Crime in the US

[DougShrapnel]

I was reading the book Freakonomics and I found something interesting. Based on the statistics gathered, the authors where able to determine that the main cause of the massive and continued drop in crime rates in 1993 was abortion. I found it interesting for several reasons.

The competency of our leadership. Of all the reasons sited for the drop in crime (strong economy, gun control laws, policing strategies, and others) which all seemed reasonable, have little effect on crime reduction. It seems as if experts have little idea of what they are talking about. Are we being lead astray?

Abortion as a crime prevention technique? To talk of abortion as a crime prevention technique may disguist some people. So a point I'd like to make is, If abortion is ever re-illegalized, we must be sure to expand our welfare system, to ensure our safety and the safety of the children we save. An illegal abortion costed about 500 and well off people where able to afford them. And I'm sure the rich broke the law a dispropotional amount of the time versus the poor. Two factors that lead to children becoming criminals are living in poverty and being born to a single parent. So the children that are born thru anti-abortion laws have a much greater chance of becoming criminals that those are killed illegaly.

When moral codes no longer benefit society, do they need to be replaced? When the bible was writen until into the recent past, a child gained a family finiancily (my numbers aren't correct) Let just say you could put your child to work and he/she was worth (adj for inflation) 20k a year. Whereas, in todays world, a child is a 30k a year debt for 18yrs. So go ahead and eat some ham.

I write this in this forum because of the aurthors proposed worth of a fetus vs newborn was 100 fetuses = 1 newborn. There are roughly 1.5 million abortions in the US each year. Or equavilate to 15,000 lost lifes. Which is far more then the number of homicides eliminated each year due to the legalization of abortion. Besides the obvious answers of 1:1 or no ammount of fetuses is worth 1 newborn what other numbers might make more sense?

The author then goes on to say that when a government gives a woman the opportunity to make her own decisions, she generally does a good job of figuring out if she is in a position to raise the baby well.

Why do we let goverment make any choices for us? We hired them to protect our freedom, not to enslave us. What other choices is goverment making on our behalf immorally and without cause? Why in a country that holds separtion of church and state, does goverment demand specific religious moral values and teaching higher than scientific explaintion? Is our goverment using its army to attack and murder people from other nations and religions, instead of protecting us.

[SheetWise]

You can get a lot of information from Kaiser Family Foundation here.


population by race/ethnicity

births by race/ethnicity

Poverty rate by race/ethnicity

[SheetWise]

[ QUOTE ]
I write this in this forum because of the aurthors proposed worth of a fetus vs newborn was 100 fetuses = 1 newborn. There are roughly 1.5 million abortions in the US each year. Or equavilate to 15,000 lost lifes. Which is far more then the number of homicides eliminated each year due to the legalization of abortion.

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What sick and twisted calculus is being used here?

[tek]

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Why do we let goverment make any choices for us? We hired them to protect our freedom, not to enslave us. What other choices is goverment making on our behalf immorally and without cause?

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We don't intentionally do this, but when it comes to religion and government the tail soon wags the dog. They both grow in power and influence similar to bacteria. Any beneficial aspects are soon replaced with control and coercion.

[DougShrapnel]

Although interesting I'm not sure what the links you gave imply? What's missing is births to impoverished parents.


As far as the wicked calculus is concerned. It's purley for arguments sake. Faced with the task of being forced to sacrafice the life of 1 newborn for a terminate number of fetuses, what number would you chose? It's nothing more than a thought exercise - obviouosly there is no right answer - but it may help to clarify abortions impact on crime.

[DougShrapnel]

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We don't intentionally do this, but when it comes to religion and government the tail soon wags the dog. They both grow in power and influence similar to bacteria. Any beneficial aspects are soon replaced with control and coercion.

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Determining right and wrong is a difficult and time consuming task. It's also subjective and open to interpretation. I've always hoped that smarter and more dedicated persons would make correct decisions so I wouldn't have to. Church and government seem overly concerned with retention and acquisition of power and not right and wrong.

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I write this in this forum because of the aurthors proposed worth of a fetus vs newborn was 100 fetuses = 1 newborn.

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Well, IMO all lives have zero worth objectivly

For those who disagree with me, I have some questions:

When does a 'life' become worth anything? the nanosecond after a sperm touches an egg for example?

And whenever you think life begins, do you think a human life one nanosecond after it begins is worth a human life who is say 3 years old?

If you can't answer that question, here is an alternate:

Two humans are about to die, you have the power to save one

One is a 3 year old, one is a human life who's only been alive for one nanosecond, which one do you save?

Basically I think the whole notion of all lives objectivly worth the same amount is wrong

And for those who think that lives have worth objectivly, but not always equal to one another, I have questions for you:

How can they differ in total worth? The only near-logical thing I can think of is by time

But even this is strange, suppose two humans came into existence at the exact same time, but one developes and grows and matures faster etc (I'm pretty sure this happens in the real world)

Are they still always worth the exact same?

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... government seem overly concerned with retention and acquisition of power and not right and wrong.

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While I agree that government is too preoccupied with retaining power, but do you really want government spending more time focusing on right and wrong (by politician's own standards of course, or those of their contributors or voting blocks)? How about government focusing on those aspects chartered to it by the people and not doing anything else?

[DougShrapnel]

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While I agree that government is too preoccupied with retaining power, but do you really want government spending more time focusing on right and wrong (by politician's own standards of course, or those of their contributors or voting blocks)?

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Well there are examples I can think of. For instance not taxing the poor while allowing the poor to enjoy the same benefits afluent persons have. However I think that we government does a horrible job of it. The legal system rewards the weathly. State Lotteries are a way in which government is able to tax and borrow without interest from the poor and lower classes. Ethical treatment of lawbreakers/prisoners should also be left to government. They do a inadequate job of that as well.

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How about government focusing on those aspects chartered to it by the people and not doing anything else?

[/ QUOTE ] This is the ideal solution I think, and isn't anywhere close to the current state of government today.