Bill Bennett

[€uroMeinke]

Large Corporation donate to both parties, generally more money goes to the party in power. Their motivation is not based in party politics, rather influencing those in power to favor their industry. I bet Tyson donated more to the Dem when they lived in the whitehouse.

[scaeagles]

Yep - it's protection money.

[Alex]

The racism in Bennett's remarks come not form the statistical correctness or incorrectness of the result he posits, but from the misidentification of root cause.

Blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites, this is true. But to say that a way to reduce crime is to reduce blacks (even if you personally reject the method of doing so) is to suggest that being black is what causes the increased rate of criminality. It is not.

Poverty is the factor that increases criminality. Middle class blacks do not commit crimes at a rate higher than middle class whites. Poor blacks do not commit crimes at a significantly higher rate than poor whites (and much of what difference does exist can be explained by the urban/rural split).

So the proper thing for Bennett to say would be that if you wanted to reduce the crime rate you could abort all poor babies (which would disproportionately affect blacks since they are disproportionately, for whatever reason, poor).

I don't think it was the most racist thing in the world, but I do think it is revealing that for Bennett the link seems to be more black = crime than poverty = crime so that when he was coming up with an example off the cuff that is the direction he went.

Bennett's larger point, that arguing abortion on anything other than simple moral grounds smacks of eugenics is certainly valid and employing the example he did is not necessarily racist, but the implicit assumption of what he said is.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Everyone needs to read Freakonomics. It's an awesome, eye-opening book.

[Alex]

I didn't get very far into Freakonomics before their softness of reasoning irritated me beyond reading farther. Frequently they seemed to be picking some correlation and implying causations not necessarily shown in the information they provide.

Look at the real estate case they provide showing that agents underprice their clients homes in order to get an easier commission. As evidence of this they point out that real estate agents sell their own homes at higher prices and leave them on the market longer.

They just leave it as assumed that this means that the agents are underselling the client homes while putting in the extra work on their own homes without sufficient examination of any other factors that might produce this difference (for example, perhaps the sell motiviations are different between the normal client and a real estate agent).

I'll probably try to slog through the rest at some point because so many people keep referencing it. But just as I tend to discount the pop psych books this seems a bit like a pop economics book. Though it does raise interesting questions I didn't see them really answering any (at least not in the first 50 pages or so).

[Not Afraid]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

The racism in Bennett's remarks come not form the statistical correctness or incorrectness of the result he posits, but from the misidentification of root cause.

Blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites, this is true. But to say that a way to reduce crime is to reduce blacks (even if you personally reject the method of doing so) is to suggest that being black is what causes the increased rate of criminality. It is not.

Poverty is the factor that increases criminality. Middle class blacks do not commit crimes at a rate higher than middle class whites. Poor blacks do not commit crimes at a significantly higher rate than poor whites (and much of what difference does exist can be explained by the urban/rural split).

So the proper thing for Bennett to say would be that if you wanted to reduce the crime rate you could abort all poor babies (which would disproportionately affect blacks since they are disproportionately, for whatever reason, poor).

I don't think it was the most racist thing in the world, but I do think it is revealing that for Bennett the link seems to be more black = crime than poverty = crime so that when he was coming up with an example off the cuff that is the direction he went.

Bennett's larger point, that arguing abortion on anything other than simple moral grounds smacks of eugenics is certainly valid and employing the example he did is not necessarily racist, but the implicit assumption of what he said is.

I just had to quote the entire thing because it is so right on. You stated what I was thinking much better than I could.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

I didn't get very far into Freakonomics before their softness of reasoning irritated me beyond reading farther.
<snip>
Though it does raise interesting questions I didn't see them really answering any (at least not in the first 50 pages or so).

I agree with all your assertions, even though I enjoyed it very much. The book cautions that this isn't cause/effect information, simply correlations, and carefully delineates the difference. I took the information as it was. Yes, it doesn't answer questions. But it made me look at things from a different angle, and encouraged me to ask who stands to gain from any given scenario.

[Not Afraid]

LOL! I was reading the Amazon reviews of Freakonimics to see if my gut instinct was correct. I had to laugh at the last line of one of the reviews:

Don't waste your money on this book, as I did. Blow your cash on illicit substances or gambling instead - you'll learn a lot more about economics that way.

Some people have such a joyous way of summerizing.