not a question of just having the
>male absent in an otherwise typical society.
Interesting hypothesis, but I'm not sure it's true. I don't have a lot
of contact with people in Detroit anymore, having left nearly twenty
years ago, but I get back now and then, and the extended family is quite
alive and well among my friends and relatives. Perhaps at some point in
the future some horrible string of events would cause the extended
family to break down, but I think that sort of thing would cause the
nuclear family to go through some rough changes too. Families are hard
things to destroy; death does a pretty good job, but not much else.
>The stereotype
>is that of the high school dropout mother, living alone in
>the projects, from a family that was probably itself headed
>by a single parent. She's on AFDC, and there are essentially
>no functioning institutions, governmental or not, anywhere to
>be seen.
Hmm. I don't know about any of those, and can't imagine that sort of
thing happening. There was too much pressure from family, friends, etc.
to study and graduate and start an independent life on the right foot.
Those that didn't follow orders -- and it was like that, where I came
from -- were losers in the short run. They eventually figured out how
to make their lives better, and they did. Not much different from life
anywhere else.
>Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
>draconian consequences for a single mother, but also encourages
>responsible behavior in a not-very-subtle way. The mother
>[...]
This reminds me of the sociology texts I read in college. They had this
weird way of describing the kind of life I lived when I was growing up.
Later, I got the same impression from reading anthropology texts, and
was able to put my misgivings into words that everyone would understand:
I didn't like seeing people from one culture judging another based on
premises that make no sense within the judged culture.
The biggest problem I see back in the erstwhile neighborhood is children
in their thirties who won't permanently leave their parents' home, and I
think every culture in the Unites States has that problem.
Chris Holt
[about inner city violence, single families, and the like]
>DRM> ... If violence is worst in a certain
>DRM> subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
>DRM> aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
>DRM> family has to figure in that.
>More likely emergence of natural (genetic?) tendencies.
Uh, what? You think that genetic similarities correlate
with violence? Is there any evidence whatsoever for such
a theory among human beings?
>Compare violence in
>black inner cities with violence in black countries in Africa. Any bleeding
>heart liberal who wants whites to be responsible is welcome to lower inner city
>black area crime statistics by moving into said areas and taking all other BHL
>with them.
But most bleeding heart liberals think that poverty is one of
the significant factors causally involved with social
unrest/violence; and lo, there is poverty in black inner
cities and black African countries. [Not the only factor,
of course; human behaviour patterns usually require a number
of factors to be present.] So there would have to be a
mechanism for the presence of these BHLs to significantly
raise the level of wealth in inner cities for them to accept
your proposed solution; given the numbers involved, this
would seem doubtful.
>Put themselves where their mouths are. If they double the
>population, they will halve the crime rate, no? Hey, fresh meat!
And even better, it absolves everyone else from any
responsibility for social conditions; who said there's
no free lunch?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk Computing Science, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a virtual workspace.
Chris Holt
[inner cities and single mothers]
>>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>>have been that way for hundreds of years.
>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>in the inner cities. It's not a question of just having the
>male absent in an otherwise typical society. The stereotype
>is that of the high school dropout mother, living alone in
>the projects, from a family that was probably itself headed
>by a single parent. She's on AFDC, and there are essentially
>no functioning institutions, governmental or not, anywhere to
>be seen.
This certainly is the stereotype, but how accurate is it? How
many of these single parents are actually isolated from everyone,
without family, church, and friends to turn to? [I don't know.]
>Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
>draconian consequences for a single mother, but also encourages
>responsible behavior in a not-very-subtle way.
You think so? [Apparently Murray does.] It sounds like a
good way to raise the number of prostitutes on the streets,
and so lower the price (since impoverished women are more
likely to turn to the game); but I'm not sure augmenting
that section of the free market in this day and age counts
as responsible social policy. Of course, some will turn
to dealing drugs to earn a living...
>The mother
>has to get support from the community--family, church, friends--
>to function.
And if family is poor, churches are overloaded, and friends
are in a similar state...
>They're less likely to be tolerant of self-
>destructive behavior like drugs.
Is this true? Are churches going to turn people away? Are
family and friends going to turn their backs? Why does
"Victorian" come to mind, with poorhouses and debtor's
prisons?
> It also puts the mother
>and the kid into routine contact with some people who are
>likely to be responsible, so the kid is less likely to
>be runnig wild.
This has the kernel of a good idea, but there might be
better ways to achieve that effect.
> It effectively forces the mother to remain
>at home, which is an unattractive option for any teenager.
>and also puts the kid into contact with whatever extended
>family there might be.
I don't understand this one at all; is the mother not going
to be desperate for money, so she'll be out scouring the
streets for tricks^H^H^H^H^H^Hjobs?
>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>of the bride, perhaps).
Are fathers going to use threats like that in this day and
age, or is this just dreaming of the Golden Past when children
weren't brought up as sisters of their (unmarried) mothers?
>The mother has an overriding interest
>in getting married, and in not getting pregnant in the first
>place.
And yet... and yet accidents still seem to happen, as they
did in the past. When did Theodore Dreiser write An American
Tragedy?
>Mothers and fathers unable to live up to their responsibilities
>would have their children placed into foster homes or placed for adoption.
Orphanages. Please sir, could I have some more?
gar...@ingres.com
>>DRM> From: mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor)
>
> [about inner city violence, single families, and the like]
>
>>DRM> ... If violence is worst in a certain
>>DRM> subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
>>DRM> aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
>>DRM> family has to figure in that.
>
>>More likely emergence of natural (genetic?) tendencies.
>
Whether you meant it or not, to say that a certain negative activity is
genetically linked to a race, is a racist statement. Thanks John, for
your insight. But I'll pass the next time you want to share it.
Now if you want a little reverse-racist insight, why is it
that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean just
European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired." Gar...@Ingres.com
- R. Geis Garrett Johnson
"A libertarian is just an anarchist on the gold Always my opinions,
standard. " - Alexis Gilliland sometimes coherent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <CG740...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us> spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash) writes:
>
>>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>>have been that way for hundreds of years.
>
>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>in the inner cities.
This is one of those times that I feel like I am the only person on
this net that is living in the inner city. I get the feeling that I am the
only person in this discussion that has witnessed a drive-by shooting, or
been attacked purely because of my skin-color, or are friends with people that
live in the projects.
Hey, guys. I got news for you. Families exist in the inner-cities
as well. Urban-dwelling, black people have families too. Families that care
about their members.
> It's not a question of just having the
>male absent in an otherwise typical society.
Actually, I think it is.
>Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
>draconian consequences for a single mother, but also encourages
>responsible behavior in a not-very-subtle way. The mother
>has to get support from the community--family, church, friends--
>to function. They're less likely to be tolerant of self-
>destructive behavior like drugs.
I don't know who Murray is, but he doens't know what he talking
about. First of all, he is talking about inflicting punishment on
poor children. They _will_ be the ones who recieve the brunt of this
measure. Secondly, drugs are not the reason that children have children.
Thirdly, in the short-term, this would only make the problem of children
growing up without their parents around worse. And that is what started
this tangent (blaming the crime problem on single-parent families). Have
you ever noticed that children being born out of wedlock is higher in
poor neighborhoods? Now before you say something like, "Well this shows
that single-parent families are poorer", ask yourself what came first.
The poor neighborhood, or the single-parent families? (Hint: the poor
neighborhoods) Making the single-parents poorer isn't going to make
things better.
> It also puts the mother
>and the kid into routine contact with some people who are
>likely to be responsible, so the kid is less likely to
>be runnig wild. It effectively forces the mother to remain
>at home,
No, it effectively forces the mother to find a job, and leave her child.
> which is an unattractive option for any teenager.
If the mother of the teenage mother could control her, then she
wouldn't have had the baby in the first place.
>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>of the bride, perhaps).
Shees! Do you know anybody from the ghetto? Let me tell you something
I've found out from talking to friends I have in the projects. The black
men I know tell me that black women _won't_ marry the black men that father
their babies because they figure that they will probably wind up dead or
in jail anyway. How does tht fit into Murray's theory? BTw, since you are
done debating on a stereotype, perhaps you could address the fact that
most welfare-mothers are white, not in the inner-city, and don't stay on
welfare for more than a couple years.
Look, Don, you have not only failed to convince me that
illigitimate children are responsible for the crime we have today, but
you have failed to prove that this steroetype has anything to do with
reality. It is my personal belief that if the debate is purely fiction
then why waste time debating it? Hmmm?
>
>Mothers and fathers unable to live up to their responsibilities
>would have their children placed into foster homes or placed for adoption.
>
Eugenics?
>
>Don McGregor | World's most dangerous USENET poster
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald R. McGregor
April 1993 _Atlantic_. It's an essay rather than a research
paper, so the footnotes are non-existent. Very interesting
reading.
In article <1993Nov10.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>>>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>>>have been that way for hundreds of years.
>>
>>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>>in the inner cities.
>[...]
> Hey, guys. I got news for you. Families exist in the inner-cities
>as well. Urban-dwelling, black people have families too. Families that care
>about their members.
1. Single mothers are more likely to be the children of single
mothers themselves. "Among white families, daughters of single
parents are 53 percent more likely to marry as teenagers, 111
percent more likely to have children as teenagers, 164 percent
more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92 percent more
likely to disolve their own marriages. All these intergenerational
consequenes of single motherhood increase the likelihood of chronic
welfare dependency." I assume the numbers are in the same range
for blacks. This implies that the extended families are likely
to be fractured as well.
2. Extended families and friends are apparently less likely to
be present for single mothers. "Even the notion that single mothers are
knit together in economically supportive networks is not borne
out by the evidence. ON the contrary, single parenthood forces
many women to be on the move, in search of cheaper housing and better
jobs. This need-driven restless mobility makes it more difficult
for them to sustain supportive ties to family and friends, let
alone other single mothers."
>> It's not a question of just having the
>>male absent in an otherwise typical society.
>
>Actually, I think it is.
Perhaps the other things are secondary effects. My point was that
a kid is more likely to go wrong in East Palo Alto than in Mill
Valley, if for no other reason than things like schools, law
enforcement, and other institutions are likely to be functional.
They're also more likely to be surrounded by children from intact
bioligical families, which I suspect is a help.
>>Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
>
>I don't know who Murray is, but he doens't know what he talking
>about.
Author of _Losing Ground_, circa 1984. A conservative that argues
the structure of welfare actively encourages single parenthood.
> First of all, he is talking about inflicting punishment on
>poor children. They _will_ be the ones who recieve the brunt of this
>measure.
Well, that's the central problem of things like this. We, as a
society, do _not_ want to encourage behavior like single parenthood
by teenagers. This implies a certain amount of negative reinforcement,
via economic penalties, social sanctions or shame, whatever.
In this day and age, that's considered to be rather declasse.
At the same time, we do want some compassion and support for the
people involved.
> Secondly, drugs are not the reason that children have children.
>Thirdly, in the short-term, this would only make the problem of children
>growing up without their parents around worse. And that is what started
>this tangent (blaming the crime problem on single-parent families). Have
>you ever noticed that children being born out of wedlock is higher in
>poor neighborhoods? Now before you say something like, "Well this shows
>that single-parent families are poorer", ask yourself what came first.
>The poor neighborhood, or the single-parent families? (Hint: the poor
>neighborhoods) Making the single-parents poorer isn't going to make
>things better.
Not really. Women who divorce and become single parents experience
a drop in income, not surprisingly. There's only one income
afterwards, and women are concentrated in lower-paying job
categories. The income of mothers and children declines 30%
in the year following seperation on average, while that of the
father increases by 10-15%. The cause-and-effect chain seems
to work in the direction of single parenthood->poverty rather than
the other way around.
Re crime: "Nationally, more than 70% of all juveniles in state
reform institutions come from fatherless homes. A number of
scholarly studies find that even after the groups of subjects
are controlled for income, boys from single-mother homes
are significantly more likely than others to commit crimes
adn to wind up in the juvenile justice, court, and penitentiary
systems. One such study summarized the relationship between
crime and one-parent families in this way: 'The relationship is
so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the
relationship between race and crime and between low income and
crime. This conclusion shows up time and again the the literature.'"
This seems to rule out the genetic theory someone else had.
Anyway, the increase in crime levels is practically by definition
due to environmental changes. The change was associated with
major changes in society, not changes in genetic stock.
>> It also puts the mother
>>and the kid into routine contact with some people who are
>>likely to be responsible, so the kid is less likely to
>>be runnig wild. It effectively forces the mother to remain
>>at home,
>
>No, it effectively forces the mother to find a job, and leave her child.
Effectively it forces the mother to move in with her parents.
This is obviously unattractive for a teenager, and not very
pleasant for the parents either. All this is effectively social
policy by detterence; the consequences of socially destructive
behavior are severe. The people involved are held strictly
accountable for their actions. No Nerf.
Yes, it's severe, and for that reason I'm rather leery of it.
It does have undeniable logic to it, in that increasing sanctions
will lead to more people conforming to social standards.
>If the mother of the teenage mother could control her, then she
>wouldn't have had the baby in the first place.
It increases the incentives for the mother to control the
kid as well. One of my parents is a former vice principal
at a large-ish (for Oregon) high school on the wrong-ish
side of the tracks. Time and again the story was "I can't
control Jane," but the reality was more like an abdication,
with the kid not being kept in check. Making the parent
more liable for the actions of the kid encourages a more
active concern.
>>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>>of the bride, perhaps).
>
>Shees! Do you know anybody from the ghetto? Let me tell you something
>I've found out from talking to friends I have in the projects. The black
>men I know tell me that black women _won't_ marry the black men that father
>their babies because they figure that they will probably wind up dead or
>in jail anyway. How does tht fit into Murray's theory?
The calculation is between the unpleasant alternatives of
AFDC and marriage to a marginal husband. From the standpoint
of society, it's probably better to encourage the marriage
option, since this is likely to impose some responsibilites
on the father (hopefully keeping him out of jail or the grave
as well.) It should be the objective to get people into a web
of responsibilities and duties that encourage stable relationships
and behavior.
Therefore it makes some sense to make one of the options less
attractive.
>BTw, since you are
>done debating on a stereotype, perhaps you could address the fact that
>most welfare-mothers are white, not in the inner-city, and don't stay on
>welfare for more than a couple years.
"Of those never-married mothers who receive welfare benefits,
almost 40 percent stay on the rolls for ten years or longer. Second,
welfare dependency tends to be passed on from one generation
to the next." See the stats above for white mothers.
The article overall was rather disturbing. The evidence seems to
point to stable, two-parent, biological families being markedly
superior to other varieties from the standpoint of the children
involved. Divorce (which the article was primarily discussing)
is not a pleasant or brief affair from the standpoint of the children
either.
Since the two-parent bilogical family is becoming increasingly
rare, the implications are not good. One of the concluding
quotes from the article: "More than a centruy and a half ago
Alexis de Tocqueville made the striking ovservation that an
individualistic society depends ona communitarian institution like
the family for its continued existence. The family cannot be
constituted like the liberal state, nor can it be governed
entirely by that state's principles. Yet the family serves
as the seedbed for the virtues required by a liberal state. The
family is responsible for teaching lessons of independence,
self-restraint, responsibility, and righ conduct, which are essential to
a free, democratic society. If the family fails in these tasks,
then the entrie experiment in democratic self-rule is jeopardized."
--
Spencer V. PriceNash
In article <1993Nov10.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>In article <2bpk6d$k...@nfs.crl.com>, mcg...@nfs.crl.com (Donald R. M writes...
>>In article <CG740...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us> spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash) writes:
>>
>>>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>>>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>>>have been that way for hundreds of years.
>>
>>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>>in the inner cities.
>
> This is one of those times that I feel like I am the only person on
>this net that is living in the inner city. I get the feeling that I am the
>only person in this discussion that has witnessed a drive-by shooting, or
>been attacked purely because of my skin-color, or are friends with people that
>live in the projects.
You could be right that you're the only person here living in the "inner
city". I've got to say that since moving away from Detroit, I was real
surprised to learn that I was "inner-city poor" and lived in a
"ghetto/slum". It's a laugh to think about it (and I laugh first), but
I thought "My Three Sons" was absolute pure fantasy, only different from
the Road Runner in that it was live-action. During my first year in the
dorm, some TV broadcaster said it was easier to live through action on
the front in Vietnam than it was for a male to live to adulthood in
Detroit's "inner city", and all the suburbanites in the room looked at
me. I thought the broadcaster was full of shit.
You're not the only one to witness a drive-by shooting, though. It
always amazes me at how *fast* they are. Zoom. People are shot.
Having the shit (and piss) beat out of you because of your skin color is
never any fun, but you learn who to stay away from. That tends to
happen fast, too -- you're minding your own business and people start
hitting you. No warning, no threats. You just hope to get a few
punches in and see your attackers. Then you buy a big knife.
I think the projects we lived in some twenty-five or thirty years ago
have finally been torn down. I remember liking them, actually.
But, like I said, I didn't have any idea what life outside Detroit was
like. Who had money to travel?
> Hey, guys. I got news for you. Families exist in the inner-cities
>as well. Urban-dwelling, black people have families too. Families that care
>about their members.
I doubt Don thought families don't exist anymore. I figured he was
setting up a hypothetical situation, or at least one he hadn't
personally experienced, and working from that. Like I said in a
previous post, it takes a lot of effort to break up a family, and
something that would break up a lot of families will break up families
of all kinds. And, like I said before, there are a lot of people out
there looking at things they don't understand, thinking they do
understand. It's a shame, because the lookers have the power to affect
those they're looking at.
>> It's not a question of just having the
>>male absent in an otherwise typical society.
>
>Actually, I think it is.
I'm not sure about that.
[ heavy deletia ]
>>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>>of the bride, perhaps).
>
>Shees! Do you know anybody from the ghetto? Let me tell you something
>I've found out from talking to friends I have in the projects. The black
>men I know tell me that black women _won't_ marry the black men that father
>their babies because they figure that they will probably wind up dead or
>in jail anyway. How does tht fit into Murray's theory?
I know a bunch of people like that. They don't marry the fathers of
their children, but those fathers do support those children, at least
somewhat. The idea that the fathers just abandon their children is a
silly one. There probably are such losers, but I doubt it happens en
masse.
>BTw, since you are
>done debating on a stereotype, perhaps you could address the fact that
>most welfare-mothers are white, not in the inner-city, and don't stay on
>welfare for more than a couple years.
Nobody wants to think about that!
> Look, Don, you have not only failed to convince me that
>illigitimate children are responsible for the crime we have today, but
>you have failed to prove that this steroetype has anything to do with
>reality. It is my personal belief that if the debate is purely fiction
>then why waste time debating it? Hmmm?
There's a good Bottom Line.
Donald R. McGregor
>>>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>>>in the inner cities.
>>
>setting up a hypothetical situation, or at least one he hadn't
>personally experienced, and working from that.
It's only neccesary to show that they exist in a degraded state, not
that they've been completely eliminated. The single parent families
are still families, just (apparently) not as effective as two
parent biological families.
>I know a bunch of people like that. They don't marry the fathers of
>their children, but those fathers do support those children, at least
>somewhat. The idea that the fathers just abandon their children is a
>silly one. There probably are such losers, but I doubt it happens en
>masse.
From the Whitehead article in the April _Atlantic_:
"...And finally, they do not get much support from family
members--especially the fathers of their children. In 1982
single white mothers received an average of $1,246 in alimony
and child support , black mthers an average of $322. Such
payments accounted for about 10% of the income of single
white mothers and for about 3.5 percent of the income of single
black mothers. These amounts were dramatically smaller than
the income of the father ina two-parent family and also smaller
than the income from a second earner in a two-parent family.
Roughly 60 percent of the single white others and 80 percent
of single black mothers received no support at all....
Unwed mothers are unlikely to be awarded any child support at
all, partly because the paternity of their children may not
have been established. According to one recent study, only
20 percent of unmarried mothers receive child support."
I don't know what the cutoff for "en masse" is, but this seems
to be at the very least skirting the borders of that.
[Child support increased somewhat after the mid-80's, so the
numbers might not be strictly comparable today.]
--
Don Coolidge
too deep for even my hipboots. Once upon a time, a.f.d-q was a place where
those who made inane claims would be required to support them, or get out
of town by sundown, pardner. Time to call: put up or fold...
In article <2bpk6d$k...@nfs.crl.com>, mcg...@nfs.crl.com (Donald R.
McGregor) opined:
>
> In article <CG740...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us> spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash) writes:
> >>
> >>In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
> >>lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
> >>or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
> >>are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
> >>the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
> >>we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
> >>extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
> >
> >I disagree with this last point. The "void" that is to be filled is not
> >a void at all, unless one is looking inside from the outside. In cases
> >where different cultures are represented (the "outside" is one culture,
> >the "inside" another) the observers don't even notice that the "void"
> >they're talking can't be replaced because it never existed.
> >
> >I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
> >anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
> >have been that way for hundreds of years.
>
> The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
> in the inner cities.
"The idea", indeed. What references do you cite in support of this
race-based stereotype? Have you any personal experience? Or are you just
quoting the "accepted wisdom"?
My personal experience is that the situation you describe, while it exists,
is an extremely uncommon aberration, not the norm. Nor have I ever seen any
reputable study come to the conclusion you make; indeed, the opposite is,
sometimes with surprise, found to be true. I have heard many demagogues
make your claim (the Pats come immediately to mind), but none can back it
up - the response, when asked to do so, is inevitably of the same order as,
"I know who they are, and they know who they are..." (ObDQ)
If you have a substantive source, please cite it, and the studies that were
done to support its conclusion.
I might also comment that you completely ignore Spencer's important point -
that only somebody *inside* a situation can truly understand it. I hope
you'll at least try to see things from that perspective.
> It's not a question of just having the
> male absent in an otherwise typical society. The stereotype
^^^^^^^^^^
Ah! Then you *do* realize you're dealing with stereotypes instead of
reality! Good!
> is that of the high school dropout mother, living alone in
> the projects, from a family that was probably itself headed
> by a single parent. She's on AFDC, and there are essentially
> no functioning institutions, governmental or not, anywhere to
> be seen.
...thanks, when it occurs, to the Reagan Revolution and its gutting of our
former social programs.
And have you ever seen this comic-book situation live and in, ah, color (as
they say, or at least infer)? Can you prove that it exists in anything
other than miniscule numbers anywhere outside of the fevered minds of those
with a demonstrably racial political agenda?
Or can we all just accept it as contemporary fiction and proceed from
there?
> Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
> draconian consequences for a single mother,
A masterpiece of understatement!
> but also encourages
> responsible behavior in a not-very-subtle way.
That depends on a number of things - a) Whether your stereotype bears any
relationship to reality (other than minimally, it does not), b) Whether
cutting off limited financial support encourages anything other than a mad
scramble to find desperately-needed money by any means available, either
legal or illegal, c) Just what your definition of "responsible" is,
especially in conjunction with b).
In general I would say "not true", and will explain why below.
> The mother
> has to get support from the community--family, church, friends--
> to function.
Not true. She *may*, but she doesn't *have to*. In fact, should your
subsequent, likely caveat about self-destructive behavior be indeed true,
as I believe it would be, most of those expressing such behavior (the
minority of the affected population) would be far *less* likely to seek
help from those organizations you suggest, and far more likely to engage in
additional self-destructive behavior in order to support themselves and
their habits. Deal, whore, steal...those who are already outside the bounds
of society's norms don't become appropriately penitent when things get
tough, they take steps to maintain. Lotsa fast money is almost always more
attractive than a lecture and a pittance.
As for those who don't exhibit self-destructive behavior, they have no need
of your "cure", not having the "disease". Yet they would be needlessly and
uselessly punished by this proposal.
> They're less likely to be tolerant of self-
> destructive behavior like drugs. It also puts the mother
> and the kid into routine contact with some people who are
> likely to be responsible, so the kid is less likely to
> be running wild.
Not true. Responsibility (which you still haven't defined) isn't what keeps
kids out of trouble; can your own memory possibly be that short? Kids
rebel; it's human nature. What keeps kids out of trouble is _respect_ -
getting it, finding somebody "respectable" who they can feel it for, and
understanding the difference between "respect", "admiration", and
"financial envy". Too often kids in trouble got there by "respecting" thugs
with money or influence, and to hell with "responsibility".
> It effectively forces the mother to remain
> at home, which is an unattractive option for any teenager.
And is entirely unlikely to lead her to any kind of a job, ever,
perpetuating a dependent existence even moreso and more generally than AFDC
does now in some few cases. How does this even begin to accomplish your
goals?
Or do you not care whether or not people ever have any hope of supporting
themselves, but rather simply want to get them off the public dole, and to
hell with them otherwise?
> and also puts the kid into contact with whatever extended
> family there might be.
Not necessarily - didn't you just say the extended family no longer exists?
:^) A little consistency never hurt a good argument, y'know. In any event,
I disagree that the extended family (which, like Tinker Bell, I do believe
in) would always *want* to help out - the cases most needy of such help are
those least likely to inspire a desire to offer it; they've already been
spurned.
> It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
> of the bride, perhaps).
And is marriage a Good Thing between two people whose life together would
be hell? Having seen far too many disfunctional Traditional Families with
their inevitable dreadful effects on the kids, and having also observed the
effects of quick, necessary divorces, it's quite clear to me that life is
better for all concerned if an unloving couple is *not* married.
Or do you find some special virtue, some admirable and desirable qualities
that a child should emulate, in a couple that's trapped in a relationship
neither wants and each blames the other for? How healthy an environment is
that for a child to grow up in?
> The mother has an overriding interest
> in getting married, and in not getting pregnant in the first
> place.
These are two separate and unrelated ideas.
The way to encourage marriage is to make it a viable institution. Shotgun
weddings are far less likely to result in a viable marriage than any other
means. Worldwide, arranged marriages have the lowest failure rates - but
almost always require that the wife look the other way when the husband
dallies, due to the widespread belief that women should have a subservient
role in marriage. This is not good for the wife, and makes a mockery of the
marriage itself, though the husband may feel he has a pretty good deal.
Marriage for love has the greatest *success* rate; it also has the highest
divorce rate. So, in order to encourage marriages, presumably ones that
last, one must find a way to make them desirable, viable, and of reasonably
guaranteed success. Good luck! People have been working on that one for
millenia! And I assure you that the sudden impoverishment you propose, with
its accompanying stress, is *not* the way to encourage successful
marriages.
There are two ways to discourage pregnancy, and, demonstrably and
historically, neither is "Just Say No". The first is to *educate* kids
about it; sex education, other than the status-buzzword-loaded street
version available in most parts of America (not just the inner cities), is
far too rare. Understanding the factual, functional, mechanical, and
emotional basics of sex, and providing acces to birth control methods,
could prevent an enormous number of accidental pregnancies.
The second way to prevent pregnancy is to understand that the majority of
teenage pregnancies are *deliberate*acts*. Survey after survey finds that
unloved or neglected daughters will get pregnant so that they can have
something important in their lives (someone to love), and be important
themselves to another human being (the child, *not* the impregnating male).
They want to love and be loved, and who are we to deny them either? If we
can find a way to make their own families more loving and supportive, they
will find less need to get pregnant themselves. Note: this in no way
requires a resident father. And it's another one for which we've had
millenia to find the answer, thus far with little success.
Ignoring these methods demonstrates a lack of concern with preventing
teenage pregnancies, yet that is exactly what many of those who call
themselves "conservatives" do, revealing that their goal is not the
prevention of pregnancy, but rather the imposition of their personal
religious beliefs.
> Mothers and fathers unable to live up to their responsibilities
> would have their children placed into foster homes or placed for adoption.
Or why not simply sterilize them all at age 8 or 9? Would that not be
kinder than later tearing their children away from them? - even if it *is*
the nazi solution...or aren't they both?
Why should you, or Murray, or anybody else, play God on the subject of who
is and is not capable of raising children? What about the *children's*
feelings and needs? And how does this have *anything* to do with the
effectiveness of the AFDC program?
> --
> Don McGregor | World's most dangerous USENET poster
> mcg...@crl.com | ^^^^^^^^^
Indeed. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and you've shown
you have very little on this subject, though you have memorized all the
cliches. That makes your ideas indeed dangerous, though you flatter
yourself if you consider them the most dangerous on the Net...
- Don Coolidge
Donald R. McGregor
>"The idea", indeed. What references do you cite in support of this
>race-based stereotype? Have you any personal experience? Or are you just
>quoting the "accepted wisdom"?
The fact that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate is up over
60%, for example. Look, you can avert your eyes if you like,
but the plain fact is that there are serious problems in
many areas of society. Refusing to recognize them as
problems due to misplaced delicacy won't get them solved.
The plain fact is that blacks _do_ have a higher out-of-
wedlock birth rate, and pointing that out is hardly racist.
>I might also comment that you completely ignore Spencer's important point -
>that only somebody *inside* a situation can truly understand it. I hope
>you'll at least try to see things from that perspective.
Do you have to be "inside the situation" to understand that the
black murder rate is six times --_six times_--the white murder
rate? Remember, this whole discussion got started _precisely
because_ of the prevalence of violent crime in America, and
in inner cities in particular. So what's the process here?
point out that violent crime is at unacceptable levels, then
deny that anything is wrong after all once the discussion
starts to get onto delicate territory?
_Something_ is causing the horrific levels of crime and
violence in cities. I'm proposing that it's environment, more
exactly the breakdown of the family. Since this seems
to be roughly correlated with the rise of broken families
in the same sectors of society that have seen the biggest
increase in violent crime, and research indicates that
children from single parent families are more likely to
wind up in the criminal justice system, it seems like
a likely candidate.
>Ah! Then you *do* realize you're dealing with stereotypes instead of
>reality! Good!
Of course I do. I'm not arguing that _no_ functional families
exist in the cities, but that the prevalence of broken families
has shifted the balance of power towards families that raise
children likely to run afoul of the law.
>And is marriage a Good Thing between two people whose life together would
>be hell? Having seen far too many disfunctional Traditional Families with
>their inevitable dreadful effects on the kids, and having also observed the
>effects of quick, necessary divorces, it's quite clear to me that life is
>better for all concerned if an unloving couple is *not* married.
From the child's standpoint, it apparently is better. See the
_Atlantic_ article. It might be better for the adults involved,
but children are not short adults.
[Major delitia--respond to another article I've posted if you
want to continue]
>The second way to prevent pregnancy is to understand that the majority of
>teenage pregnancies are *deliberate*acts*. Survey after survey finds that
>unloved or neglected daughters will get pregnant so that they can have
>something important in their lives (someone to love), and be important
>themselves to another human being (the child, *not* the impregnating male).
>They want to love and be loved, and who are we to deny them either? If we
>can find a way to make their own families more loving and supportive, they
>will find less need to get pregnant themselves. Note: this in no way
>requires a resident father. And it's another one for which we've had
>millenia to find the answer, thus far with little success.
I agree that there's a major element of volition in many teen
pregnancies, and that this is one of the aspects of it. Another
is "independence"--the kid views it as a rite of passage, move
out and get an apartment, live on your own. It's exactly
this element of volition that Murray's proposal attacks.
Sure, you can have a baby to have someone to love, but it
also implies that you're going to have a hell of a time
supporting yourself. Having serious consequenes to actions
tends to focus the mind. It's not like it's impossible to
achieve this--not so long ago, in the 1960's, the black
single mother birth rate was about 20%, around where the
white single mother rate is now. What changed in that time?
Why is it impossible to expect the same sort of behavior now?
Moynihan, who first pointed out the likely problems of the
single mother problem in the 60's, has lately called the
process "defining deviancy down". As fewer and fewer people
are able to meet the basic standards of society, we respond
not by trying to hold them to the standards, but by lowering
the standards. (He was called a racist too, when he first
pointed out the problem. Now he's almost universally
regarded as being prophetic about the likely consequences.
I'm somewhat surprised that simply pointing out the
breakdown of the family in some sectors of society caused
such a stir. It's been treated as common knowledge or
conventional wisdom by even the liberal press for some time.)
I think we are ones to deny them someone to love, at least if
that someone is a baby to be supported on the public dole.
And the process creates an unstable and crime-prone society.
We do have a right to expect standards of behavior from
our citizens.
that said, I'm not entirely convinced of Murray's proposal.
It _is_ extreme. It would require heavy intervention in
the form of adoptions and foster homes. It's success
depends on eliminating single parents, not performing
miracles with the existing situation. "grandfathering"
existing single parents would be an obvious way to
clean it up, but I'm not sure that's enough.
>Why should you, or Murray, or anybody else, play God on the subject of who
>is and is not capable of raising children? What about the *children's*
>feelings and needs? And how does this have *anything* to do with the
>effectiveness of the AFDC program?
>
We already play God on the subject of who is and is not
capable of raising children. We remove and place in foster
homes or put up for adoption children who are in demonstrably
unhealthy environments.
And we _do_ have an interest in promoting responsible behavior
by our citizens. Getting pregant with no means of support
seems to be one of those things we should discourage.
And as you say, many of the pregnancies are volitional.
Diane Mathews
>>>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>>>of the bride, perhaps).
>>
>>Shees! Do you know anybody from the ghetto? Let me tell you something
>>I've found out from talking to friends I have in the projects. The black
>>men I know tell me that black women _won't_ marry the black men that father
>>their babies because they figure that they will probably wind up dead or
>>in jail anyway. How does tht fit into Murray's theory?
>
>The calculation is between the unpleasant alternatives of
>AFDC and marriage to a marginal husband. From the standpoint
>of society, it's probably better to encourage the marriage
>option, since this is likely to impose some responsibilites
>on the father (hopefully keeping him out of jail or the grave
>as well.) It should be the objective to get people into a web
>of responsibilities and duties that encourage stable relationships
>and behavior.
But, historically, this hasn't worked. That's *why* a lot of black
women won't marry the black men. They have, out of tradition or
social pressure or whatever, married and have discovered that they
usually end up dead or in jail. Encouraging marriage isn't going
to work (MO only). I compare it w/ 'the ideal' situation in a
divorce and remarriage. The theory used to be that the children would
benefit: Previously children had had only the nuclear family, now
they would have twice as many family members plus grandparents who
would be more involved w/ the family seeing as how the previous marriage
had collapsed. The theory included the idea that eventually enough
people would know each other that the children could go about anywhere
in the families where they had been and be nurtured. Well, obviously,
that didn't happen (not that it couldn't, but people just aren't that
generous).
At a time when social tensions are rising, for whatever reasons, you'd
be hard put to convince anyone that added pressure to behave a given
way (get married) would actually produce positive change in any
individual. Sure, it could happen. But i don't think it's likely.
Marriage is enough more than an economic contract, enough more than
a child-raising arrangement, that toying w/ it as a social policy
probably isn't going to work.
I do, however, agree w/ you that in order to decrease crime rates and
some of the patterns that have befallen single-parent families the
shape of their world/culture/community has to change. But, again,
historically no one changes the way they behave because they are told
or pressured to change, they do so because they want to. And i don't
have an answer, but historically there are things that have not worked
and getting married because of a pregnancy doesn't appear to work very
well these days (a cultural shift from when it used to work).
--
Diane Mathews, dia...@hpbs2694.boi.hp.com
My opinions are my own. F.S.D.M., #0.1/2
Diane Mathews
>In article <dfc-1011...@hombre.apple.com> d...@apple.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
>>And is marriage a Good Thing between two people whose life together would
>>be hell? Having seen far too many disfunctional Traditional Families with
>>their inevitable dreadful effects on the kids, and having also observed the
>>effects of quick, necessary divorces, it's quite clear to me that life is
>>better for all concerned if an unloving couple is *not* married.
>
>From the child's standpoint, it apparently is better. See the
>_Atlantic_ article. It might be better for the adults involved,
>but children are not short adults.
I'm not convinced. I haven't ever seen studies that do a sufficient job
of citing the differences between the couples stay together for the
children, for various reasons, and the ones that don't. One study (which
i read a couple of years ago, don't have a clue where it was) pointed
out that the children of couples who 'should have gotten divorced tend
to have as much trouble' as the children of divorced or never-married
children. The social ramifications have been different because of the
subculture that the parents were in. The gist of the article was that
the psychological well-being of the kids wasn't that different. Whereas
some might pull a trigger due to living in a violent neighborhood, others
might embezzle their way into jail. The problem is much bigger than marriage.
gar...@ingres.com
>....The title of the article by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead in the
>paper, so the footnotes are non-existent. Very interesting
>reading.
This was an excellent response. And I was going to let someone else take it,
but then I started seeing some gaps, so...
>
>In article <1993Nov10.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>>>I would argue that extended families are much more stable places for
>>>>anyone to use as a foundation for entry into a society, and in fact,
>>>>have been that way for hundreds of years.
>>>
>>>The idea is that even extended families have been demolished
>>>in the inner cities.
>>[...]
>> Hey, guys. I got news for you. Families exist in the inner-cities
>>as well. Urban-dwelling, black people have families too. Families that care
>>about their members.
>
>1. Single mothers are more likely to be the children of single
>mothers themselves.
This is the first gap I saw. Where these mothers divorced or never married.
The single mothers I know have divorced parents.
> "Among white families, daughters of single
>parents are 53 percent more likely to marry as teenagers, 111
>percent more likely to have children as teenagers, 164 percent
>more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92 percent more
>likely to disolve their own marriages.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And if their parents were divorced then this would make sense.
> All these intergenerational
>consequenes of single motherhood increase the likelihood of chronic
>welfare dependency." I assume the numbers are in the same range
>for blacks. This implies that the extended families are likely
>to be fractured as well.
>
Why?
>2. Extended families and friends are apparently less likely to
>be present for single mothers. "Even the notion that single mothers are
>knit together in economically supportive networks is not borne
>out by the evidence. ON the contrary, single parenthood forces
>many women to be on the move, in search of cheaper housing and better
>jobs. ^^^^^^
^^^^
And this was the second. In one paragraph you said "chronic welfare
dependence". In the next you say "searching for better jobs". This
doesn't sit well with me.
>>> It's not a question of just having the
>>>male absent in an otherwise typical society.
>>
>>Actually, I think it is.
>
>Perhaps the other things are secondary effects. My point was that
>a kid is more likely to go wrong in East Palo Alto than in Mill
>Valley, if for no other reason than things like schools, law
>enforcement, and other institutions are likely to be functional.
>They're also more likely to be surrounded by children from intact
>bioligical families, which I suspect is a help.
>
I fully agree.
>>>Murray's solution is to simply eliminate AFDC. This imposes some
>>
>> First of all, he is talking about inflicting punishment on
>>poor children. They _will_ be the ones who recieve the brunt of this
>>measure.
>
>Well, that's the central problem of things like this. We, as a
>society, do _not_ want to encourage behavior like single parenthood
>by teenagers. This implies a certain amount of negative reinforcement,
>via economic penalties, social sanctions or shame, whatever.
Shouldn't we try the latter two first?
>> Secondly, drugs are not the reason that children have children.
>>Thirdly, in the short-term, this would only make the problem of children
>>growing up without their parents around worse. And that is what started
>>this tangent (blaming the crime problem on single-parent families). Have
>>you ever noticed that children being born out of wedlock is higher in
>>poor neighborhoods? Now before you say something like, "Well this shows
>>that single-parent families are poorer", ask yourself what came first.
>>The poor neighborhood, or the single-parent families? (Hint: the poor
>>neighborhoods) Making the single-parents poorer isn't going to make
>>things better.
>
>Not really. Women who divorce and become single parents experience
>a drop in income, not surprisingly. There's only one income
>afterwards, and women are concentrated in lower-paying job
>categories. The income of mothers and children declines 30%
>in the year following seperation on average, while that of the
>father increases by 10-15%. The cause-and-effect chain seems
>to work in the direction of single parenthood->poverty rather than
>the other way around.
>
I was about to say, "You are right" and let it go, but then I saw the
third gap. You failed to address my point, "What came first?" Once
again I'll answer it for you. The ghetto came first. Blacks in the
inner-city had stable families 30-40 years ago, but were very poor.
Now they have single-parent families and are still poor. Your cause-and-
effect chain is true. But it isn't the same thing. The only reason
I point this out is because there is a tendency to draw circular logic
from your chain.
>Re crime: "Nationally, more than 70% of all juveniles in state
>reform institutions come from fatherless homes.
Finally, you are creating a link. Thank you.
<snip>
>This seems to rule out the genetic theory someone else had.
>Anyway, the increase in crime levels is practically by definition
>due to environmental changes. The change was associated with
>major changes in society, not changes in genetic stock.
>
I agree, to a large extent.
>>> It also puts the mother
>>>and the kid into routine contact with some people who are
>>>likely to be responsible, so the kid is less likely to
>>>be runnig wild. It effectively forces the mother to remain
>>>at home,
>>
>>No, it effectively forces the mother to find a job, and leave her child.
>
>Effectively it forces the mother to move in with her parents.
>This is obviously unattractive for a teenager, and not very
>pleasant for the parents either.
Gap number four. I've seen very few single-mothers less than 18 that
are living out on their own. Even with welfare, if their parents cared
at all, they don't let them move out before. Now if the parents don't
care (and abandoned teenagers is a not well known epidemic today), then
what do you do with the single-mother and child?
> All this is effectively social
>policy by detterence; the consequences of socially destructive
>behavior are severe. The people involved are held strictly
>accountable for their actions. No Nerf.
>
Unfortunantly, the child is held accountable as well.
>>If the mother of the teenage mother could control her, then she
>>wouldn't have had the baby in the first place.
>
>It increases the incentives for the mother to control the
>kid as well. One of my parents is a former vice principal
>at a large-ish (for Oregon) high school on the wrong-ish
>side of the tracks. Time and again the story was "I can't
>control Jane," but the reality was more like an abdication,
>with the kid not being kept in check. Making the parent
>more liable for the actions of the kid encourages a more
>active concern.
>
This doesn't sit well with me either. If parenthood wasn't enough
encouragement, then what is?
>>>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>>>of the bride, perhaps).
>>
>>Shees! Do you know anybody from the ghetto? Let me tell you something
>>I've found out from talking to friends I have in the projects. The black
>>men I know tell me that black women _won't_ marry the black men that father
>>their babies because they figure that they will probably wind up dead or
>>in jail anyway. How does that fit into Murray's theory?
>
>The calculation is between the unpleasant alternatives of
>AFDC and marriage to a marginal husband. From the standpoint
>of society, it's probably better to encourage the marriage
>option, since this is likely to impose some responsibilites
>on the father (hopefully keeping him out of jail or the grave
>as well.) It should be the objective to get people into a web
>of responsibilities and duties that encourage stable relationships
>and behavior.
>
Gap number five, and the first I noticed. Don't you think that jail and
death is enough of a motivational factor to avoid in and of itself? ;-)
Come on. You don't need additional motivation when it comes to being
killed. As for jail, it usually involves doing something that the father
is doing to get money (not that I am defending it for a second. I'm just
pointing it out).
>Therefore it makes some sense to make one of the options less
>attractive.
>
Death is pretty unattractive already.
>>BTw, since you are
>>done debating on a stereotype, perhaps you could address the fact that
>>most welfare-mothers are white, not in the inner-city, and don't stay on
>>welfare for more than a couple years.
>
>"Of those never-married mothers who receive welfare benefits,
>almost 40 percent stay on the rolls for ten years or longer. Second,
>welfare dependency tends to be passed on from one generation
>to the next." See the stats above for white mothers.
>
I could swear that I've seen stats that say otherwise. BTW, gap number
six. This doesn't address my statement that most are white, and not
from the inner-city.
>The article overall was rather disturbing. The evidence seems to
>point to stable, two-parent, biological families being markedly
>superior to other varieties from the standpoint of the children
>involved. Divorce (which the article was primarily discussing)
>is not a pleasant or brief affair from the standpoint of the children
>either.
>
100% agree.
[good quote deleted]
>Don McGregor | World's most dangerous USENET poster
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald R. McGregor
>>
>>The calculation is between the unpleasant alternatives of
>>AFDC and marriage to a marginal husband. From the standpoint
>>of society, it's probably better to encourage the marriage
>>option, since this is likely to impose some responsibilites
>>on the father (hopefully keeping him out of jail or the grave
>>as well.) It should be the objective to get people into a web
>>of responsibilities and duties that encourage stable relationships
>>and behavior.
>
>But, historically, this hasn't worked. That's *why* a lot of black
>women won't marry the black men. They have, out of tradition or
>social pressure or whatever, married and have discovered that they
>usually end up dead or in jail. Encouraging marriage isn't going
>to work (MO only). I compare it w/ 'the ideal' situation in a
>divorce and remarriage. The theory used to be that the children would
>benefit: Previously children had had only the nuclear family, now
>they would have twice as many family members plus grandparents who
>would be more involved w/ the family seeing as how the previous marriage
>had collapsed. The theory included the idea that eventually enough
>people would know each other that the children could go about anywhere
>in the families where they had been and be nurtured. Well, obviously,
>that didn't happen (not that it couldn't, but people just aren't that
>generous).
The Whitehead piece called the depth of step parent commitment
into question as well.
In a way, I suppose all this is analogous to early mining
camps. Lots of unattached males acting like unattached
males. Violent gunbattles in the streets, and a questionable
interest in taking out the garbage. The miners needed
to be domesticated, and I suppose the current crop
of men need to be too. It's somewhat academic to me, since
I don't date them or plan to marry one. Being a white
male het puts it low on my priority list.
Getting them into a web of commitments and responsibilities
is probably an excellent way to keep them out of trouble.
There is a chicken-and-egg problem, though.
>At a time when social tensions are rising, for whatever reasons, you'd
>be hard put to convince anyone that added pressure to behave a given
>way (get married) would actually produce positive change in any
>individual.
Pressure to behave a certain way is at the core of society.
We have pressure to do all sorts of things, from not littering
to not killing.
Donald R. McGregor
> 1. As to the matter of coercing marriage as a matter of public policy,
> we went through a period like that in the '50s and '60s, but the
> strictures that were applied to produce these marriages were social
> (and the post war period had the highest rate of teenage pregnancies
> on record in America).
The policy of coercing marriages predates the '50s and '60s, as do
social conventions about unwed mothers. The high divorce rate of the
70's was a result of changing attitudes about marriage and women's
roles. Today the divorce rate is _still_ very high, despite our
"enlightened" policies about whether to get married or not after
a pregnancy.
> 2. It never ceases to amaze me how people who argue for limiting the
> role of government in private life can show such enthusiasm for the
> most extreme government intervention imaginable (coerced marriage;
> forced removal and adoption and foster home placement for their
> children) into the lives of People Who Are Not Like Us.
Murray is not demanding that all unwed mothers marry by government
edict. He's asserting that government will not subsidize certain
behaviors that it deems destructive. If you're Murphy Brown
and you get pregnant, you're still free to use your considerable
resources to raise the child.
The reliance on foster homes in Murray's plan is troubling, and
one of the reasons I'm leery of it. If anything, the foster home
children would probably be worse, on average, than a single mother
home. The effectiveness of Murray's plan depends on the deterrent
effect of the dire economic consequences for irresponsible
behavior.
> 3. As to his contention that extended families don't exist in the
> "inner cities" I would recommend that he spend a day in Family
I'll admit the "demolished" bit was an overstatement. I will contend
that families are not as firmly established as in the rest of society.
From the Investor's Business Daily 11/10, quoting Jared Taylor:
*Only 38% of black children live with both parents, while 79% of
white children do.
*In the 1950s, a black child had a 52% chance of living with both
biological parents until the age of 17. By the 1980's, this
chance had diminished to 6%.
*In 1959, 2% of black children were reared in households in which
the mother never married. Today, the figure is closer to 60%.
Any way you cut it, the family structure is far worse than most
whites.
> 4. He brings back Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. "It's an essay rather than
> a research paper, so the footnotes are non-existent. Very interesting
> reading." Don, you really ought to find out more about your sources.
> It's an essay rather than a research paper for the simple reason that
> Barbara Dafoe Whitehead is not a researcher, but a policy advocate and
> lobbyist. Sure, it was an interesting article, and I can't think of
> anyone who would dispute the core idea of her article, which is that
> in most cases children are better off with two parents than with one.
> But there were a number of follow-up articles to this one in other
> publications, by people who *are* from the research end, and many
> took issue not only with her statistics, but the conclusions she
> drew from them.
I'm curious as to how you don't dispute the central core of her
article, but also dismiss her as a source. Which is it? Is she
unreliable, or is she basically right? If she's basically right,
why are you quibbling about using her as a source?
Herbert Rutledge
In response to Don McGregor's novel solutions to illegitimate births,
Garrett Johnson writes:
|> Look, Don, you have not only failed to convince me that
|> illigitimate children are responsible for the crime we have today, but
|> you have failed to prove that this steroetype has anything to do with
|> reality. It is my personal belief that if the debate is purely fiction
|> then why waste time debating it? Hmmm?
...and Spencer Price-Nash adds:
|> I doubt Don thought families don't exist anymore. I figured he was
|> setting up a hypothetical situation, or at least one he hadn't
|> personally experienced, and working from that. Like I said in a
|> previous post, it takes a lot of effort to break up a family, and
|> something that would break up a lot of families will break up families
|> of all kinds. And, like I said before, there are a lot of people out
|> there looking at things they don't understand, thinking they do
|> understand. It's a shame, because the lookers have the power to affect
|> those they're looking at.
I'd just like to add the following:
1. As to the matter of coercing marriage as a matter of public policy,
we went through a period like that in the '50s and '60s, but the
strictures that were applied to produce these marriages were social
(and the post war period had the highest rate of teenage pregnancies
on record in America). So, I guess that should his particular version
of Utopia come to pass we can expect to hear Don McGregor, starting
in approximately the year 2025, bitching about the high divorce rate,
just like people did in the '70s when many of these coerced marriages
from ten or twenty years before started meeting their demise.
2. It never ceases to amaze me how people who argue for limiting the
role of government in private life can show such enthusiasm for the
most extreme government intervention imaginable (coerced marriage;
forced removal and adoption and foster home placement for their
children) into the lives of People Who Are Not Like Us.
3. As to his contention that extended families don't exist in the
"inner cities" I would recommend that he spend a day in Family
Court and then come back and say that. He will witness, especially
in the case of mothers with severe drug problems, placements of
children with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, or the
mother's or father's siblings. This not only goes on formally,
through the court system, but informally as well. Anybody who
reads a newspaper would be aware of this - it is a topic that has
been prominently discussed in the past two or three years, usually
in front-page articles.
4. He brings back Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. "It's an essay rather than
a research paper, so the footnotes are non-existent. Very interesting
reading." Don, you really ought to find out more about your sources.
It's an essay rather than a research paper for the simple reason that
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead is not a researcher, but a policy advocate and
lobbyist. Sure, it was an interesting article, and I can't think of
anyone who would dispute the core idea of her article, which is that
in most cases children are better off with two parents than with one.
But there were a number of follow-up articles to this one in other
publications, by people who *are* from the research end, and many
took issue not only with her statistics, but the conclusions she
drew from them.
Since Don is a newbie here, I'll reprint one of my posts from April of
this year, done in the style of an entry in the "Index" feature from
_The Atlantic's_ arch-rival, _Harper's_:
Number of times that Dan Quayle is mentioned in Barbara Dafoe Whitehead's
article "Dan Quayle Was Right" in the April issue of _The Atlantic_ : 0
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <dfc-1011...@hombre.apple.com> d...@apple.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
>>"The idea", indeed. What references do you cite in support of this
>>race-based stereotype? Have you any personal experience? Or are you just
>>quoting the "accepted wisdom"?
>
>The fact that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate is up over
>60%, for example. Look, you can avert your eyes if you like,
>but the plain fact is that there are serious problems in
>many areas of society. Refusing to recognize them as
>problems due to misplaced delicacy won't get them solved.
>The plain fact is that blacks _do_ have a higher out-of-
>wedlock birth rate, and pointing that out is hardly racist.
>
notice the Republican sponsored welfare reform bill that the "socialist"
president Clinton backs) As I said before, the black inner-city neighborhood
was poverty stricken already before the single-mother problems started.
Will making it poorer make it any better? I don't think so. If poverty
prevented births, then the Sub-Sahara would have a negative birth-death rate
rather than the highest birth rate anywhere.
>>I might also comment that you completely ignore Spencer's important point -
>>that only somebody *inside* a situation can truly understand it. I hope
>>you'll at least try to see things from that perspective.
>
>Do you have to be "inside the situation" to understand that the
>black murder rate is six times --_six times_--the white murder
>rate? Remember, this whole discussion got started _precisely
>because_ of the prevalence of violent crime in America, and
>in inner cities in particular. So what's the process here?
>point out that violent crime is at unacceptable levels, then
>deny that anything is wrong after all once the discussion
>starts to get onto delicate territory?
>
I don't think Spencer was saying anything like that. I think he was
just pointing out problems with the solution you mentioned.
>_Something_ is causing the horrific levels of crime and
>violence in cities. I'm proposing that it's environment, more
>exactly the breakdown of the family. Since this seems
>to be roughly correlated with the rise of broken families
>in the same sectors of society that have seen the biggest
>increase in violent crime, and research indicates that
>children from single parent families are more likely to
>wind up in the criminal justice system, it seems like
>a likely candidate.
>
I'm willing to say that single-parent families are a small contributor to
the crime problem, but to jump to the conclusion that they are the chief
contributor is a leap. Why? Two reasons that have already been given
that you failed to address. 1) Europe has plenty of out-of-wedlock births
but nowhere near the violent crime. 2)_You_ supplied numbers that show
homicides weren't much lower in the early 70's when single-mothers were
still a novelty. Before we take your assertion as anything more than
Republican party line logic, you must address these issues.
>>And is marriage a Good Thing between two people whose life together would
>>be hell? Having seen far too many disfunctional Traditional Families with
>>their inevitable dreadful effects on the kids, and having also observed the
>>effects of quick, necessary divorces, it's quite clear to me that life is
>>better for all concerned if an unloving couple is *not* married.
>
>From the child's standpoint, it apparently is better. See the
>_Atlantic_ article. It might be better for the adults involved,
>but children are not short adults.
>
I'm sorry, but an abusive family is not a ready alternative for a single-
parent family with love.
>[Major delitia--respond to another article I've posted if you
>want to continue]
>
>I agree that there's a major element of volition in many teen
>pregnancies, and that this is one of the aspects of it. Another
>is "independence"--the kid views it as a rite of passage, move
>out and get an apartment, live on your own.
That's sick. Have you ever actually _known_ anyone who thinks that way?
I never have.
>I think we are ones to deny them someone to love, at least if
>that someone is a baby to be supported on the public dole.
>And the process creates an unstable and crime-prone society.
>We do have a right to expect standards of behavior from
>our citizens.
>
I'll agree this far. It's the solutions that I don't agree with.
>Don McGregor | World's most dangerous USENET poster
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald R. McGregor
Here I am yet again, rapier in hand, holding off the rabble charging
up the staircase. I suppose I'm lucky to be in a target-rich
environment.
In article <1993Nov11....@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>1. Single mothers are more likely to be the children of single
>>mothers themselves.
>
>This is the first gap I saw. Where these mothers divorced or never married.
>The single mothers I know have divorced parents.
From the standpoint of the child, it little matters. Still little
adult male supervision, and generally few examples of stable,
long-term relationships. It's also a different question; being
the child of an unwed mother increases the chances of being an
unwed mother. I'm not sure if the same is true for the children
of divorced parents.
>> "Among white families, daughters of single
>>parents are 53 percent more likely to marry as teenagers, 111
>>percent more likely to have children as teenagers, 164 percent
>>more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92 percent more
>>likely to disolve their own marriages.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>And if their parents were divorced then this would make sense.
>
I suspect the two phenomena ( divorce and unwed mothers) are somewhat
similar in their effects on the children. It would make sense
for the children to display similar behaviors.
>> All these intergenerational
>>consequenes of single motherhood increase the likelihood of chronic
>>welfare dependency." I assume the numbers are in the same range
>>for blacks. This implies that the extended families are likely
>>to be fractured as well.
>>
>Why?
>
The implication was related to the first statistics: 164 percent
more likely to have a premarital birth. Ie, the population of
unwed mothers is skewed towards the children of unwed mothers.
If that's the case, unwed mothers are more likely to themselves
be the children of unwed mothers, who have fractured families
by definition. Anyway, one of her researchers:"Evidence
on intergenerational poerty indicates that, indeed, offspring
from single mother families are far more likely to be poor
and form mother-only families than are offspring who live with two
parents most of their pre-adult life."
>>2. Extended families and friends are apparently less likely to
>>be present for single mothers. "Even the notion that single mothers are
>>knit together in economically supportive networks is not borne
>>out by the evidence. ON the contrary, single parenthood forces
>>many women to be on the move, in search of cheaper housing and better
>>jobs. ^^^^^^
> ^^^^
>And this was the second. In one paragraph you said "chronic welfare
>dependence". In the next you say "searching for better jobs". This
>doesn't sit well with me.
40% of unwed mothers staying on welfare rolls for ten years or longer
is a huge percentage. I think it counts as "chronic", even if
the remaining 60% do find jobs. The profile of single mothers is
that of an economically vulnerable person, too often on the edge
of poverty. It's simply impossible for most single parent families
to be as well off as a two parent family. Most women are in lower
paying professions than men (what's the figure now, 70% of men's
pay or so?), they have children to support, and they don't have
the potential of a two-income family.
>>Well, that's the central problem of things like this. We, as a
>>society, do _not_ want to encourage behavior like single parenthood
>>by teenagers. This implies a certain amount of negative reinforcement,
>>via economic penalties, social sanctions or shame, whatever.
>
>Shouldn't we try the latter two first?
Dan Quayle tried an extremely mild form of social sanction,
by suggesting that single motherhood was not the best
possible situation, and he got flamed to a crisp. Even
any suggestions that two-parent families are on average
better than one-parent families is likely to be called
heartless.
Yes, social sanctions can often be effective. Accomplishing that
on a wide-spread mass culture basis is likely to run into
opposition. Anyway, there is a bit of a mixed message when
society provides economic rewards for acting in ways it
offically disapproves of.
>>Not really. Women who divorce and become single parents experience
>>a drop in income, not surprisingly. There's only one income
>>
>I was about to say, "You are right" and let it go, but then I saw the
>third gap. You failed to address my point, "What came first?" Once
>again I'll answer it for you. The ghetto came first. Blacks in the
>inner-city had stable families 30-40 years ago, but were very poor.
>Now they have single-parent families and are still poor. Your cause-and-
>effect chain is true. But it isn't the same thing. The only reason
>I point this out is because there is a tendency to draw circular logic
>from your chain.
The poverty situation is unlikely to improve if many of the family
units have limited earning potential. Even outside the ghetto,
divorced women experience a substantial drop in income when
they become single.
>>Making the parent
>>more liable for the actions of the kid encourages a more
>>active concern.
>>
>This doesn't sit well with me either. If parenthood wasn't enough
>encouragement, then what is?
There's a surprising amount of passive parenthood out there.
You'd think that all parents would have, for example, child
seats, but such was not the case; hence, child seat laws.
>>The calculation is between the unpleasant alternatives of
>>AFDC and marriage to a marginal husband. From the standpoint
>>of society, it's probably better to encourage the marriage
>>option, since this is likely to impose some responsibilites
>>on the father (hopefully keeping him out of jail or the grave
>>as well.) It should be the objective to get people into a web
>>of responsibilities and duties that encourage stable relationships
>>and behavior.
>>
>Gap number five, and the first I noticed. Don't you think that jail and
>death is enough of a motivational factor to avoid in and of itself? ;-)
>Come on. You don't need additional motivation when it comes to being
>killed. As for jail, it usually involves doing something that the father
>is doing to get money (not that I am defending it for a second. I'm just
>pointing it out).
Young single men are wont to do stupid things. The analogy I
used in another post was that of a mining camp. Undomesticated
men fighting gunbattles in the street, fighting in the saloon,
and claim-jumping. The prescence of women in their lives
seems to calm them down. That's my conjecture, anyway.
Placing the male in a web of responsibilities and duties
seems to change their perspective on life and make them
more amicable to behaving in a civilized way. They start
looking at barbeques and comparing notes on riding mowers.
>I could swear that I've seen stats that say otherwise. BTW, gap number
>six. This doesn't address my statement that most are white, and not
>from the inner-city.
I don't see what it has to do with anything. Murray's proposal
is intended to curb specific types of behavior, not target
a particular race, or prove that one race is superior to
another. To the extent that it affects mostly whites, I
suppose it clears him of charges that he's a crypto-racist.
I'll probably call it a day at this point. Sybase and Oracle
data conversion routines await. As does the divine Miss Jane
Austen. _Northanger Abbey_ will be sort of bittersweet, since
it's her last complete novel I haven't read. I hear the plot
has something to do with men and women of marriagable age
in close proximity.
--
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <1993Nov10.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>In article <2bpk6d$k...@nfs.crl.com>, mcg...@nfs.crl.com (Donald R. M writes...
>dorm, some TV broadcaster said it was easier to live through action on
>the front in Vietnam than it was for a male to live to adulthood in
>Detroit's "inner city", and all the suburbanites in the room looked at
>me. I thought the broadcaster was full of shit.
>
wouldn't be on this net right now.
>You're not the only one to witness a drive-by shooting, though. It
>always amazes me at how *fast* they are. Zoom. People are shot.
>
My best friend lives in the Mission district. (about one mile from where
I live) This past summer they had
a Carnival parade. It seems some rival gangs didn't know about the parade
and had already set up a small gang war on the same turf. Before the police
got things under control they had drive-by shootings, knife-fights, and a
sniper on the roof right in middle of the parade route.
>I think the projects we lived in some twenty-five or thirty years ago
>have finally been torn down. I remember liking them, actually.
>
You actually _lived_ in them? <shudder> I thought living across the street
from them was bad enough.
>> Hey, guys. I got news for you. Families exist in the inner-cities
>>as well. Urban-dwelling, black people have families too. Families that care
>>about their members.
>
>I doubt Don thought families don't exist anymore. I figured he was
>setting up a hypothetical situation, or at least one he hadn't
>personally experienced, and working from that. Like I said in a
>previous post, it takes a lot of effort to break up a family, and
>something that would break up a lot of families will break up families
>of all kinds. And, like I said before, there are a lot of people out
>there looking at things they don't understand, thinking they do
>understand. It's a shame, because the lookers have the power to affect
>those they're looking at.
>
Very true. There is so many contridictory information out there that you
can usually find what you want to prove. Especially when you think people
are "different" from you even though they are in the same culture. I'm sure
Dan Quayle thinks that America is A.O.K. because it has treated him well and
things have come easy for him, and if people can't "make it" in America then
something must be wrong with them. I doubt Quayle would understand what it would
be like to be abandoned by your parents when you are 14.
>[ heavy deletia ]
>
>>>It encourages marriage (via 12 guage in the hands of the father
>>>of the bride, perhaps).
>>
>>Shees! Do you know anybody from the ghetto? Let me tell you something
>>I've found out from talking to friends I have in the projects. The black
>>men I know tell me that black women _won't_ marry the black men that father
>>their babies because they figure that they will probably wind up dead or
>>in jail anyway. How does tht fit into Murray's theory?
>
>I know a bunch of people like that. They don't marry the fathers of
>their children, but those fathers do support those children, at least
>somewhat. The idea that the fathers just abandon their children is a
>silly one. There probably are such losers, but I doubt it happens en
>masse.
>
Well, I've seen both. And, ironically enough, the cases of fathers abandoning
their children that I have seen have _always_ been white fathers.
>
>Spencer PriceNash spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us spe...@umcc.umich.edu
>Dan Quayle via anon ftp: Quotes at umcc.umich.edu in pub/quayle, GIFs and
>sound files at vaxa.crc.mssm.edu in quayle/gif and quayle/sound.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Herbert Rutledge
|> Train writes:
|> > 1. As to the matter of coercing marriage as a matter of public policy,
|> > we went through a period like that in the '50s and '60s, but the
|> > strictures that were applied to produce these marriages were social
|> > (and the post war period had the highest rate of teenage pregnancies
|> > on record in America).
|>
|> The policy of coercing marriages predates the '50s and '60s, as do
|> social conventions about unwed mothers. The high divorce rate of the
|> 70's was a result of changing attitudes about marriage and women's
|> roles. Today the divorce rate is _still_ very high, despite our
|> "enlightened" policies about whether to get married or not after
|> a pregnancy.
Don, I am not trying to get the better of you here. However, the
assertions that you make in the paragraph above betray a lack of
knowledge of the subject at hand.
|> > 3. As to his contention that extended families don't exist in the
|> > "inner cities" I would recommend that he spend a day in Family
|>
|> I'll admit the "demolished" bit was an overstatement. I will contend
|> that families are not as firmly established as in the rest of society.
|>
|> [ Jared Taylor's statistics deleted]
|>
|> Any way you cut it, the family structure is far worse than most
|> whites.
This is an evasion, and I'm calling you on it. You made, and then
restated, the claim that there were virtually no extended families
in black urban neighborhoods. There is no truth to your claim. None.
The statistics you marshall have to do with nuclear families. They are
irrelevant to the topic at hand.
|> > 4. He brings back Barbara Dafoe Whitehead.
|>
|> I'm curious as to how you don't dispute the central core of her
|> article, but also dismiss her as a source. Which is it? Is she
|> unreliable, or is she basically right? If she's basically right,
|> why are you quibbling about using her as a source?
I'm not dismissing her as a source. I'm simply making the point that
she is associated with an organization that is in the business of
selling a point of view. I was able to navigate my way through her
article by keeping this in mind. Others were not so successful. You,
too, seem to have fallen into the same trap.
Don, you used her title "Dan Quayle Was Right" in the Subject: line
of the post to which I was referring. This article generated quite a
few Op/Ed pieces when it appeared. Many of these editorials re-iterated
the basic premise - one that I notice that you are trying to peddle here
as well, but by insinuation - that Dan Quayle was unfairly criticised for
attacking Murphy Brown, and here's an article that proves it.
Dan Quayle is not mentioned *anywhere* in this article.
john white
g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
g> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
g> From: gar...@Ingres.COM
>> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
>>>DRM> From: mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor)
>>
>> [about inner city violence, single families, and the like]
>>
>>>DRM> ... If violence is worst in a certain
>>>DRM> subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
>>>DRM> aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
>>>DRM> family has to figure in that.
>>
>>> More likely emergence of natural (genetic?) tendencies.
>>
g> It took a while, but we now have ignorance moving into this discussion.
g> Whether you meant it or not, to say that a certain negative activity is
g> genetically linked to a race, is a racist statement. Thanks John, for
g> your insight. But I'll pass the next time you want to share it.
Genetics today is finding more and more things are hereditary, including
behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical twins isolated
from each other at birth. You are welcome for my insight in view of your
lacking this knowledge.
g> Now if you want a little reverse-racist insight, why is it
g> that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean just
g> European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
Almost all? Great generalized statement. Not accepted because of that
generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even undetected, serial
killers;and it implies there are a great number of serial killers, which is not
so. Serial killers are not something I take great interest in (why do you?)
but the one in Atlanta, the black one, did come to mind when I read your
message, as did the Son of Sam, who is (was?) not of the extraction you allege.
Try again.
john white
CH> @REPLYADDR Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk
CH> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
CH> From: Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
CH> But most bleeding heart liberals think that poverty is one of
CH> the significant factors causally involved with social
CH> unrest/violence; and lo, there is poverty in black inner
CH> cities and black African countries. [Not the only factor,
CH> of course; human behaviour patterns usually require a number
CH> of factors to be present.] So there would have to be a
CH> mechanism for the presence of these BHLs to significantly
CH> raise the level of wealth in inner cities for them to accept
CH> your proposed solution; given the numbers involved, this
CH> would seem doubtful.
Interesting footwork there, Chris, but what you write that BHL think doesn't
make that a cause of violence. Wealth does not prevent violence. Discipline
and consideration for other people do. Another butchery, er, eruption, er,
civil war in Africa (Burundi) was not caused by poverty. Violence by one tribe
to another tribe is a normal circumstance in Africa, and is part of their
culture.
>> Put themselves where their mouths are. If they double the
>> population, they will halve the crime rate, no? Hey, fresh meat!
CH> And even better, it absolves everyone else from any
CH> responsibility for social conditions; who said there's
CH> no free lunch?
The US has thrown money at the problem for decades now. It is part of the
culture not to help themselves. The displaced Scottish crofters helped
themselves when they reached America, so did the Irish, Italians, Hungarians,
Poles, etc. The Mexicans are helping themselves. The blacks want someone else
to help them, and help them, and help them, and help them, and love to play the
blame game because they have found how to exploit the BHL.
Herbert Rutledge
|> The fact that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate is up over
|> 60%, for example. Look, you can avert your eyes if you like,
|> but the plain fact is that there are serious problems in
|> many areas of society. Refusing to recognize them as
|> problems due to misplaced delicacy won't get them solved.
|> The plain fact is that blacks _do_ have a higher out-of-
|> wedlock birth rate, and pointing that out is hardly racist.
Don, nobody was calling you a racist. Garrett and myself are City Boys.
Spencer and Don Coolidge are Former City Boys. All of us said more or
less the same thing; you seem to lack any understanding of what you're
talking about. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but that's essentiall what I
said, and that's how I read the posts from the others. We've got some
direct experience and first-hand observations to back up the things that
we say. You don't seem to have anything to offer to this discussion
that is comparable. This is not meant as a flame; please do not take
it as such. This is just my observation from your posts.
The subject at hand is one that a number of us here have discussed
privately by e-mail. For example, Garrett Johnson and I have strong
disagreements on a number of points. But each of us is talking from
direct experience. However, because his experience differs from mine,
I have learned much from Garrett. But the discussions that we have are
far removed from the cliches and banalities that you generally see offered
on this subject, not just on the Net, but in public life as well.
And I believe that the subject at hand is one that should be seriously
addressed. However, when you show up here, trotting out that tired old
"Family Values - Republicans Have 'Em, Others Don't" crap, you shouldn't
be surprised when the controls on the flame throwers are set to "Rotiss."
If, however, you would like to participate in a thoughtful discussion
with people who are prepared to move beyond cant and tired old nostrums;
people who experience these things at close range, then I for one would
welcome you. 'Cause Don, I see you're posting from an account in the
Bay area. You can go out and have a beer with Garrett; something that
is impossible for me to do.
Herbert Rutledge
|> I'll probably call it a day at this point. Sybase and Oracle
|> data conversion routines await. As does the divine Miss Jane
|> Austen. _Northanger Abbey_ will be sort of bittersweet, since
|> it's her last complete novel I haven't read. I hear the plot
|> has something to do with men and women of marriagable age
|> in close proximity.
"Pride and Prejudice."
Valarie Cook
mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor) writes:
>In article <dfc-1011...@hombre.apple.com> d...@apple.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
(major deletions--hopefully not eviscerations)
>I agree that there's a major element of volition in many teen
>pregnancies, and that this is one of the aspects of it. Another
>is "independence"--the kid views it as a rite of passage, move
>out and get an apartment, live on your own. It's exactly
>this element of volition that Murray's proposal attacks.
>Sure, you can have a baby to have someone to love, but it
>also implies that you're going to have a hell of a time
>supporting yourself. Having serious consequenes to actions
>tends to focus the mind. It's not like it's impossible to
>achieve this--not so long ago, in the 1960's, the black
>single mother birth rate was about 20%, around where the
>white single mother rate is now. What changed in that time?
>Why is it impossible to expect the same sort of behavior now?
Don, if I might ask a personal question which is pretty much none of my
business, do you have or have you had teenage children? I have a
fourteen-year-old son. Maturity is often defined as the ability to
delay gratification, and though I personally feel that Eddie is quite
mature (in some ways) for his age and a pretty good kid to boot, this is
not yet one of his gifts. A few weeks ago he had let his bedroom reach
the point of strongly resembling a garbage dump. We told him that if
the bedroom had not been cleaned within two weeks, he would not be
allowed to attend the next home football game for his high school that
would be played on that date. Was his room clean by that Friday? No,
it was not. He stayed home. The NEXT week it was clean.
My point in relating this story is this: children, and that's what we
are talking about here, think the negative consequences will not apply
to them. That's why we call them children. I find it difficult to
imagine the "negative consequences" which would so impress young people
who engage in this sort of thinking that it would cause them to abstain
from such behavior.
What would you suggest--requiring them to live with their parents and
give up custody of their newborns to them? Fine by me, but a lot of
girls are doing essentially that. Would you cut them off from welfare?
Okay, but doing so is not going to have much effect on the ones living
at home--it will just make life harder for their parents--and in other
cases it would either force the girl to drop out of school to support
her baby, to marry SOMEONE (not necessarily the father) to help support
the baby, to scrape a living somehow from the streets, or to give the
baby up. You may very well think that this last is a good solution (and
I agree) but keep in mind that we have all agreed that volitional
pregnancies are a major part of this problem, and someone who
deliberately allows herself to be impregnated is not going to give that
baby up easily. I don't want even the 14-year-old, my son's classmate,
who is going to give birth sometime before Christmas to be FORCED to
give up her child against her will. I've had two babies myself and I
wouldn't wish that fate on Hitler. Maybe you think that we should ship
these unmarried pregnant teenagers off to an unwed mothers' home and
keep them there until they turn 18 or graduate from high school and are
able to make a living, but I can't see THIS country doing that.
And in any case, are any of these negative consequences of
out-of-wedlock pregnancy so horrid that it will keep the young girls
from becoming pregnant and the young guys from allowing unprotected sex?
I think not.
Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, and you have something different and
more reasonable and effective in mind. I would be glad to hear it if
this is indeed the case, but blithe talk about "negative consequences"
is not going to cut the mustard (whatever THAT means.)
--
_____________________________________________________________________
Valarie Cook coo...@auducadm.auburn.edu 144 Parker Hall
Specialist, Computer Security Auburn University, AL 36849
University Computing 205-844-4512
These opinions are not necessarily shared by the writer's employer.
_____________________________________________________________________
gar...@ingres.com
>
>Here I am yet again, rapier in hand, holding off the rabble charging
>up the staircase. I suppose I'm lucky to be in a target-rich
>environment.
Getting ready for the opening of the "Three Musketeers" I see. Well, be
sure that you don't find yourself at the wrong end of that rapier.
>
>In article <1993Nov11....@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>>1. Single mothers are more likely to be the children of single
>>>mothers themselves.
>>
>>This is the first gap I saw. Where these mothers divorced or never married.
>>The single mothers I know have divorced parents.
>
>From the standpoint of the child, it little matters.
I think the duration of marriage makes a difference to the child. More
importantly, it makes a large difference on your equation of divorced mothers
and never-married mothers. The reasons behind a person's situation can make
all the difference.
>I'm not sure if the same is true for the children
>of divorced parents.
>
And this is something we must find out.
>>> "Among white families, daughters of single
>>>parents are 53 percent more likely to marry as teenagers, 111
>>>percent more likely to have children as teenagers, 164 percent
>>>more likely to have a premarital birth, and 92 percent more
>>>likely to disolve their own marriages.
>> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>And if their parents were divorced then this would make sense.
>>
>I suspect the two phenomena ( divorce and unwed mothers) are somewhat
>similar in their effects on the children. It would make sense
>for the children to display similar behaviors.
>
Unfortunantly, this is speculation. I'm willing to bet that there would
be subtle, but important, differences. Especially if the couple had been
married for some time.
>>>2. Extended families and friends are apparently less likely to
>>>be present for single mothers. "Even the notion that single mothers are
>>>knit together in economically supportive networks is not borne
>>>out by the evidence. ON the contrary, single parenthood forces
>>>many women to be on the move, in search of cheaper housing and better
>>>jobs. ^^^^^^
>> ^^^^
>>And this was the second. In one paragraph you said "chronic welfare
>>dependence". In the next you say "searching for better jobs". This
>>doesn't sit well with me.
>
>40% of unwed mothers staying on welfare rolls for ten years or longer
>is a huge percentage. I think it counts as "chronic", even if
>the remaining 60% do find jobs.
But this misses the point that was just made earlier. You tried to make a
point that single-mothers have no support from friends and family because
they are always on the move "to find better jobs". Well, if a large
proportion of them are "chronically welfare dependent" then this point
doesn't apply to a large enough extent to make it a stereotype. You simply
must take one angle or another. You can't have both.
BTW, I know a few single-welfare-mothers. They move less than
I do.
>>>Well, that's the central problem of things like this. We, as a
>>>society, do _not_ want to encourage behavior like single parenthood
>>>by teenagers. This implies a certain amount of negative reinforcement,
>>>via economic penalties, social sanctions or shame, whatever.
>>
>>Shouldn't we try the latter two first?
>
>Dan Quayle tried an extremely mild form of social sanction,
>by suggesting that single motherhood was not the best
>possible situation, and he got flamed to a crisp. Even
I think it had more to do with linking the LA riots to single-mothers.
>Yes, social sanctions can often be effective. Accomplishing that
>on a wide-spread mass culture basis is likely to run into
>opposition.
Introducing anything on a mass cultural basis is a slow process. Perhaps if the
Republicans were really interested in doing it (which I have no problem
with) then they might want to have a little more patience instead of screaming
LiberalMediaKonspiracy when the populace isn't as receptive as they want it
to be. Cultures don't change fast, even in America.
> Anyway, there is a bit of a mixed message when
>society provides economic rewards for acting in ways it
>offically disapproves of.
>
Those economic rewards are pretty slim.
>>>Making the parent
>>>more liable for the actions of the kid encourages a more
>>>active concern.
>>>
>>This doesn't sit well with me either. If parenthood wasn't enough
>>encouragement, then what is?
>
>There's a surprising amount of passive parenthood out there.
>You'd think that all parents would have, for example, child
>seats, but such was not the case; hence, child seat laws.
>
Now that's a leap. I'm sorry, but child seat laws do not equal parents
that don't care. Either parents are going to care what happens to their
children or they won't. And if you don't care if your child gets pregnant
then you won't care if they have no means of support.
>>>The calculation is between the unpleasant alternatives of
>>>AFDC and marriage to a marginal husband. From the standpoint
>>>of society, it's probably better to encourage the marriage
>>>option, since this is likely to impose some responsibilites
>>>on the father (hopefully keeping him out of jail or the grave
>>>as well.) It should be the objective to get people into a web
>>>of responsibilities and duties that encourage stable relationships
>>>and behavior.
>>>
>>Gap number five, and the first I noticed. Don't you think that jail and
>>death is enough of a motivational factor to avoid in and of itself? ;-)
>>Come on. You don't need additional motivation when it comes to being
>>killed. As for jail, it usually involves doing something that the father
>>is doing to get money (not that I am defending it for a second. I'm just
>>pointing it out).
>
>Young single men are wont to do stupid things. The analogy I
>used in another post was that of a mining camp. Undomesticated
>men fighting gunbattles in the street, fighting in the saloon,
>and claim-jumping. The prescence of women in their lives
>seems to calm them down. That's my conjecture, anyway.
>Placing the male in a web of responsibilities and duties
>seems to change their perspective on life and make them
>more amicable to behaving in a civilized way. They start
>looking at barbeques and comparing notes on riding mowers.
>
On a surface level this looks true. But on a fundemental level this is
just plain wrong. What we are talking about is young men that have already
gotten their women pregnant. That element is already there. You have
provided numbers of how these women were abandoned by their men and
recieve no child support. If they are so hearless to do this already,
what makes you think that they care about your reforms? The women are
already there. The children are already there. They still don't care.
Have you spent any time around young black men from poor
neighborhoods? I happen to work with a half dozen. They talk about sex
constantly. They come to work and show off their guns. They sell guns and
bullets on the side. They sell hot stereo equiptment on the side. Three
of them already have kids out-of-wedlock.
I'm not making this up, nor am I preaching. I'm just telling you
what I see every day.
>>I could swear that I've seen stats that say otherwise. BTW, gap number
>>six. This doesn't address my statement that most are white, and not
>>from the inner-city.
>
>I don't see what it has to do with anything. Murray's proposal
>is intended to curb specific types of behavior, not target
>a particular race, or prove that one race is superior to
I brought this up becuase it effects the original premise of this
debate. _You_ made the assertion that much of the reason for the high
crime rate in the inner cities was do to the high rate of children with
only one parent (and by default, black). Now if you look at it this
way, my statement is very relevant. I'll be interested in your response.
>Don McGregor | World's most dangerous USENET poster
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gar...@ingres.com
but still working. Let's give it a try on a worthy candidate.
In article <2ce1...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes...
>g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
>>> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
>>>>DRM> From: mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor)
>>>
>>> [about inner city violence, single families, and the like]
>>>
>>>>DRM> ... If violence is worst in a certain
>>>>DRM> subculture, it makes sense to start looking at the salient
>>>>DRM> aspects of that culture, and the disintegration of the
>>>>DRM> family has to figure in that.
>>>
>>>> More likely emergence of natural (genetic?) tendencies.
>>>
>g> It took a while, but we now have ignorance moving into this discussion.
>g> Whether you meant it or not, to say that a certain negative activity is
>g> genetically linked to a race, is a racist statement. Thanks John, for
>g> your insight. But I'll pass the next time you want to share it.
>
>Genetics today is finding more and more things are hereditary, including
>behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical twins isolated
>from each other at birth. You are welcome for my insight in view of your
>lacking this knowledge.
>
Appearently _your_ lack of knowledge includes this subject. There isn't a
single scrap of proof that shows a penchant for violence is genetically
related. Your inference otherwise shows the weakness of your argument.
>g> Now if you want a little reverse-racist insight, why is it
>g> that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean just
>g> European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
>
>Almost all? Great generalized statement.
You make the assertion that blacks are violence prone by nature without
a _single scrap of proof_, and you accuse ME of making generalized statements!?
You debating skills are not only transparent but repugnant, just like your
white-supremacist ideas.
> Not accepted because of that
>generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even undetected, serial
>killers;
A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>and it implies there are a great number of serial killers, which is not
>so.
Which is not the point, nor the assertion that was made. Andother red herring
argument.
> Serial killers are not something I take great interest in (why do you?)
If you can't win a debate, attack the debaters character, eh? You must have
gone to the Stupendous school of debating tactics. No, I don't take a great
deal of interest in the subject. But my former roommate does, because she
is studying criminal psychology in school.
>but the one in Atlanta, the black one, did come to mind when I read your
>message, as did the Son of Sam, who is (was?) not of the extraction you allege.
The Son of Sam killer is western-european decent white. As was John Wayne
Gasey, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Jeffery Dahmer, for starters. If you
want me to continue to list them, the list is just a phone call to my former
roommate away.
Now if you want to continue to assert that all blacks are violence prone
by nature, why can't I say that whites have a tendency toward being serial
killers? There is about an equal amount truth in both. And we both have
lots of circumstantial evidence.
BTW, to compare tribal warfare in Africa to black-on-black violence
in America is a case study in ignorance. Did it ever occur to you that the
blacks in this country have been inbred with whites many times over? Just
look at the facial features of African-Americans and real Africans.
>Try again.
>
Only if you are stupid enough to come back to this group.
>
>Regards, John
>
> * Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
Someone from Norway is trying to tell us about black race relations
in America. Have you ever even met a black person? There is enough hate and
racism in this country already. Keep your white supremacist ideas to yourself,
and don't export them. If I see your sig in this group again I will flame
first and ask questions later.
Spencer V. PriceNash
>From the Investor's Business Daily 11/10, quoting Jared Taylor:
>
>*Only 38% of black children live with both parents, while 79% of
>white children do.
>
>*In the 1950s, a black child had a 52% chance of living with both
>biological parents until the age of 17. By the 1980's, this
>chance had diminished to 6%.
>
>*In 1959, 2% of black children were reared in households in which
>the mother never married. Today, the figure is closer to 60%.
>
>Any way you cut it, the family structure is far worse than most
>whites.
"worse" is subjective. "Statistically different" is correct.
--
Spencer V. PriceNash
> [...]
>The US has thrown money at the problem for decades now. It is part of the
>culture not to help themselves. The displaced Scottish crofters helped
>themselves when they reached America, so did the Irish, Italians, Hungarians,
>Poles, etc. The Mexicans are helping themselves. The blacks want someone else
>to help them, and help them, and help them, and help them, and love to play the
>blame game because they have found how to exploit the BHL.
This dead horse has had the innards beaten out of it repeatedly
throughout the last 120 or so years of America's history. It's as silly
as saying "Whites don't want to help anyone, don't want to help anyone,
don't want to help anyone".
Time to come up with something else.
Donald R. McGregor
>>Having serious consequenes to actions
>>tends to focus the mind.
>
>the point of strongly resembling a garbage dump. We told him that if
>the bedroom had not been cleaned within two weeks, he would not be
>allowed to attend the next home football game for his high school that
>would be played on that date. Was his room clean by that Friday? No,
>it was not. He stayed home. The NEXT week it was clean.
Apparently seeing the consequences of a certain course of action
tends to modify his behavior. Perhaps after seeing the
extremely drab and cramped life a single mother would live,
many of your son's classmates would begin to see certain
behaviors in a different light.
Certainly the problem of children being children is a serious
one. One of the great strengths of the US higher education
system is its ability to give second, third, fourth, and fifth
chances to people who otherwise got lost in a hormonal haze
during the ages of 15-25 or so. I don't think Murray's
proposal (which I am still not committed to, btw) would
completely end the problem. But I think it is undeniable that
it would modify behavior.
What we are really talking about is restoring bourgeois values
to mass culture. that's possible, I believe, only through
serious negative reinforcement. Economics is one aspect
of that. Social ostracism is another. I don't take any
joy in either. I take even less joy in the prospect of
families living in structual poverty due to single-parent
status, or the apparent social costs of raising children in
single-parent families.
Once upon a time, when you violated the middle class values,
you walked off the edge and into a sphere with little social
or economic support. That was unpleasant, and tended to
reinforce compliance with the social rules. We've made it
somewhat easier to violate the rules without consequence,
with predictable results.
>I find it difficult to
>imagine the "negative consequences" which would so impress young people
>who engage in this sort of thinking that it would cause them to abstain
>from such behavior.
At least some evidence seems to contradict this. The rise in
illegitimate births corresponded with the rise of AFDC payments.
We can argue about causation, but the correlation should give
pause for thought, at the very least.
>keep in mind that we have all agreed that volitional
>pregnancies are a major part of this problem, and someone who
>deliberately allows herself to be impregnated is not going to give that
>baby up easily. I don't want even the 14-year-old, my son's classmate,
>who is going to give birth sometime before Christmas to be FORCED to
>give up her child against her will. I've had two babies myself and I
>wouldn't wish that fate on Hitler. Maybe you think that we should ship
>these unmarried pregnant teenagers off to an unwed mothers' home and
>keep them there until they turn 18 or graduate from high school and are
>able to make a living, but I can't see THIS country doing that.
All obviously unpleasant prospects. As I've said, Murray's
proposal wins to the extent it deters behavior. If the mother
can provide a minimally decent environment, the government
would not intervene. Probably this would mean that she had
to enlist the support of parents. So Eddie's classmate can
keep the child, so long as the mother can line up support.
>And in any case, are any of these negative consequences of
>out-of-wedlock pregnancy so horrid that it will keep the young girls
>from becoming pregnant and the young guys from allowing unprotected sex?
>I think not.
Really? Why? To rephrase a famous question, what evidence would
convince you that economic and social costs had an effect on the
teen pregnancy rate? Why do you think the rate was lower in
the 50's, for example, and why do you think it rose later?
BTW, I'm surprised that no one has yet pointed out that Murray's
proposal would increase the demand for abortion. I'm surprised
and disapointed by this omission.
Donald R. McGregor
> Don, nobody was calling you a racist.
This is a bit disingenuous. The implication has been simmering
under the surface for a while:
:Or why not simply sterilize them all at age 8 or 9? Would that not be
:kinder than later tearing their children away from them? - even if it *is*
:the nazi solution...or aren't they both?
:And have you ever seen this comic-book situation live and in, ah, color (as
:they say, or at least infer)? Can you prove that it exists in anything
:other than miniscule numbers anywhere outside of the fevered minds of those
:with a demonstrably racial political agenda?
:"Pride and Prejudice."
>We've got some
> direct experience and first-hand observations to back up the things that
> we say. You don't seem to have anything to offer to this discussion
> that is comparable. This is not meant as a flame; please do not take
> it as such. This is just my observation from your posts.
One thing I've noticed so far is a distinct lack of statistical
rigor. The antecdotal experiences the other posters have
contributed so far are interesting, but can be very misleading.
One person's experience was that the vast majority of single
fathers supported their children. The statistics I have show that
in 1982 at least, about 80% of black mothers received no child
support at all. (This has perhaps changed in the meantime, and
perhaps unreported support is rampant, but paints a very different
picture.)
For that matter, I haven't seen many alternative explanations
for the violence in society we've been talking about.
Pirates? Feh. More like kids with eyepatches and wooden swords.
> I see you're posting from an account in the
> Bay area. You can go out and have a beer with Garrett; something that
> is impossible for me to do.
Maybe. I don't know what my plans are yet.
--
Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
mcg...@crl.com |
Cynthia Kandolf
(a lot of things, but i'm only going to quote the comments my response
will focus on)
>In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
>lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
>or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
>are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
>the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
>we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
>extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
>so there's no male there to provide direction and authority.
>Other societal units--churches, schools, neighborhoods--
>are in sad shape. So what we wind up with is a society ruled
>by the mores of adolescent males.
>
>The world of a white, middle class, college educated single
>mother is very different. Usually she'll be in functioning
>surroundings, have a decent income, and maybe have parents,
>a church, or whatever around to help out.
This is very similar to my view of the situation, but we seem to be
looking from slightly different angles. Allow me to explain:
Many times we lose sight of the fact that the family unit wasn't
always what it is today. It wasn't very long ago, for example, that
in the coastal regions of Europe and North America, many or even most
fathers were gone a substantial part of the time. They were fishermen
or sailors, and they would be away from their homes for days or weeks
(or months) at a time. At the same time, in the upper levels of
society, the children were often cared for by a servant, invariably
female, and fathers especially kept their distance from child-rearing.
And yet the social problems of the time were a completely different
set of problems than those many associate with single motherhood
today.
Similarly, it has always happened that some men have died and left
their young children behind. There have always been single mothers.
My own mother lost her father when she was only nine years old; yet
she and her brother never got in any serious trouble, and both have
had stable adult lives.
A short digression here, but bear with me, i am building up to a
point.
What do children really need from their families? First of all,
obviously, they need someone to meet their physical needs. Someone to
keep them fed, clothed, warm and in a hygenic condition until they can
do these things for themselves. Closely related to this, of course,
is the need for someone to look after their safety. Tiny children
have no idea that electrical outlets or knives or other things around
them can be dangerous, and they need someone to protect them from
their own curiosity. As they grow older the need gradually changes -
the danger still stems at least partly from the natural curiosity of a
child, but by adolescence it has changed into a need for someone to
remind them that there is such a thing as right and wrong, and to show
them what the standards are.
Children also have emotional needs that must be met. They need to
know someone cares about them and values them, and that they have a
worth as an individual regardless of who they are. Although teenagers
often pull away from any show of affection from an adult, i believe
they need to know this affection exists more at this stage than at any
other.
They also need stimulation, something to challenge them, something to
work towards.
The point of all this is that these needs can be met by many family
structures, and not just mother-father-1.8 children families. This is
not to say that such families don't have their advantages. For one
thing, even a single child can be too much for one adult, especially
if that adult has other responsibilities (like a job) or
distractions/problems (drugs or simple long-term depression will do
here). For another, children thrive better in a stable situation, and
if the parents really care for one another the situation will be
stable.
But a stable situation, in which the adult(s) have sufficient time and
energy to give the children what they want, can be acheived without
one (or without either) of the biological parents. The important
thing is that the child's needs are met, not what the pattern of the
family looks like.
In the case of those children whose fathers were gone on long trips,
they had their mother and the other adults in their village. The
village was a community back then, and people pitched in to help one
another. Even when the father was gone - even when he never came
back...- the mother was never really _alone_ with the children.
In the case of my mother - she and her mother and brother moved in
with other family members after her father died. Her mother went to
work, and her grandmother looked after her and her brother. My uncle
was the only male in the house, but there were other men in the family
and men among the neighbors. They saw what grown, responsible men did
in their society, even if they didn't live with anyone who could teach
them.
Single parenthood/single motherhood is not a problem in and of itself.
The problem is a breakdown of whole communities. The structure that
children need to grow up properly is not there for them, not in their
own homes and not in the community at large either. So they are left
to their own devices, and they "grow up" into something other than the
ideal, responsible adult.
Furthermore, i would venture to say that the breakdown of these
communities is what's _causing_ the increase in single motherhood in
the first place! No one is teaching the girls how to behave as adults
are expected to, either. They just react to this lack differently
than the boys do.
For the most part i would say that single parents do better in
Scandinavia because there are very few places where a whole community
is broken down. True, the old village society is gone, but there is
still a sense of "we help out our own". If the immediate family is
lacking something, there is always help to be had somewhere. (And
since most people don't consider single motherhood anything to be
ashamed of, that help is often from the mother's own family - it is
very rare for a woman to be disowned or thrown out of her family's
house because she got pregnant without being married.)
So there's my thoughts on the subject....
-Cindy Kandolf
ci...@lise.unit.no
Trondheim, Norway
Spencer V. PriceNash
>In article <1993111213...@AUDUCADM.DUC.AUBURN.EDU> coo...@mail.auburn.edu writes:
[...]
>What we are really talking about is restoring bourgeois values
>to mass culture. that's possible, I believe, only through
>serious negative reinforcement. [...]
I sincerely doubt bourgeois values ever had anything to do with mass
culture, anywhere.
>Once upon a time, when you violated the middle class values, [...]
How many people knew what "middle class values" were? How many people
know what they are today? Hint: check for noun phrases.
>>keep in mind that we have all agreed that volitional
>>pregnancies are a major part of this problem, and someone who
>>deliberately allows herself to be impregnated is not going to give that
>>baby up easily. I don't want even the 14-year-old, my son's classmate,
>>who is going to give birth sometime before Christmas to be FORCED to
>>give up her child against her will. I've had two babies myself and I
>>wouldn't wish that fate on Hitler. Maybe you think that we should ship
>>these unmarried pregnant teenagers off to an unwed mothers' home and
>>keep them there until they turn 18 or graduate from high school and are
>>able to make a living, but I can't see THIS country doing that.
>
>All obviously unpleasant prospects. As I've said, Murray's
>proposal wins to the extent it deters behavior. If the mother
>can provide a minimally decent environment, the government
>would not intervene. [...]
Who's defining the "miminally decent environment"?
>Really? Why? To rephrase a famous question, what evidence would
>convince you that economic and social costs had an effect on the
>teen pregnancy rate? Why do you think the rate was lower in
>the 50's, for example, and why do you think it rose later?
Evidence...? Why, of course, evidence that people using the statistics
they gathered were looking into the effectiveness of their
number-gathering techniques -- how and when they got better (if they
did), and how much information they might have missed in the past.
Actually, no, that wouldn't do a complete job, but it'd be a good start.
>BTW, I'm surprised that no one has yet pointed out that Murray's
>proposal would increase the demand for abortion. I'm surprised
>and disapointed by this omission.
Don't be disappointed. It'd be silly.
Spencer V. PriceNash
>In article <1993Nov12.1...@VFL.Paramax.COM> tr...@gvls2.vfl.paramax.com (Herbert Rutledge) writes:
>
>>We've got some
>> direct experience and first-hand observations to back up the things that
>> we say. You don't seem to have anything to offer to this discussion
>> that is comparable. This is not meant as a flame; please do not take
>> it as such. This is just my observation from your posts.
>
>One thing I've noticed so far is a distinct lack of statistical
>rigor. The antecdotal experiences the other posters have
>contributed so far are interesting, but can be very misleading.
Makes it obvious that these stats and real life don't necessarily mix,
right?
>One person's experience was that the vast majority of single
>fathers supported their children. The statistics I have show that
>in 1982 at least, about 80% of black mothers received no child
>support at all. [...]
Is support *always* reported money received?
>For that matter, I haven't seen many alternative explanations
>for the violence in society we've been talking about.
Mostly because you're mixing apples and oranges and lamenting the
absence of grapefruit.
>> I see you're posting from an account in the
>> Bay area. You can go out and have a beer with Garrett; something that
>> is impossible for me to do.
>
>Maybe. I don't know what my plans are yet.
Tell you what. Move in down the street from Garrett and stick around
for a few years, come back, and tell us what you learned. Yeah, we've
all heard it before, but I'm sure you'll learn something.
john white
g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
g> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
g> From: gar...@Ingres.COM
g> Aye! Here it is. My thermonuclear flamethrower. A little dusty,
g> but still working. Let's give it a try on a worthy candidate.
>> + Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
g> Someone from Norway is trying to tell us about black race relations
g> in America. Have you ever even met a black person? There is enough hate
g> and racism in this country already. Keep your white supremacist ideas to
g> yourself, and don't export them. If I see your sig in this group again I
g> will flame first and ask questions later.
Flame away. You chose to lead with a flame, and continue flaming, so what else
is new?
Your assumptions and assertions show your foolishness. For instance, you
assume I am Norwegian, but I am a native born US citizen, and my family have
been US citizens since the founding of the USA. For instance, you assert I am
a white supremacist yet we have not written about whites, other than *your*
assertion that US serial killers are white, and of northwestern European
heritage.
>> Genetics today is finding more and more things are hereditary, including
>> behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical twins
>> isolated from each other at birth. You are welcome for my insight in view
>> of your lacking this knowledge.
g> Appearently _your_ lack of knowledge includes this subject. There isn't a
g> single scrap of proof that shows a penchant for violence is genetically
g> related. Your inference otherwise shows the weakness of your argument.
Not at all. I will not do your work for you. You will not be spoonfed. In
spite of you leading with a flame, you were furnished with a subject that would
give you insight that you lacked. Read the information for yourself. That way
you would not be able to state, with validity, that information was withheld
from you.
>>g> Now if you want a little reverse-racist insight, why is it
>>g> that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean
>>g> just European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
>>
>> Almost all? Great generalized statement.
g> You make the assertion that blacks are violence prone by nature without
g> a _single scrap of proof_, and you accuse ME of making generalized
g> statements!? You debating skills are not only transparent but repugnant,
g> just like your white-supremacist ideas.
This is not and never has been a debate. Your initial post to me was a flame.
You tried to confuse the issue, failed, and continue to try. For instance, now
you are imputing white-supremacist ideas to me as a diversion.
>> Not accepted because of that
>> generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even undetected,
>> serial killers;
g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
>> and it implies there are a great number of serial killers, which is not
>> so.
g> Which is not the point, nor the assertion that was made. Andother red
g> herring argument.
You brought the subject of ethnic origin of serial killers up, not me. Your
generality was challenged with specific examples, which you are now trying to
evade.
>> Serial killers are not something I take great interest in (why do you?)
g> If you can't win a debate, attack the debaters character, eh? You must
g> have gone to the Stupendous school of debating tactics. No, I don't take a
g> great deal of interest in the subject. But my former roommate does, because
g> she is studying criminal psychology in school.
Another attempt at diversion. Drag the ex-roomie in. Her alleged course of
study possibly qualifies her to be a student.
>> but the one in Atlanta, the black one, did come to mind when I read your
>> message, as did the Son of Sam, who is (was?) not of the extraction you
>> allege.
g> The Son of Sam killer is western-european decent white.
No, he is of eastern European descent. Do you not tire of being wrong?
g> As was John Wayne
g> Gasey, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Jeffery Dahmer, for starters. If you
g> want me to continue to list them, the list is just a phone call to my
g> former roommate away. Now if you want to continue to assert that all
g> blacks are violence prone by nature, why can't I say that whites have a
g> tendency toward being serial killers? There is about an equal amount truth
g> in both. And we both have lots of circumstantial evidence.
Certainly you are free to make any assertion you wish. I am equally free to
take issue with your assertions. Since you chose to start this interchange
with a flame, I am free to point out your foolishness.
g> BTW, to compare
g> tribal warfare in Africa to black-on-black violence in America is a case
g> study in ignorance. Did it ever occur to you that the blacks in this
g> country have been inbred with whites many times over? Just look at the
g> facial features of African-Americans and real Africans.
You persist in obfuscation, and attempted diversion. You have no idea what
features would be found on Africans if you mixed the features of the tribes.
Blacks in the US have ancestral roots primarily in west Africa, and to a much
lesser extent in the Indians of the Caribbean. Also, most blacks in the US do
not have white ancestors. I lived in the southern US in areas that were as
much as 40 percent black, both rural and city (New Orleans).
>> Try again.
g> Only if you are stupid enough to come back to this group.
That doesn't take stupidity. It only takes an interest in people and the way
they think, even the way you think.
Regards, John
---
john white
SVP> @REPLYADDR spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us
SVP> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
SVP> From: spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash)
SVP> In article <2ce1...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no
SVP> (john white) writes:
>> [...]
>> The US has thrown money at the problem for decades now. It is part of
>> the culture not to help themselves. The displaced Scottish crofters
>> helped themselves when they reached America, so did the Irish, Italians,
>> Hungarians, Poles, etc. The Mexicans are helping themselves. The blacks
>> want someone else to help them, and help them, and help them, and help
>> them, and love to play the blame game because they have found how to
>> exploit the BHL.
SVP> This dead horse has had the innards beaten out of it repeatedly
SVP> throughout the last 120 or so years of America's history. It's as silly
SVP> as saying "Whites don't want to help anyone, don't want to help anyone,
SVP> don't want to help anyone".
SVP> Time to come up with something else.
It could be a dead horse and silly, I agree, if I had not lived it myself,
Spencer V. PriceNash. But I did, and I know what I am writing about. I am an
old man now and was a child before AFDC was available. My mother, my two
younger sisters, and I lived on what my mother earned taking in sewing, and
what I earned delivering newspapers miles from where I lived, carrying bags of
clubs around a golf course and anything else I could find to do. We had a
place to live and had the optional luxury of eating. Another optional luxury
was a warm coat in winter. For three years in the 7th, 8th, and 9th grade I
had a coat that was not warm enough by itself for the winter. However, when it
was combined with shivering, I survived.
Somehow I managed to finish high school and I was tied for second place
academically in my class. This won me a tuition scholarship to a well known
university, and the opportunity to work for my food. As it turned out, I could
not pay for my dormitory until I was paid for my work with meal tickets. I
sold half my tickets and paid for the dormitory week by week with the proceeds,
even though the dormitory was payable in full the first week of school. Thus
my view of food as an optional luxury remained uncorrected. I did not have a
weight gain problem. Unfortunately, I was not able to afford a five dollar bus
ticket home at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter.
By the way, I was in the university so long ago that I had to defy my dean to
schedule a couple of computer science classes. We programmed core directly,
bare metal, not even batch. He refused to accept the credits as technical
electives toward my bachelor's in Chemical Engineering because "computer
science did not apply" to my chosen profession.
Over time I have had some real privileges. My own children have never known
want. My wife has always been well cared for. My profession allowed me to
teach in a university, and then to have a nice career first in plant operation,
then in engineering and construction.
The largest project I have had personal responsibility for had a price tag of
US$1.5 billion, and was on time, under budget and is a commercial success. For
the ten years that I had operations responsibility, my plants had no lost time
accidents, no disabling injuries, and no fatalities. The materials processed
were lethal, toxic, combustible, explosive and their combustion products were
poisonous. I was most fortunate that my operations crews were very good
people, but I was personally responsible for all aspects of operations,
engineering, and maintenance.
I disagree with your contention that it is time to come up with something else,
and that this is a dead horse. It is likely your response is based on what you
have heard and/or read, and not out of personal knowledge of what is possible.
If I could make it, and I did, others can to, Bleeding Heart Liberals
notwithstanding. It's just a matter of wanting to and acting on that want.
This has been written, altruistically, to give you some insight into what is
possible.
Regards, John.
Diane Mathews
>Don McGregor writes:
>(a lot of things, but i'm only going to quote the comments my response
>will focus on)
>>In a female single head of houshold family, _particularly_ in
>>lower economic classes, the kid doesn't get much direction
>>or authority from responsible male figures. Males as parents
>>are almost completely absent. Mothers do not completely replace
>>the role of fathers. The family per se in the economic classes
>>we are talking about has almost completely disintegrated, so
>>extended family does not do much to fill the void either.
>>More likely than not the grandmother is a single parent too,
>>so there's no male there to provide direction and authority.
>>Other societal units--churches, schools, neighborhoods--
>>are in sad shape. So what we wind up with is a society ruled
>>by the mores of adolescent males.
>
>looking from slightly different angles. Allow me to explain:
>
>Many times we lose sight of the fact that the family unit wasn't
>always what it is today. It wasn't very long ago, for example, that
>in the coastal regions of Europe and North America, many or even most
>fathers were gone a substantial part of the time. They were fishermen
>or sailors, and they would be away from their homes for days or weeks
>(or months) at a time. At the same time, in the upper levels of
>society, the children were often cared for by a servant, invariably
>female, and fathers especially kept their distance from child-rearing.
>And yet the social problems of the time were a completely different
>set of problems than those many associate with single motherhood
>today.
Hear! Hear! Hear! Add to that that conditions that we hear about in
the US usually center around the successes, and around those things
that support whatever 'values' happen to be popular at the time (by
that, of course, i refer to the myth that the historically traditional
family included a wife who didn't work outside the home). One can
travel inland and find a myriad of cases in which a woman became a
single mother - men who left for the mine fields, men who left to
build a house on a prairie and then sent for the wife and kids, and
of course men who go away on military duty. Considering, also, higher
death rates for everyone, it is ridiculous to assume that single mother-
hood is in any way a modern phenomenon. (Illegitimacy, too, but that's
another matter.)
> (much stuff deleted)
>Single parenthood/single motherhood is not a problem in and of itself.
>The problem is a breakdown of whole communities. The structure that
>children need to grow up properly is not there for them, not in their
>own homes and not in the community at large either. So they are left
>to their own devices, and they "grow up" into something other than the
>ideal, responsible adult.
>
>Furthermore, i would venture to say that the breakdown of these
>communities is what's _causing_ the increase in single motherhood in
>the first place!
I would add to this that there are whole systems in motion right now
which one could say contribute to the breakdown of communities. Mobility,
for instance, is one thing. And to say that mobility is bad is to deny
that economic pressures exist. Not only that but mobility is not
*necessarily* destructive to communities - newcomers have been welcomed
in the past, but for the most part they are not now. But, again, mobility
is only one thing.
Valarie Cook
mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor) writes:
>In article <1993111213...@AUDUCADM.DUC.AUBURN.EDU> coo...@mail.auburn.edu writes:
>>>Having serious consequenes to actions
>>>tends to focus the mind.
>>
>>A few weeks ago he had let his bedroom reach
>>the point of strongly resembling a garbage dump. We told him that if
>>the bedroom had not been cleaned within two weeks, he would not be
>>allowed to attend the next home football game for his high school that
>>would be played on that date. Was his room clean by that Friday? No,
>>it was not. He stayed home. The NEXT week it was clean.
>
>Apparently seeing the consequences of a certain course of action
>tends to modify his behavior. Perhaps after seeing the
>extremely drab and cramped life a single mother would live,
>many of your son's classmates would begin to see certain
>behaviors in a different light.
Donald, I can't help but think that you missed my point. Teenagers
don't think bad things can happen to them. Eddie didn't believe he
would be grounded until it happened, and THEN, and only then, did he
shape up. What could you do to the girls who become pregnant that was
so horrible that it would keep her classmates from making the same kind
of mistake? The girls who have babies already are suffering the
consequences, and obviously that isn't helping. All the girls see is
that cute little baby, and all the boys see is the "father" bragging
about having scored and fathered a child. What do you do to them that
would serve as an *effective* example for others? Brand the teenage
father and mother both with a scarlet "A"? Stone them in the public
square? It would have to be something about that drastic to impress the
teenagers who are actually the source of this problem. Immposing
"negative consequences" on the unwed teenage parents (I assume you
aren't planning on letting the fathers off the hook) will certainly
impress the parents, but they have already contributed their share of
the problem. What about the others, the ones who are just thinking
about it? *They* are the ones who have to be prevented from walking
down that road, and I don't think negative reinforcement of the type
that is likely to be imposed by this society is going to help.
deleted
>What we are really talking about is restoring bourgeois values
>to mass culture. that's possible, I believe, only through
>serious negative reinforcement. Economics is one aspect
>of that. Social ostracism is another. I don't take any
>joy in either. I take even less joy in the prospect of
>families living in structual poverty due to single-parent
>status, or the apparent social costs of raising children in
>single-parent families.
Neither do I, but neither do I take any joy in the prospect of imposing
values on society by directive, which is what it seems you are
proposing. IMO the reason we are having this problem is that the values
of society shifted, and I don't think we can shift them back by negative
reinforcement, at least not quickly enough to address the present
problem. By the way, I don't think this shift in values is necessarily
entirely a bad thing; one of the consequences of this shift is that the
babies born out of wedlock are no longer punished for their parent's
transgressions.
>>keep in mind that we have all agreed that volitional
>>pregnancies are a major part of this problem, and someone who
>>deliberately allows herself to be impregnated is not going to give that
>>baby up easily. I don't want even the 14-year-old, my son's classmate,
>>who is going to give birth sometime before Christmas to be FORCED to
>>give up her child against her will. I've had two babies myself and I
>>wouldn't wish that fate on Hitler. Maybe you think that we should ship
>>these unmarried pregnant teenagers off to an unwed mothers' home and
>>keep them there until they turn 18 or graduate from high school and are
>>able to make a living, but I can't see THIS country doing that.
>
>All obviously unpleasant prospects. As I've said, Murray's
>proposal wins to the extent it deters behavior. If the mother
>can provide a minimally decent environment, the government
>would not intervene. Probably this would mean that she had
>to enlist the support of parents. So Eddie's classmate can
>keep the child, so long as the mother can line up support.
Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever that her parents will raise the baby.
But I thought what we wanted is for the conception not to take place in
the first place. You note that my solutions are "all obviously
unpleasant prospects" and they certainly would be to any thinking
person. But we are talking about TEENAGERS here, not thinking people.
:-) Some of these things already happen, and they don't seem so bad to
kids who habitually make plans on the best possible outcome. Sure, if
Mom and Dad will raise the kid (and never mind that both Mom and Dad
work, and are just barely making ends meet) why worry about becoming
pregnant? After all, Donnie said he would marry me, and as soon as we
get out of high school in three years he'll get a job and I'll go to
college and we'll live happily ever after. Sound familiar? I've heard
it, too many times.
Don, you don't seem to realize that there are ALREADY a lot of negative
reinforcements out there for having babies out of wedlock, but there are
more positive and hard-to-battle positive reinforcements. One of which
is the instinctive drive to reproduce--try reinforcing THAT out of
humankind. I dare you. Teenagers just aren't capable of looking down
the road and seeing that now, maybe, is not the best time to have a kid.
What IMO is needed is more education, not more punishment. I think it
would be a good idea to send AFDC payments for teenage parents directly
to the teenager's parent or guardian (perhaps the parent is part of the
problem). I think that a lot of ideas which have been proposed have
merit, but I don't think concentrating on punishment for the sin of
unlawful reproduction is going to work or is going to be accepted by
society.
>
>>And in any case, are any of these negative consequences of
>>out-of-wedlock pregnancy so horrid that it will keep the young girls
>>from becoming pregnant and the young guys from allowing unprotected sex?
>>I think not.
>
>Really? Why? To rephrase a famous question, what evidence would
>convince you that economic and social costs had an effect on the
>teen pregnancy rate? Why do you think the rate was lower in
>the 50's, for example, and why do you think it rose later?
Why? Because the girls married the baby's fathers and had a "premature" seven-pund baby, or went away for a few months "to visit Aunt Chloe" and returned sans baby or with a "new baby brother", or because they had abortions. The point I am making is
that SOCIETY imposed the sanctions on out-of-wedlock births (and these sanctions didn't apply to some groups, and before you start arguing with me about THAT I will say right off the bat I can name names starting with an old sweetheart of my mother's who
never had a father--he would have been MY father if he hadn't been killed in a car accident) and SOCIETY will have to reinstate these sanctions or something like them before the "negative consequences" you talk about have any sort of effect.
>BTW, I'm surprised that no one has yet pointed out that Murray's
>proposal would increase the demand for abortion. I'm surprised
>and disapointed by this omission.
I don't think I have seen Murray's proposal, but our newsreader has
seemingly come down with the 'flu. What was the proposal? I can't say
I approve of anything that would inevitably increase the abortion rate;
my attitude toward abortion is that it should be safe, legal, and RARE.
Herbert Rutledge
|> One thing I've noticed so far is a distinct lack of statistical
|> rigor. The antecdotal experiences the other posters have
|> contributed so far are interesting, but can be very misleading.
You come here displaying a mind that is already made up. You deploy
numbers from a magazine article without questioning either their accuracy
or the methodology used to derive them, let alone the larger meaning that
they may or may not contain. You try to use these numbers to make points
that are largely political in nature. Your partisan zeal sometimes leads
you to use the wrong numbers to try and make your point in a way that more
thoughtful people would find embarrassing. You're right, Don. There's a
distinct lack of statistical rigor in your posts.
|> For that matter, I haven't seen many alternative explanations
|> for the violence in society we've been talking about.
Perhaps that's because you haven't heard Dan Quayle offer any others.
|> Pirates? Feh. More like kids with eyepatches and wooden swords.
Well, you know what to do next, Don. Declare victory, erase the subject
line and replace it with something else.
gar...@ingres.com
>>> + Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
>
>g> Someone from Norway is trying to tell us about black race relations
>g> in America. Have you ever even met a black person? There is enough hate
>g> and racism in this country already. Keep your white supremacist ideas to
>g> yourself, and don't export them. If I see your sig in this group again I
>g> will flame first and ask questions later.
>
>Flame away. You chose to lead with a flame, and continue flaming, so what else
>is new?
Get used to it. I'm saving my flames just for you.
>
>Your assumptions and assertions show your foolishness. For instance, you
>assume I am Norwegian, but I am a native born US citizen, and my family have
>been US citizens since the founding of the USA.
So you're a home-grown bigot, eh?
So does racism and close-mindedness run in your family as well? (genetically)
> For instance, you assert I am
>a white supremacist yet we have not written about whites,
You have asserted that blacks are violence prone by nature. By attributing
a negative attribute to a whole race, you are infering that that race is
inferior or even sub-human. In so doing, you are doing exactly what a
white-supremacist would do.
When I pointed this out to you I expected you to say something
like, "I didn't mean that, I meant..." But instead you defended your baseless
assertion without a shred of proof. You dug your own grave, now I'm just
going to fill it in for you.
> other than *your*
>assertion that US serial killers are white, and of northwestern European
>heritage.
>
Which I am about to provide a long list of names. At least some of us are
willing to do some research.
>
[note: I noticed you deleted you racist statement already. Feeling a little
embarrassed?]
>
>>> Genetics today is finding more and more things are hereditary, including
>>> behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical twins
>>> isolated from each other at birth. You are welcome for my insight in view
>>> of your lacking this knowledge.
>
>g> Appearently _your_ lack of knowledge includes this subject. There isn't a
>g> single scrap of proof that shows a penchant for violence is genetically
>g> related. Your inference otherwise shows the weakness of your argument.
>
>Not at all. I will not do your work for you. You will not be spoonfed.
Nor will you get off your butt and do the research either. I don't need to
prove an assertion wrong that has no merit to begin with.
>>>g> Now if you want a little reverse-racist insight, why is it
>>>g> that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean
>>>g> just European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
>>>
>>> Almost all? Great generalized statement.
>
>g> You make the assertion that blacks are violence prone by nature without
>g> a _single scrap of proof_, and you accuse ME of making generalized
>g> statements!? You debating skills are not only transparent but repugnant,
>g> just like your white-supremacist ideas.
>
>This is not and never has been a debate. Your initial post to me was a flame.
No, it was to point out that your assertion was racist. Which I did and you
failed to deny. Are you denying it now? I can go back and bring that racist
statement back, you know. The only flame in my first post was, "If you want
to share your insight with me again, I'll pass." After that I flamed.
>You tried to confuse the issue, failed, and continue to try.
Wrong again. I flamed you for being a racist. I will continue to do it
as long as you continue to defend your statement.
> For instance, now
>you are imputing white-supremacist ideas to me as a diversion.
>
No, I'm imputing white-spuremacist ideas on you because you are doing their
footwork. You have _still_ failed to deny that you are a racist.
>
>>> Not accepted because of that
>>> generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even undetected,
>>> serial killers;
>
>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>
>Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
>
Close. You stated that violence is a genetic trait in an entire race. There is
a difference.
>
>>> and it implies there are a great number of serial killers, which is not
>>> so.
>
>g> Which is not the point, nor the assertion that was made. Andother red
>g> herring argument.
>
>You brought the subject of ethnic origin of serial killers up, not me. Your
>generality was challenged with specific examples, which you are now trying to
>evade.
>
Time to give the list. These are all _white_ serial killers as provided by
my roommate.
1) George Adorno 21) Harvey Louis Carignan
2) Howard Arthur Allen 22) Jarvis Catoe
3) Joseph Baldi 23) George Chapman
4) Clinton Bankston 24) Thor Nis Christiansen
5) Dieter Beck 25) Styllou Christofi
6) Marie Alexander Becker 26) Richard Clarey
7) Norman Bernard 27) Micheal Clark
8) Jake Bird 28) Robert George Clements
9) Ruby Bladel 29) Hebert James Coddington
10) Morris Bolber 30) Nathaniel Robert Code
11) William George Bonin 31) William Cook
12) Werner Boost 32) Eric Edgar Cooke
13) Benjamin Herbert Boyle 33) Fernando Velazco Cota
14) Henry Brisbon 34) Gordon Frederick Cummins
15) Rickey Brogsdale 35) Lawrence Dalton
16) John Brooks 36) Earl Llewellyn Daughtrey
17) Kim Brown
18) Raymond Eugene Brown
19) Joseph Francis Bryan
20) Eugene Butler
And that is just the first page. We are still in the D's. I
will spare everyone else the whole list unless someone insists on seeing it.
But you get the idea.
What does this prove? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It has no more grounds
for proving that whites are inclined to being serial killers than does your
statement that blacks are inclined to being violence prone.
>>> Serial killers are not something I take great interest in (why do you?)
>
>g> If you can't win a debate, attack the debaters character, eh? You must
>g> have gone to the Stupendous school of debating tactics. No, I don't take a
>g> great deal of interest in the subject. But my former roommate does, because
>g> she is studying criminal psychology in school.
>
>Another attempt at diversion. Drag the ex-roomie in.
Yes, I guess answering the question would be considered a "diversion".
> Her alleged course of
>study possibly qualifies her to be a student.
>
Which is exactly what I said, did I not?
>
>g> As was John Wayne
>g> Gasey, Charles Manson,
My ex-roommate says that Manson doesn't qualify since he had other people
do the killing for him.
> Ted Bundy, and Jeffery Dahmer, for starters. If you
>g> want me to continue to list them, the list is just a phone call to my
>g> former roommate away. Now if you want to continue to assert that all
>g> blacks are violence prone by nature, why can't I say that whites have a
>g> tendency toward being serial killers? There is about an equal amount truth
>g> in both. And we both have lots of circumstantial evidence.
>
>Certainly you are free to make any assertion you wish. I am equally free to
>take issue with your assertions. Since you chose to start this interchange
>with a flame, I am free to point out your foolishness.
>
And since you started the interchange with a baseless, racist statement,
I feel equally free to flame you to a crisp for spreading hatefull ideas.
>
>g> BTW, to compare
>g> tribal warfare in Africa to black-on-black violence in America is a case
>g> study in ignorance. Did it ever occur to you that the blacks in this
>g> country have been inbred with whites many times over? Just look at the
>g> facial features of African-Americans and real Africans.
>
>You persist in obfuscation, and attempted diversion.
No, I persist in proving you to be a fool. Which isn't that hard.
> You have no idea what
>features would be found on Africans if you mixed the features of the tribes.
Don't tell me what I know and don't know. You have no room to talk.
Now tell me this, which group of people has thicker skin, people living
near the equator, or people living near the poles?
>Blacks in the US have ancestral roots primarily in west Africa, and to a much
>lesser extent in the Indians of the Caribbean. Also, most blacks in the US do
>not have white ancestors. I lived in the southern US in areas that were as
>much as 40 percent black, both rural and city (New Orleans).
>
Good. My best friend is from New Orleans. From what he has told me about the
red-necks in the area, this doesn't suprise me.
>
>>> Try again.
>
>g> Only if you are stupid enough to come back to this group.
>
>That doesn't take stupidity. It only takes an interest in people and the way
>they think, even the way you think.
>
Even black people?
>Regards, John
> * Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <1993Nov12.1...@VFL.Paramax.COM> tr...@gvls2.vfl.paramax.com (Herbert Rutledge) writes:
>> Don, nobody was calling you a racist.
>
>This is a bit disingenuous. The implication has been simmering
>under the surface for a while:
>
you strike me as a person who draws conclusions from facts and some thought.
(Just not personal experience, is all)
>>We've got some
>> direct experience and first-hand observations to back up the things that
>> we say. You don't seem to have anything to offer to this discussion
>> that is comparable. This is not meant as a flame; please do not take
>> it as such. This is just my observation from your posts.
>
>One thing I've noticed so far is a distinct lack of statistical
>rigor. The antecdotal experiences the other posters have
>contributed so far are interesting, but can be very misleading.
This is true. But unlike many other situations, to draw a
cause-and-effect between single-mothers and crime is pretty tenuious
and open to debate no matter what the stats might say because of all the
other environmental possibilities that could cause it.
>For that matter, I haven't seen many alternative explanations
>for the violence in society we've been talking about.
>
Which is what I started this discussion for, to get as many as possible,
and debate the merits of each.
>Pirates? Feh. More like kids with eyepatches and wooden swords.
>
Argh! Watch that.
>Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Diane Mathews
>In article <2ce5...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes...
>>>> + Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
>>>> behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical twins
>>>> isolated from each other at birth. You are welcome for my insight in view
>>>> of your lacking this knowledge.
>>
>>g> Appearently _your_ lack of knowledge includes this subject. There isn't a
>>g> single scrap of proof that shows a penchant for violence is genetically
>>g> related. Your inference otherwise shows the weakness of your argument.
>
>>>>g> that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean
>>>>g> just European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
Garrett, Garrett, Garrett. I see that you haven't done as well as i had
hoped. Blacks don't get to have the corner on violence at all. I mean,
by Mr. White's argument it would seem to me (extrapolating just a little :-)
that white-folk from Europe have more historical basis for being violence.
I mean, shoot, look what they did to the American Indians, to the slaves
that they brought over from Africa, look what they did to themselves (the
Celts and Vikings weren't exactly *peaceful* w/ their neighbors), the
Crusades. Why white-folks have more historical evidence pointing toward
their tendency to systematically kill than blacks to do being violent.
Of course, this doesn't prove or disprove anything. And, i suppose, that
fighting fire w/ fire doesn't make as much sense as simply point out that
an assertion has no basis in fact. Just so long as no one claims the
"high" (peaceful) ground.
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <1993Nov15.1...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>In article <2ce5...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes...
>>>>> + Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
>>>>> Genetics today is finding more and more things are hereditary, including
>>>>> behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical twins
>>>>> isolated from each other at birth. You are welcome for my insight in view
>>>>> of your lacking this knowledge.
>>>
>>>g> Appearently _your_ lack of knowledge includes this subject. There isn't a
>>>g> single scrap of proof that shows a penchant for violence is genetically
>>>g> related. Your inference otherwise shows the weakness of your argument.
>
>hoped. Blacks don't get to have the corner on violence at all. I mean,
>by Mr. White's argument it would seem to me (extrapolating just a little :-)
>that white-folk from Europe have more historical basis for being violence.
>I mean, shoot, look what they did to the American Indians, to the slaves
>that they brought over from Africa, look what they did to themselves (the
>Celts and Vikings weren't exactly *peaceful* w/ their neighbors), the
>Crusades. Why white-folks have more historical evidence pointing toward
>their tendency to systematically kill than blacks to do being violent.
>
to disprove him. His argument was so shallow that mearly pointing out the
weaknesses of it would have been good enough. Leave it to a Suicidal Death
Merchant to point out the error of my ways. Forgive me.
>--
> Diane Mathews, dia...@hpbs2694.boi.hp.com
> My opinions are my own. F.S.D.M., #0.1/2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald R. McGregor
>Don McGregor writes:
>
>|> One thing I've noticed so far is a distinct lack of statistical
>|> rigor. The antecdotal experiences the other posters have
>|> contributed so far are interesting, but can be very misleading.
>
> You come here displaying a mind that is already made up. You deploy
> numbers from a magazine article without questioning either their accuracy
> or the methodology used to derive them, let alone the larger meaning that
> they may or may not contain. You try to use these numbers to make points
> that are largely political in nature. Your partisan zeal sometimes leads
> you to use the wrong numbers to try and make your point in a way that more
> thoughtful people would find embarrassing. You're right, Don. There's a
> distinct lack of statistical rigor in your posts.
1. The cause-and-effect between fractured family structure and assorted
problems such as crime I've posited here is hardly one that the
Republican party has a lock on. Just the other day Moynihan, Ed Koch,
and Pete Hamill were on the tube saying essentially the same thing.
Charles Krauthammer, a centerist, also recently had basically the same
take on it. I'd venture to say that it is far and away the most accepted
explaination for the phenomenon.
2. If you'd like to question the accuracy of the numbers I mentioned,
feel free. In fact, I'd _like_ you to question them, and demonstrate
how they are flawed or misleading. By "demonstrate", I don't mean
airily declare them to be misguided or whatever. I'd like references
to data that can be examined and that is repeatable.
3. I don't think you've precisely said _what_ you find objectionable
to the figures I've presented, or how they present a misguided view
of the problem. Or for that matter, what you consider to be the
real cause of the violent crime problem.
>|> Pirates? Feh. More like kids with eyepatches and wooden swords.
>
> Well, you know what to do next, Don. Declare victory, erase the subject
> line and replace it with something else.
You seem to be well along the path of declaring unilateral victory
by means of assertion yourself.
Not to be blunt about it, but put up or shut up.
Donald R. McGregor
>>
>>Apparently seeing the consequences of a certain course of action
>>tends to modify his behavior. Perhaps after seeing the
>>extremely drab and cramped life a single mother would live,
>>many of your son's classmates would begin to see certain
>>behaviors in a different light.
>
>Donald, I can't help but think that you missed my point. Teenagers
>don't think bad things can happen to them. Eddie didn't believe he
>would be grounded until it happened, and THEN, and only then, did he
>shape up. What could you do to the girls who become pregnant that was
>so horrible that it would keep her classmates from making the same kind
>of mistake?
I don't recall arguing that it would utterly and completely eliminate
the problem. There's a reasonable chance that it would reduce it to
a far more manageable level, at an arguably high cost. There will
be a certain irreducable level that will remain no matter what.
If I read you correctly, you are arguing that _no_ economic incentives
will _ever_ affect the actions of teenagers. This seems to be
a dogmatic and overly expansive application of a legitimate
insight. Do you think the teen pregnancy rate would be reduced
by 1%? 5%? 20%?
What evidence would convince you that teens were affected by
economic incentives?
(I like this question, in case you haven't guessed. It tends to
wake people from their dogmatic slumbers...)
>Neither do I, but neither do I take any joy in the prospect of imposing
>values on society by directive, which is what it seems you are
>proposing.
I do propose that society encourage and promote certain values, as
I think you do to. For example, the civil rights act of 1964
promoted the values of equal access for all races, which I suspect
you agree with. I think it is in society's interest to promote
the values of long-term attachments between women and men to
raise children, and I have no qualms about saying so. To that
end, it is reasonable to reexamine the incentives we provide
to our citizens for the way they act. Do I think this should
be imposed _by directive_? No. People will still be free to
go their own way, should they so choose. But there is no
guarantee of a government check in the mailbox if they do so.
>Oh, I have no doubt whatsoever that her parents will raise the baby.
>But I thought what we wanted is for the conception not to take place in
>the first place.
Yes. The unpleasant prospects tend to discourage or deter the behavior.
(the calculations in a poor household about what is unplesant tend
to differ from those of a middle class household). Failing
that, the child is at least put into routine, daily contact with
other members of the extended family.
>Don, you don't seem to realize that there are ALREADY a lot of negative
>reinforcements out there for having babies out of wedlock, but there are
>more positive and hard-to-battle positive reinforcements.
Again, the calculation of what is unpleasant tends to differ with
social strata. A poor teenager who hasn't seen much different
in the world might well prefer AFDC to marriage to a marginal
husband. (Murray, in _Losing Ground_, argues that this is
the rational short-term economic choice for some people.)
White middle classers Donnie and Valarie might regard that
as extremely unpleasant.
>I think that a lot of ideas which have been proposed have
>merit, but I don't think concentrating on punishment for the sin of
>unlawful reproduction is going to work or is going to be accepted by
>society.
Essentially this policy was in force up until around 1965. The
spending on it didn't really take off until the early 70's.
>>
>>Why do you think the rate was lower in
>>the 50's, for example, and why do you think it rose later?
>
>Why? Because the girls married the baby's fathers and had a
> "premature" seven-pund baby, or went away for a few months
>"to visit Aunt Chloe" and returned sans baby or with a "new
> baby brother", or because they had abortions.
I think that out-of-wedlock births occured in the 50's too.
Do you think they occured at an 80% rate? Why do you think
Donnie was willing to marry Valarie in 1955 but not in
1985?
> The point I am making is
>that SOCIETY imposed the sanctions on out-of-wedlock births
One of the reasons they did so was the economic consequences of
straying from "correct" behavior. It's common to look down
on economic failures.
Donald R. McGregor
>I would add to this that there are whole systems in motion right now
>which one could say contribute to the breakdown of communities. Mobility,
>for instance, is one thing. And to say that mobility is bad is to deny
>that economic pressures exist. Not only that but mobility is not
>*necessarily* destructive to communities - newcomers have been welcomed
>in the past, but for the most part they are not now. But, again, mobility
>is only one thing.
I find this unpersuasive as an explanation for the increase in crime.
For example, greater urbanization can be regarded as a rough-and-ready
proxy for "mobility". Maybe anonymity of citizenship or decreased
long-term social relationships might be a better term.
Anyway, the idea I think you're expressing is that people in slight
and fleeting contact would tend to have a higher crime rate.
During the 1950's blacks rapidly became urbanized as they moved
from disapearing agricultural jobs to the city. This means they
were not only in more anonymous surroundings, but that they had
just recently moved there. Your theory would predict an
increase in crime. (the proportion of blacks living in central
cities increased by 24 percent between 1950 and 1960).
However, if you look at the homicide rates for black males,
it falls from about 46 per 100,000 in 1950 to 34 per 100,000
in 1960. Which is about what, a 25% decrease.
While I'm willing to admit that increased urbanization can result
in increased crime, I don't think that it's a magic bullet
that explains all the data way.
Herbert Rutledge
|> Diane Mathews writes:
[ Diane suggested that Don's contention that crime can be directly traced
to Lack O' Family Values is simplistic, and that other factors are
probably at work, and suggested increased physical mobility as a
likely candidate. ]
|> During the 1950's blacks rapidly became urbanized as they moved
|> from disapearing agricultural jobs to the city. This means they
|> were not only in more anonymous surroundings, but that they had
|> just recently moved there. Your theory would predict an
|> increase in crime. (the proportion of blacks living in central
|> cities increased by 24 percent between 1950 and 1960).
|>
|> However, if you look at the homicide rates for black males,
|> it falls from about 46 per 100,000 in 1950 to 34 per 100,000
|> in 1960. Which is about what, a 25% decrease.
This is rich. The Great Migration started in the 'teens and was largely
over with by the 1950s. Once again, Don, you are using unrelated numbers
to support a bogus assertion.
When I used Jane Austin to characterize your stance as "Pride and Prejudice"
you came back and said that I had implied that you were a racist. No, Don,
I don't think your a racist. But, I do think, based on the arguments that
you have supplied, that on this subject you are far, far less than informed.
You come here deploying some of the same cardboard cutouts and received
viewpoints that many of us have seen and heard before. Your mind is
completely made up in advance. You selectively use unqualified numbers
to support partisan positions. And then you have the temerity to accuse
others of lacking statistical rigor. Pride, coupled with prejudice.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are laughing our heads off as you convincingly
demonstrate, yet again, that you don't know what you're talking about.
|> --
|> Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
|> mcg...@crl.com | ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^^^^^
Does this mean that your posts are also ghostwritten?
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <CGJDx...@boi.hp.com> dia...@boi.hp.com (Diane Mathews) writes:
>>I would add to this that there are whole systems in motion right now
>>which one could say contribute to the breakdown of communities. Mobility,
>>for instance, is one thing. And to say that mobility is bad is to deny
>>that economic pressures exist. Not only that but mobility is not
>>*necessarily* destructive to communities - newcomers have been welcomed
>>in the past, but for the most part they are not now. But, again, mobility
>>is only one thing.
>
>I find this unpersuasive as an explanation for the increase in crime.
That wasn't exactly what she was trying to say. Diane, if I understand this
correctly, was trying to explain another reason for the breakdown of the
family unit, which I might add, was one of the reasons _you_ gave for the
breakdown of the extended family and hence, crime. (If you'll recall when
you said that a single-mother tends to move more in search of a "better job".)
I think she has a _very_ good point. Much of my extended family is
in the mid-west. They still have family reunions of several hundred. Why?
Because they have lived there for several generations. There are no family
get-togethers on the west-coast, even though I have many family members out
here.
>For example, greater urbanization can be regarded as a rough-and-ready
>proxy for "mobility". Maybe anonymity of citizenship or decreased
>long-term social relationships might be a better term.
>Anyway, the idea I think you're expressing is that people in slight
>and fleeting contact would tend to have a higher crime rate.
>
Think about it. The older generations stay "on the farm". The younger
generations move to the city in order to find work. This has been happening
in huge numbers since the late 70's (when the rust belt started dying). This
is a massive breakdown of the extended family. I can remember on my graduation
day from high-school in a tiny town in Montana, how a friend of
mine, when he got on the stage, yelled out, "I'm getting the f*ck out of
Montana!" The entire graduating class cheered. It doesn't take much imagination
to see how this attitude leads to small towns dying from age. I think that
this is a valid alternative to your reason for the breakdown of the
extended family. (and hence, your reason for the increase in crime)
>While I'm willing to admit that increased urbanization can result
>in increased crime, I don't think that it's a magic bullet
>that explains all the data way.
>
I don't think anyone is trying to say there is a single reason for the
increase in crime. We have the breakdown in the extended family, urbanization,
the War On Drugs (and the huge amount of money that comes with it), inner-
city poverty, and the culture of violence.
BTW, have you noticed that not a single one of us "Bleeding heart
liberals" have mentioned racism as a source of the crime rate?
>--
>Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I woke up this morning and thought I'd have a nice relaxed Gar...@Ingres.com
day, do a bit of reading and brush the dog...It's now just Garrett Johnson
after four in the afternoon and I'm being thrown out Always my opinions,
of an alien spaceship six light-years from the sometimes coherent.
smoking remains of the Earth!" - Douglas Adams, HGG
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
john white
g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
g> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
g> From: gar...@Ingres.COM
g> In article <2ce5...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no
g> writes...
>>>> + Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
>>
>>g> Someone from Norway is trying to tell us about black race relations
>>g> in America. Have you ever even met a black person? There is enough
>>g> hate and racism in this country already. Keep your white supremacist
>>g> ideas to yourself, and don't export them. If I see your sig in this
>>g> group again I will flame first and ask questions later.
>>
>> Flame away. You chose to lead with a flame, and continue flaming, so what
>> else is new?
g> Get used to it. I'm saving my flames just for you.
Children should not play with fire.
>> Your assumptions and assertions show your foolishness. For instance, you
>> assume I am Norwegian, but I am a native born US citizen, and my family
>> have been US citizens since the founding of the USA.
g> So you're a home-grown bigot, eh?
g> So does racism and close-mindedness run in your family as well?
g> (genetically)
You will feel all better after you nurse and take a nap.
>> For instance, you assert I am
>> a white supremacist yet we have not written about whites,
g> You have asserted that blacks are violence prone by nature. By attributing
g> a negative attribute to a whole race, you are infering that that race is
g> inferior or even sub-human. In so doing, you are doing exactly what a
g> white-supremacist would do.
g> When I pointed this out to you I expected you to say something
g> like, "I didn't mean that, I meant..." But instead you defended your
g> baseless assertion without a shred of proof. You dug your own grave, now
g> I'm just going to fill it in for you.
If you had shown sign of being interested in anything other than impressing
yourself with attempts at being insulting, I would have proceeded to comment on
how Europe transcended all African tribal warfare by bringing those wonderful
innovations, World Wars I and II, to humanity. But your continued attempt to
impress yourself have precluded that, well, almost, it has been posted in spite
of you.
>> other than *your*
>> assertion that US serial killers are white, and of northwestern European
>> heritage.
g> Which I am about to provide a long list of names. At least some of us are
g> willing to do some research.
Posting a list of alleged names will undoubtedly make you feel better and, yet,
prove nothing.
g> [note: I noticed you deleted you racist statement already. Feeling a
g> little embarrassed?]
If anything material was deleted, it was inadvertent. You should proceed
forthwith immediately to restore it.
>>>> Genetics today is finding more and more things are hereditary,
>>>> including behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of identical
>>>> twins isolated from each other at birth. You are welcome for my
>>>> insight in view of your lacking this knowledge.
>>
>>g> Appearently _your_ lack of knowledge includes this subject. There isn't
>>g> a single scrap of proof that shows a penchant for violence is
>>g> genetically related. Your inference otherwise shows the weakness of
>>g> your argument.
>>
>> Not at all. I will not do your work for you. You will not be spoonfed.
g> Nor will you get off your butt and do the research either. I don't need to
g> prove an assertion wrong that has no merit to begin with.
No matter what is posted, you have already demonstrated you will challenge it.
You are the one without the knowledge, and you are the one who will benefit
from it in a form you will be satisfied is uncensored and complete. However,
you are free to be continue in a course of willful ignorance.
>>>>g> Now if you want a little reverse-racist insight, why is it
>>>>g> that almost all American serial killers are white? (and I don't mean
>>>>g> just European, but white-white. As in north-western Europe white.)
>>>>
>>>> Almost all? Great generalized statement.
>>
>>g> You make the assertion that blacks are violence prone by nature
>>g> without a _single scrap of proof_, and you accuse ME of making
>>g> generalized statements!? You debating skills are not only transparent
>>g> but repugnant, just like your white-supremacist ideas.
>>
>> This is not and never has been a debate. Your initial post to me was a
>> flame.
g> No, it was to point out that your assertion was racist. Which I did and
g> you failed to deny. Are you denying it now? I can go back and bring that
g> racist statement back, you know. The only flame in my first post was, "If
g> you want to share your insight with me again, I'll pass." After that I
g> flamed.
Wrong (again). You were so anxious to impress yourself that you confused a
question with a statement.
>> You tried to confuse the issue, failed, and continue to try.
g> Wrong again. I flamed you for being a racist. I will continue to do it
g> as long as you continue to defend your statement.
It is obvious you are mired in a morass of your own making. You declared a
question to be a statement, and then have used a few thousand words (so far)
trying to defend your original error.
>> For instance, now
>> you are imputing white-supremacist ideas to me as a diversion.
>>
g> No, I'm imputing white-spuremacist ideas on you because you are doing their
g> footwork. You have _still_ failed to deny that you are a racist.
Your study of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hearings and proceedings is incomplete.
His imputations led to his embarrassment.
>>>> Not accepted because of that
>>>> generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even undetected,
>>>> serial killers;
>>
>>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>>
>> Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
>>
g> Close. You stated that violence is a genetic trait in an entire race. There
g> is a difference.
Wrong (again). My post had a question mark in it. A question mark does not
identify a statement, at least not to an educated person.
>>>> and it implies there are a great number of serial killers, which is
>>>> not so.
>>
>>g> Which is not the point, nor the assertion that was made. Andother red
>>g> herring argument.
>>
>> You brought the subject of ethnic origin of serial killers up, not me.
>> Your generality was challenged with specific examples, which you are now
>> trying to evade.
g> Time to give the list. These are all _white_ serial killers as provided by
g> my roommate.
g> 1) George Adorno 21) Harvey Louis Carignan
g> 2) Howard Arthur Allen 22) Jarvis Catoe
g> 3) Joseph Baldi 23) George Chapman
g> 4) Clinton Bankston 24) Thor Nis Christiansen
g> 5) Dieter Beck 25) Styllou Christofi
g> 6) Marie Alexander Becker 26) Richard Clarey
g> 7) Norman Bernard 27) Micheal Clark
g> 8) Jake Bird 28) Robert George Clements
g> 9) Ruby Bladel 29) Hebert James Coddington
g> 10) Morris Bolber 30) Nathaniel Robert Code
g> 11) William George Bonin 31) William Cook
g> 12) Werner Boost 32) Eric Edgar Cooke
g> 13) Benjamin Herbert Boyle 33) Fernando Velazco Cota
g> 14) Henry Brisbon 34) Gordon Frederick Cummins
g> 15) Rickey Brogsdale 35) Lawrence Dalton
g> 16) John Brooks 36) Earl Llewellyn Daughtrey
g> 17) Kim Brown
g> 18) Raymond Eugene Brown
g> 19) Joseph Francis Bryan
g> 20) Eugene Butler
g> And that is just the first page. We are still in the D's. I
g> will spare everyone else the whole list unless someone insists on seeing
g> it. But you get the idea. What does this prove? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It has
g> no more grounds for proving that whites are inclined to being serial
g> killers than does your statement that blacks are inclined to being violence
g> prone.
The validity of your list is uncertain, and the ethnic origin of serial killers
remains unauthenticated. You continue to attempt verbosely loquacious
obfuscation.
>>>> Serial killers are not something I take great interest in (why do
>>>> you?)
>>
>>g> If you can't win a debate, attack the debaters character, eh? You must
>>g> have gone to the Stupendous school of debating tactics. No, I don't
>>g> take a great deal of interest in the subject. But my former roommate
>>g> does, because she is studying criminal psychology in school.
>>
>> Another attempt at diversion. Drag the ex-roomie in.
g> Yes, I guess answering the question would be considered a "diversion".
>> Her alleged course of
>> study possibly qualifies her to be a student.
>>
g> Which is exactly what I said, did I not?
Wrong (again). You cited her alleged major to attempt to qualify her as an
authority I should accept. It did not work and now you are trying to avoid
looking even more foolish.
>>g> As was John Wayne
>>g> Gasey, Charles Manson,
g> My ex-roommate says that Manson doesn't qualify since he had other people
g> do the killing for him.
You wrote the name Manson. Feel free to correct yourself at any time. It
won't be held against you.
>> Ted Bundy, and Jeffery Dahmer, for starters. If you
>>g> want me to continue to list them, the list is just a phone call to my
>>g> former roommate away. Now if you want to continue to assert that all
>>g> blacks are violence prone by nature, why can't I say that whites have
>>g> a tendency toward being serial killers? There is about an equal amount
>>g> truth in both. And we both have lots of circumstantial evidence.
>>
>> Certainly you are free to make any assertion you wish. I am equally free
>> to take issue with your assertions. Since you chose to start this
>> interchange with a flame, I am free to point out your foolishness.
g> And since you started the interchange with a baseless, racist statement,
g> I feel equally free to flame you to a crisp for spreading hatefull ideas.
You continue, garrulously, loquaciously, and verbosely, to maintain the error
in your first message.
>>g> BTW, to compare
>>g> tribal warfare in Africa to black-on-black violence in America is a
>>g> case study in ignorance. Did it ever occur to you that the blacks in
>>g> this country have been inbred with whites many times over? Just look at
>>g> the facial features of African-Americans and real Africans.
>>
>> You persist in obfuscation, and attempted diversion.
g> No, I persist in proving you to be a fool. Which isn't that hard.
Stop trying to ignore the question. What would African facial features be if
you blended the features of the tribes of that portion of Africa that most
slaves came from? And what would the result be if there was an admixture of
Indian blood from inbreeding in the Caribbean prior to importation into
America?
>> You have no idea what
>> features would be found on Africans if you mixed the features of the
>> tribes.
g> Don't tell me what I know and don't know. You have no room to talk.
g> Now tell me this, which group of people has thicker skin, people living
g> near the equator, or people living near the poles?
Obfuscation attempt (another one).
>> Blacks in the US have ancestral roots primarily in west Africa, and to a
>> much lesser extent in the Indians of the Caribbean. Also, most blacks in
>> the US do not have white ancestors. I lived in the southern US in areas
>> that were as much as 40 percent black, both rural and city (New Orleans).
>>
g> Good. My best friend is from New Orleans. From what he has told me about
g> the red-necks in the area, this doesn't suprise me.
Obfuscation attempt (another one).
>>>> Try again.
>>
>>g> Only if you are stupid enough to come back to this group.
>>
>> That doesn't take stupidity. It only takes an interest in people and the
>> way they think, even the way you think.
g> Even black people?
Of course it includes black people. Your mindless attempts to impress yourself
have caused you to ignore information I previously provided that I have many
black friends that are close enough that we keep their children for them rather
than let the children stay with babysitters. Your stupidity prevented our
messages from progressing to a consideration of whether or not violence was
also a trait of other races, which in view of what I wrote earlier in this
message about World Wars I & II starting in Europe, had the potential for being
a good dialogue.
Regards, John
---
* Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
Valarie Cook
mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGregor) writes:
>In article <1993111510...@AUDUCADM.DUC.AUBURN.EDU> coo...@mail.auburn.edu writes:
>>>
>>>Apparently seeing the consequences of a certain course of action
>>>tends to modify his behavior. Perhaps after seeing the
>>>extremely drab and cramped life a single mother would live,
>>>many of your son's classmates would begin to see certain
>>>behaviors in a different light.
>>
>>Donald, I can't help but think that you missed my point. Teenagers
>>don't think bad things can happen to them. Eddie didn't believe he
>>would be grounded until it happened, and THEN, and only then, did he
>>shape up. What could you do to the girls who become pregnant that was
>>so horrible that it would keep her classmates from making the same kind
>>of mistake?
>
>I don't recall arguing that it would utterly and completely eliminate
>the problem. There's a reasonable chance that it would reduce it to
>a far more manageable level, at an arguably high cost. There will
>be a certain irreducable level that will remain no matter what.
Oh, so you DO understand me. I think that our differences lie in two
areas: one, you believe increasing the economic consequences of
teenageo ut-of-wedlock childbirth would deter teenagers from allowing
these births to occur, and second, that the costs of doing this though
high are supportable. Needless to say I disagree on both counts. I
have already elaborated why I disagree with the first point, the
"it-can't-happen-to-me" mindset so beloved of many teens, so I will
address the second point.
What kind of a society do we want? Obviously, we both want a society
with fewer children born into hopelessly dysfunctional families, which
(I think we agree) a single teenage mother is far too likely to provide.
We also want a society--I HOPE--inhabitable by human beings, those
creatures who are far too likely to engage in short-term thinking and to
make major mistakes based on faulty decision-making processes. So given
these aims, how do we manipulate the consequences of making one type of
major mistake (teenage girls deliberately becoming pregnant) while still
maintaining a tolerable environment for the all-too-faulty remainder of
us? In other words, how do we stop these girls from becoming pregnant
without altering our current society beyond all recognition in the
process?
The only threat I can imagine that might have an effect on teenage girls
is for the State to take away the babies who cannot be supported by
their families--or worse. (Mandatory abortion, anyone?) Carting them
off to homes for unwed mothers might work, too. But here we get into
the effects on SOCIETY, not just on these girls. Do we want the kind of
society where the privilege of having children is subject to the whim of
the state? After all, if we can take away a child because its parent(s)
cannot support it, what's to stop us from taking away the child of
parents who in our view aren't raising the child properly? And as for
the home-for-unwed-mothers bit, doesn't that sound a bit like
imprisonment without trial to you? I will recommend a work of fiction
to you, _The Handmaid's Tale_ by Margaret Atwood. Scary reading. If
you are familiar with this work perhaps you can better understand why I
am so leery of this sort of thinking.
>If I read you correctly, you are arguing that _no_ economic incentives
>will _ever_ affect the actions of teenagers. This seems to be
>a dogmatic and overly expansive application of a legitimate
>insight. Do you think the teen pregnancy rate would be reduced
>by 1%? 5%? 20%?
No, what I am arguing is that these economic incentives would have to be
draconian to have any appreciable effect, and that in the process we
would do violence to the social contract upon which our society is
based. I certainly don't think that reducing the teenage pregnancy rate
by a small percentage is A Bad Thing, but any government incentives
likely to have a significantly-higher effect are likely to do more harm
than good.
>What evidence would convince you that teens were affected by
>economic incentives?
Before you talk about affecting behavior by ANY sort of incentives, you
must first settle the question of how important the incentive is to the
population you wish to influence, and how important the behavior you
wish to change is to that same population. I think that economics are
just not as important to that subset of teenagers who deliberately
conceive children as you seem to think it is. Remember, these kids have
already shown that their judgement is not good--they've heard all we had
to say, they've seen all the "After School Specials" on teen pregnancy,
they have heard all the messages about staying in school and making
something out of their lives, and STILL THEY HAVE BABIES. These kids
think they are going to have some sort of live Cabbage Patch doll which
they can put away when they get tired of it. (Not all of them, of
course. Some have a pretty good grasp of what it's like to take care of
a baby. Still they do it. Go figure.) Economic considerations are not
going to weigh in with these dummies, except for a small minority. If
you're willing to be satisfied with affecting these, fine.
>(I like this question, in case you haven't guessed. It tends to
>wake people from their dogmatic slumbers...)
Don, I resent this and I don't think I deserve it. In case you haven't
noticed I have given this issue a lot of thought. It is not abstract to
me. It is REAL. I have a son who, thank Heaven, has his head on
straight, but I have no guarantees about the girls he will be going out
with in a few months or years. I live across the street from his high
school, and I am heartily tired of seeing little girls walk into that
school wearing maternity clothes. A couple of years ago I returned from
Christmas break to find my younger son's babysitter had a new client; a
two-week-old baby. His mother was 15, a good girl, an honor student who
made a mistake.
You may live in some Cloud-Cookooland where this is something to be
discussed over espresso, but it is my reality. By inclination and by
training I am practical, and I don't think your solutions, nebulous as
they are, are practical. My bottom line is that they won't work, and
the reason they won't is that this society is too good-hearted to make
the kinds of drastic decisions that would rein in these kids through
economics; it would be a return to Dickensian economics for our most
helpless citizens.
(lots of stuff about providing incentives and promoting values deleted)
Near the end of the deleted section, you make the point that there were
illegitimate births a-plenty before 1965, though not nearly as many as
today; you say one of the reasons for this disparity is economics. I,
for one, think that there are two many reasons to boil it down to one
single cause. "Looking down on those who were economic failures" is far
too simplistic, since then, as now, giving birth out of wedlock was not
necessarily a one-way ticket to lifelong poverty, and "economic failure"
could be due to many other causes than ill-timed childbirth, some of
which happen to perfectly nice and well-respected people. And yes,
there were women in almost every community who had children and no
husband in those days, and they were not shunned.
Why, then, do I think that the rate of out-of-wedlock childbirth has
exploded? Simple: the social contract has changed. It needs to be
changed again to discourage it, but I don't think that cutting off AFDC
or whatever it is you have in mind is going to do that. "Promoting
values" and "providing incentives" sounds like a fine idea, but which
values do you propose to promote, and how do you propose to promote
them? What incentives would you provide that would make sense to a
15-year-old with raging hormones and her head in the clouds? It must be
some pretty powerful stuff you want to do, so for God's sake don't keep
it to yourself!
Food for thought, guaranteed non-fattening.
Diane Mathews
>In article <2ca4mk$s...@crl.crl.com>, mcg...@crl.com (Donald R. McGre writes...
>>In article <CGJDx...@boi.hp.com> dia...@boi.hp.com (Diane Mathews) writes:
>>>I would add to this that there are whole systems in motion right now
>>>which one could say contribute to the breakdown of communities. Mobility,
>>>for instance, is one thing. And to say that mobility is bad is to deny
>>>that economic pressures exist. Not only that but mobility is not
>>>*necessarily* destructive to communities - newcomers have been welcomed
>>>in the past, but for the most part they are not now. But, again, mobility
>>>is only one thing.
>>
>>I find this unpersuasive as an explanation for the increase in crime.
>
>That wasn't exactly what she was trying to say. Diane, if I understand this
>correctly, was trying to explain another reason for the breakdown of the
>family unit, which I might add, was one of the reasons _you_ gave for the
>breakdown of the extended family and hence, crime. (If you'll recall when
>you said that a single-mother tends to move more in search of a "better job".)
> I think she has a _very_ good point. Much of my extended family is
> in the mid-west. They still have family reunions of several hundred. Why?
>Because they have lived there for several generations. There are no family
>get-togethers on the west-coast, even though I have many family members out
>here.
Thanks. And, to quote myself again, "... whole systems in motion right now
which one could say CONTRIBUTE to the breakdown of communitites. Mobility,
FOR INSTANCE, is ONE thing." Then i go on to show how mobility might do
such, and Garrett elaborates (much deleted). This problem of crime and
"decaying" social morals, etc, are not attributable to only one thing. I
made an example, we could try more examples, but that evades the point i was
trying to make - there is more here than meets the mouthpieces-of-
conservativisms' eyes. (And of course i tend to see single motherhood as
being far more a symptom than a cause of anything other than perpetuating
its own causes.)
>>For example, greater urbanization can be regarded as a rough-and-ready
>>proxy for "mobility". Maybe anonymity of citizenship or decreased
>>long-term social relationships might be a better term.
>>Anyway, the idea I think you're expressing is that people in slight
>>and fleeting contact would tend to have a higher crime rate.
No. Mobility is the general concept. Anonymity of citizenship or decreased
long-term social relationships are possible consequencese of mobility. (Now
i expand on the vague and general nature of the problems we have.) Mobility
is not a good or a bad thing, as i mentioned earlier. But it could, possibly
contribute to the problem of lack of community (which someone else mentioned)
or lack of a sense of citizenship, or whatever. We (those of us in the US)
are currently in a mentality for which mobility is *tending* to produce that
lack of citizenship, that lack of long-term social relationship, that lack of
concern for anything other than the self. Regionalism is growing stronger,
as is protectionism, etc. We can point to many symptoms, but have yet to
clearly identify the cause (mobility, single motherhood, crime, regionalism,
things like that are symptoms).
john white
DM> @REPLYADDR dia...@boi.hp.com
DM> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
DM> From: dia...@boi.hp.com (Diane Mathews)
DM> In article <1993Nov15.1...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM
DM> writes:
>> In article <2ce5...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>,
>> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes... + Origin: jw's point * norway
>> (2:211/5.13) Genetics today is finding more and more things are
>> hereditary, including behavior. This is shown by studies of behavior of
>> identical twins isolated from each other at birth. You are welcome for my
>> insight in view of your lacking this knowledge. Appearently _your_ lack of
>> knowledge includes this subject. There isn't a single scrap of proof that
>> shows a penchant for violence is genetically related. Your inference
>> otherwise shows the weakness of your argument. Now if you want a little
>> reverse-racist insight, why is it that almost all American serial killers
>> are white? (and I don't mean just European, but white-white. As in
>> north-western Europe white.)
DM> Garrett, Garrett, Garrett. I see that you haven't done as well as i had
DM> hoped. Blacks don't get to have the corner on violence at all. I mean,
DM> by Mr. White's argument it would seem to me (extrapolating just a little
DM> :-) that white-folk from Europe have more historical basis for being
DM> violence. I mean, shoot, look what they did to the American Indians, to the
DM> slaves that they brought over from Africa, look what they did to themselves
DM> (the Celts and Vikings weren't exactly *peaceful* w/ their neighbors), the
DM> Crusades. Why white-folks have more historical evidence pointing
DM> toward their tendency to systematically kill than blacks to do being
DM> violent.
Of course whites are violent. One race's violence doesn't preclude another race
being violent. Mr. Garrett ignored comments I made about Northern Ireland and
Bosnia. Further, I brought out Europe's wonderful innovations in violence,
World Wars I and II. I was leading to the thought that *humans* are
genetically violent.
Regards, John.
gar...@ingres.com
In article <2ce8...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes...
>
>>> Your assumptions and assertions show your foolishness. For instance, you
>>> assume I am Norwegian, but I am a native born US citizen, and my family
>>> have been US citizens since the founding of the USA.
>
>g> So you're a home-grown bigot, eh?
>g> So does racism and close-mindedness run in your family as well?
>g> (genetically)
>
>You will feel all better after you nurse and take a nap.
>
Wow! Totally irrelevant. You and Brett should get together.
>>> For instance, you assert I am
>>> a white supremacist yet we have not written about whites,
>
>g> You have asserted that blacks are violence prone by nature. By attributing
>g> a negative attribute to a whole race, you are infering that that race is
>g> inferior or even sub-human. In so doing, you are doing exactly what a
>g> white-supremacist would do.
>g> When I pointed this out to you I expected you to say something
>g> like, "I didn't mean that, I meant..." But instead you defended your
>g> baseless assertion without a shred of proof. You dug your own grave, now
>g> I'm just going to fill it in for you.
>
>If you had shown sign of being interested in anything other than impressing
>yourself with attempts at being insulting, I would have proceeded to comment on
>how Europe transcended all African tribal warfare by bringing those wonderful
>innovations, World Wars I and II, to humanity. But your continued attempt to
>impress yourself have precluded that, well, almost, it has been posted in spite
>of you.
>
You make backpeddling an Olympic sport. First of all, Diane has already pointed
this out, and I concurred. Now that you have seen this and realized your
mistake, you are now jumping on the bandwagon. Secondly, if you had already
realized this you would never have made the assertion that you did. Despite
whatever else happens in this thread, your racist assertions have found no
welcome ears. This makes me satisfied.
>
>>> other than *your*
>>> assertion that US serial killers are white, and of northwestern European
>>> heritage.
>
>g> Which I am about to provide a long list of names. At least some of us are
>g> willing to do some research.
>
>Posting a list of alleged names will undoubtedly make you feel better and, yet,
>prove nothing.
>
Even after I already said that very same thing twice.
>
>g> [note: I noticed you deleted you racist statement already. Feeling a
>g> little embarrassed?]
>
>If anything material was deleted, it was inadvertent. You should proceed
>forthwith immediately to restore it.
>
No longer necessary. You have backed away from your own statements.
>
>>> This is not and never has been a debate. Your initial post to me was a
>>> flame.
>
>g> No, it was to point out that your assertion was racist. Which I did and
>g> you failed to deny. Are you denying it now? I can go back and bring that
>g> racist statement back, you know. The only flame in my first post was, "If
>g> you want to share your insight with me again, I'll pass." After that I
>g> flamed.
>
>Wrong (again). You were so anxious to impress yourself that you confused a
>question with a statement.
>
A question? Hardly. You advanced the very same assertion in a different
post by trying to link the tribal warfare in Africa to the black-on-black
violence in inner-city America. That is not a question, that is a statement.
I don't know who you think you are fooling, but your backpeddling is a
little too late. However, your retreat is noted and appreciated.
>
>>> For instance, now
>>> you are imputing white-supremacist ideas to me as a diversion.
>>>
>g> No, I'm imputing white-spuremacist ideas on you because you are doing their
>g> footwork. You have _still_ failed to deny that you are a racist.
>
>Your study of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hearings and proceedings is incomplete.
>His imputations led to his embarrassment.
>
I have used nothing but your own words. It is all that I needed.
>
>>>>> Not accepted because of that
>>>>> generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even undetected,
>>>>> serial killers;
>>>
>>>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>>>
>>> Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
>>>
>g> Close. You stated that violence is a genetic trait in an entire race. There
>g> is a difference.
>
>Wrong (again). My post had a question mark in it. A question mark does not
>identify a statement, at least not to an educated person.
>
An educated person need not to see the same unsolicited "question" from the
same person too many times before they realize that this person is no
longer asking a question. And you _still_ have not denied that you think
blacks _as a race_ are violence prone. In fact, in your first reply to me
you stood by the theory. Nevertheless, you have backpeddled to the point
that I no longer need to attack the point. Continue to deny it if you
want to.
>
<list snipped>
>g> And that is just the first page. We are still in the D's. I
>g> will spare everyone else the whole list unless someone insists on seeing
>g> it. But you get the idea. What does this prove? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It has
>g> no more grounds for proving that whites are inclined to being serial
>g> killers than does your statement that blacks are inclined to being violence
>g> prone.
>
>The validity of your list is uncertain, and the ethnic origin of serial killers
>remains unauthenticated. You continue to attempt verbosely loquacious
>obfuscation.
>
And because I don't list their individual family tree's I must be making
this up because you imply so. But because you also imply that violence is
genetically related, you need not provide _any_ factual basis. You will be
called on this tactic again and again, if not by me then by someone else.
>
>>> Her alleged course of
>>> study possibly qualifies her to be a student.
>>>
>g> Which is exactly what I said, did I not?
>
>Wrong (again). You cited her alleged major to attempt to qualify her as an
>authority I should accept. It did not work and now you are trying to avoid
>looking even more foolish.
>
I said studying. So obviously she was a student (I know these things might
slip by you, so I'll go slow).
>
>>>g> As was John Wayne
>>>g> Gasey, Charles Manson,
>
>g> My ex-roommate says that Manson doesn't qualify since he had other people
>g> do the killing for him.
>
>You wrote the name Manson. Feel free to correct yourself at any time. It
>won't be held against you.
>
Did I not just do that? Oh, forget it. I think I'm getting tar all over me.
>
>>> Blacks in the US have ancestral roots primarily in west Africa, and to a
>>> much lesser extent in the Indians of the Caribbean. Also, most blacks in
>>> the US do not have white ancestors. I lived in the southern US in areas
>>> that were as much as 40 percent black, both rural and city (New Orleans).
>>>
>g> Good. My best friend is from New Orleans. From what he has told me about
>g> the red-necks in the area, this doesn't suprise me.
>
>Obfuscation attempt (another one).
>
No, that was a flame. You should be able to tell the difference by now.
>
>>>>> Try again.
>>>
>>>g> Only if you are stupid enough to come back to this group.
>>>
>>> That doesn't take stupidity. It only takes an interest in people and the
>>> way they think, even the way you think.
>
>g> Even black people?
>
>Of course it includes black people. Your mindless attempts to impress yourself
>have caused you to ignore information I previously provided that I have many
>black friends
No, you did not provide that information in this thread, nor in any related
thread in this group. You are getting yourself confused.
> that are close enough that we keep their children for them rather
>than let the children stay with babysitters.
<snap: the trap shuts>
I was hoping you would claim something like this. Now student, if
you are that close to your "black friends" then you must have some amount of
trust, dialog, and understanding with the other race, hmmm? Good.
Now let's say just for a second that what you have said in this
post is true (not that I believe you backpeddling, but I don't need that to
prove my point here). You asked a "question" of whether the blacks in
America's inner-cities are violent because that is their nature (as related
to tribal warfare in Africa) and are more violent that whites in the same
circumstance. Now the simple fact that this would even be a _possibility_
in your mind, shows a mistrust of an entire race.
That you would be close "friends" to members of that race while
holding this idea is illogical, even foolish. To allow people into your
home and life that you feel are irrationally violent, is a foolish act.
I doubt that anyone reading this would let someone into their house that
they would feel to be a danger. I know I wouldn't.
Now since you went to the trouble of pointing out that tribal
warfare in Africa _can be_ related to inner-city black violence, you
MUST feel that this is a strong possibility. Otherwise, you have not only
wasted our time, but even your own time by defending something you do not
believe. Either way, you have acted illogically and irrationally either
now, or in the past. So which is?
> Your stupidity
Ah! Good. If you are resorting to insults then I have gotten through to you.
> prevented our
>messages from progressing to a consideration of whether or not violence was
>also a trait of other races, which in view of what I wrote earlier in this
>message about World Wars I & II starting in Europe, had the potential for being
>a good dialogue.
>
And if we found out that violence is a trait in _all_ races, then we would be
back to where we started; with a theory with no scientific proof that has
no relevance to the original discussion. Great.
> * Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don Coolidge
wrote:
>
> In article <dfc-1011...@hombre.apple.com> d...@apple.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
> >"The idea", indeed. What references do you cite in support of this
> >race-based stereotype? Have you any personal experience? Or are you just
> >quoting the "accepted wisdom"?
>
> The fact that the black out-of-wedlock birth rate is up over
> 60%, for example.
And the non-black rate is about 30%, which totally swamps the black rate in
terms of numbers. Moreover, the non-black urban rate is higher, and the
poor non-black urban rate is higher still, approaching that of the poor
urban black community. Where's your point?
Sorry, Don, but you're arguing from an incomplete database. If you want
statistics to be truly meaningful, as opposed to merely useful in a debate,
you're going to have to place them in a complete context. You haven't done
that to date on this subject; instead, you've extracted those ideas which
support your thesis, but have ignored those which demolish it.
> Look, you can avert your eyes if you like,
Disagreement is not aversion. One could, however, point to your own
ideological blinders on that score.
> but the plain fact is that there are serious problems in
> many areas of society.
Agreed.
> Refusing to recognize them as
> problems due to misplaced delicacy won't get them solved.
Agreed. However, that's not even faintly what I'm doing. I'm looking at a
much wider body of evidence than you are.
> The plain fact is that blacks _do_ have a higher out-of-
> wedlock birth rate, and pointing that out is hardly racist.
Agreed. But the conclusions one might draw from, and the actions one might
propose in response to, that statistic, may well be racist. Murray's
certainly qualify on both counts.
> >I might also comment that you completely ignore Spencer's important point -
> >that only somebody *inside* a situation can truly understand it. I hope
> >you'll at least try to see things from that perspective.
>
> Do you have to be "inside the situation" to understand that the
> black murder rate is six times --_six times_--the white murder
> rate?
Urban murder rates are almost always higher than the general rate. The
affected populations aren't always exclusively black. Take a look at San
Jose's Vietnamese population some time; you're certainly close enough to
have read the papers. For those of you not from the Bay Area, these are
very frightening times for the Vietnamese community here; homicidal
housebreaking is endemic, and it's all intra-Vietnamese.
Many urban ghettos, regardless of race, have higher rates of violence than
does society as a whole. You have no point here, Don. You need more
context. You might consider poverty, drugs, gangs, external prejudice, lack
of education, and reduced legal economic expectations as more proximate
causes than the putative epidemic of single-mother homes or an alleged
addiction to AFDC. You might even try to untangle the incredibly
complicated interaction among them all.
Robert A. Heinlein and H. L. Mencken each (perhaps independently) observed
that most complicated questions have answers that are simple, fast, and
wrong. This is such a question, and you are presenting such an answer.
> Remember, this whole discussion got started _precisely
> because_ of the prevalence of violent crime in America, and
> in inner cities in particular. So what's the process here?
> point out that violent crime is at unacceptable levels, then
> deny that anything is wrong after all once the discussion
> starts to get onto delicate territory?
"Delicate"?? No way. Flat-out unsupported wrong? Indeed. Racist? At least
in part, if not on your part.
If somebody wants to propose solutions to the very real problems of the
inner city, he's going to have to provide concrete proof of both his
hypotheses and his cures. That absurd _Atlantic_ article - which is an
*opinion*piece*, not even remotely a study - is as far from proof as one
can imagine.
Do _I_ have an answer? Of course not, else I'd be President! To date,
_nobody_ has demonstrated a workable solution, probably because few people
are willing to look at the whole problem and accept that blame can neither
easily, nor exclusively, be laid in one place. That's a politically
untenable step to take.
> _Something_ is causing the horrific levels of crime and
> violence in cities.
Agreed.
>I'm proposing that it's environment,
Agreed!
> more
> exactly the breakdown of the family.
For this leap of faith, however, you haven't presented a shred of proof.
Indeed, you ignore all evidence and testimony to the contrary.
Sorry, that technique doesn't wash.
> Since this seems
> to be roughly correlated with the rise of broken families
> in the same sectors of society that have seen the biggest
> increase in violent crime, and research indicates that
> children from single parent families are more likely to
> wind up in the criminal justice system, it seems like
> a likely candidate.
Juxtaposition in time and location is no proof of causality. One might also
link that rising crime rate to the recent preponderance of Republican
Presidents, which can probably be done with somewhat greater likelihood of
proof, given the slashing of inner-city social programs under Nixon, Ford,
Reagan, and Bush.
Of course, I don't claim to have any proof that this is The Reason, either
:^). But I submit it's at least testable; your hypothesis is not.
> >Ah! Then you *do* realize you're dealing with stereotypes instead of
> >reality! Good!
>
> Of course I do. I'm not arguing that _no_ functional families
> exist in the cities, but that the prevalence of broken families
> has shifted the balance of power towards families that raise
> children likely to run afoul of the law.
Which is an opinion about a stereotype, unsupported by either evidence or
personal experience. Please understand that that is all I'm saying. And
please understand that that is what it really is.
> >And is marriage a Good Thing between two people whose life together would
> >be hell? Having seen far too many dysfunctional Traditional Families with
> >their inevitable dreadful effects on the kids, and having also observed the
> >effects of quick, necessary divorces, it's quite clear to me that life is
> >better for all concerned if an unloving couple is *not* married.
>
> From the child's standpoint, it apparently is better. See the
> _Atlantic_ article. It might be better for the adults involved,
> but children are not short adults.
This is utter nonsense! From the child's point of view, a dysfunctional
family is 24-hour-a-day *hell*. I've seen far too many of them; in *no*
cases was the child better off before the divorce. Where's your proof?
The _Atlantic_ article is an *editorial*, fer chrissake! It is pushing a
particular point of view by persuasion. It's not a scientific study, in
which the conclusions _follow_ the evidence. It's the opposite entirely -
it starts out with the conclusions, then tries to justify them. (And
utterly fails, IMO).
> [Major delitia--respond to another article I've posted if you
> want to continue]
No other article has arrived at my newsfeed; this one only arrived on the
15th, and I've been unable to post until today, the 17th (newsfeed
problems). If you have a copy, could you email it to me? Thanks. (The
evidence indicates that I'm only getting about half of the total a.f.d-q
traffic here at Apple these days, and much of that is three to seven days
old :-( )
> >The second way to prevent pregnancy is to understand that the majority of
> >teenage pregnancies are *deliberate*acts*. Survey after survey finds that
> >unloved or neglected daughters will get pregnant so that they can have
> >something important in their lives (someone to love), and be important
> >themselves to another human being (the child, *not* the impregnating male).
> >They want to love and be loved, and who are we to deny them either? If we
> >can find a way to make their own families more loving and supportive, they
> >will find less need to get pregnant themselves. Note: this in no way
> >requires a resident father. And it's another one for which we've had
> >millennia to find the answer, thus far with little success.
>
> I agree that there's a major element of volition in many teen
> pregnancies, and that this is one of the aspects of it. Another
> is "independence"--the kid views it as a rite of passage, move
> out and get an apartment, live on your own. It's exactly
> this element of volition that Murray's proposal attacks.
You're certainly right that there is some element of independence, but the
three studies I've actually read (actually, one study in full, and two in
excerpt) find that the desperate need for some focus of and for love is far
and away the most important issue; they all cite numerous other studies
that found similar relationships. That being so, Murray's proposal is not
only useless, it's counterproductive.
> Sure, you can have a baby to have someone to love, but it
> also implies that you're going to have a hell of a time
> supporting yourself. Having serious consequences to actions
> tends to focus the mind.
In adults. However, that's not whom we're dealing with here, a point you
yourself mention above, and that Valarie Cook also made quite strongly in a
recent posting.
Seriously, Don, when you were 14, or less, how deeply did *you* consider
the consequences of your acts before those consequences had descended upon
you? And were you ever as desperate for something crucial as these kids are
for love?
> It's not like it's impossible to
> achieve this--not so long ago, in the 1960's, the black
> single mother birth rate was about 20%, around where the
> white single mother rate is now. What changed in that time?
> Why is it impossible to expect the same sort of behavior now?
Why is it also impossible today to expect 3% inflation, 3% unemployment, 4%
fixed mortgages, certainty that your children will be better off than you
are, two chickens in every pot, and an American car in every garage, all at
the same time? That was the '60s, too. Or, at least, the first part of
them, before Big Time Viet Nam and Nixon.
Times change, Don, and society with them. The entire African-American
subculture is significantly more alienated from the mainstream than it was
in the '60s. The gap in wealth and aspirations is much greater, both
qualitatively and quantitatively. And the *non*-black single-mother birth
rate is significantly higher now than it was then, too. Out of all these
things I mention, that last is probably the most significant for this
discussion.
> Moynihan, who first pointed out the likely problems of the
> single mother problem in the 60's, has lately called the
> process "defining deviancy down". As fewer and fewer people
> are able to meet the basic standards of society, we respond
> not by trying to hold them to the standards, but by lowering
> the standards.
How is this unreasonable? If fewer people can meet the standards, then
there's a problem with the standards. And if the standards become outmoded
simply by the evolution of society, then they should be re-evaluated on
that basis as well.
Otherwise, we'd all still be burning witches and astronomer monks at the
stake.
> (He was called a racist too, when he first
> pointed out the problem. Now he's almost universally
> regarded as being prophetic about the likely consequences.
> I'm somewhat surprised that simply pointing out the
> breakdown of the family in some sectors of society caused
> such a stir. It's been treated as common knowledge or
> conventional wisdom by even the liberal press for some time.)
Again, I must caution you that juxtaposition in time and space is not
evidence of causality. It is at least as likely that it is merely a
collateral symptom. You have provided no proof.
> I think we are ones to deny them someone to love, at least if
> that someone is a baby to be supported on the public dole.
You have no such right. The Declaration of Independence spoke of
unalienable rights, and the pursuit of happiness is among them. Where do
you present evidence of a need so compelling that it must arbitrarily and
without recourse renounce the Declaration? (HRH - and, no, that's not
Hillary Rodham Highness :^) - would be delighted to reacquire the odd few
hundred million subjects, I'm sure!)
And, on a more personal basis, would you want it done to *you*? Or is that
sort of social engineering OK just as long as it only applies to Some Other
Folks? Answer this one *very* carefully...
> And the process creates an unstable and crime-prone society.
You have not so proven. If you can do so, then I will listen. Without
proof, your opinions have no merit. Mere conjecture is not sufficient as
proof, no matter how frequently it is repeated.
And since you made the claim, the burden of proof rests with you.
> We do have a right to expect standards of behavior from
> our citizens.
Indeed we do. And a concurrent responsibility, even an obligation, to
protect their rights and understand the environments in which differing
behaviors are fostered. Murray appears to ignore those responsibilities; he
judges exclusively by his own life's and subculture's experiences and
myths.
> that said, I'm not entirely convinced of Murray's proposal.
Truly, that's a relief.
> It _is_ extreme. It would require heavy intervention in
> the form of adoptions and foster homes. It's success
> depends on eliminating single parents, not performing
> miracles with the existing situation. "grandfathering"
> existing single parents would be an obvious way to
> clean it up, but I'm not sure that's enough.
>
> >Why should you, or Murray, or anybody else, play God on the subject of who
> >is and is not capable of raising children? What about the *children's*
> >feelings and needs? And how does this have *anything* to do with the
> >effectiveness of the AFDC program?
> >
> We already play God on the subject of who is and is not
> capable of raising children. We remove and place in foster
> homes or put up for adoption children who are in demonstrably
> unhealthy environments.
As evidenced by demonstrable physical or emotional damage to the child -
simple poverty is an insufficient cause. If you can provide hard evidence
that this damage is universally the case in single-parent black urban
families, you'll then, and only then, have a basis for your (actually,
Murray's) proposals. Until such a time, your opinions on the subject are at
best irrelevant.
> And we _do_ have an interest in promoting responsible behavior
> by our citizens. Getting pregnant with no means of support
> seems to be one of those things we should discourage.
> And as you say, many of the pregnancies are volitional.
On this, I agree completely. We differ only in our perceptions of what the
causes, implications, and cures might be. In other words, on everything of
importance.
- Don Coolidge
Diane Mathews
>Hello Diane!
HI!
>Of course whites are violent. One race's violence doesn't preclude another race
>being violent. Mr. Garrett ignored comments I made about Northern Ireland and
>Bosnia. Further, I brought out Europe's wonderful innovations in violence,
>World Wars I and II. I was leading to the thought that *humans* are
>genetically violent.
Indubitably. That's why we call ourselves the Suicidal Death Merchants
and go around attacking other humans. That's why we enjoy battle so much.
Even if it's a virtual battle, fought in the realm of the cybernomads
and on the high seas, buffeted about on the lightwaves...
But, gosh, now where do we go from here?
Chris Holt
>Hello garrett!
[...]
>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
Okay, if this is the issue at hand, let's look at it. The
answer is clearly yes; it seems that dogs can be bred for
viciousness, and manipulating people's chemical balances
can lead to great changes in mood. So it wouldn't be
surprising if there were possible genetic modifications
that could cause predispositions towards violence.
However, is there any evidence whatsoever that human
variations in violent tendencies have any genetic
component? I certainly haven't heard of any. There
have been speculations as to diet, e.g. eating red
meat, and there seems to be good reason to think that
steroids can increase aggression. But differences in
the genetic pools that cause this? You'll have to do
better than just speculate.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk Computing Science, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a virtual workspace.
Donald R. McGregor
>And the non-black rate is about 30%, which totally swamps the black rate in
>terms of numbers. Moreover, the non-black urban rate is higher, and the
>poor non-black urban rate is higher still, approaching that of the poor
>urban black community. Where's your point?
Actually, the non-black (or is it white?) rate is about 21%.
Still far too high. Murray's supposition is that the effects on
society in general start showing up around 20-25%, which he
regards as a sort of critical mass.
I think you mistake my purposes. The whole thread got started
in the first place by a discussion of violent crime, which is
roughly 6X higher in inner cities. This lead to a discussion of
the factors in that subculture that might lead to such a high
rate of violent crime. "Poor and urban" is (very, very)
roughly correlated with "black and urban" in the areas where
there is a crime problem. Anyway it's convienient, since
statistics are often broken down by race.
>you've extracted those ideas which
>support your thesis, but have ignored those which demolish it.
So post 'em. Really. I'd be interested in just what you
think causes the high violent crime rate we're talking about.
The breakdown-in-family thesis is widely remarked upon by
nearly everyone, and I haven't heard a really persuasive
alternative.
>Agreed. But the conclusions one might draw from, and the actions one might
>propose in response to, that statistic, may well be racist. Murray's
>certainly qualify on both counts.
I don't know. As you point out, the majority of the people
affected by the end of AFDC would be white, on a gross
numbers basis.
>Urban murder rates are almost always higher than the general rate. The
>affected populations aren't always exclusively black. Take a look at San
>Jose's Vietnamese population some time; you're certainly close enough to
>have read the papers. For those of you not from the Bay Area, these are
>very frightening times for the Vietnamese community here; homicidal
>housebreaking is endemic, and it's all intra-Vietnamese.
This might be an interesting comparision, if reliable numbers
are available. I assume such events are under-reported for
obvious reasons.
>Many urban ghettos, regardless of race, have higher rates of violence than
>does society as a whole. You have no point here, Don. You need more
>context. You might consider poverty, drugs, gangs, external prejudice, lack
>of education, and reduced legal economic expectations as more proximate
>causes than the putative epidemic of single-mother homes or an alleged
>addiction to AFDC. You might even try to untangle the incredibly
>complicated interaction among them all.
>
The murder and violent crime rate seemed to take off about 1963 or
so, reaching a peak around 1970-75, declining a bit until around
1985 or so, then taking off again. If the variable is "poverty"
or "racism", both were much worse in the early 60's. There's
an element of demographics in it (violent boomers) but the
overall white rate didn't jump by anything like the same
amount (a fairly steady increase from about 4 per 100K to
about 10/100K in 1980. I think it fell off during 1980-85.)
The peak since 1985 is probably related to the drug trade. If
Murray is right, the willingness to participate in that
is correllated with the lack of fathers around to steer
the children away from the trade.
The same population has shown quite a spread in behavior
(from about 35 murders per 100K to 70+ murders per 100K)
with some of the commonly mentioned social factors staying
the same or improving a bit.
>No other article has arrived at my newsfeed; this one only arrived on the
>15th, and I've been unable to post until today, the 17th (newsfeed
>problems). If you have a copy, could you email it to me? Thanks.
Sorry, I don't keep them.
>You're certainly right that there is some element of independence, but the
>three studies I've actually read (actually, one study in full, and two in
>excerpt) find that the desperate need for some focus of and for love is far
>and away the most important issue; they all cite numerous other studies
>that found similar relationships. That being so, Murray's proposal is not
>only useless, it's counterproductive.
I disagree. There certainly are urges felt by teenagers. The
objective is to channel them into social structures that are
productive. The family is one of those. teenagers might still
get pregnant and desire some love, but would be encouraged or
forced by circumstances to marry if they want to experience
them.
>> Having serious consequences to actions
>> tends to focus the mind.
>
>In adults. However, that's not whom we're dealing with here, a point you
>yourself mention above, and that Valarie Cook also made quite strongly in a
>recent posting.
Is teenage stupidity a factor? yes. Is it a factor that can't
be overcome? I don't know about that.
Murray, in _Losing Ground_, argues that single motherhood became
the rational economic choice for young women of limited means
and prospects sometime in the 60's. Maybe I'll post a
synopis if I ever get time. Work pressure is high right
now...
>> I think we are ones to deny them someone to love, at least if
>> that someone is a baby to be supported on the public dole.
>
>You have no such right. The Declaration of Independence spoke of
>unalienable rights, and the pursuit of happiness is among them. Where do
>you present evidence of a need so compelling that it must arbitrarily and
>without recourse renounce the Declaration?
There's a distinction somewhere in there between having the freedom
to take a course of action and having that course of action
subsidized by the government. If a mother is capable of raising
a child by herself without government support, she'd have a
perfect right to do so. The child would be removed only from
unhealthy environments, using exactly the same criteria as
are used now.
>And, on a more personal basis, would you want it done to *you*? Or is that
>sort of social engineering OK just as long as it only applies to Some Other
>Folks? Answer this one *very* carefully...
Equal rights under law. No bills of attainder. I expect little
from the government, and my expectations are occasionally met.
Diane Mathews
>>you've extracted those ideas which
>>support your thesis, but have ignored those which demolish it.
>
>So post 'em. Really. I'd be interested in just what you
>think causes the high violent crime rate we're talking about.
>The breakdown-in-family thesis is widely remarked upon by
>nearly everyone, and I haven't heard a really persuasive
>alternative.
This is probably what makes me the most leery about the thesis. It is not
only just a thesis, but everybody likes it. I find that anything that
becomes quite popular in a hurry usually doesn't last (like disco...)
Anyway, just because everyone likes it doesn't make it true. It makes a
handy framework, but there isn't really a way to prove it. I see blaming
the breakdown of the family as being a possible next step from blaming the
parents, which was quite popular a few years ago (it's not all gone yet,
but is fading away wrt the family breakdown thesis). We used to blame
violence on violent parents, child abuse on abusive parents (this is one
that is not gone yet), alcoholism on alcoholic parents, homosexuality on
homosexual parents, etc. The attempts to prove that these things are genetic
genetic is another offspring of this parent-blaming-thing (ACK! a bushism!)
But remember, family breakdown is just a handy framework. One could come
up w/ the same conclusions if one used religion as a framework, or poverty,
or taxes, or whatever, and many people do. As soon as something else gets
popular enough then the really persuasive alternative will be that something
else. Yes, i'm saying that the blaming of family breakdown is just a fad.
That's because no one has provided me w/ conclusive evidence that it really
is family breakdown as opposed to anything else.
Herbert Rutledge
|> Train writes:
[ Criticism of McGregor's charge that people posting on this subject lack
"statistical rigor" when part of his method consists of stating a premise
and then finding numbers - any numbers - to support it (e.g., claiming
that there are no extended families in black urban neighborhoods but then
using data on nuclear families to support this contention) deleted ]
|> 1. The cause-and-effect between fractured family structure and assorted
|> problems such as crime I've posited here is hardly one that the
|> Republican party has a lock on. Just the other day Moynihan, Ed Koch,
|> and Pete Hamill were on the tube saying essentially the same thing.
|> Charles Krauthammer, a centerist, also recently had basically the same
|> take on it. I'd venture to say that it is far and away the most accepted
|> explaination for the phenomenon.
Correct me if I have misunderstood you, but I come away with the impression
you are making the claim that it is the sole cause. I'm saying that there
are multiple causes, and that this is one of many. Claiming that this is
"far and away the most accepted explanation for the phenomenon" doesn't
mean that this is so.
You've so far used "Dan Quayle Was Right" by Whitehead and "Losing Ground"
by Murray as the sources of your numbers. As has been pointed out by
me and others, Whitehead is a lobbyist and policy advocate, and Murray's
work is far more political than sociological. I would make a similar claim
if you were quoting sources that claimed that "racism" and "poverty" were
the sole or twin cause of urban crime.
Don, making a single causality claim like this and *then* saying, "well,
that's what *everyone* thinks" as a justification shows that you are not
well read in this subject. That's all that I'm trying to point out.
|> 2. If you'd like to question the accuracy of the numbers I mentioned,
|> feel free. In fact, I'd _like_ you to question them, and demonstrate
|> how they are flawed or misleading. By "demonstrate", I don't mean
|> airily declare them to be misguided or whatever. I'd like references
|> to data that can be examined and that is repeatable.
It's not the accuracy of the numbers you cite, Don. It's the lack of
context in which they are presented coupled with the use of preconcieved
or bogus analysis that serves as your hypothesis that I find, frankly,
laughable. Particularly, your complete lack of historical context.
More on this below.
|> 3. I don't think you've precisely said _what_ you find objectionable
|> to the figures I've presented, or how they present a misguided view
|> of the problem. Or for that matter, what you consider to be the
|> real cause of the violent crime problem.
I've made a couple of specific objections which you've yet to answer.
One is listed above. Another was to your use of data on the percentage
increase in the black population of cities and contrasting it to the
homicide rate in some sort of misguided effort to show that increasing
internal migration has nothing whatsoever to do with the crime rate.
All of this was offered in the hostorical context of "[d]uring the 1950's
blacks rapidly became urbanized as they moved from disapearing agricultural
jobs to the city." I'll reiterate my criticism of this assertion:
1. You've misplaced the dates of the Great Migration by half a century
(and Don, this is not a trivial error),
2. You've ignored the exodus to the suburbs by white residents during the
the 1950s which does far more to explain the increase in the percentage
of the black urban population than any alleged migration from the
rural South during this time,
3. Of far greater importance is the fact that you used this entirely
bogus contention to refute a claim made by Diane Matthews that not
only do I think has merit, but that I also think you completely
misunderstood.
As to what I consider to be the some of the causes, I'll send it to you
in e-mail.
|> Not to be blunt about it, but put up or shut up.
Why? I'm not the one who's made a questionable case in front of 20,000,000
UseNet subscribers.
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <dfc-1711...@hombre.apple.com> d...@apple.com (Don Coolidge) writes:
>
>>you've extracted those ideas which
>>support your thesis, but have ignored those which demolish it.
>
>So post 'em. Really. I'd be interested in just what you
>think causes the high violent crime rate we're talking about.
>The breakdown-in-family thesis is widely remarked upon by
>nearly everyone, and I haven't heard a really persuasive
>alternative.
>
respond to a single one. Now I know you think that this is "The" reason,
but don't say that no one offered an alternative. BTW, Diane gave a very
persuasive alternative reason for the breakdown-in-family thesis.
>>Urban murder rates are almost always higher than the general rate. The
>>affected populations aren't always exclusively black. Take a look at San
>>Jose's Vietnamese population some time; you're certainly close enough to
>>have read the papers. For those of you not from the Bay Area, these are
>>very frightening times for the Vietnamese community here; homicidal
>>housebreaking is endemic, and it's all intra-Vietnamese.
>
>This might be an interesting comparision, if reliable numbers
>are available. I assume such events are under-reported for
>obvious reasons.
>
They often are. Although I finally started hearing about it when some
Vietnamese gang botched a robbery of a Good Guys store in Sacramento and
ended up killing 4 hostages.
>>Many urban ghettos, regardless of race, have higher rates of violence than
>>does society as a whole. You have no point here, Don. You need more
>>context. You might consider poverty, drugs, gangs, external prejudice, lack
>>of education, and reduced legal economic expectations as more proximate
>>causes than the putative epidemic of single-mother homes or an alleged
>>addiction to AFDC. You might even try to untangle the incredibly
>>complicated interaction among them all.
>>
>The peak since 1985 is probably related to the drug trade. If
>Murray is right, the willingness to participate in that
>is correllated with the lack of fathers around to steer
>the children away from the trade.
>
For once, I think it might be a good idea to listen to the people from
that area. I've heard time and time again that the kids go into the drug
trade because there is so much money in it, AND the alternative is a low-
paying, low-skill job. Time and time again I've heard them say that there
is nothing that can be done until good paying jobs are available. Now
you may dispute this, and you have a right to, but neither you nor I were
raised in that situation, so we should at least listen to what they have
to say. I've heard stories from my co-workers of how their drug-dealing
friends would roll joints with $100 bills in front of them.
>--
>Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I see that I've brushed my teeth with Preparation H." Gar...@Ingres.com
-Opus Garrett Johnson
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the Always my opinions,
other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry'." -Gary Larson sometimes coherent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donald R. McGregor
>>
>Come now, Donald. I listed four or five alternatives and you didn't
>respond to a single one. Now I know you think that this is "The" reason,
>but don't say that no one offered an alternative. BTW, Diane gave a very
>persuasive alternative reason for the breakdown-in-family thesis.
I didn't say "the" reason. I suspect that its a major, probably
single greatest casue.
I don't think the other alternatives have been developed enough.
They seem fairly vauge to me.
BTW, the WSJ had an editorial today that tracked the discussion
so far pretty closely. Are the Wallies out there lurking?
>They often are. Although I finally started hearing about it when some
>Vietnamese gang botched a robbery of a Good Guys store in Sacramento and
>ended up killing 4 hostages.
Still, press coverage != similar quantitative results. White
suburban gets carjacked, front page. Black passerby or
drug dealer gets offed, a column inch on page D17.
Also, it's entirely possible to have different modalities for
the violence in different subcultures. Latin or Philipino
areas might also have high crime rates for entirely different
reasons (this is just an example, I don't know if this is true or not.)
>>>Many urban ghettos, regardless of race, have higher rates of violence than
>>>does society as a whole.
There are still significant differences between black and white
areas with similar incomes. in 1965-66, poor whites (income
of less than $7,800) had a robbery rate of 116/100K. Poor
blacks had a rate of 278/100K. That's one reason I tend to
de-emphaize the poverty angle, though the link does exist.
It's just hard to use the link to explain the _change_ in
the crime rate. Poverty stays the same or decreases a bit,
and the crime rate shoots up? There's a big boom during the
60's and the crime rate goes through the roof? A stiff
recession in the early 80's and the crime rate decreaes?
Hmmm.
BTW, the profile of criminals seems to have changed. In 1954,
people under 25 accounted for 40% of the arrests for violent crimes.
In 1974, they accounted for 60%. (The juv. justice system was
also reformed during this period.)
Donald R. McGregor
>
> Correct me if I have misunderstood you, but I come away with the impression
> you are making the claim that it is the sole cause. I'm saying that there
> are multiple causes, and that this is one of many. Claiming that this is
> "far and away the most accepted explanation for the phenomenon" doesn't
> mean that this is so.
1. You have a tendency to beat the stuffing out of straw men. I don't
claim it's the _sole_ cause. There are obviously other things involved
(I've mentioned demographics and a few other things.)
2. T: You're just trying to score partisan political points.
DMcG: Liberals X, Y, and Z say the same thing, which makes it
difficult to look at this in partisan terms.
T: Just because everyone says it doesn't make it so.
> You've so far used "Dan Quayle Was Right" by Whitehead and "Losing Ground"
> by Murray as the sources of your numbers. As has been pointed out by
> me and others, Whitehead is a lobbyist and policy advocate, and Murray's
> work is far more political than sociological.
The email you sent me (thank you) didn't seem to have significantly superior
sources.
> I've made a couple of specific objections which you've yet to answer.
> One is listed above. Another was to your use of data on the percentage
> increase in the black population of cities and contrasting it to the
> homicide rate in some sort of misguided effort to show that increasing
> internal migration has nothing whatsoever to do with the crime rate.
> All of this was offered in the hostorical context of "[d]uring the 1950's
> blacks rapidly became urbanized as they moved from disapearing agricultural
> jobs to the city." I'll reiterate my criticism of this assertion:
>
> 1. You've misplaced the dates of the Great Migration by half a century
> (and Don, this is not a trivial error),
I did nothing of the kind. Did black migration to the cities occur
before 1950? Yes. Did black migration to the cities _continue_
during the 1950's? Yes. Did I assert that the migration did
not occur before 1950? I did not.
> 2. You've ignored the exodus to the suburbs by white residents during the
> the 1950s which does far more to explain the increase in the percentage
> of the black urban population than any alleged migration from the
> rural South during this time,
You misread the statistics. The proportion of _blacks_ living in
the cities increased by 24%. The population of _blacks_ became
more urbanized; the statistic did not refer to the racial makeup
of the cities.
> As to what I consider to be the some of the causes, I'll send it to you
> in e-mail.
I'd prefer that you post it, so everyone can participate in
the discussion.
Spencer V. PriceNash
In article <2ce6...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
>> From: spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash)
>> In article <2ce1...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no
>> (john white) writes:
>>> [...]
>>> The US has thrown money at the problem for decades now. It is part of
>>> the culture not to help themselves. The displaced Scottish crofters
>>> helped themselves when they reached America, so did the Irish, Italians,
>>> Hungarians, Poles, etc. The Mexicans are helping themselves. The blacks
>>> want someone else to help them, and help them, and help them, and help
>>> them, and love to play the blame game because they have found how to
>>> exploit the BHL.
>
>> This dead horse has had the innards beaten out of it repeatedly
>> throughout the last 120 or so years of America's history. It's as silly
>> as saying "Whites don't want to help anyone, don't want to help anyone,
>> don't want to help anyone".
>
>> Time to come up with something else.
>
>It could be a dead horse and silly, I agree, if I had not lived it myself,
>Spencer V. PriceNash. But I did, and I know what I am writing about. I am an
>old man now and was a child before AFDC was available. [...]
>
>[ personal history deleted ]
>
>I disagree with your contention that it is time to come up with something else,
>and that this is a dead horse. It is likely your response is based on what you
>have heard and/or read, and not out of personal knowledge of what is possible.
No; it's a dead horse. Your personal history was interesting, but
didn't bring up the historical research microscope and its deleterious
effect on cultures the microscope is aimed at, or the effects of
racism and conservatism on those the microscope is aimed at.
>If I could make it, and I did, others can to, Bleeding Heart Liberals
>notwithstanding. It's just a matter of wanting to and acting on that want.
>This has been written, altruistically, to give you some insight into what is
>possible.
Your story reminded me of the kind of things Ronald Reagan would say.
He would also not mention a lot of facts that have an effect on the
stor(y/ies). His stories, he was unwilling to admit, usually had more
to do with being able to be in the right place at the right time and do
the right thing to move forward. Many people aren't even *permitted* to
be in the right place. It's hard to see being on top of the world if
one isn't permitted to see the ladder one must climb.
"Acting on the want" is nice, but there's the factor of being allowed to
act on the want that many ignore, or even worse, forget.
--
Spencer PriceNash spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us spe...@umcc.umich.edu
Dan Quayle via anon ftp: Quotes at umcc.umich.edu in pub/quayle, GIFs and
sound files at vaxa.crc.mssm.edu in quayle/gif and quayle/sound.
Herbert Rutledge
|> Train writes:
|>
|> > Correct me if I have misunderstood you, but I come away with the impression
|> > you are making the claim that it is the sole cause. I'm saying that there
|> > are multiple causes, and that this is one of many. Claiming that this is
|> > "far and away the most accepted explanation for the phenomenon" doesn't
|> > mean that this is so.
|>
|> 1. You have a tendency to beat the stuffing out of straw men. I don't
|> claim it's the _sole_ cause. There are obviously other things involved
|> (I've mentioned demographics and a few other things.)
Don McGregor has also written:
|> I didn't say "the" reason. I suspect that its a major, probably
|> single greatest casue.
...and:
|> So post 'em. Really. I'd be interested in just what you
|> think causes the high violent crime rate we're talking about.
|> The breakdown-in-family thesis is widely remarked upon by
|> nearly everyone, and I haven't heard a really persuasive
|> alternative.
...and:
|> _Something_ is causing the horrific levels of crime and
|> violence in cities. I'm proposing that it's environment,
|> more exactly the breakdown of the family.
...and:
|> 1. The cause-and-effect between fractured family structure and assorted
|> problems such as crime I've posited here is hardly one that the
|> Republican party has a lock on. Just the other day Moynihan, Ed Koch,
|> and Pete Hamill were on the tube saying essentially the same thing.
|> Charles Krauthammer, a centerist, also recently had basically the same
|> take on it. I'd venture to say that it is far and away the most accepted
|> explaination for the phenomenon.
...and:
|> For that matter, I haven't seen many alternative explanations
|> for the violence in society we've been talking about.
Remember, these straw men came straight from Donald Rapunzel McGregor.
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <1993Nov18.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>>
>>Come now, Donald. I listed four or five alternatives and you didn't
>>respond to a single one. Now I know you think that this is "The" reason,
>>but don't say that no one offered an alternative. BTW, Diane gave a very
>>persuasive alternative reason for the breakdown-in-family thesis.
>
>I didn't say "the" reason. I suspect that its a major, probably
>single greatest casue.
Now we are getting somewhere. Why do you think it is the single greatest
cause? I ask this because you never addressed my question of why it would
be such a major cause of crime in America, but Europe, which has a high
illigitimacy rate as well, doesn't have the crime rate we do.
>
>I don't think the other alternatives have been developed enough.
>They seem fairly vauge to me.
>
Well, let's take them seperately. When I said the War on Drugs, what was
vague about that? A bigger crackdown without cutting demand causes prices
to go up and making it more dangerous, hence, lots of violence.
Now when I said "Culture of Violence", that might have been rather
vague. Allow me to expand. This would be the only subject on this tangent
that I would consider circular in reasoning. Now judging from what I've read,
heard, and seen, many of the school kids today carry guns for the reason
that they assume, and are all too often right, that the next kid is also
packing. So while some may carry guns to rob, bully, or show off, many
times more kids are carrying for reasons of self-defense. There is also the
fact that when so much violence is happening around them in society, it
eventually becomes a very common and casual thing (just like when I see
people walking by the scene of a violent crime without caring). When it
doesn't shock you, you are more incline to commit the offense yourself.
That's enough for now. I'd like to see your feedback.
>--
>Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Vermillion
In article <1993Nov17.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
> Have I kicked the tar-baby?
>
>In article <2ce8...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes...
>>g> Even black people?
>>
>>Of course it includes black people. Your mindless attempts to impress yourself
>>have caused you to ignore information I previously provided that I have many
>>black friends
>
>No, you did not provide that information in this thread, nor in any related
>thread in this group. You are getting yourself confused.
>
>> that are close enough that we keep their children for them rather
>>than let the children stay with babysitters.
>
><snap: the trap shuts>
> I was hoping you would claim something like this. Now student, if
>you are that close to your "black friends" then you must have some amount of
>trust, dialog, and understanding with the other race, hmmm? Good.
Hey John, why don't you try bouncing your theory about black and
gentically-inspired violence off you close black friends? If you really
just specualting, maybe they'll have some good insights for you.
I know how _I'd_ respond except that you might interpret it as a
validation of your hypothesis.
Mike
Donald R. McGregor
>>I didn't say "the" reason. I suspect that its a major, probably
>>single greatest casue.
>
>Now we are getting somewhere. Why do you think it is the single greatest
>cause? I ask this because you never addressed my question of why it would
>be such a major cause of crime in America, but Europe, which has a high
>illigitimacy rate as well, doesn't have the crime rate we do.
The crime rate shot up from 64-70s, declined a bit, then went
back up in the late 80's. Now, there were a lot of things going
on at the time; a demographic bulge, etc. There are a lot of reasons
for a *high* crime rate, but explaining the behavior over time
takes some doing. Yeah, poverty is usually associated with a high
crime rate, but the poverty rate didn't swing around that
dramatically over the period. After in-kind payments, it was
still declining slightly a bit during the period when the cirme
rate was rising fastest. Racism? I suspect the people who got
beat up by local police in 1960 were worse off in that respect.
We can run down the list. I boils down to something like "culture",
which I dislike because it's too vague and it annoys me. So
I zeroed in on the aspects that seemed to affect culture the most.
It's sort of hard to overlook the dramatic changes in family
structure over the same time period, which I think we can agree
has an effect on the overall tone and tenor of society.
The major changes in family structure got going after 1965 or
so. That suggests the earlier portion was affected by demographics,
which is an important aspect of crime and culture. But since
then the crime rate has stayed high. That suggests other factors
taking over as time went by. This factor has to be hugely
powerful to offset the demographic changes, not to mention
the general state of unrest in 1965-1975.
There's decent sociological evidence that family breakdown is
associated with high crime, so the correlation in time is
backed up by a plausible mechanism.
All social problems have myriad "causes." There's a tendency
to look at the inter-related factors, then say "society" is
at fault or something equally irritating. There's an old
saying that touches on the phenomenon: if everyone is responsible,
no one is responsible.
The Scandinavian experience is interesting. I was hoping Cynthia
could shed more light on it. It's my understanding that
Scandinavian couples tend to cohabitate for long periods;
correct?
Anyway, US culture is sufficiently different that the same
objective conditions might cause very different results.
>Well, let's take them seperately. When I said the War on Drugs, what was
>vague about that? A bigger crackdown without cutting demand causes prices
>to go up and making it more dangerous, hence, lots of violence.
The other problem is that some of the "causes" mentioned are overlapping,
or different expressions of the same problem. Kids shoot
each over for drugs? Is that caused by the drugs, or by the lack
of structures that discourage them from getting into the trade?
I might say both, and not contradict myself. Anyway, gangs might
well still exist even without drugs. Perhaps at a lower level
of violence, though.
It might be interesting to compare the prohibition murder and
crime rate to the late 80's crime rate. Dunno if UCR reports
go back that far.
> Now when I said "Culture of Violence", that might have been rather
>vague.
Dunno. Doesn't seem persuasive to me. Sort of like the "arms race"
argument during the cold war. Once the underlying cause for the
conflict was removed, the arms quickly became irrelevant.
Donald R. McGregor
>|>
>|> 1. You have a tendency to beat the stuffing out of straw men. I don't
>|> claim it's the _sole_ cause. There are obviously other things involved
>|> (I've mentioned demographics and a few other things.)
>
>Don McGregor has also written:
>
important. Alas, they don't say that I think it the only cause.
I've remarked half a dozen times that demographics is important,
for example. Also that poverty tends to be associated with higher
crime rates, and that urbanization is a significant by not
necessarily overwhelming factor. And not a very good one
for explaining the increase in crime in 1965-75.]
Why don't you post your thoughts on the problem, Herbert? I think
many people would like you to participate in the discussion.
john white
CH> @REPLYADDR Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk
CH> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
CH> From: Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
CH> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
>> Hello garrett!
CH> [...]
>>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>> Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
CH> Okay, if this is the issue at hand, let's look at it. The
CH> answer is clearly yes; it seems that dogs can be bred for
CH> viciousness, and manipulating people's chemical balances
CH> can lead to great changes in mood. So it wouldn't be
CH> surprising if there were possible genetic modifications
CH> that could cause predispositions towards violence.
CH> However, is there any evidence whatsoever that human
CH> variations in violent tendencies have any genetic
CH> component? I certainly haven't heard of any. There
CH> have been speculations as to diet, e.g. eating red
CH> meat, and there seems to be good reason to think that
CH> steroids can increase aggression. But differences in
CH> the genetic pools that cause this? You'll have to do
CH> better than just speculate.
No need to speculate. You just stopped reasoning prematurely. No branch of
the human race has been found free of violence. As a result, I maintain that
violence is a racial characteristic, a characteristic of the human race, a
genetic characteristic of the human race.
Regards, John
---
john white
CH> @REPLYADDR Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk
CH> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
CH> From: Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
CH> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
>> Hello garrett!
CH> [...]
>>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>> Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
CH> Okay, if this is the issue at hand, let's look at it. The
CH> answer is clearly yes; it seems that dogs can be bred for
CH> viciousness, and manipulating people's chemical balances
CH> can lead to great changes in mood. So it wouldn't be
CH> surprising if there were possible genetic modifications
CH> that could cause predispositions towards violence.
CH> However, is there any evidence whatsoever that human
CH> variations in violent tendencies have any genetic
CH> component? I certainly haven't heard of any. There
CH> have been speculations as to diet, e.g. eating red
CH> meat, and there seems to be good reason to think that
CH> steroids can increase aggression. But differences in
CH> the genetic pools that cause this? You'll have to do
CH> better than just speculate.
I maintain that violence is a genetic tendency of the human race. No branch of
the human race has been free of violence.
john white
g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
g> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
g> From: gar...@Ingres.COM
g> Have I kicked the tar-baby?
If you really cared about a serious discussion, you would have avoided
attempting to flame with your first message, which precluded further
discussion. Don't you even care if you are taken seriously? Even you should
realize you will be taken to task for attacking without careful analysis. A
person such as you who accuses falsely and then tries to attack when complete
information is elicited by serious exchanges between serious people looks silly
when they then claim there was a change in philosophy. Everyone understands
why you attempted to evade completion of the thread.
g> In article <2ce8...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>, john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no
g> writes...
>>
>>>> Your assumptions and assertions show your foolishness. For instance,
>>>> you assume I am Norwegian, but I am a native born US citizen, and my
>>>> family have been US citizens since the founding of the USA.
>>
>>g> So you're a home-grown bigot, eh?
>>g> So does racism and close-mindedness run in your family as well?
>>g> (genetically)
>>
>> You will feel all better after you nurse and take a nap.
>>
g> Wow! Totally irrelevant. You and Brett should get together.
>>>> For instance, you assert I am
>>>> a white supremacist yet we have not written about whites,
>>
>>g> You have asserted that blacks are violence prone by nature. By
>>g> attributing a negative attribute to a whole race, you are infering that
>>g> that race is inferior or even sub-human. In so doing, you are doing
>>g> exactly what a white-supremacist would do. When I pointed this out to
>>g> you I expected you to say something like, "I didn't mean that, I
>>g> meant..." But instead you defended your baseless assertion without a
>>g> shred of proof. You dug your own grave, now I'm just going to fill it
>>g> in for you.
>>
>> If you had shown sign of being interested in anything other than
>> impressing yourself with attempts at being insulting, I would have
>> proceeded to comment on how Europe transcended all African tribal warfare
>> by bringing those wonderful innovations, World Wars I and II, to humanity.
>> But your continued attempt to impress yourself have precluded that, well,
>> almost, it has been posted in spite of you.
g> You make backpeddling an Olympic sport. First of all, Diane has already
g> pointed this out, and I concurred. Now that you have seen this and realized
g> your mistake, you are now jumping on the bandwagon. Secondly, if you had
g> already realized this you would never have made the assertion that you did.
g> Despite whatever else happens in this thread, your racist assertions have
g> found no welcome ears. This makes me satisfied.
>>
>>>> other than *your*
>>>> assertion that US serial killers are white, and of northwestern
>>>> European heritage.
>>
>>g> Which I am about to provide a long list of names. At least some of us
>>g> are willing to do some research.
>>
>> Posting a list of alleged names will undoubtedly make you feel better and,
>> yet, prove nothing.
g> Even after I already said that very same thing twice.
>>
>>g> [note: I noticed you deleted you racist statement already. Feeling a
>>g> little embarrassed?]
>>
>> If anything material was deleted, it was inadvertent. You should proceed
>> forthwith immediately to restore it.
>>
g> No longer necessary. You have backed away from your own statements.
>>
>>>> This is not and never has been a debate. Your initial post to me was
>>>> a flame.
>>
>>g> No, it was to point out that your assertion was racist. Which I did
>>g> and you failed to deny. Are you denying it now? I can go back and bring
>>g> that racist statement back, you know. The only flame in my first post
>>g> was, "If you want to share your insight with me again, I'll pass."
>>g> After that I flamed.
>>
>> Wrong (again). You were so anxious to impress yourself that you confused
>> a question with a statement.
g> A question? Hardly. You advanced the very same assertion in a different
g> post by trying to link the tribal warfare in Africa to the black-on-black
g> violence in inner-city America. That is not a question, that is a
g> statement. I don't know who you think you are fooling, but your
g> backpeddling is a little too late. However, your retreat is noted and
g> appreciated.
>>
>>>> For instance, now
>>>> you are imputing white-supremacist ideas to me as a diversion.
>>>>
>>g> No, I'm imputing white-spuremacist ideas on you because you are doing
>>g> their footwork. You have _still_ failed to deny that you are a racist.
>>
>> Your study of Sen. Joseph McCarthy's hearings and proceedings is
>> incomplete. His imputations led to his embarrassment.
g> I have used nothing but your own words. It is all that I needed.
>>
>>>>>> Not accepted because of that
>>>>>> generality as well as: it ignores unapprehended, and even
>>>>>> undetected, serial killers;
>>>>
>>>>g> A desperate attempt to distract from the issue at hand.
>>>>
>>>> Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
>>>>
>>g> Close. You stated that violence is a genetic trait in an entire race.
>>g> There is a difference.
>>
>> Wrong (again). My post had a question mark in it. A question mark does
>> not identify a statement, at least not to an educated person.
g> An educated person need not to see the same unsolicited "question" from the
g> same person too many times before they realize that this person is no
g> longer asking a question. And you _still_ have not denied that you
g> think blacks _as a race_ are violence prone. In fact, in your first reply
g> to me you stood by the theory. Nevertheless, you have backpeddled to the
g> point that I no longer need to attack the point. Continue to deny it if you
g> want to.
>>
g> <list snipped>
>>g> And that is just the first page. We are still in the D's. I
>>g> will spare everyone else the whole list unless someone insists on
>>g> seeing it. But you get the idea. What does this prove? ABSOLUTELY
>>g> NOTHING! It has no more grounds for proving that whites are inclined to
>>g> being serial killers than does your statement that blacks are inclined
>>g> to being violence prone.
>>
>> The validity of your list is uncertain, and the ethnic origin of serial
>> killers remains unauthenticated. You continue to attempt verbosely
>> loquacious obfuscation.
g> And because I don't list their individual family tree's I must be making
g> this up because you imply so. But because you also imply that violence is
g> genetically related, you need not provide _any_ factual basis. You will be
g> called on this tactic again and again, if not by me then by someone else.
>>
>>>> Her alleged course of
>>>> study possibly qualifies her to be a student.
>>>>
>>g> Which is exactly what I said, did I not?
>>
>> Wrong (again). You cited her alleged major to attempt to qualify her as
>> an authority I should accept. It did not work and now you are trying to
>> avoid looking even more foolish.
g> I said studying. So obviously she was a student (I know these things might
g> slip by you, so I'll go slow).
>>
>>>>g> As was John Wayne
>>>>g> Gasey, Charles Manson,
>>
>>g> My ex-roommate says that Manson doesn't qualify since he had other
>>g> people do the killing for him.
>>
>> You wrote the name Manson. Feel free to correct yourself at any time.
>> It won't be held against you.
g> Did I not just do that? Oh, forget it. I think I'm getting tar all over me.
>>
>>>> Blacks in the US have ancestral roots primarily in west Africa, and to
>>>> a much lesser extent in the Indians of the Caribbean. Also, most
>>>> blacks in the US do not have white ancestors. I lived in the southern
>>>> US in areas that were as much as 40 percent black, both rural and city
>>>> (New Orleans).
>>g> Good. My best friend is from New Orleans. From what he has told me
>>g> about the red-necks in the area, this doesn't suprise me.
>>
>> Obfuscation attempt (another one).
>>
g> No, that was a flame. You should be able to tell the difference by now.
>>
>>>>>> Try again.
>>>>
>>>>g> Only if you are stupid enough to come back to this group.
>>>>
>>>> That doesn't take stupidity. It only takes an interest in people and
>>>> the way they think, even the way you think.
>>
>>g> Even black people?
>>
>> Of course it includes black people. Your mindless attempts to impress
>> yourself have caused you to ignore information I previously provided that
>> I have many black friends
g> No, you did not provide that information in this thread, nor in any
g> related thread in this group. You are getting yourself confused.
>> that are close enough that we keep their children for them rather
>> than let the children stay with babysitters.
g> <snap: the trap shuts>
g> I was hoping you would claim something like this. Now student, if
g> you are that close to your "black friends" then you must have some amount
g> of trust, dialog, and understanding with the other race, hmmm? Good. Now
g> let's say just for a second that what you have said in this post is true
g> (not that I believe you backpeddling, but I don't need that to prove my
g> point here). You asked a "question" of whether the blacks in America's
g> inner-cities are violent because that is their nature (as related to tribal
g> warfare in Africa) and are more violent that whites in the
g> same circumstance. Now the simple fact that this would even be a
g> _possibility_ in your mind, shows a mistrust of an entire race. That you
g> would be close "friends" to members of that race while holding this idea is
g> illogical, even foolish. To allow people into your home and life that you
g> feel are irrationally violent, is a foolish act. I doubt that anyone
g> reading this would let someone into their house that they would feel to be
g> a danger. I know I wouldn't. Now since you went to the trouble of pointing
g> out that tribal warfare in Africa _can be_ related to inner-city black
g> violence, you MUST feel that this is a strong possibility. Otherwise, you
g> have not only wasted our time, but even your own time by defending
g> something you do not believe. Either way, you have acted illogically and
g> irrationally either now, or in the past. So which is?
>> Your stupidity
g> Ah! Good. If you are resorting to insults then I have gotten through to
g> you.
>> prevented our
>> messages from progressing to a consideration of whether or not violence
>> was also a trait of other races, which in view of what I wrote earlier in
>> this message about World Wars I & II starting in Europe, had the potential
>> for being a good dialogue.
g> And if we found out that violence is a trait in _all_ races, then we would
g> be back to where we started; with a theory with no scientific proof that
g> has no relevance to the original discussion. Great.
>> + Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
g> -+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-
g> -+-- "I woke up this morning and thought I'd have a nice relaxed
g> Gar...@Ingres.com day, do a bit of reading and brush the dog...It's now
g> just Garrett Johnson after four in the afternoon and I'm being thrown
g> out Always my opinions, of an alien spaceship six light-years from
g> the sometimes coherent. smoking remains of the Earth!" -
g> Douglas Adams,
g> HGG -+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+---
g> -+--+---
g> -+- UUGate/2 v0.21(OS/2)
g> + Origin: Internet/Fidonet Gateway (romeo) (2:211/5.0)
john white
DM> @REPLYADDR dia...@boi.hp.com
DM> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
DM> From: dia...@boi.hp.com (Diane Mathews)
>> Of course whites are violent. One race's violence doesn't preclude another
>> race being violent. Mr. Garrett ignored comments I made about Northern
>> Ireland and Bosnia. Further, I brought out Europe's wonderful innovations
>> in violence, World Wars I and II. I was leading to the thought that
>> *humans* are genetically violent.
DM> Indubitably. That's why we call ourselves the Suicidal Death Merchants
DM> and go around attacking other humans. That's why we enjoy battle so much.
DM> Even if it's a virtual battle, fought in the realm of the cybernomads
DM> and on the high seas, buffeted about on the lightwaves...
DM> But, gosh, now where do we go from here?
No need to go anywhere in this exchange between you and me. As to the exchange
between Mr. Garrett and me, we will see what develops. What I have to write
about him will only be found in messages sent directly to him.
john white
g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
g> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
g> From: gar...@Ingres.COM
g> Have I kicked the tar-baby?
A story by Joel Chandler Harris tells of an ill-tempered Brer Rabbit attacking
a tar-baby, an inanimate object. Eventually Brer Rabbit connected with the
tar-baby using both hands and both feet and was trapped. Noteworthy about the
story was that Brer Rabbit initially had the opportunity to be pleasant and
courteous to the tar-baby. He deliberately chose to behave otherwise and found
himself in an extremely awkward position, trapped by his own poor behavior.
You discourteously attacked my messages, so intent on trying to demonstrate
flame power (thermonuclear, indeed!) that you were unwilling to engage in a
dialogue which would have given you knowledge of my beliefs. You are writing
that I have changed, but in reality, you failed to pay attention, just like
Brer Rabbit. Your Freudian slip reveals you are aware of the error of your
ways. You are stuck, just like Brer Rabbit.
>>
g> <list snipped>
>> Your stupidity
Regards, John
john white
MV> @REPLYADDR m...@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu
MV> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
MV> From: m...@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Mike Vermillion)
MV> At the risk of getting tarred myself, I gotta jump in on this one:
MV> In article <1993Nov17.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM
MV> writes:
>> Have I kicked the tar-baby?
>>
>> In article <2ce8...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no>,
>> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no writes... Even black people? Of course it
>> includes black people. Your mindless attempts to impress yourself have
>> caused you to ignore information I previously provided that I have
>> many black friends No, you did not provide that information in this
>> thread, nor in any related thread in this group. You are getting yourself
>> confused. that are close enough that we keep their children for them
>> rather than let the children stay with babysitters. <snap: the trap
>>shuts> I was hoping you would claim something like this. Now student,
>> if you are that close to your "black friends" then you must have some
>> amount of trust, dialog, and understanding with the other race, hmmm?
>> Good.
MV> Hey John, why don't you try bouncing your theory about black and
MV> gentically-inspired violence off you close black friends? If you really
MV> just specualting, maybe they'll have some good insights for you.
I have. I expected them to, and they did, comment on where World Wars I and II
originated, among other things. We agreed that the human race is genetically
violent. None of us confused the individuals present with the general group.
You should not be surprised how jaundiced a viewpoint a member of any branch of
the human race can have about that branch. More often than not, though, pride
and lack of maturity will not permit realism in value of oneself or the
group/race branch one belongs to.
MV> I know how _I'd_ respond except that you might interpret it as a
MV> validation of your hypothesis.
Why causes you to think validation of any hypothesis about violence is
possible?
john white
SVP> @REPLYADDR spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us
SVP> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
SVP> From: spe...@spencer.ann-arbor.mi.us (Spencer V. PriceNash)
SVP> "Acting on the want" is nice, but there's the factor of being allowed to
SVP> act on the want that many ignore, or even worse, forget.
True. Human ingenuity being what it is, though, there is usually a way around
not being allowed to act on the want.
Chris Holt
>CH> From: Chris...@newcastle.ac.uk (Chris Holt)
>CH> john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
[the subject at hand]
>>> Which is: Can violence be a genetic tendency?
>CH> Okay, if this is the issue at hand, let's look at it. The
>CH> answer is clearly yes; it seems that dogs can be bred for
>CH> viciousness, and manipulating people's chemical balances
>CH> can lead to great changes in mood. So it wouldn't be
>CH> surprising if there were possible genetic modifications
>CH> that could cause predispositions towards violence.
>CH> However, is there any evidence whatsoever that human
>CH> variations in violent tendencies have any genetic
>CH> component? I certainly haven't heard of any. There
>CH> have been speculations as to diet, e.g. eating red
>CH> meat, and there seems to be good reason to think that
>CH> steroids can increase aggression. But differences in
>CH> the genetic pools that cause this? You'll have to do
>CH> better than just speculate.
>I maintain that violence is a genetic tendency of the human race. No branch of
>the human race has been free of violence.
This is a simple and (probably) uncontroversial statement
(though I dare say there are those who believe that it
is possible to provide an environment that can override
such a tendency). But if I remember the context correctly,
you said something about the genetic relationship between
Africans and blacks in the US. If you had meant to lead to
the more general case, you were being at best mischievous,
implying a rather more special causal relationship than that
which you are now suggesting.
Chris Holt
[breakdown of families causing high crime rates]
>>Now we are getting somewhere. Why do you think it is the single greatest
>>cause? I ask this because you never addressed my question of why it would
>>be such a major cause of crime in America, but Europe, which has a high
>>illigitimacy rate as well, doesn't have the crime rate we do.
>The crime rate shot up from 64-70s, declined a bit, then went
>back up in the late 80's.
Roughly corresponding to the British experience, though of course
at much lower levels here.
> Now, there were a lot of things going
>on at the time; a demographic bulge, etc. There are a lot of reasons
>for a *high* crime rate, but explaining the behavior over time
>takes some doing. Yeah, poverty is usually associated with a high
>crime rate, but the poverty rate didn't swing around that
>dramatically over the period.
Did it not? There are two things to worry about: lag times, and
the extent to which overall statistics match the experiences of
smaller sectors of the population. I would suggest that aid
offered to the poor was reduced during the "good years" of '83-'88,
and that this was sustainable because of increased part-time
and short-term jobs (and the black market), but that when bad
times ensued there was no longer a safety cushion; it was either
steal or go hungry for many people. At least, that's how I
interpret the UK experience.
>After in-kind payments, it was
>still declining slightly a bit during the period when the cirme
>rate was rising fastest. Racism? I suspect the people who got
>beat up by local police in 1960 were worse off in that respect.
>We can run down the list. I boils down to something like "culture",
>which I dislike because it's too vague and it annoys me. So
>I zeroed in on the aspects that seemed to affect culture the most.
>It's sort of hard to overlook the dramatic changes in family
>structure over the same time period, which I think we can agree
>has an effect on the overall tone and tenor of society.
I think the problem some of us have with your diagnosis is that
changes in family structure are not harmful in and of themselves;
rather, as long as there exist loving adults around, children
will continue to feel loved. However, when families (of whatever
form) are undergoing economic hardship, it adds stress; and when
that hardship implies that the loving adults have to spend more
time away from the children, as has happened, there are bound
to be problems. So do we "blame" the family structure that is
unable to respond, or the economic circumstances that require
the hardship?
>The major changes in family structure got going after 1965 or
>so. That suggests the earlier portion was affected by demographics,
>which is an important aspect of crime and culture. But since
>then the crime rate has stayed high. That suggests other factors
>taking over as time went by. This factor has to be hugely
>powerful to offset the demographic changes, not to mention
>the general state of unrest in 1965-1975.
But those changes in family structure were earlier and deeper
in Northern Europe, and had no such corresponding effect.
>There's decent sociological evidence that family breakdown is
>associated with high crime, so the correlation in time is
>backed up by a plausible mechanism.
It's clear that having adults in prison makes it hard for them
to have any kind of contact with their children; are you sure
this isn't what your evidence is measuring? Or that families
without enough money are more likely to have adults who act
illegally to try to acquire it?
>All social problems have myriad "causes." There's a tendency
>to look at the inter-related factors, then say "society" is
>at fault or something equally irritating. There's an old
>saying that touches on the phenomenon: if everyone is responsible,
>no one is responsible.
No. Saying that "society is responsible" is not a means of
denying that people have personal responsibility (though I
accept it has been used that way, often by people attacking
the "society is responsible" position). It's a means of saying
that putting individuals in jail will not solve the long term
problem: it's just a band-aid. It's saying that individuals
in particularly hard circumstances should be given mercy (would
you revive Jean Valjean?), and that efforts should be made to
give people real chances at a future, as opposed to the feeble
gestures made at present which the folx on the ground recognize
as a sop to keep them quiet.
>The Scandinavian experience is interesting. I was hoping Cynthia
>could shed more light on it. It's my understanding that
>Scandinavian couples tend to cohabitate for long periods;
>correct?
I don't know about them, but in the UK I don't know that it's
better or worse than the US. An interesting statistic is that
in the Netherlands, which has instituted a strong sex-education
policy, teenage pregnancy is far lower than in the UK, and
average ages of first sex are higher; so don't underestimate
the effects of education.
>Anyway, US culture is sufficiently different that the same
>objective conditions might cause very different results.
Quite possibly. But it seems the main differentiating factor
is whether the country provides resources to take care of (and
educate) its poor. The old multi-culturism argument is dying
out as a difference.
>>Well, let's take them seperately. When I said the War on Drugs, what was
>>vague about that? A bigger crackdown without cutting demand causes prices
>>to go up and making it more dangerous, hence, lots of violence.
>The other problem is that some of the "causes" mentioned are overlapping,
>or different expressions of the same problem. Kids shoot
>each over for drugs? Is that caused by the drugs, or by the lack
>of structures that discourage them from getting into the trade?
>I might say both, and not contradict myself. Anyway, gangs might
>well still exist even without drugs. Perhaps at a lower level
>of violence, though.
If we can take Prohibition as any guide, yes.
>It might be interesting to compare the prohibition murder and
>crime rate to the late 80's crime rate. Dunno if UCR reports
>go back that far.
Absolute rates wouldn't reflect the different nature of society
now from then; relative changes should be indicative of at least
one major factor.
>> Now when I said "Culture of Violence", that might have been rather
>>vague.
>Dunno. Doesn't seem persuasive to me. Sort of like the "arms race"
>argument during the cold war. Once the underlying cause for the
>conflict was removed, the arms quickly became irrelevant.
Are they? You're more optimistic than I; I expect Republican
candidates in '96 to worry about increased terrorism and the
chances of third world nuclear weapons as a reason to restore
cuts in the defense budget. But then, I still think much of
the arms race was due to Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex."
gar...@ingres.com
>g> @REPLYADDR gar...@Ingres.COM
>g> @REPLYTO 2:21/822.0 uucp
>g> From: gar...@Ingres.COM
>
>g> Have I kicked the tar-baby?
>
>If you really cared about a serious discussion, you would have avoided
>attempting to flame with your first message, which precluded further
>discussion. Don't you even care if you are taken seriously? Even you should
>realize you will be taken to task for attacking without careful analysis. A
>person such as you who accuses falsely and then tries to attack when complete
>information is elicited by serious exchanges between serious people looks silly
>when they then claim there was a change in philosophy. Everyone understands
>why you attempted to evade completion of the thread.
>
going to do was to make this short reply.
Now for your reply. You are claiming that humanity is genetically
violent. This may be true, it may not be. Neither of us know for sure.
Humanity has a long history of violence, but this does not justify any
violence that is going on now.
So this is the completion of your thread? All I can do is ask the
same question that someone else asked, "What is your point?" It does not
address the fact that crime is higher in cities than in rural areas. It does
not address why crime is higher in America than in any other country. It does
not even address why violence is greater amoung blacks than whites, which
is something you pointed out and asserted that this was genetically related.
In other words, it does nothing to advance this discussion. Am I
missing something?
[big chomp in order to save bandwidth]
>Regards, John
>---
> * Origin: jw's point * norway (2:211/5.13)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maddi Hausmann Sojourner
>>Don McGregor has also written:
>>
>[an assortment of quotes that show I think the breakdown of family is
>important. Alas, they don't say that I think it the only cause.
>I've remarked half a dozen times that demographics is important,
>for example. Also that poverty tends to be associated with higher
>crime rates, and that urbanization is a significant by not
>necessarily overwhelming factor. And not a very good one
>for explaining the increase in crime in 1965-75.]
>
>Why don't you post your thoughts on the problem, Herbert? I think
>many people would like you to participate in the discussion.
Gee, Don, I was under the impression that Herbert had posted his
thoughts on the subject, several times. How on earth did you manage to
miss them? Were you too busy handling orders at the Waffle House?
--
Maddi Hausmann Sojourner mad...@netcom.com
Centigram Communications Corp San Jose California 408/428-3553
Ask me about my recent lobotomy!
Bob Smart
john_...@romeo.fidonet.bbs.no (john white) writes:
> MV> From: m...@athena.cas.vanderbilt.edu (Mike Vermillion)
> Why causes you to think validation of any hypothesis about violence is
> possible?
If it isn't testable, then it isn't a hypothesis (by definition).
---------
A fanatic is someone who does what he knows that God would do if God knew the
facts of the case.
Bob Smart
>
> Now for your reply. You are claiming that humanity is genetically
> violent. This may be true, it may not be. Neither of us know for sure.
> Humanity has a long history of violence, but this does not justify any
> violence that is going on now.
A long history of violence among humans may not justify further
violence, in the sense of providing a moral basis for it--but the
existence of such a history would suggest that further violence should
be expected. It may not be morally defensible, but it certainly
shouldn't come as a complete surprise. Whether the mechanisms that
produce the violence are genetic or something else, one might reasonably
expect that as long as those mechanisms are in operation, the violence
will continue.
> So this is the completion of your thread? All I can do is ask the
> same question that someone else asked, "What is your point?" It does not
> address the fact that crime is higher in cities than in rural areas.
Well, maybe it does, at that: if humans are naturally violent, then it
would make sense to find a lot of violence where one finds a lot of
humans. There's another interpretation, though, that goes beyond mere
population density measurements:
> It does not address why crime is higher in America than in any other country.
> It does not even address why violence is greater amoung blacks than whites,
> which is something you pointed out and asserted that this was genetically
> related.
Well, perhaps Mr. White is actually implying that, since he now contends
that violence is a general trait of humans, the lower level of violence
in rural areas, outside the US, and among white people is a sign that
ruralites, non-Americans, and white people are quantifiably subhuman?
Herbert Rutledge
|> Why don't you post your thoughts on the problem, Herbert? I think
|> many people would like you to participate in the discussion.
Why bother, when you won't listen to anything that anyone else has to
say, let alone me? I sent you a list of ten things that I thing may
play a major role in criminal behavior in poor neighborhoods. I also
sent you the names and authors of two books that address some of the
major points you have been making and which supply a view very different
from those of Murray. As with virtually everything else that anyone
has posted in response to your claims, you dismiss all of this as being
"unpersuasive." I bet you haven't even *read* the two books I mentioned.
At least, I've read Charles Murray, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, and the
editorial page of _The Wall Street Journal_, the sources *you* have
cited.
I'm grateful to Steve Casburn for providing an opportunity for me to play
the records of Bob Dylan for the first time in over 15 years. Dylan
certainly had *your* number:
You have many contacts among the lumberjacks
To get you facts when someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect; they all expect you to
Give a check to tax-deductible charity organizations.
Well, you've been with the professors and they all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read, it's well known
But you know something's happening here and you don't know what it is,
Do you, Mr. Jones?
Herbert Rutledge
|> Why don't you post your thoughts on the problem, Herbert? I think
|> many people would like you to participate in the discussion.
1. Charles Murray's book "Losing Ground" was published ten years ago
and uses data that is somewhat older. Current data from the Census
Bureau suggests that the illegitimacy rate among blacks has been falling
for the past several years. Murray's book is a political work that
advances a case for the elimination of welfare; specifically, ADC. I
am simply trying to suggest that it might be more profitable to look at
data from a wider time frame, including up to the present, to discern
what the situation was in the past, what it is today, and what the
trends might indicate. Murray is arguing a cause and effect case that
I strongly suspect may not stand up to close scrutiny.
2. As an aside to McGregor, the FBI released the Uniform Crime Report
statistics last week. Unlike what Don McGregor has suggested, the rate
of violent crime has been decreasing substantially since the late 1980s.
In the press release that accompanied the report it was stated that while
many Americans feel that violent crime is out of control, this is not
born out by the statistics.
3. Charles Krauthammer, in an editorial syndicated today, attempts to
bolster Murray's case by bringing in Elija Anderson, a sociologist
at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of last year's book
"Streetwise." Krauthammer talks about a paper delivered last week
by Anderson at a meeting of the American Enterprise Institute, in which
Anderson spoke about the cultural attitudes in poor neighborhoods
that reinforce illegitimate births. Krauthammer describes the area
where Anderson did his research as "...an inner-city Philadelphia
community, one of the poorest and most blighted in the country." I
know perfectly well where this neighborhood is located in West Philly.
I would be happy to show Krauthammer dozens that are far worse; and
that's without even crossing the bridge into Camden. Krauthammer
summarizes "Losing Ground," and then gives a description of his own
remarks to the assembled as to how welfare had to be eliminated. He
continues, "It is a mark of how far the debate on welfare policy has
come that my proposal drew respectful disagreement from only about
half the panel --- including, I should stress, Professor Anderson."
I've read "Streetwise," so I'm not surprised that Anderson demurred.
But this is the American Enterprise Institute, for crying out loud!
I'm just another geek on the Net, not a nationally syndicated
columnist. But if I couldn't get half of *those* people to agree
with me, I'd seriously wonder if there was something wrong with my
assumptions!
4. As Don Coolidge has pointed out, Murray, Krauthammer, and Barbara
Dafoe Whitehead are not researchers. They are arguing partisan
positions. They are offering their opinions. Anderson, on the
other hand, *is* a researcher. What was his response to the American
Enterprise Institute? Quoting from Krauthammer: "[Anderson] argued
that the better answer is giving the young men jobs and hope through
training and education for a changing economy." These are some of
the same conclusions that I have come to. And it's based on the kinds
of things that Garrett Johnson, Don Coolidge, Spencer PriceNash, and
myself have been trying to say to Don McGregor. *We're* speaking
as urbanites with some first-hand knowledge of the situation. If
McGregor wants to dismiss this, as he has, as lacking statistical
rigor and curl up with the comforts of a political tract on the
subject that uses data of questionable relevance and timliness,
that is his right. After all, it's a free country. But why is he
posting here? That's what I can't figure out.
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <1993Nov22....@pony.Ingres.COM>, gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>>
>> Now for your reply. You are claiming that humanity is genetically
>> violent. This may be true, it may not be. Neither of us know for sure.
>> Humanity has a long history of violence, but this does not justify any
>> violence that is going on now.
>
>A long history of violence among humans may not justify further
>violence, in the sense of providing a moral basis for it--but the
>existence of such a history would suggest that further violence should
>be expected. It may not be morally defensible, but it certainly
>shouldn't come as a complete surprise. Whether the mechanisms that
>produce the violence are genetic or something else, one might reasonably
>expect that as long as those mechanisms are in operation, the violence
>will continue.
Quite true. But why does one place have more violence than another? And
what are these mechanisms? And more importantly than anything else, why
have violent crime become more prevelant in recent years in this country?
>
>> So this is the completion of your thread? All I can do is ask the
>> same question that someone else asked, "What is your point?" It does not
>> address the fact that crime is higher in cities than in rural areas.
>
>Well, maybe it does, at that: if humans are naturally violent, then it
>would make sense to find a lot of violence where one finds a lot of
>humans.
So someone finds a diamond in this expanse of rough. Of course, this, I
believe, has already been covered by urbanization. Don says that this isn't
a reason. Is John saying that it is a reason?
> There's another interpretation, though, that goes beyond mere
>population density measurements:
>
>> It does not address why crime is higher in America than in any other country.
>> It does not even address why violence is greater amoung blacks than whites,
>> which is something you pointed out and asserted that this was genetically
>> related.
>
>Well, perhaps Mr. White is actually implying that, since he now contends
>that violence is a general trait of humans, the lower level of violence
>in rural areas, outside the US, and among white people is a sign that
>ruralites, non-Americans, and white people are quantifiably subhuman?
>
Now that's a twist.
>
>A fanatic is someone who does what he knows that God would do if God knew the
>facts of the case.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
gar...@ingres.com
>In article <1993Nov19.2...@pony.Ingres.COM> gar...@Ingres.COM writes:
>
>>Now we are getting somewhere. Why do you think it is the single greatest
>>cause? I ask this because you never addressed my question of why it would
>>be such a major cause of crime in America, but Europe, which has a high
>>illigitimacy rate as well, doesn't have the crime rate we do.
>
>We can run down the list. I boils down to something like "culture",
>which I dislike because it's too vague and it annoys me. So
>I zeroed in on the aspects that seemed to affect culture the most.
>It's sort of hard to overlook the dramatic changes in family
>structure over the same time period, which I think we can agree
>has an effect on the overall tone and tenor of society.
>
Agreement so far.
>The major changes in family structure got going after 1965 or
>so.
I thought the nuclear family really started in the 50's. Although if you
took the route that this only reached the blacks around 1965 or so, then I
would agree to a large extent.
> That suggests the earlier portion was affected by demographics,
>which is an important aspect of crime and culture. But since
>then the crime rate has stayed high. That suggests other factors
>taking over as time went by. This factor has to be hugely
>powerful to offset the demographic changes, not to mention
>the general state of unrest in 1965-1975.
>
Your train of logic is breaking down here. What are you trying to say?
>There's decent sociological evidence that family breakdown is
>associated with high crime, so the correlation in time is
>backed up by a plausible mechanism.
>
Fair 'nuff. But why don't you lay equal blame on the high divorce rate
which came about around the same time?
>Anyway, US culture is sufficiently different that the same
>objective conditions might cause very different results.
>
Can you expand on this? How is it so different?
>>Well, let's take them seperately. When I said the War on Drugs, what was
>>vague about that? A bigger crackdown without cutting demand causes prices
>>to go up and making it more dangerous, hence, lots of violence.
>
>The other problem is that some of the "causes" mentioned are overlapping,
>or different expressions of the same problem. Kids shoot
>each over for drugs? Is that caused by the drugs, or by the lack
>of structures that discourage them from getting into the trade?
When there is big money in something spread throughout society, _someone_
is going to get into it. I would point at the drugs without question.
>I might say both, and not contradict myself. Anyway, gangs might
>well still exist even without drugs. Perhaps at a lower level
>of violence, though.
>
Considerably lower.
>It might be interesting to compare the prohibition murder and
>crime rate to the late 80's crime rate. Dunno if UCR reports
>go back that far.
>
They do. I've seen them. The crime rate was on the rise before the
Constitutional Amendment, but it really started shooting up after it.
And the homicide rate started lowering after it was repealed, eventhough
there was a Depression going on. I don't have exact numbers on me though.
>Don McGregor | The Fabio of Cyberspace
>mcg...@crl.com |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Woodard
He's posting here because he knows that a sizable minority of the people on
the Net, in this forum, tend to be freshmen or sophomore white males who don't
know anything about statistics or research or even much about what they're
talking about. He also knows that opinion, unbuttressed by evidence, carries
weight among the true believers that frequent here.
Spencer V. PriceNash
> statistics last week. Unlike what Don McGregor has suggested, the rate
> of violent crime has been decreasing substantially since the late 1980s.
> In the press release that accompanied the report it was stated that while
> many Americans feel that violent crime is out of control, this is not
> born out by the statistics.
I worked on that data up until a couple years ago, and can attest: the
UCR is correct in its findings, though I always wondered about Florida.
If you ever look at that state's data, you would be surprised to find
they reported nothing for years. I wonder why...anyway. Note that the
UCR tally Index Crimes (felonies) and arsons. There is a breakdown of
misdemeanors as well, but those usually aren't paid much attention.
I should note that the UCR reflect crimes that were reported to police
departments. This does not mean all known crimes. One must go to the
National Crime Survey (NCS) for that. The NCS interviews households and
asks what crimes happened to the people therein. We all know folks who
had crimes committed that they didn't call cops about (bouncers don't
report all assaults, "domestic crimes" aren't reported, fights over
drugs or children, of course...). As a result, the NCS tends to be
"inflated", but are an ideal companion of the UCR. Taken together, the
UCR and NCS give a pretty darn accurate statistical point of view of
crime in the United States.
In any case, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) will release a
square-bound report on the UCR and the NCS, with nice full-color charts
and graphs and all that. (If you go back enough years, you'll see my
name in a report. My claim to fame. Thank ghod for FORTRAN.) That'll
give TONS of info, enough to confuse, befuddle, and amuse until the next
year's report is released.