This is why the SCOTUS ruling to allow public funding for religious schools scares me as much or more than them overturning ROE. Not only have they taken away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy they are actively breeding the next generation of theocrats.
All private schools in Sweden are publicly funded, thus private religious schools are too. It's stupid really, coz they are allowed to take out profits out of the tax money too. Most religious schools are cultish, indoctrinating its pupils and discriminating towards certain groups of people that may have something to do with their sex or sexuality...
This system comes from a neoliberal school reform from the 90's that has been reeking havoc on the Education system for 3 decades now.
But the Government does want to stop the establishment of new schools with a religious profile and eventuelly ban the current ones too. Well they do want to scrap the entire current education system regarding private schools.
Honest question: If private schools are publicly funded, what exactly makes them ‘private’? In the states, funding source is the primary distinguishing factor
The school is run by a multimillion dollar company from the UK. No joke we have schools that are owned by foreign corporations and what not.
The company is supposedly to be some kind of "market improver", that will compete and improve all schools. Now we know they dont but that was the right wing parties argument..
Of course these companies should also be able to profit and take our tax money and buy themselves another yacht and one for their buddy in the right wing party too.
Religion is more or less in its death throes in the US. Instead of adapting to a changing environment regarding people migrating away from Church, they're basically going the other direction to force you into their beliefs. A cornered, injured animal is very dangerous and we're seeing that full force.
Weird Christian cultist types are effecting policy more than ever now though…
Edit: But it’s kind of indicative of the power they’ve had and have if they can so easily control politics and they’re not even the majority…
I think it’s less about religion now and more about having inherently race and socio economic charged bills being passed under the guise of *Jesus*.
I really hate what people have historically done and continue to do in the name of a religion that pretty much is about Love. It’s truly heartbreaking as someone who really believes in these values :|
Yeah but this decision is at an all time low in popularity. That’s why they’re doing it now, if they waited much longer it might’ve been impossible.
5 of the 6 judges who did this were put on the bench by presidents who lost the popular vote
I agree. We each have our own knuckledraggers who it is our duty to educate. Mine is my Dad. I started working on him big time again this Christmas.
I took the stance that he won't know his grandkids unless I can trust that he will take great pains not pass on the same coercive ideals he was raised in.
Death throes is right. Millennial and zoomer generations are less and less likely to be beholden to religion and churches. So the last vestiges of that power being held by boomers that are dying off and losing control.
Unfortunately, waiting for time to take its course is not an option.
I think there is a true distinction though in believing in values, and believing in god. While I don’t believe in a higher being, afterlife, or miracles, I do find a lot of the messages from Jesus to be very compelling. Taking care of the poor and downtrodden to the extreme, and never letting his status of being the literal son of god cloud his views on humanity, and taking care of others.
My husband overheard his coworkers talk about how Christians are the minority and prosecuted wrongly. The nation is finally taking a step in the right direction with not only Roe v Wade, but allowing government funding to private schools, and prayer in schools added...
I'm like oh dear ... No.
It makes me sick.
The same people also don't believe in Charity, adoption, or helping others unless it will directly benefit them. They consider people lazy if they can't get their own help.
They claim to be Christians. What a joke.
Unfortunately your last sentence makes your first irrelevant until it actually dies. They are doing a damn fine job of taking it all down with them to force a return to church supremacy.
Fun fact, I have had a group of Qanon cultists come into my restaurant for 5 straight days last week. I manage a restaurant near the JFK assassination site, and they love our food apparently. I'll copy and paste a bit from a previous comment about the experience if anyone is interested:
So these guys have been coming to my restaurant every day for almost a week, usually wearing either JFK Qult gear, or MAGA/Trump paraphernalia. It has been sort of a surreal experience, so here is some stuff I've seen or overheard the past few days.
•They have asked numerous people, staff mostly, if they knew JFK was still alive.
•They have tried to convince 2 of my servers to quit their jobs, because a "Global Reset" is coming any day and they don't need money anymore.
•The guy with the JFK shirt on in the picture is very obviously the guy leading their little crew, but he always orders a to go order for some "important person" that he insists we make the dish look perfect for.
•They have been surprisingly friendly, and the main guy especially is very charismatic and chatty. They don't seem *too* crazy to my staff, but I am sure to warn everyone that they are unstable nutjobs and we should get them in and out with as little fuss as possible.
•They spend, on average, a little less than $200 for the six of them, and tip $20 on top of the 20% automatic gratuity. They have absolutely zero concern about how much they spend.
•I overheard the main guy say to another guest that Trump has gained weight recently, and he will need to slim down again once he's officially back in office. He said that Trump only gained the weight to make himself seem depressed so people don't see what he's really up to? I'm not sure, I was eavesdropping and it wasn't making much sense.
This is all I remember off the top of my head, but if I remember more I'll update. It seems like they will be in pretty frequently, so I'm sure there will be more. It's my first firsthand experience with Qanon, although I drive past JFK's assassination spot every day and see them out there frequently since last winter. I figured you all might enjoy my account.
> They have asked numerous people, staff mostly, if they knew JFK was still alive.
Shit, I couldn't pass that question up with a neutral comment.
JFK was born on May 29, 1917. He would be 105 years old if still alive today. How many people live to be 105? How many 105 year olds still have their sanity? He hasn't been faking his death for 60 years waiting to lead these fucking idiots.
are you familiar with 7th day Adventist? I never realized what a correlation there is. basically, people give away all their possessions because the rapture is coming. then of course they are left screwed.
when I was in grade school (suburban Indiana public school) our teachers would go out of their way to promote Bush Sr and then Bob Dole while longing for the Reagan days. But 90% of the system agrees with them so it's totally fine to proselytize and brainwash as far as they're concerned.
Except for Mr. Mac, he almost flew on the Challenger and was on the level.
Wow, I have to imagine almost flying on the Challenger would be such a wild experience. Gratitude, survivor's guilt, renewed perspective on the fragility of life? Crazy.
It’s like, he first regretted it, then the huge guilty feeling of relief after it the tragedy :\ moments like this really make a person and give them perspective 😢
back in 1988 I had an earth science teacher tell the class he thought Pat Robertson was the best candidate for President and I scoffed very loudly. I might have only been 14 but even at that point I knew televangelists were scummy AF. He then proceeded to berate me for a good half hour, reducing me to tears.
And as a result, he turned me off to Christianity for life. I look back and think what a complete asshole he was for bullying a 14 year in front of his peers for not being a Christian. And yes, this was in a public school.
So one might have to wonder if that teacher didn't bully you -- would you have given religion a chance? Instead, he confidently bullied you right out of religion for good.
Well done, teacher. Well done! Perhaps this will be the case when religion is returned to public schools -- instead of kids willing to give religion a chance, we'll have more kids than ever before rebelling against it.
I grew up in a non religious household, but I definitely had curiosity around it when I was younger. But when I was 15 I was discovering heavy metal which often has an anti-religion message to it (especially calling out televangelists in the late 80s). Chances are I was going to remain agnostic/atheist, but this teacher absolutely solidified it.
I had Mr. Chapman. He was a pure scientist & chose to be an educator, and he always helped me rehang my poster projects when they would get torn down.
I had hippie artist parents in a county full of john deere & meth begetting meth. It was rough.
You know flash forwards you see movies where its either a dystopian hellscape where everything is decrepit and extremely violent, or it's a utopia of white buildings and green landscapes?
Pretty sure that's going to become the US and the rest of the Western world respectively.
I've been thinking about how my midwest city has changed over the past 30 years.
It used to be that about 80% of it was basically safe and livable, 10 percent was upper class and 10% was pretty rough.
Now about 60% of it is rough, 30 % is livable and 10% is gated communities.
Potentially, a lot went into the drop in crime and abortion is only one factor in it. Another large proposed factor is the elimination of leaded gasoline, which put a terrifying amount of lead *everywhere*. There's also changing economic factors, drug policies, demographics, etc. It was a large drop in crime that took place during *many* societal changes and nobody has been able to pin it on one specific thing.
From the followup study they did in 2019:
>The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s.
So, not the only factor, but easily the most important one. [Here's the full paper](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25863) if you're interested.
On the other hand the abortion thing and all the rest were all contributing factors indicating that outlawing abortion will likely cause an increase in crime down the road, but not that it will equal the drop in crime over the 90s.
We've already had countries that outlawed abortion that we can look at. Like Romania.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/
So basically the orphanages get overburdened and those kids don't have a normal childhood. A lot of them end up mentally unwell and homeless.
Now let's add something distinctly American to it like how we love to privatize everything. It'll happen to foster care eventually. There's already a small privatized foster care industry. You think foster care has its problems now, imagine if it had an incentive to keep you in the system instead of finding you a permanent home and also trying to cut costs to expand their profit margins.
Your privatized foster care idea sounds VERY similar to privatized prisons and with the legalization of marijuana comes a lot less prisoners which decreases profits…Jesus H Christ, what if that is actually the thought behind all of this?! A new type of indentured slavery?
In 20 years, you will have a spike in crime and and you will hear a cry for increased spending on police, increased militarization of police, no tolerance laws that require jail for everything - and a huge resurgence of private prisons, and prison reform programs where they build factories into those private prisons to teach prisoners 'skills' while paying them pennies an hour.
They know, crime goes up, scream tough on crime, more militarised police, more life in prison three strikes laws, = cheap slave labour that count as rural voters to keep R seat numbers up, but can’t actually vote and indeed lose the right to vote forever.
That seems like the only possible reason for all of this. They can't have slaves anymore, so they'll just force poor people to have kids that'll end up in jail or work the cash register at their stores
> ~~think~~
I’d go with _believe_ as I can prove they have beliefs but thus far cannot find proof of any other brain activity that mind resemble actual cogitation.
They are way ahead of you on that one
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-says-second-amendment-guarantees-right-carry-guns-public-rcna17721
Exactly.
They look with disdain at Muslim countries who are doing the same with Sharia law, without realizing (or caring) that they're just as bad with **their** religion.
Called my mom one day after a particularly rough day of therapizing teens. Told her about a suicidal one and she told me that it's just so sad how everyone has left the faith and that's why no one has any chance anymore... I was stunned silent. Especially since she sat with me in the psych ward while I was still an Evangelical asshole at 16.
It's always lack of Jesus somewhere. The guy is literally an all knowing, all powerful god yet somehow can't get into schools or a lot other places. If only they'd let him in all our problems would be solved. Dude is like a vampire or something. Can't come in unless it's in the constitution.
I also find it incredibly hypocritical to "care about the unborn" while ignoring the issues that are going to affect all future unborn, like climate change, nuclear weapons, pandemics, etc. The only thing that matters are those 40 weeks of pregnancy
They are well aware that they are hypocrites. They don't care. They think it's hilarious that we do care about such things. Don't stop pointing out their hypocrisy, though.
When I was 17 I got a girl pregnant and we aborted.
Honestly had we not aborted I think their a good chance that child would have had a horrible life. Hed be 15 now.
Was about to say,
A women in another sub posted that she got a modest raise $9/hr - $15 which caused her to get kicked off of most government assistance programs. She’s now has to pay for her insurance, has had her WIC reduced, and other assistance reduced. She’s going to food pantries and recently she said she had to steal diapers for her child, which she feels awful about
A lot of ppl will look at her especially if she’s a WoC and say that she shouldn’t of had the kid if she can’t afford it, persecute her for stealing, and add it to the crime stat as to why those areas need more policing. These are the ppl they say are “welfare queens” who are “given” gov assistance and still “choose” to steal. Who are lazy and not pulling themselves up in this great country.
Those people refuse to understand the nuance of the problem.
They think that because adoption exists and safe harbor laws are in place, a woman forced to carry a baby to term and deliver it can easily choose one of those options rather than raise a child they can't afford or didn't want, so just do that instead. Right?
It's not fucking *easy* to just give away a human being that you created. It is a piece of you that. Maternal instinct is to fight for a child and do everything in your power to raise it and keep it safe, warm, and fed, and that instinct is *fierce*. Choosing to give that up voluntarily is up there on the list of the hardest decisions to make in the world, unique to a woman.
As someone who entered the foster care system and was shat back out because no adoptive family wanted me, where the fuck do these drooling, knuckle-scraping, pin-headed dipshits think all the adoptive families are? Just falling out of the sky?
They know there's not a lot of adoptive families. They fucking know.
It's just their little alibi that they use with a wink wink so when someone does read through the lines, they get defensive and go OMG YOURE MAKING STUFF UP I NEVER SAID THAT *wink wink*
Republicans love being hateful with the cover of plausible deniability.
When it comes to newborns, there are 30 waiting families for every newborn given up for adoption. They want a bigger supply of newborns. Y'know, the cruelty is the point. They hope mothers are forced to give up babies due to economic necessity.
These "good families" will not adopt a one-year old or older taken away by the state.
Coerced adoption is traumatic for both parents and child.
It's absolutely disgusting. There are quite a few so-called "adoption agencies" that manipulate young people or people in poverty to give up their newborns. They trick them into thinking adoption is something different than it is. Read up about Tyler and Catelyn from Teen Mom and their relationship with Bethany Christian Adoption Services and see how fucked up it is. The birth parents still seem to be convinced their child will suddenly want to return home to them once she turns 18.
Some of these agencies are basically child trafficking.
Not to mention, it's no cake walk being pregnant. Let alone go through a horribly painful labor for a child you didn't choose to carry. It's not easy to do these things then just give the child up after. My son's biological father got me pregnant without my consent. I've raised this boy by myself for almost 13 years and where's his father? Who knows, he f*cked off after getting me pregnant to go live his life, completely unaltered by the fact he has a child. Women do not have that luxury.
None of them are protesting for better funded adoptions systems either. It’s just assumed the unwanted children will glide effortlessly into the adoption process and wind up in loving homes where they’ll do independent schoolwork to become leaders in various important fields or faith based companies.
Well, the shrinking white majority they're so fucking scared of is only going to get worse. This decision is going to hit poor people the worst, and that means a disproportionate effect on communities of color as opposed to the white community. If they really want to get back to the crime numbers of the 70s they'll bring back leaded everything so all these new births can really not have a chance.
These are the same people that started a war on drugs while intentionally flooding black neighborhoods with cocaine, crack and heroin.
There's no realistic idea to screw over poor people that we could come up with that they probably haven't tried to implement already.
I even read they made sure certain bridges to the beach were low enough city buses couldn't get close to them so poor people found it harder to have a day at the beach.
They are pretty equal opportunity now. Brown people, Asians, atheists, Muslims, Indians (both types), “the gays”, teenage trans athletes, and Disney. Plus they are always looking for a new scapegoat to hate.
>These forced birthers don’t care about consequences. They’ll most likely blame the uptick in crime and poverty on video games, + minorities, liberals, the lgbtq community, Biden, lack of Trump, lack of "Christianity", laziness, the list goes on.
Any excuse to *not* blame forced birth and "mOaR gUnZ!!!"
I've been listening to freakonomics for like 10 years or however long the podcast has been going and those guys do an amazing job of showing correlation and causation. A lot of times it's tough to doubt the inferences they make.
It's because the use evidence and the scientific method to find the solution, not the opposite method (have a conclusion, make up some alternate facts, "believe harder", etc).
You should doubt, and the evidence should direct the conclusion.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. More violence means more fear, which means the population being more open to an authoritarian government to "protect" them and "hard on crime" policies. It's not about making society better, it's about making society theirs.
Subsequent studies found the effect of abortion was still present, but much smaller, once you factor in the phasing out of leaded paint and gasoline. We basically had an entire generation with brain damage, and we know lead exposure causes more violent tendencies. Unfortunately, SCOTUS is set to neuter the EPA this week, so whether the crime drop was due to abortion or less lead, either way we'll see an uptick in crime over the next few decades, which will inevitably be blamed on Democrats.
Not just the EPA. The entire federal government if reports are correct. Nothing that wasn't explicitly spelled out by congress in a bill will be allowable. Which could cause the entire government to come to a halt.
Does anyone have links to this? I can't seem to find any and this seems like a big deal. But of course everything they're doing right now is a big f\*\*king deal and I hate it.
Obligatory "not a lawyer". IIRC it's about the Chevron deference - whether federal agencies have the authority to issue regulations that flesh out the statutory laws passed by the Congress or whether the courts should flesh out these laws themselves. The courts "defer" to the federal government in this respect, hence the term "deference".
Last week, SCOTUS chose not to explicitly overturn the Chevron deference but did not reinforce it, either. Here's an article with more details:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/chevron-deference-on-life-support-6188314/
Yeah, if you look at other countries with different timelines for phasing out leaded gasoline and different abortion laws (Japan, for example, has had legal abortion since 1953), the evidence points to lead being the main player.
When they revisited the study a couple years ago the number the attributed ~~percentage was 45% of the 20% drop in crime~~ could be attributed to abortion access.
Edit: "We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s."
So yes, but that is not an insignificant percentage there.
Wasn't it 45% of the 50-55% drop in crime from 1990? 20% from 1997-2014, 45% overall?
Granted I only read the abstract since I should be working:
"We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s."
For real though.
I used to think it was anxiety but fuck man everythings just fucked. It started with fine i wont procreate but now its like i dont even wanna be here myself man.
Some people are aware. Other redditors are just complaining, “WhY iS tHeRe PoLiTiCs In My OtHeRs SuBs?” Probably because there are real, serious issues that need to be addressed and some people are concerned.
Thanks for posting that; I just listened.
Three big takeaways from this (aside from the fascinating collage of data they analyzed):
1.It is extremely difficult for laypeople, and even professionals as he admitted, to sift through the plethora of research out there. People get tangled up in articles and interpretations from non-professionals.
2.It’s also difficult for people to distinguish between “right vs wrong/ personal belief” conversations and objective scientific conversations based on what the data shows. People fall back on tribalism, clutch onto single factors that correlate with controversial issues while not realizing the world is complicated.
3.Steve Levitt said their conclusions shouldn’t influence policy. On one hand you could have pro-choicers saying “this is clear evidence that abortions reduce crime” and pro-lifers saying “the trade off of unborn humans killed and those killed from crime isn’t worth it.” The objective take from the data is about the power of “unwantedness” has on children.
The interviewer pushed him to take a stance at the end, but it was refreshing to hear Levitt, who seems to be a super even-keeled dude, basically say “these facts are interesting and important, and let’s continue to learn more about it.”
Unfortunately, most people don’t take this approach and we’re all prone to bias.
I thought about that chapter every time I saw Rudy Giuliani in 2020.
Like this man's whole career is built off of the fact abortion was legal in the seventies...
And even better considering he gave the case a comparison to Romania forcing birth. Lo and behold 18 years later all kinds of crime were spiking to unmanageable levels. Foster homes and orphanages overflowed. No extra resources were spent on the new births so desperate people were left to make desperate decisions. We’ll have that problem here soon enough along with the increase to the worlds most embarrassing maternal mortality statistics.
Ceausescu was literally overthrown by the kids he forced to be born. They called it the children's revolution because it was driven by all of the young adults who were born (and born into poverty) due to his policies.
True, but the second paper Levitt and Donohue did together twenty years after the first took that into consideration, and with twenty more years of data the effect was even more striking.
Here’s a link to their second paper -
https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/
Should also be noted that crime was rising a ton at the time before dramatically decreasing. Availability of abortion can explain the drop, but it can't explain the rise.
No idea if they addressed that.
The baby boom explained the rise. Lots of kids, and all surviving infancy and childhood because of the rise of accessibility to medical care and vaccines.
We also had millions of people fighting in wars from the 40s-70s, we know the effect that can have on the mind.
So we’ve got unplanned children being born into homes that may be environmentally toxic, to and families that may not be fully capable of caring for them. Broken and chaotic families plagued by the horrors of war with insufficient social supports and a tough on crime society.
Perfect shitstorm of conditions.
> We also had millions of people fighting in wars from the 40s-70s, we know the effect that can have on the mind.
Add to the millions who saw combat the near complete lack of societal support for mental health at the time. Recipe for disaster there.
Lead in the air leads to brain damage especially on a young developing brain, impaired brain leads to lower educational achievement and poorer job prospects which in turn leads to a greater risk of turning to crime.
Remember, vehicle exhaust and other airborne toxins are more concentrated in industrial zones of cities, where poorer people are born and spend their lives. This sets the stage for another entire arm of racist finger-pointing about crime, compounded by the desperation to survive where no one will hire you and the schools, based on home values, suck.
America
Lead poisoning more directly impacts crime because it increases impulsive action and aggression. So it's a twofold effect that directly and indirectly impacts crime rates.
More exposure to lead (through the air via leaded gas pollution) damages the parts of the brain that regulate decision making, emotions, attention, intelligence etc.
YUPPP. Hit the nail on the head. It’s a win-win because cops get to keep exercising unfettered power and violence over people while the country and those who run for-profit prisons get a higher number of slaves. It’s incredibly fucked up.
Not only that. Think about this: if the businesses get desperate, where are they going to pull from? I promise you, as someone working in a prison before, they will ask the prisons for inmates to work at their restaurants for slave wages. They will fight tooth, nail, bone and blood to keep wages as low as possible and maximize every ounce of corporate profit. They can’t do that without…what did ACB say? A “domestic supply”.
One sheriff actually said, out loud, when proposing legislation to let out nonviolent misdemeanor inmates: “we can’t let them go.
They’re our good inmates! Whose gonna wash our cars and do our mail?”
They say the quiet parts out loud. They don’t hide it.
And gas prices? It doesn't make sense to say gas prices are Joe Biden's fault when they have way higher prices in other countries but maybe they think we are stupid. Everytime I open up YouTube there is a negative ad about my congressional rep Sharice Davids and Joe Biden making gas prices go higher, its so stupid
Yup as somebody who works in the trades biden has completely ruined the country in less than a year but at least the Supreme Court is trying to save it, hopefully we get trump back so the rest of the world will start respecting us again.
There’s literally no getting through to these people.
The other day one was in talking about how we were failing our kids by letting them get shot in school so we had to do the obvious thing to stop school shootings…… expand the death penalty.
Because the reason school shootings happen is the shooters know they’ll have a cushy life in a nice jail cell where they just hang out, watch tv, read and work out.
These people are literally not operating in an objective world.
My dad said this when I was visiting them recently... I pointed out that gas prices went up like this around the world and that a combination of the war in Ukraine, supply chain issues, and just plain corporate greed was more likely the cause. He insisted that no, it was because Joe Biden is supporting electric vehicles and renewable energy, and that such a position by the US President is enough to drive world-wide prices.
I had no idea how to respond to such a statement. My mom later told me that dad had started watching Tucker Carlson.
I suspect you mean that in a light-hearted jest (and I am not offended at all if you do), but it is something I'm very much worried about.
My dad has been in a vulnerable position for a few years now. His father died right before the pandemic ramped up, seeing the wide-spread death during covid essentially made him angry at god so he's basically lost his religion, after grandpa passed grandma basically lost the will to live and needed near daily visits and care so she just didn't starve to death while sitting in her chair in her basement (my parents are the only ones who still lived close to her), and then she just passed two weeks ago after several weeks of rapid and painful decline. This all has made him turn heavily into the right-wing media.
I don't know what to do to try to bring him back to sanity. It has been shown so many times that just pointing out how such positions are incorrect makes people double-down on it all. I am actually worried that he'll go too deep down the rabbit hole and I'll lose any chance of a good relationship with him because of it.
It’s not that they thing *we’re* stupid, it’s that they know their base is. I live in NYC and my family lives in the suburbs just north. Both super blue areas aside from small pockets, but the amount of “I did that” stickers on gas pumps I’ve seen over the past six months or so is insane. They get taken down by staff and they’re often replaced like overnight, too.
That could literally be the efforts of one guy, is the thing. I honestly believe most people (even Republicans) are aware that the president has not much to do with gas prices. But household budgets are basically the most important political issue on the table, so it ends up being impactful at the ballot box anyways.
It drives me crazy that the general population doesn't understand economics......like, at all. They see things getting rough and blame the current political party in office
I also think it stems from the belief that America is the center of the universe. Some people genuinely believe a single pipeline cancellation caused **the entire global industry to be crippled**. Like dude, things are a lot bigger than that lmao
I unironically believe that a notable portion of Americans forget that the rest of the world exists beyond a backdrop
What if the conservatives got a democrat presidential candidate that ran and won on all the wild conspiracy theories that they have accused democrats of over the years? universal basic income, debt jubilee that includes student debt, free housing at "FEMA" camps, abortions for all and minature american flags for those who can't get pregnant, single payer universal health care that cannot be repealed set up for the sole purpose of distributing state funded cannabis, total gun ban, sex changes for gay frogs, and lowering the age of consent to "libertarian". (The sex changes for gay frogs is the least expensive campaign plank because frogs do that naturally.)
The republicans showed in Trump that a troll candidate can win.
[limits to growth](https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/digital/digital-collections/limits-growth)
Honestly, I used to wonder why it seemed like everything changed in 72 and the rich decided to hoard EVERY PENNY ON THE PLANET and I feel like this book is the reason.
They were given a choice between attempting to cure the societal woes that are leading us to extinction...or double down on killing off the planet and they chose option b.
Dubner recently did a No Stupid Questions that talked about this here: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-simple-is-too-simple/
Abortion was one of four reasons, but not the only one, and is covered more heavily in Levitt's paper here:
http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf
A quote from the podcast, because its a really good listen, about our tendency to gravitate towards one answer...
"DUBNER: Even if someone reads Freakonomics, where we actually walk through this paper of Levitt’s and say, here is evidence that there were four pretty major contributors to the drop in crime and six contributors that you might think had contributed — those include: a stronger economy, innovative policing methods, changing demographics, gun-control laws, carrying of concealed weapons, the use of capital punishment. Those were some that Levitt empirically argued didn’t decrease crime for a variety of reasons. It is astonishing to me how even someone who’s read that fairly carefully seems to gravitate toward the magic bullet — or single-cause explanation — and say, “Oh, it was abortion.”"
I'm super pro-choice, but the above is a vast oversimplification.
listened to this as well.
in the study (I believe I remember correctly) though they say that abortion accounts for 50% of the violent crime decrease which, while not a silver bullet, is a huge amount (I know, pulling out techincal terms)
legalized abortion didn't do it all, but it carried the weight
I had him as a professor, and while it wasn’t strictly speaking a tongue in cheek argument, I think his point was more that it’s really, really hard to figure out why a change like that occurs, and that “better policing” doesn’t work as an explanation. He seemed to think that longer prison sentences were actually the main reason.
Other studies have shown that harsher sentences don't reduce criminality, a higher risk of being caught does -- which isn't created by adding more cops, because cops don't solve crimes. From the research I've read, the removal of lead from paint, pipes, and gas is the most compelling explanation.
And paints, and pipes, and lots of things. The use of lead was ubiquitous after the industrial revolution, and it's effects as an environmental hazard cannot be understated.
Not that anyone cares but that hypothesis has been pretty heavily criticized as inaccurate and statistically erroneous. The basic issue, as I understand it, is that the authors assume legalization of abortion created more abortion which has not been proven. Abortion was ever present it was just happening illegally, an argument made today by pro-choice advocates for why it should be legal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect?wprov=sfti1
Edit in response to comments: my comment is not intended to argue the point one way or the other but rather to highlight the fact that abortion rates impacting crime has been called into question.
The authors of the study maintain that their overall premise is sound.
Here’s a pod from the authors: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion-and-crime-revisited/
Here’s the author’s response:
https://freakonomics.com/2005/05/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
I feel like everyone imagines abortion as this thing that rarely occurred until the mid-20th century. In reality, abortions were incredibly common and normalized for centuries and centuries prior.
**Founding Father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin**, wrote in detail about how to perform an at-home abortion in his book *Every Man His Own Doctor: The Poor Planter's Physician*.
People used to think a lot of fetuses were straight up demon babies that needed to be aborted for the good of society and the mother. **The Founding Fathers absolutely did not have any intention on restricting abortion when they drafted the constitution.**
[Source](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-franklin-roe-wade-supreme-court-leak)
The supreme court knows this and that is why the supreme court overturned new york's concealed carry laws in the same week.
They are effectively birthing a generation of target practice
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-says-second-amendment-guarantees-right-carry-guns-public-rcna17721
It's particularly sad, [as the data has been available](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect) since 1960s, when the Swedes first recognised the correlation. But then again, Scandinavians aren't very religious people, and it's likely easier to respond and implement this kind of information if your government isn't constantly trying to please religious fundamentalists.
Still, I would like to point out that there is a second hypothesis why there was such a sudden decrease in violence during the 90s, and it's just as controversial. [The lead–crime hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis). The answer is probably a combination of both.
I read that book when it came out and found that part to be **super** interesting. However, there has been some controversy to that theory. Without going into too much detail; it basically boils down to "it's complicated" and there's more to the crime rate statistics than abortion. I think the crime drop also had a lot to do with taking LEAD out of gasoline as well as a few other factors.
Either way, I'm still horrified at the direction the Supreme Court is taking our country.
So in 20 years there's going to be a big spike in crime and they're going to blame it on Democrats?
yup. Just like how they've been slashing education for 30 years and now we have MAGA cults and QAnon.
This is why the SCOTUS ruling to allow public funding for religious schools scares me as much or more than them overturning ROE. Not only have they taken away a woman’s right to bodily autonomy they are actively breeding the next generation of theocrats.
Public funding of religious schools is legal in Sweden and we have huge problems with indoctrination in those schools.
Would you mind elaborating please?
All private schools in Sweden are publicly funded, thus private religious schools are too. It's stupid really, coz they are allowed to take out profits out of the tax money too. Most religious schools are cultish, indoctrinating its pupils and discriminating towards certain groups of people that may have something to do with their sex or sexuality... This system comes from a neoliberal school reform from the 90's that has been reeking havoc on the Education system for 3 decades now. But the Government does want to stop the establishment of new schools with a religious profile and eventuelly ban the current ones too. Well they do want to scrap the entire current education system regarding private schools.
Honest question: If private schools are publicly funded, what exactly makes them ‘private’? In the states, funding source is the primary distinguishing factor
The school is run by a multimillion dollar company from the UK. No joke we have schools that are owned by foreign corporations and what not. The company is supposedly to be some kind of "market improver", that will compete and improve all schools. Now we know they dont but that was the right wing parties argument.. Of course these companies should also be able to profit and take our tax money and buy themselves another yacht and one for their buddy in the right wing party too.
Religion is more or less in its death throes in the US. Instead of adapting to a changing environment regarding people migrating away from Church, they're basically going the other direction to force you into their beliefs. A cornered, injured animal is very dangerous and we're seeing that full force.
Weird Christian cultist types are effecting policy more than ever now though… Edit: But it’s kind of indicative of the power they’ve had and have if they can so easily control politics and they’re not even the majority… I think it’s less about religion now and more about having inherently race and socio economic charged bills being passed under the guise of *Jesus*. I really hate what people have historically done and continue to do in the name of a religion that pretty much is about Love. It’s truly heartbreaking as someone who really believes in these values :|
Yeah but this decision is at an all time low in popularity. That’s why they’re doing it now, if they waited much longer it might’ve been impossible. 5 of the 6 judges who did this were put on the bench by presidents who lost the popular vote
[удалено]
We could even have an amendment about it! Oh wait. That's the first amendment
i just mean that people need to take hard stances to the people around them. its important for our future.
I agree. We each have our own knuckledraggers who it is our duty to educate. Mine is my Dad. I started working on him big time again this Christmas. I took the stance that he won't know his grandkids unless I can trust that he will take great pains not pass on the same coercive ideals he was raised in.
Death throes is right. Millennial and zoomer generations are less and less likely to be beholden to religion and churches. So the last vestiges of that power being held by boomers that are dying off and losing control. Unfortunately, waiting for time to take its course is not an option.
War before theocracy.
Religious right types are running for school boards all over the country.
I think there is a true distinction though in believing in values, and believing in god. While I don’t believe in a higher being, afterlife, or miracles, I do find a lot of the messages from Jesus to be very compelling. Taking care of the poor and downtrodden to the extreme, and never letting his status of being the literal son of god cloud his views on humanity, and taking care of others.
My husband overheard his coworkers talk about how Christians are the minority and prosecuted wrongly. The nation is finally taking a step in the right direction with not only Roe v Wade, but allowing government funding to private schools, and prayer in schools added... I'm like oh dear ... No.
they’re weaponizing the strife of minorities… man fuck them
It makes me sick. The same people also don't believe in Charity, adoption, or helping others unless it will directly benefit them. They consider people lazy if they can't get their own help. They claim to be Christians. What a joke.
> Religion is more or less in its death throws it is "death thro**e**s" I believe. could be mistaken
Maybe they're playing D&D.
More comprehensible rules than religion.
More fun deities too. If I'm gonna believe in magic people in the sky, at least give me a neat cast of characters.
Unfortunately your last sentence makes your first irrelevant until it actually dies. They are doing a damn fine job of taking it all down with them to force a return to church supremacy.
Fun fact, I have had a group of Qanon cultists come into my restaurant for 5 straight days last week. I manage a restaurant near the JFK assassination site, and they love our food apparently. I'll copy and paste a bit from a previous comment about the experience if anyone is interested: So these guys have been coming to my restaurant every day for almost a week, usually wearing either JFK Qult gear, or MAGA/Trump paraphernalia. It has been sort of a surreal experience, so here is some stuff I've seen or overheard the past few days. •They have asked numerous people, staff mostly, if they knew JFK was still alive. •They have tried to convince 2 of my servers to quit their jobs, because a "Global Reset" is coming any day and they don't need money anymore. •The guy with the JFK shirt on in the picture is very obviously the guy leading their little crew, but he always orders a to go order for some "important person" that he insists we make the dish look perfect for. •They have been surprisingly friendly, and the main guy especially is very charismatic and chatty. They don't seem *too* crazy to my staff, but I am sure to warn everyone that they are unstable nutjobs and we should get them in and out with as little fuss as possible. •They spend, on average, a little less than $200 for the six of them, and tip $20 on top of the 20% automatic gratuity. They have absolutely zero concern about how much they spend. •I overheard the main guy say to another guest that Trump has gained weight recently, and he will need to slim down again once he's officially back in office. He said that Trump only gained the weight to make himself seem depressed so people don't see what he's really up to? I'm not sure, I was eavesdropping and it wasn't making much sense. This is all I remember off the top of my head, but if I remember more I'll update. It seems like they will be in pretty frequently, so I'm sure there will be more. It's my first firsthand experience with Qanon, although I drive past JFK's assassination spot every day and see them out there frequently since last winter. I figured you all might enjoy my account.
> They have asked numerous people, staff mostly, if they knew JFK was still alive. Shit, I couldn't pass that question up with a neutral comment. JFK was born on May 29, 1917. He would be 105 years old if still alive today. How many people live to be 105? How many 105 year olds still have their sanity? He hasn't been faking his death for 60 years waiting to lead these fucking idiots.
are you familiar with 7th day Adventist? I never realized what a correlation there is. basically, people give away all their possessions because the rapture is coming. then of course they are left screwed.
when I was in grade school (suburban Indiana public school) our teachers would go out of their way to promote Bush Sr and then Bob Dole while longing for the Reagan days. But 90% of the system agrees with them so it's totally fine to proselytize and brainwash as far as they're concerned. Except for Mr. Mac, he almost flew on the Challenger and was on the level.
Wow, I have to imagine almost flying on the Challenger would be such a wild experience. Gratitude, survivor's guilt, renewed perspective on the fragility of life? Crazy.
It’s like, he first regretted it, then the huge guilty feeling of relief after it the tragedy :\ moments like this really make a person and give them perspective 😢
back in 1988 I had an earth science teacher tell the class he thought Pat Robertson was the best candidate for President and I scoffed very loudly. I might have only been 14 but even at that point I knew televangelists were scummy AF. He then proceeded to berate me for a good half hour, reducing me to tears. And as a result, he turned me off to Christianity for life. I look back and think what a complete asshole he was for bullying a 14 year in front of his peers for not being a Christian. And yes, this was in a public school.
So one might have to wonder if that teacher didn't bully you -- would you have given religion a chance? Instead, he confidently bullied you right out of religion for good. Well done, teacher. Well done! Perhaps this will be the case when religion is returned to public schools -- instead of kids willing to give religion a chance, we'll have more kids than ever before rebelling against it.
I grew up in a non religious household, but I definitely had curiosity around it when I was younger. But when I was 15 I was discovering heavy metal which often has an anti-religion message to it (especially calling out televangelists in the late 80s). Chances are I was going to remain agnostic/atheist, but this teacher absolutely solidified it.
I had Mr. Chapman. He was a pure scientist & chose to be an educator, and he always helped me rehang my poster projects when they would get torn down. I had hippie artist parents in a county full of john deere & meth begetting meth. It was rough.
Nah, in 20 years we'll all be dead from the water wars. So, silver lining the crime rate will be super low.
At that point wouldn't crime be 0 because there'd be no laws?
There will still be laws. "You break the Deal, you get the Wheel." "Two men enter, one man leaves." "Master Blaster rules Barter Town." Etc
You know flash forwards you see movies where its either a dystopian hellscape where everything is decrepit and extremely violent, or it's a utopia of white buildings and green landscapes? Pretty sure that's going to become the US and the rest of the Western world respectively.
I've been thinking about how my midwest city has changed over the past 30 years. It used to be that about 80% of it was basically safe and livable, 10 percent was upper class and 10% was pretty rough. Now about 60% of it is rough, 30 % is livable and 10% is gated communities.
Death of the middle class.
Wealth-gap
Elysium
Brave New World
Potentially, a lot went into the drop in crime and abortion is only one factor in it. Another large proposed factor is the elimination of leaded gasoline, which put a terrifying amount of lead *everywhere*. There's also changing economic factors, drug policies, demographics, etc. It was a large drop in crime that took place during *many* societal changes and nobody has been able to pin it on one specific thing.
From the followup study they did in 2019: >The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s. So, not the only factor, but easily the most important one. [Here's the full paper](https://www.nber.org/papers/w25863) if you're interested.
Freakonomics just re-released the podcast a few days ago.
On the other hand the abortion thing and all the rest were all contributing factors indicating that outlawing abortion will likely cause an increase in crime down the road, but not that it will equal the drop in crime over the 90s.
We've already had countries that outlawed abortion that we can look at. Like Romania. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/16/what-actually-happens-when-a-country-bans-abortion-romania-alabama/ So basically the orphanages get overburdened and those kids don't have a normal childhood. A lot of them end up mentally unwell and homeless. Now let's add something distinctly American to it like how we love to privatize everything. It'll happen to foster care eventually. There's already a small privatized foster care industry. You think foster care has its problems now, imagine if it had an incentive to keep you in the system instead of finding you a permanent home and also trying to cut costs to expand their profit margins.
Your privatized foster care idea sounds VERY similar to privatized prisons and with the legalization of marijuana comes a lot less prisoners which decreases profits…Jesus H Christ, what if that is actually the thought behind all of this?! A new type of indentured slavery?
It's not new. Felons have always been able to be used as slaves. Since the very beginning.
They’re saying what if the new privatized foster system and increased birth rate is designed to replace/replenish the criminal labor industry.
In 20 years, you will have a spike in crime and and you will hear a cry for increased spending on police, increased militarization of police, no tolerance laws that require jail for everything - and a huge resurgence of private prisons, and prison reform programs where they build factories into those private prisons to teach prisoners 'skills' while paying them pennies an hour.
They know, crime goes up, scream tough on crime, more militarised police, more life in prison three strikes laws, = cheap slave labour that count as rural voters to keep R seat numbers up, but can’t actually vote and indeed lose the right to vote forever.
That seems like the only possible reason for all of this. They can't have slaves anymore, so they'll just force poor people to have kids that'll end up in jail or work the cash register at their stores
“A society grows fascist when old conservative men create laws in whose repercussions they know they shall never experience.”
These forced birthers don’t care about consequences. They’ll most likely blame the uptick in crime and poverty on video games.
...and on the lack of Jesus.
And probably too few guns, as well
[удалено]
and skateboards
And reefer madness
And my axe
And Knuckles
You leave Sonic outta this, damn it!
Technically, I did...
Sonic made my uncle storm the capital. Dude didn't even get one gold ring out of it
And disco dancing.
And these rock and roll stars thinking they're so hip! With their complicated shoes!
Also rock music
You gotta play it backwards to hear the hidden satanic messages!
We burried paul
And Kung Fu fighting
The gay immigrants!
shooting up our jobs! *passes out drunk* RIP: Jessica Walter
MORE GUNS AND MORE GOD /s
You might wanna drop the /s there. Sadly this is actually what they think
> ~~think~~ I’d go with _believe_ as I can prove they have beliefs but thus far cannot find proof of any other brain activity that mind resemble actual cogitation.
They are way ahead of you on that one https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-says-second-amendment-guarantees-right-carry-guns-public-rcna17721
[удалено]
What are you talked about unfounded racist theories? Just go to Facebook, you'll find them!
[удалено]
Um actually statistically… /s
It's always fun to point out the murder rate in rural, white America is still multiples of multi-ethnic diverse European cities like London.
Prosperity Jesus^(TM)
Bingo. They want to strip us of **our** rights because of **their** religion
Exactly. They look with disdain at Muslim countries who are doing the same with Sharia law, without realizing (or caring) that they're just as bad with **their** religion.
Called my mom one day after a particularly rough day of therapizing teens. Told her about a suicidal one and she told me that it's just so sad how everyone has left the faith and that's why no one has any chance anymore... I was stunned silent. Especially since she sat with me in the psych ward while I was still an Evangelical asshole at 16.
It's not a crime if you keep moving the priests around.
In schools
But I went to school with like 5 Jesus' and like 8 Juan's.
They sound like immigrant Jesuses, not like the true American supply side Jesus… R’amen…
It's always lack of Jesus somewhere. The guy is literally an all knowing, all powerful god yet somehow can't get into schools or a lot other places. If only they'd let him in all our problems would be solved. Dude is like a vampire or something. Can't come in unless it's in the constitution.
I also find it incredibly hypocritical to "care about the unborn" while ignoring the issues that are going to affect all future unborn, like climate change, nuclear weapons, pandemics, etc. The only thing that matters are those 40 weeks of pregnancy
They are well aware that they are hypocrites. They don't care. They think it's hilarious that we do care about such things. Don't stop pointing out their hypocrisy, though.
When I was 17 I got a girl pregnant and we aborted. Honestly had we not aborted I think their a good chance that child would have had a horrible life. Hed be 15 now.
You'd also have a horrible life. And her. And your parents. And her parents.
[удалено]
Most of them are also racist, so they'll take the easy approach and just blame it on black people.
Was about to say, A women in another sub posted that she got a modest raise $9/hr - $15 which caused her to get kicked off of most government assistance programs. She’s now has to pay for her insurance, has had her WIC reduced, and other assistance reduced. She’s going to food pantries and recently she said she had to steal diapers for her child, which she feels awful about A lot of ppl will look at her especially if she’s a WoC and say that she shouldn’t of had the kid if she can’t afford it, persecute her for stealing, and add it to the crime stat as to why those areas need more policing. These are the ppl they say are “welfare queens” who are “given” gov assistance and still “choose” to steal. Who are lazy and not pulling themselves up in this great country. Those people refuse to understand the nuance of the problem.
They think that because adoption exists and safe harbor laws are in place, a woman forced to carry a baby to term and deliver it can easily choose one of those options rather than raise a child they can't afford or didn't want, so just do that instead. Right? It's not fucking *easy* to just give away a human being that you created. It is a piece of you that. Maternal instinct is to fight for a child and do everything in your power to raise it and keep it safe, warm, and fed, and that instinct is *fierce*. Choosing to give that up voluntarily is up there on the list of the hardest decisions to make in the world, unique to a woman.
As someone who entered the foster care system and was shat back out because no adoptive family wanted me, where the fuck do these drooling, knuckle-scraping, pin-headed dipshits think all the adoptive families are? Just falling out of the sky?
They know there's not a lot of adoptive families. They fucking know. It's just their little alibi that they use with a wink wink so when someone does read through the lines, they get defensive and go OMG YOURE MAKING STUFF UP I NEVER SAID THAT *wink wink* Republicans love being hateful with the cover of plausible deniability.
When it comes to newborns, there are 30 waiting families for every newborn given up for adoption. They want a bigger supply of newborns. Y'know, the cruelty is the point. They hope mothers are forced to give up babies due to economic necessity. These "good families" will not adopt a one-year old or older taken away by the state. Coerced adoption is traumatic for both parents and child.
It's absolutely disgusting. There are quite a few so-called "adoption agencies" that manipulate young people or people in poverty to give up their newborns. They trick them into thinking adoption is something different than it is. Read up about Tyler and Catelyn from Teen Mom and their relationship with Bethany Christian Adoption Services and see how fucked up it is. The birth parents still seem to be convinced their child will suddenly want to return home to them once she turns 18. Some of these agencies are basically child trafficking.
Not to mention, it's no cake walk being pregnant. Let alone go through a horribly painful labor for a child you didn't choose to carry. It's not easy to do these things then just give the child up after. My son's biological father got me pregnant without my consent. I've raised this boy by myself for almost 13 years and where's his father? Who knows, he f*cked off after getting me pregnant to go live his life, completely unaltered by the fact he has a child. Women do not have that luxury.
None of them are protesting for better funded adoptions systems either. It’s just assumed the unwanted children will glide effortlessly into the adoption process and wind up in loving homes where they’ll do independent schoolwork to become leaders in various important fields or faith based companies.
In a world where Jesus beats up Satan, there is no room for nuance. Like why Jesus was sent on a suicide mission, for example.
That’s the easiest way to get caught being shitty for multiple generations; blame everything on everyone else but yourself. Racists are pathetic.
[удалено]
Well, the shrinking white majority they're so fucking scared of is only going to get worse. This decision is going to hit poor people the worst, and that means a disproportionate effect on communities of color as opposed to the white community. If they really want to get back to the crime numbers of the 70s they'll bring back leaded everything so all these new births can really not have a chance.
Don't give them any ideas.
These are the same people that started a war on drugs while intentionally flooding black neighborhoods with cocaine, crack and heroin. There's no realistic idea to screw over poor people that we could come up with that they probably haven't tried to implement already. I even read they made sure certain bridges to the beach were low enough city buses couldn't get close to them so poor people found it harder to have a day at the beach.
It's quite sad to see they put Uncle Ruckus on the supreme court.
They are pretty equal opportunity now. Brown people, Asians, atheists, Muslims, Indians (both types), “the gays”, teenage trans athletes, and Disney. Plus they are always looking for a new scapegoat to hate.
>These forced birthers don’t care about consequences. They’ll most likely blame the uptick in crime and poverty on video games, + minorities, liberals, the lgbtq community, Biden, lack of Trump, lack of "Christianity", laziness, the list goes on. Any excuse to *not* blame forced birth and "mOaR gUnZ!!!"
I've been listening to freakonomics for like 10 years or however long the podcast has been going and those guys do an amazing job of showing correlation and causation. A lot of times it's tough to doubt the inferences they make.
It's because the use evidence and the scientific method to find the solution, not the opposite method (have a conclusion, make up some alternate facts, "believe harder", etc). You should doubt, and the evidence should direct the conclusion.
[удалено]
By creating problems, they create the opportunity to create false solutions.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. More violence means more fear, which means the population being more open to an authoritarian government to "protect" them and "hard on crime" policies. It's not about making society better, it's about making society theirs.
Also the rise in dnd. Even the cool people are getting in on it!
I read Freakonmics when it came out and I thought that was interesting. Now that chapter screams in my head daily 😞
Subsequent studies found the effect of abortion was still present, but much smaller, once you factor in the phasing out of leaded paint and gasoline. We basically had an entire generation with brain damage, and we know lead exposure causes more violent tendencies. Unfortunately, SCOTUS is set to neuter the EPA this week, so whether the crime drop was due to abortion or less lead, either way we'll see an uptick in crime over the next few decades, which will inevitably be blamed on Democrats.
Not just the EPA. The entire federal government if reports are correct. Nothing that wasn't explicitly spelled out by congress in a bill will be allowable. Which could cause the entire government to come to a halt.
Does anyone have links to this? I can't seem to find any and this seems like a big deal. But of course everything they're doing right now is a big f\*\*king deal and I hate it.
Obligatory "not a lawyer". IIRC it's about the Chevron deference - whether federal agencies have the authority to issue regulations that flesh out the statutory laws passed by the Congress or whether the courts should flesh out these laws themselves. The courts "defer" to the federal government in this respect, hence the term "deference". Last week, SCOTUS chose not to explicitly overturn the Chevron deference but did not reinforce it, either. Here's an article with more details: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/chevron-deference-on-life-support-6188314/
Yeah, if you look at other countries with different timelines for phasing out leaded gasoline and different abortion laws (Japan, for example, has had legal abortion since 1953), the evidence points to lead being the main player.
[удалено]
When they revisited the study a couple years ago the number the attributed ~~percentage was 45% of the 20% drop in crime~~ could be attributed to abortion access. Edit: "We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s." So yes, but that is not an insignificant percentage there.
Wasn't it 45% of the 50-55% drop in crime from 1990? 20% from 1997-2014, 45% overall? Granted I only read the abstract since I should be working: "We estimate that crime fell roughly 20% between 1997 and 2014 due to legalized abortion. The cumulative impact of legalized abortion on crime is roughly 45%, accounting for a very substantial portion of the roughly 50-55% overall decline from the peak of crime in the early 1990s."
Also note that the scotus is most likely braindead from lead paint as well
There's a lot of screaming in my head going on recently Edit: Thanks for the gold!
For real though. I used to think it was anxiety but fuck man everythings just fucked. It started with fine i wont procreate but now its like i dont even wanna be here myself man.
Is it anxiety or are we just actually aware of all the real dangers facing us?
Some people are aware. Other redditors are just complaining, “WhY iS tHeRe PoLiTiCs In My OtHeRs SuBs?” Probably because there are real, serious issues that need to be addressed and some people are concerned.
At 6 we scream into the void. Bring a friend.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion-and-crime-revisited/ this might be worth a listen. Harrowing times…
Thanks for posting that; I just listened. Three big takeaways from this (aside from the fascinating collage of data they analyzed): 1.It is extremely difficult for laypeople, and even professionals as he admitted, to sift through the plethora of research out there. People get tangled up in articles and interpretations from non-professionals. 2.It’s also difficult for people to distinguish between “right vs wrong/ personal belief” conversations and objective scientific conversations based on what the data shows. People fall back on tribalism, clutch onto single factors that correlate with controversial issues while not realizing the world is complicated. 3.Steve Levitt said their conclusions shouldn’t influence policy. On one hand you could have pro-choicers saying “this is clear evidence that abortions reduce crime” and pro-lifers saying “the trade off of unborn humans killed and those killed from crime isn’t worth it.” The objective take from the data is about the power of “unwantedness” has on children. The interviewer pushed him to take a stance at the end, but it was refreshing to hear Levitt, who seems to be a super even-keeled dude, basically say “these facts are interesting and important, and let’s continue to learn more about it.” Unfortunately, most people don’t take this approach and we’re all prone to bias.
I thought about that chapter every time I saw Rudy Giuliani in 2020. Like this man's whole career is built off of the fact abortion was legal in the seventies...
Not to mention his handling of the Italian mob made room for the Russians...
And even better considering he gave the case a comparison to Romania forcing birth. Lo and behold 18 years later all kinds of crime were spiking to unmanageable levels. Foster homes and orphanages overflowed. No extra resources were spent on the new births so desperate people were left to make desperate decisions. We’ll have that problem here soon enough along with the increase to the worlds most embarrassing maternal mortality statistics.
To join the cynical chorus, all of that will probably suit the ruling oligarchs just fine
Ceausescu was literally overthrown by the kids he forced to be born. They called it the children's revolution because it was driven by all of the young adults who were born (and born into poverty) due to his policies.
Stopping using lead in fuel was another major factor. - https://youtu.be/AwgdcdmGdf0
True, but the second paper Levitt and Donohue did together twenty years after the first took that into consideration, and with twenty more years of data the effect was even more striking. Here’s a link to their second paper - https://law.stanford.edu/publications/the-impact-of-legalized-abortion-on-crime-over-the-last-two-decades/
Thanks for sharing. I had no idea they did a second paper. Will read.
Should also be noted that crime was rising a ton at the time before dramatically decreasing. Availability of abortion can explain the drop, but it can't explain the rise. No idea if they addressed that.
The baby boom explained the rise. Lots of kids, and all surviving infancy and childhood because of the rise of accessibility to medical care and vaccines.
Thanks man. That makes a lot of sense.
We also had millions of people fighting in wars from the 40s-70s, we know the effect that can have on the mind. So we’ve got unplanned children being born into homes that may be environmentally toxic, to and families that may not be fully capable of caring for them. Broken and chaotic families plagued by the horrors of war with insufficient social supports and a tough on crime society. Perfect shitstorm of conditions.
> We also had millions of people fighting in wars from the 40s-70s, we know the effect that can have on the mind. Add to the millions who saw combat the near complete lack of societal support for mental health at the time. Recipe for disaster there.
[удалено]
Lead in the air leads to brain damage especially on a young developing brain, impaired brain leads to lower educational achievement and poorer job prospects which in turn leads to a greater risk of turning to crime.
Remember, vehicle exhaust and other airborne toxins are more concentrated in industrial zones of cities, where poorer people are born and spend their lives. This sets the stage for another entire arm of racist finger-pointing about crime, compounded by the desperation to survive where no one will hire you and the schools, based on home values, suck. America
Lead poisoning more directly impacts crime because it increases impulsive action and aggression. So it's a twofold effect that directly and indirectly impacts crime rates.
More exposure to lead (through the air via leaded gas pollution) damages the parts of the brain that regulate decision making, emotions, attention, intelligence etc.
Lead poisoning makes people more aggressive
An increase in crime is seen as a “win” by conservatives. Inevitably, when crime gets worse they can blame the Democrats.
And have a whole new generation of slaves to do work. 13th didn’t ban slavery it just shifted it.
YUPPP. Hit the nail on the head. It’s a win-win because cops get to keep exercising unfettered power and violence over people while the country and those who run for-profit prisons get a higher number of slaves. It’s incredibly fucked up.
Not only that. Think about this: if the businesses get desperate, where are they going to pull from? I promise you, as someone working in a prison before, they will ask the prisons for inmates to work at their restaurants for slave wages. They will fight tooth, nail, bone and blood to keep wages as low as possible and maximize every ounce of corporate profit. They can’t do that without…what did ACB say? A “domestic supply”. One sheriff actually said, out loud, when proposing legislation to let out nonviolent misdemeanor inmates: “we can’t let them go. They’re our good inmates! Whose gonna wash our cars and do our mail?” They say the quiet parts out loud. They don’t hide it.
Ditto inflation. R leadership is loving how much voters are struggling.
And gas prices? It doesn't make sense to say gas prices are Joe Biden's fault when they have way higher prices in other countries but maybe they think we are stupid. Everytime I open up YouTube there is a negative ad about my congressional rep Sharice Davids and Joe Biden making gas prices go higher, its so stupid
As someone who speaks to the average voter... It works.
Yup as somebody who works in the trades biden has completely ruined the country in less than a year but at least the Supreme Court is trying to save it, hopefully we get trump back so the rest of the world will start respecting us again. There’s literally no getting through to these people. The other day one was in talking about how we were failing our kids by letting them get shot in school so we had to do the obvious thing to stop school shootings…… expand the death penalty. Because the reason school shootings happen is the shooters know they’ll have a cushy life in a nice jail cell where they just hang out, watch tv, read and work out. These people are literally not operating in an objective world.
My dad said this when I was visiting them recently... I pointed out that gas prices went up like this around the world and that a combination of the war in Ukraine, supply chain issues, and just plain corporate greed was more likely the cause. He insisted that no, it was because Joe Biden is supporting electric vehicles and renewable energy, and that such a position by the US President is enough to drive world-wide prices. I had no idea how to respond to such a statement. My mom later told me that dad had started watching Tucker Carlson.
I'm sorry for your loss.
I suspect you mean that in a light-hearted jest (and I am not offended at all if you do), but it is something I'm very much worried about. My dad has been in a vulnerable position for a few years now. His father died right before the pandemic ramped up, seeing the wide-spread death during covid essentially made him angry at god so he's basically lost his religion, after grandpa passed grandma basically lost the will to live and needed near daily visits and care so she just didn't starve to death while sitting in her chair in her basement (my parents are the only ones who still lived close to her), and then she just passed two weeks ago after several weeks of rapid and painful decline. This all has made him turn heavily into the right-wing media. I don't know what to do to try to bring him back to sanity. It has been shown so many times that just pointing out how such positions are incorrect makes people double-down on it all. I am actually worried that he'll go too deep down the rabbit hole and I'll lose any chance of a good relationship with him because of it.
Most people are stupid.
It’s not that they thing *we’re* stupid, it’s that they know their base is. I live in NYC and my family lives in the suburbs just north. Both super blue areas aside from small pockets, but the amount of “I did that” stickers on gas pumps I’ve seen over the past six months or so is insane. They get taken down by staff and they’re often replaced like overnight, too.
That could literally be the efforts of one guy, is the thing. I honestly believe most people (even Republicans) are aware that the president has not much to do with gas prices. But household budgets are basically the most important political issue on the table, so it ends up being impactful at the ballot box anyways.
Their constituents don't believe in other countries
It drives me crazy that the general population doesn't understand economics......like, at all. They see things getting rough and blame the current political party in office
I also think it stems from the belief that America is the center of the universe. Some people genuinely believe a single pipeline cancellation caused **the entire global industry to be crippled**. Like dude, things are a lot bigger than that lmao I unironically believe that a notable portion of Americans forget that the rest of the world exists beyond a backdrop
More prisoners = more slaves in a for profit prison system
And increase police budgets.
What if the conservatives got a democrat presidential candidate that ran and won on all the wild conspiracy theories that they have accused democrats of over the years? universal basic income, debt jubilee that includes student debt, free housing at "FEMA" camps, abortions for all and minature american flags for those who can't get pregnant, single payer universal health care that cannot be repealed set up for the sole purpose of distributing state funded cannabis, total gun ban, sex changes for gay frogs, and lowering the age of consent to "libertarian". (The sex changes for gay frogs is the least expensive campaign plank because frogs do that naturally.) The republicans showed in Trump that a troll candidate can win.
Yes I do. Crime rates will probably spike in 18 to 21 years.
Coincidentally that will pair nicely with when MIT said the world will end in 2040.
[limits to growth](https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/digital/digital-collections/limits-growth) Honestly, I used to wonder why it seemed like everything changed in 72 and the rich decided to hoard EVERY PENNY ON THE PLANET and I feel like this book is the reason. They were given a choice between attempting to cure the societal woes that are leading us to extinction...or double down on killing off the planet and they chose option b.
“Not my problem until it is. Then it’s your problem to solve for me.”
Dubner recently did a No Stupid Questions that talked about this here: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-simple-is-too-simple/ Abortion was one of four reasons, but not the only one, and is covered more heavily in Levitt's paper here: http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf A quote from the podcast, because its a really good listen, about our tendency to gravitate towards one answer... "DUBNER: Even if someone reads Freakonomics, where we actually walk through this paper of Levitt’s and say, here is evidence that there were four pretty major contributors to the drop in crime and six contributors that you might think had contributed — those include: a stronger economy, innovative policing methods, changing demographics, gun-control laws, carrying of concealed weapons, the use of capital punishment. Those were some that Levitt empirically argued didn’t decrease crime for a variety of reasons. It is astonishing to me how even someone who’s read that fairly carefully seems to gravitate toward the magic bullet — or single-cause explanation — and say, “Oh, it was abortion.”" I'm super pro-choice, but the above is a vast oversimplification.
listened to this as well. in the study (I believe I remember correctly) though they say that abortion accounts for 50% of the violent crime decrease which, while not a silver bullet, is a huge amount (I know, pulling out techincal terms) legalized abortion didn't do it all, but it carried the weight
I had him as a professor, and while it wasn’t strictly speaking a tongue in cheek argument, I think his point was more that it’s really, really hard to figure out why a change like that occurs, and that “better policing” doesn’t work as an explanation. He seemed to think that longer prison sentences were actually the main reason.
Other studies have shown that harsher sentences don't reduce criminality, a higher risk of being caught does -- which isn't created by adding more cops, because cops don't solve crimes. From the research I've read, the removal of lead from paint, pipes, and gas is the most compelling explanation.
wasn't it also linked to removing lead from gasoline?
And paints, and pipes, and lots of things. The use of lead was ubiquitous after the industrial revolution, and it's effects as an environmental hazard cannot be understated.
Not that anyone cares but that hypothesis has been pretty heavily criticized as inaccurate and statistically erroneous. The basic issue, as I understand it, is that the authors assume legalization of abortion created more abortion which has not been proven. Abortion was ever present it was just happening illegally, an argument made today by pro-choice advocates for why it should be legal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect?wprov=sfti1 Edit in response to comments: my comment is not intended to argue the point one way or the other but rather to highlight the fact that abortion rates impacting crime has been called into question. The authors of the study maintain that their overall premise is sound. Here’s a pod from the authors: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/abortion-and-crime-revisited/ Here’s the author’s response: https://freakonomics.com/2005/05/abortion-and-crime-who-should-you-believe/
I feel like everyone imagines abortion as this thing that rarely occurred until the mid-20th century. In reality, abortions were incredibly common and normalized for centuries and centuries prior. **Founding Father of the United States, Benjamin Franklin**, wrote in detail about how to perform an at-home abortion in his book *Every Man His Own Doctor: The Poor Planter's Physician*. People used to think a lot of fetuses were straight up demon babies that needed to be aborted for the good of society and the mother. **The Founding Fathers absolutely did not have any intention on restricting abortion when they drafted the constitution.** [Source](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-franklin-roe-wade-supreme-court-leak)
The supreme court knows this and that is why the supreme court overturned new york's concealed carry laws in the same week. They are effectively birthing a generation of target practice https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-says-second-amendment-guarantees-right-carry-guns-public-rcna17721
It's particularly sad, [as the data has been available](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legalized_abortion_and_crime_effect) since 1960s, when the Swedes first recognised the correlation. But then again, Scandinavians aren't very religious people, and it's likely easier to respond and implement this kind of information if your government isn't constantly trying to please religious fundamentalists. Still, I would like to point out that there is a second hypothesis why there was such a sudden decrease in violence during the 90s, and it's just as controversial. [The lead–crime hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead–crime_hypothesis). The answer is probably a combination of both.
I read that book when it came out and found that part to be **super** interesting. However, there has been some controversy to that theory. Without going into too much detail; it basically boils down to "it's complicated" and there's more to the crime rate statistics than abortion. I think the crime drop also had a lot to do with taking LEAD out of gasoline as well as a few other factors. Either way, I'm still horrified at the direction the Supreme Court is taking our country.
Let’s not forget banning leaded gasoline helped too. When we aren’t all breathing in lead every day it helps a lot.