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Post a Comment On: Steve Sailer: iSteve

"Did Legalizing Abortion Cut Crime?"

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually he did not say that murder went down, he said crime rates went down. These are not the same at all. The truth is that murder is one crime, not all of them.

Regardless of there being any truth to the idea that abortion reduced (or did not reduce) crime rates on the whole (I think it had an effect, but so did a lot of other things)), the argument made was for *all* crime, not just murder. Your example is for *just* murder, which switches topics entirely.

You cannot successfully refute an argument by answering a different question than the one being examined. This is called 'begging the question'. You do not get to state a different question and then answer THAT one, or redefine the terms being used and then create an answers which mixes both sets of definitions. That is simply deception. Yes it is common, but it is not the way to search for facts.

For example. you cannot prove anything about cervical cancer rates, by arguing back about the rates of diabetes. Apples and Oranges. You switched from "all crime" to "murder".

I am aware that politicians do this all the time, but it is still "dancing a sidestep". It is still deception.

I do not know what the truth is in this area, and frankly I find it difficult to believe that anyone to be accurate in the debate at all (regardless of which of the two main sides they favor) becasue a HUGE number of factors contribute to different types of crimes in different locations. Besides which, crime is a shifting definition, not a single one.

We must always remember that crime is a human invention, a criminal is a person who has committed a crime, been caught and convicted of that crime. They fit a human definition that is forever shifting because our laws are always shifting. The people who commit crimes are the result of what we define as crimes, and those who get convicted are the result of a huge number of factors; everything from cultureal misunderstandings, to racial and religious bias plas a large part in who gets convicted of what. The quality of the system that is in place plays a large part as well. All of this mess is generated as a side effect of the laws that people pass.

We must remember that these laws are not sacrosanct, but are passed into law by people, not because they are a good idea, or because they are sensible or enforceable. Bills (for public referendum or for our representatives) are created in a reactionary environemnt, usually to cater in a simplistic way to pubic fears, to public mis-perceptions about complicated problems. They rarely approach problems in a way that will work.

Most of the the time the winner of a public referendum vote is whichever sides spent the most money on the biggest advertising campaign. Politics is about marketing, not about the truth.

This brings me back to crime statistics. Most of them ae not trustworthy. They are created by people who have an agenda, an outcome that they WANT to see. That is not how you get the truth. Every set of crime statistics was complied for a reason,. and that reason is very rarely a quest for the facts 'whatever they may be'.

Current governments want proof for their favorite fear cards, and they want to prove that their actions are helping. Those against the current government try to use statistics to prove their standpoint.


- continued -

9/9/09, 10:57 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

As a person who has lived in more than one country, one thing I find it very interesting that people of all political persuasions seem to be drawn so very much to same methods of deceit (the same shell games).

* When faced with facts, immediately change the topic, or the definitions in use
* try casting dispersion on the character of those who say thing things you do not like.
* If ‘these fail you, then try more direct name calling
* When all else fails you can always play the fear card again with a nonsensical with round of “won’t somebody think about the children”.

I also find it interesting how often those governments who most loudly claim to be representing their people, completely fail to listen to their people in favor of doing whatever those in charge are obsessed with doing, even if their own experts disagree.

9/9/09, 1:42 PM

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