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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page). Relocating to Boise? Use my realtor, neighbor, and friend, Cindy Smith csmith@1realtyone.com.
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Saturday, February 28, 2004
The Passion Roger Ebert calls it the most violent movie he's ever seen. This review says it is violent, but much less so than say, Saving Private Ryan. A co-worker, who I never even thought of particularly religious, took his 12 and 14 year old to see it the first day. He said it was violent, but didn't consider it remarkably so. I've seen a lot of criticism that the film is just way over the top violent--presumably from critics who did not have a problem with Saving Private Ryan and Hannibal. What Can We Deduce From the Priest Sexual Abuse Numbers? It's always tricky working with statistics. Looking at this item by Michael Williams I found myself wanting to rewrite his ideas in a form that gave me more confidence in the conclusions. After pointing out that 81% of the sexual abuse victims were male, Williams argues that this suggests three possibilities: 1) Homosexuals are over-represented among Catholic priests compared to the population as a whole. 2) Homosexual Catholic priests are more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual Catholic priests. 3) Some combination of the above. Now, let me try to rephrase his points into a form with which I am more comfortable, because there are some logical leaps in his article that may be correct, but that leave out some assumptions or steps. Male priests abuse male victims 81% of the time. Homosexuals like to insist that pedophiles aren't really homosexuals. Okay, fine. I don't buy this, because you would then expect roughly equivalent numbers of male and female victims. Homosexuals like to draw a line between "pedophiles" (those who victimize prepubescent minors) and "ephebophiles" (those attracted to pubescent and later minors). Most seem to admit that "ephebophiles" who pursue same sex minors are homosexuals. According to this detailed report (on p. 58), a majority of the victims were males 11-17--showing that the priests were largely homosexual "ephebophiles" not "pedophiles." We've therefore established that at least half of the priests engaged in sexual abuse were homosexuals. So here's the question, rephrased from how Michael Williams asked it: Why is it that at least half of the priests engaged in sexual abuse of pubescent minors were homosexuals? Obviously, half of all of priests aren't homosexuals; it is a lot more likely that this reflects higher rates of sexual abuse by homosexual priests than by heterosexual priests. If homosexuals are proportionately represented among Catholic priests, this means that about 4% - 4.5% of Catholic priests are homosexual--and yet they represent, even taking the homosexual's preferred claim that "pedophiles" aren't homosexuals, at least 50% of the sexual abuse. In other words, homosexual priests who engage in sexual abuse of minors are at least ten times overrepresented from a normal distribution (Michael Williams' point #1). Okay, maybe homosexuals are overrrepresented among Catholic priests. I'll buy the claim that someone who is conflicted about their sexual orientation might go into a line of work that requires them to be celibate, in the vain hopes that this will protect them from temptation. (That is Michael Williams' point #2.) There is no way, however, that more than half of Catholic priests are homosexual in orientation. That would mean that homosexuals were at least 10x - 12x overrepresented in the priesthood. At best, part of the overrepresentation of homosexuals among molesters is #2. We are still looking at very disproportionate overrepresentation of homosexuals among molesters in the priesthood. Masters, Johnson, and Kolodny's Human Sexuality, 4th ed., makes the claim that 26% of molesters go after boys only, with another 4% that go after boys and girls. The lowest claim that I have seen on this subject is from Janet Shibley Hyde, Understanding Human Sexuality, 4th ed., (New York, McGraw-Hill Co.: 1990), 422, which says that only 20% of child molestation is homosexual (and she uses that word). In conjunction with the data from Catholic priest molesters, and that only about 4%-4.5% of men in the general population are homosexual or bisexual, we see general agreement that the sexual orientation of child molesters is disproportionately homosexual. This doesn't mean that every homosexual man is a molester, but it does mean that the traditional concerns about this have a factual basis. This is not simple ignorance. It is as valid a basis for discrimination as our laws that discriminate against drunk drivers (by prohibiting them from driving drunk) and against convicted felons (by taking away their right to possess firearms). Is this unfair to homosexual men who aren't interested in little boys? Sure. Guess what? There's a lot of that sort of unfairness. If I walk down a dark city street at night, 200 feet behind a woman who doesn't know me, she will be afraid, and she will noticeably speed up her walking to get away. This isn't theory; I've had this experience before. I was at first offended and hurt, because I was a nice guy. If she had anything to fear from a guy, it wasn't from me; I would come to her defense. But she didn't know that. Her "discrimination" against me for being a guy was completely rational, because she knows as a first approximation that a man is twice as likely to be a rapist as the average member of the population. (Simple math: effectively all rapes are done by men, who make up half the population. Ergo: any unknown man is twice as likely to be a rapist.) She loses nothing by assuming the worst of an unknown man, and she has much to lose if she incorrectly assumes that a guy is harmless. I think the larger issue that no one wants to confront, however, is that child molesters are nearly always former victims. The exact mechanism, from what I have read, isn't completely understood, but some of the characteristics fit into several examples that I have blogged about recently: The perpetrators in our sample had all had sexual encounters as children, and there was evidence of a relationship between this childhood experience and sexual abuse as an adult. The sexual abuse had a narcissistic quality to it that the perpetrator identified with the victim. The victim was usually the same sex as the perpetrator, and frequently the victim was approximately the same age as the offender when he was victimized, and in a number of cases the sexual acts were the same. In addition, the family backgrounds of perpetrators reflect deprivation and harsh treatment.[Kathleen Coulborn Faller, Child Sexual Abuse: An Interdisciplinary Manual for Diagnosis, Case Management, and Treatment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 85-86]Homosexuals fight any discussion of a possible link between child sexual abuse and adult sexual orientation. The idea, I am told, is preposterous. Why? It's not like I am proposing two completely unrelated activities, say, child sexual abuse and hating broccoli as an adult. Anyone that can't see a pretty obvious mechanism that could lead from one to the other must be extraordinarily clueless. One book that I read made an interesting point about how sexual abuse victims deal with their pain, especially once they start to confront it in therapy: Apart from this obvious repression, a client may also have diminished the intensity of the event by some form of the disassociative process. As one woman so clearly summarized after describing years of brutal physical and sexual abuse by her father, "You know, being beaten up isn't that bad; after the first hit you don't feel it anymore." It is worth reflecting that these kinds of defenses may have been the person's protectors and friends -- in many instances a victim's only solace. When casting off these defenses and telling someone about the trauma, the person may feel that the only shield has been stripped away and that he or she is without anesthesia against the pain of the original assault. One client described a previous therapist, the leader of a woman's group who aggressively confronted the client's defenses before the group, in these words: "That therapist attacked me! She tried to take away my way of coping. I know I'm hard. I have a shell and there's some stuff I won't look at. But I protect myself the best way I know how. Who is she to attack me... trying to take away all I have that protects me from me?... Is she going to protect me? No!" [Diana Sullivan Everstine and Louis Everstine, Sexual Trauma in Children and Adolescents: Dynamics and Treatment (New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers, 1989), 155-156]I'm not expecting homosexuals to confront what is probably a very painful memory--one that many homosexuals have acknowledged that they have repressed. A survey done some years ago about drug and alcohol abuse in the gay community asked this question about child sexual abuse: "As a child, were you ever sexually assaulted or abused?" [EMT Associates, Inc., San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Alcohol and Other Drug Use Anonymous Survey Appendix A, (San Francisco, San Francisco Dept. of Public Health: 1991), 6.] A startling 28% of the men and 48% of the women answered, "Yes." [EMT Associates, Inc., San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Alcohol and Other Drug Use Anonymous Survey Vol. I, p. 24.] When compared to the survey results for more general populations, these are astonishing numbers for men, and somewhat surprising for women. One of the volunteered marginal comments on the survey included the painful acknowledgement: I am beginning to deal with the possibility I may have been sexually abused as a child. I know I use alcohol to medicate that pain and my drinking has increased with 'seeping' memories and work stress. [EMT Associates, Inc., San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Alcohol and Other Drug Use Anonymous Survey Vol. I, 55-56.]This unwillingness to seriously consider a possible connection between child sexual abuse and adult homosexuality is insane. I was astonished at how many books written even 15 years ago on the subject of child sexual abuse admit that adult homosexuality is a common response. Yet this has become almost like arguing for a flat-Earth today. UPDATE: One reader points out that the suvey was not a random sample, because not everyone that was given a survey actually returned it, and may thus not be particularly representative. That's true (and it was true of Kinsey's sex surveys as well, but homosexuals were quite willing to use a misstated version of Kinsey's results to create the 10% myth). One of the difficulties when you try to gather any sort of data about a minority population is that you have to either: 1. Pick from a list of members of that minority population; or, 2. Survey the entire population, then identify members of the minority population as part of the survey. For homosexuals, both of these are difficult problems. It's not like you can stand on a street corner and pick out homosexuals with any certainty. Yes, there are certain subgroups of homosexuals who stand out--but there are a lot that do not, and do not fit the stereotypes. A survey based on who is willing to identify him or herself as homosexual is going to bias the survey to those who are most "out" about their sexuality. Option #2 is problematic both because to get a statistically significant sample, you will need a huge sample of the general population--and then you have the same problem about homosexuals who are closeted perhaps being less willing to identify themselves as such on a survey. However, the reader who wasn't too happy about my use of the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health survey claims that the 30% and 48% numbers really aren't that far out of the norm: And as you no doubt know, the values for men are within the range found in general population studies, (3-29%) and the women are just a bit above that (7-36%).I am a little startled by those numbers. If those are numbers from current studies (that is to say, done more than ten years after the San Francisco Dept. of Public Health survey), then we are not comparing equivalent populations. I would expect there to have been an increase in child molestation rates because so many children are not being raised by their biological fathers now. For a variety of reasons, children growing up in the homes of their biological fathers are at much lower risk of molestation. In any case, when the survey in question showed child molestations rates of 30% and 48%, respectively, the data that I was able to find on molestation rates for the general population was lower--although the very high end of the numbers for females were getting close to the S.F. Dept. of Public Health survey. The range of the 11 studies summarized in Bagley & King are 12%-40% of females, and 3%-8.6% of males.[Christopher Bagley and Kathleen King, Child Sexual Abuse: The Search for Healing (New York: Tavistock/Routledge, 1990), 76.] Faller quotes the same studies, though in less detail.[Faller, 19.] The Everstines use the figures 15%-45% of females and 3%-9% of males, but "believe that the currently accepted percentages for males who have been molested will be revised to 10% or 15% of the population when more accurate data are forthcoming."[Everstine & Diana Sullivan Everstine and Louis Everstine, Sexual Trauma in Children and Adolescents: Dynamics and Treatment (New York: Brunner/Mazel Publishers, 1989), 2.] These studies were conducted in Britain, Canada, and the United States, with Bagley and King asserting that child sexual abuse survey reports in California are unusually high, though it is unclear whether this is a methodological problem, or reflects higher incidence in California.[Bagley and King, 69.] Labels: child sexual abuse Friday, February 27, 2004
Noise Pollution Complaint? Or Envy? From Reuters: BERLIN (Reuters) - A German woman took her male neighbor to court for noise pollution after he repeatedly kept her awake through half the night and had at least one four-hour sex session, a court spokeswoman said Friday. Detailed and Thoughtful Review of The Passion Right here. It is generally positive about it, without being gushy. Coincidence? Or Cause? There is a gay marriage lawsuit under way in Florida--but even those apparently supportive of gay marriage are a little concerned about the caliber of the lawyer and the plaintiffs involved in the case. What I found interesting is this description of one of the plaintiffs: Rubin said he would file suit later this week on behalf of two men. Rubin identified only one of the two, who, Rubin acknowledged, has a checkered past.But not his homosexuality, I guess. Gun Control As Distraction The report from the Colorado Attorney-General about Columbine is pretty depressing. It would appear that there was a coverup of police failure before the massacre. Perhaps expectations are too high; a lot of this may be the advantage of 20-20 hindsight. It is interesting, however, that "more gun control" was the immediate response of most of the news media, instead of asking to what extent the police had failed to do their job of enforcing the existing laws, and what could be done about the level of bullying that clearly played some part in driving these two kids into an orgy of death. Much like the Martin Bryant mass murder case in Tasmania, it is easier to look for gun control as a solution, rather than ask questions about the failure of Tasmanian police to properly investigate the at least suspicious suicide of Martin Bryant's father (which made Martin rich) or the implausible accidental death of Martin Bryant's heiress girlfriend (which left Martin even richer). Double Standards in Education Joanne Jacobs has a column about the insanity that passes for good educational policy. One of the items is about the double standards of schools. A 6th grade boy brought the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue to school, and was suspended for this. As much as I loathe this sort of "not quite pornography, there's it's okay" material, I think a suspension was a bit much. But Jacobs points to a much serious incident in which a teacher got away with something much worse: At a Washington high school, a teacher-coach who "pantsed" a basketball player in practice, and then complimented her "butt," received a verbal reprimand despite previous complaints she'd made sexual remarks to students.A female coach removes a female student's clothing and makes sexually suggestive remarks, and gets just a verbal reprimand? The article doesn't identify the female coach as a lesbian--but what do you think the odds are that a coach doing things like this is straight? What do you think would happened to the coach if the coach had been male, and the student female? Verbal reprimand? No, criminal charges. Great Article About How Big Government Makes Rich People Richer It's by John Stossel, in the March issue of Reason. If you have been at all paying attention, the examples he gives: National Flood Insurance Program; farm price supports; eminent domain abuse for private developers--will all be familiar to you. What always amazes me is how multimillionaire gigolos like John Kerry keep screeching about the need for Big Government to look out for the little guy--and how few Americans realize the extent to which Big Government exists to redistribute wealth from working people to the rich. This is why the Democratic Party exists--to continue the looting of ordinary people's pockets for the benefit of multimillionaires and billionaires. They throw a few scraps to the poor and the middle class, but most of the function of the Democratic Party is to make sure that people like Soros, Kennedy, Kerry, Edwards--and as he admits, John Stossel--get subsidies so that they can get even richer. Interesting Statement About Democratic Party Politics If it's true, then either the Democratic Party is a lot smaller than I thought, or there are a lot of fabulously rich homosexuals: "The gay community is increasingly pivotal to Democrats in sheer financial numbers as well as to turnout numbers — this is a base of his support he doesn't want to alienate," said Morris Reid, a communications strategist who served in the Commerce Department under President Clinton. "However, there is that swing voter that might be the prize for this election. [Mr. Kerry] doesn't want to go too far that he might turn that voter off."So is it turnout or financial support in which they are "increasingly pivotal"? Homosexuals are perhaps 3-4% of the population in the U.S.--and they don't even monolithicly vote Democrat. If 2-3% of the electorate (homosexuals voting Democratic) is essential to voter turnout, what about the probably 12-20% of Americans who aren't Republicans, but oppose gay marriage? Voter turnout should cause Democrats to turn to the larger voting bloc. Perhaps it's the financial support that homosexuals provide to the Democratic Party. That would make a lot more sense as a reason. Thanks to Wonkette for the link. Amusing Line From Wonkette She was watching the Democratic debate in California, I guess: If John Kerry and John Edwards respected and liked each other any more, we'd have to pass a constitutional amendment against it. Howard Stern's Advice: Perhaps the ACLU Will Take It Howard Stern is upset that Clear Channel has pulled his vile little program in a few markets: On Thursday, Stern told listeners he had been unaware of the move by Clear Channel. Stern routinely criticizes the government's indecency policies, saying that they are arbitrary and fail to reflect that anyone who finds his material objectionable can simply change the channel.I suppose we could say the same thing to the ACLU, which is trying to get Ten Commandments monuments removed from public buildings and parks everywhere. In some cases, their argument is that it causes physical pain for some to see these stones. Hey! Listen to Howard Stern! If you don't like what you see, don't look there! Will The Next Scrappleface Announce the Merger of the Holy Roman Catholic Church & NAMBLA? This would be shameful if it were a secular organization. But from an institution that claims to be the representative of Jesus Christ? More than 11,000 allegations of sex abuse have been made about Roman Catholic priests in the US since 1950, a new report is expected to show.FoxNews.com has more on the results: Eighty percent of the alleged victims were male, and just over half said they were between the ages of 11 and 14 when they were assaulted, a source who read the reports told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.Eighty percent of the victims were male? Somehow, it doesn't sound like a particularly random distribution. Dioceses nationwide received 10,667 abuse claims since 1950, according to a news release from the Diocese of Yakima, Wash. Of those, claims by approximately 6,700 were substantiated. About 3,300 were not investigated because the accused clergymen were dead.Let's see, if the claims not investigated because the accused were dead had the same ratio of substantiated to unsubstantiated, that would mean another 2871 uninvestigated claims that would have been substantiated. Here is where it gets really horrifying: The panel noted that any evaluation of the crisis had to take into account that much of the abuse involved men preying on boys, the source said. And the report said that church leaders' failure to discipline sexually active priests created an environment which made clerics reluctant to report abuse of children.If this reluctance to report abuse had taken place in Hollywood, or the Democratic National Committee headquarters, I would be disappointed but not surprised. But in the Catholic Church? How Do You Know A Political Party Isn't Competent to Run the Government? When it mails its secret election strategy to its opponents: Britain's Liberal Democrat party accidentally e-mailed its draft election plans to Welsh members of the ruling Labor Party Tuesday, unwittingly unveiling what would normally be a closely guarded secret. Lost in Scotland This is one of those great stories that give me reason to read Reuters Odd: LONDON (Reuters) - A tiny Scottish village called Lost is to change its name because souvenir hunters keep stealing its road signs. Rep. Otter Wakes Up I was very disappointed last year, when I contacted my Congressman, Representative Otter, concerning the Federal Marriage Amendment. In spite of representing Idaho, a very conservative state, and pretending to be a conservative, Otter indicated that he would not support the FMA because there was no realistic chance of it passing. Yesterday, out of the blue, I received an email from Otter indicating that the situation in San Francisco and Massachusetts has caused him to rethink his position on this, and he now will support such a change. Something tells me that Otter is beginning to hear from his constituents on this. "Virtually Normal" At least, that was the title of Andrew Sullivan's book about how normal gay people are. Of course, we have since learned that Sullivan, who is HIV+, trolls the Internet looking for unprotected anonymous sex. Here's another of those 'virtual normally" sorts that pop up with surprising frequency: Young men attending sex parties in Orlando, Fla., were reportedly drugged and injected with tainted blood inside a man's garage, according to a Local 6 News report. Thursday, February 26, 2004
ACLU Is At It Again From the Richmond, Virginia Times-Dispatch: A lawyer tagged with the state's first adultery conviction in recent times is challenging the criminal charge brought against him as a constitutional violation.Well, I guess I'm not surprised. Why should marital vows mean anything? Is there any form of sexual behavior that isn't constitutionally protected under Lawrence? The person convicted of adultery is a lawyer. I am reminded of the joke that starts out, 'What do a lawyer and rooster have him in common? The rooster clucks defiance, while the lawyer...." Well, you can figure out the rhyming verse. Now, you may be expressing surprise that adultery remains a criminal matter in Virginia. It's not the only place. As of 2000, there were a couple dozen states where this was also the case. Idaho Code 18-6601 still criminalizes adultery: ADULTERY. A married man who has sexual intercourse with a woman not his wife, an unmarried man who has sexual intercourse with a married woman, a married woman who has sexual intercourse with a man not her husband, and an unmarried woman who has sexual intercourse with a married man, shall be guilty of adultery, and shall be punished by a fine of not less than $100, or by imprisonment in the county jail for not less than three months, or by imprisonment in the state penitentiary for a period not exceeding three [(3)] years, or in the county jail for a period not exceeding one [(1)] year, or by fine not exceeding $1000.There was a woman in California a few years ago who attempted to get an initiative on the ballot to again make adultery a criminal matter, but it didn't go anywhere--adultery being one of the primary indoor sports. Now, some of you are probably saying, "Why is this the government's job?" The answer is that adultery leads to a lot of broken marriages, with predictable effects on state involvement in resolving divorces, child custody, enforcement of child support orders, and certainly some increase in STD rates. I don't pretend that making adultery criminal is going to make any huge difference in how people behave. Adultery is often a symptom of a marriage already in deep trouble. All that is necessary to justify a law is that it causes a useful change of behavior at the margins. If 2% of the population is influenced to not engage in adultery by fear of paying a hefty fine, or being put at a disadvantage at divorce time, this is worth it. Labels: homosexuality Best Buy Billing: Did They Neglect To Bill You, and Then Charge You a Late Fee? About a year ago, I bought a TV at Best Buy. They had a "no interest for 18 months" deal whereby I would pay no interest on the balance if I made a minimum $11 payment, and didn't miss any payments. Great deal. I could have paid cash, but why, if someone offers you a deal like that? Everything has gone well until last month, when I did not receive a bill--and of course, I didn't notice it. Now I have a statement from them charging me $29 for a late fee. I have not had any other bills fail to arrive, so I find myself wondering if they might be pulling a fast one--failing to send out a bill so that they can charge a late fee. Has anyone else had this experience? UPDATE: I called Best Buy this morning, and without even a little protest (perhaps because of my payment history), they immediately agreed to credit my account for the late fee if I got them the payment within 10 days. Missouri Supreme Court Upholds The Important Part of the Concealed Weapon Permit Law The decision is here. There were two significant issues raised by the plaintiffs trying to preven the law from taking effect: 1. Does the Missouri Legislature have the authority to pass a law allowing concealed carry of firearms? The Missouri Supreme Court said yes. The injunction prohibiting implementation of the new law was dissolved. 2. Does the new law, by requiring county sheriffs to expend money on processing applications (even though they also receive applicatoin fees that should exceed these costs), constitute an "unfunded mandate"? The Missouri Supreme Court decided that it did, and so the counties are not obligated to process applications. However: the new law also recognizes permits issued by a number of other states, and even a resident of Missouri could carry on an out-of-state permit. Even if some counties decide not to issue permits, it won't much matter. One more state in which I am allowed to carry concealed! That makes it 32 states now. For all the gruesome details of the law, read this article here. Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 This AP news story reports that the House has passed a bill that would make the killing of an unborn child in certain federal jurisdictions into the same crime as if done to the mother--with an exemption for lawful abortions: The measure would be applicable only when federal crimes - such as terrorism, drug trafficking or offenses on federal land or on military bases - are committed.The pro-choice crowd sees this bill as undermining the right to an abortion: But Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said it would be the first time in federal law that a fetus would be recognized as having the same rights as the born. The bill "is not about shielding pregnant women," she said. "It is and has always been about undermining freedom of choice."How? The bill--HR 1997, which you can read here (sorry, no direct link to the text)--is pretty clear about this: (c) Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the prosecution--I confess to being utterly mystified by the pro-choice response. If passed into law, this would make federal law rather like that of well-known right-wing reactionary pro-life places such as California--which also criminalizes the killing of a fetus, except if done by a licensed physician. See Cal. Penal Code sec. 187:(1) of any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained or for which such consent is implied by law; 187. (a) Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.The bill's language is as explicit as can be, and similar enough to California's statute that exempts lawful abortions, that I can't quite see what their objection is--unless the objection is that it legally defines that an unborn child is a human being. I suspect that it has more to do with guilty consciences than anything else. Look carefully at the logical concept involved in both California law, and the proposed bill (which, while it includes embryos, is actually less demanding than California law as to the circumstances that allows a doctor to perform an abortion). What is it saying? It's not murder if it's done with the mother's consent, but it is murder if it is done against her will. What gives the mother the right to kill an unborn child, but others are similarly limited? Ownership, it appears. I used to think the analogy, promoted by pro-lifers, that abortion is like slavery was a bit strained, and it is still an imperfect match. One example of where the analogy fails is that even under slavery, the law did not consider that masters had a right to kill their slaves, except in self-defense, or while fleeing servitude. In practice, it was nearly impossible to get convictions, but that was because of a combination of jury nullification and that blacks could not testify against whites. The slave law at least never engaged in quite this absurd combination of "it's a human life, and it's murder to kill it, except if you are the mother." Labels: abortion Where Does This Abortion Number Come From? In the course of an email discussion with one of my sisters, she made the statement that 45% of American women will have at least one abortion during their lifetime. This seemed awfully high to me, so I started doing some digging. I found this website making essentially that same claim: Almost half of American women (43%) will have an abortion sometime in their lifetime.A little more digging found that a number of studies have attempted to measure the lifetime use of abortion, not just the annual rate, producing what they call a Total First Abortion Rate or Total Abortion Rate. This study from the British Medical Journal shows a 44% abortion rate--but when you look at the methodology used, there are some obvious problems with it. The methodology involves distributing all abortions over all women. Similarly, this abstract from the American Journal of Epidemiology seems to have used a somewhat similar method to determine that 29%-31% of South Australian women would have an abortion at some point in their lifetime. While the article refers to Total First Abortion Rate, it's not clear to me from the abstract that they actually are measuring only first abortions. If abortions were evenly distributed, this method of distributing all abortions across all women of childbearing age would make sense. However, abortions are almost certainly not evenly distributed. There are a lot of women who are fiercely hostile to abortion, and are simply not going to have one, no matter how extreme the situation. California very strongly recommends (not quite requires) women to have an amniocentesis procedure early on to look for birth defects. One woman I know was resisting having it done, because as she explained to me, "It's a life. I'm not having an abortion. Why bother having this done?" Especially because there is something under a 1% change of miscarriage as a result. There are women who have no moral problem with abortion, and are unlikely to have any qualms about repeating the procedure. I knew one woman who, by age 21, had already had three abortions. Others that I have talked have also known women (and I don't mean "know" in the Biblical sense) that have had multiple abortions. I would expect that prostitutes are probably much more likely to be multiple users of abortion, simply because even 0.1% failure rates, when run up against thousands of sexual acts per year, are going to result in pregnancies. A relatively small number of repeat users of abortion can run up the rates quite impressively. It might be that as few as 20% of American women will ever have an abortion. It might be 15%, or as much as 30%. I really don't see that the data that I have found gives a very meaningful measure. If you know of a study that provides a meaningful measure of this statistic, please let me know. Labels: abortion Ah, The Liberal Enthusiasm For Freedom of Speech From FoxNews.com: PORTLAND, Ore. — The Hispanic Club, the Chess Club and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance are just some of the clubs that have displays in the hallways of Portland schools.Just like the school was "endorsing" chess, ethnic identity politics, and homosexuality? Bible Club leader Jeff Chatterton fought back by contacting the American Center for Law and Justice, an organization that has taken on a number of similar cases. This week Chatterton filed a federal lawsuit against the school district, saying that his right to free speech was violated.What calls itself liberalism today is just totalitarianism in Birkenstocks. War Heroes Thomas Sowell has an interesting point about John "Did I mention that I served in Vietnam?" Kerry: Benedict Arnold was a war hero, wounded in battle -- before he turned against his country. Hitler was likewise a decorated and wounded veteran of the First World War. Being a war hero is not a lifetime "get out of jail free" card, exempting you from responsibility for what you do thereafter. Humor Dave Barry's latest column includes a number of examples of great moments in writing: An alert Missouri reader sent in a newsletter from Rocky Mountain National Park containing this tip for visitors: ''Avoid the traffic by using one of the park's shuttle buses and view the elk rut with a park ranger.'' Wednesday, February 25, 2004
The Oklahoma City Bombing: When Will The Full Truth Come Out? From an AP news story: FBI agents destroyed evidence and failed to share other information that raised the possibility that a gang of white supremacist bank robbers may have assisted Timothy McVeigh during the Oklahoma City bombing, according to documents never introduced at McVeigh's trial.There are more examples of the FBI destroying evidence mentioned in the story. I have been troubled for a very long time about the McVeigh case. They failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that McVeigh did it--if you read the transcripts, you will be astonished at how weak the government's case was against him. It is fortunate that McVeigh finally confessed before his execution, or I would still be wondering. There have been at least plausible pieces of evidence of Iraqi involvement with McVeigh, and at least one government informant who warned the government before the bombing that it was going to happen, was indicted (and found innocent) on criminal charges to prevent her from testifying at McVeigh's trial. The truth needs to come out. More About The Bill in Congress The bill to prevent frivolous lawsuits against gun makers and dealers has both an editorial in its favor in Roll Call magazine (to my shock), and there is also a splendid ad from NRA here that points out a seldom considered flaw in the "sue the gun makers until they fold" approach that this bill seeks to fix. It's time to call your Senators, and tell them that acceptable amendments to S. 1805 do not include renewal of the assault weapon ban. The Horse Is Dead: Stop Beating It Someone forwarded me a very good essay about the delusions of the lyrics to John Lennon's song, "Imagine." It is, indeed, a very good and thoughtful essay. It is, unfortunately, either evidence that the Web is a lot older than I thought, and this was published in the 1970s, or it is the political equivalent of writing an essay proving that Galileo was right: the Earth does go around the Sun, not vice versa: The unpopular War in Viet Nam made the song an immediate hit, and it remains the best-loved number in the pacifist hymnal more than thirty years later. It's a good bet that more candles and Bic lighters have been waved in the air to "Imagine" than to all else combined, "Kumbaya" included. In the plaintive voice of the since tragically murdered Lennon, "Imagine" can carry an emotional punch, especially when experienced as the reverent keening of a solemn nighttime gathering of believers in the dream. In the midst of so much hopeful sincerity, even an inveterate cynic could find himself fumbling for his Bic somewhere in the second verse. But what, exactly, was Lennon asking us to imagine? The answer leaves no doubt that Lennon should have stuck to singing about yellow submarines. Bad Analogies: Interracial Marriage and Gay Marriage History provides lessons for the present. One hazard, however, is when people draw parallels between very different situations. One example is the frequent analogy drawn between interracial marriage laws, and laws against homosexual marriage. The aptly named Loving v. Virginia (1967), in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Virginia's ban on interracial marriage as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, is often cited as an example of the federal courts overruling majority will in the interests of human rights. This analogy falls down in a number of areas. The most dramatic difference is that when Loving was decided, there were 16 states (including Virginia) that prohibited interracial marriage--16 out of 50. I don't know what the high water mark was, but there was never a point where every state prohibited interracial marriage, and there was often a sizeable minority of the states that had no such laws. For example, in 1910, 28 states (out of 46) had some sort of interracial marriage prohibition. In 1950, 30 out out 48 states had such bans. Even on this, there's some surprising variation, with many states prohibiting only white and black marriages, but leaving other interracial marriages alone. California's 1872 statute prohibiting white and black marriage, for example, wasn't extended to Asians, or "Mongolians" until 1901. By contrast, not a single state legislature has recognized gay marriage. Loving is an example of the Supreme Court deciding to force the recalcitrant Southern states to join a parade in which most of the rest of the country was already marching. (Why did they do that, instead of allowing them to just not recognize interracial marriages? You'll find out shortly.) Another dramatic difference between Loving and the current gay marriage squabble is that Virginia did not simply refuse to recognize interracial marriage: it punished anyone who married elsewhere and returned home: If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.The Lovings, for marrying in the District of Columbia, and then returning to live in Virginia, were sentenced to either one year in prison, or required to leave the state of Virginia for 25 years. Compare that to the situation today. If gay people want to get married in Europe, fine. They can come back here, tell everyone that they are "married"--and there will be no punishment for doing so. As much as I am offended by bans on interracial marriage, that might have been something that the federal courts could have ignored, if Virginia had been content to simply leave well enough alone. Virginia wasn't content with just refusing to recognize interracial marriage--it was actively punishing it, as a felony. This turned a "we won't recognize it" question into a "we'll punish you if you marry somewhere else" problem. As I said, not at all the analogy to gay marriage today. Another difference: laws prohibiting interracial marriage are actually a pretty modern innovation in the history of Western civilization. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Maryland and Virginia both passed laws that prohibited interracial marriage. Why? There are lots of arguments about this still, but it appears that it was because white women were in short supply. They immigrated in small numbers, and died quickly in the malarial swamps of the Chesapeake. These laws were probably a method of reducing competition for white women. (If this is surprising to you, remember that quite a few blacks in these colonies were free during this period.) I can't think of any examples of laws prohibiting interracial marriage in Europe or Britain before then. By contrast, until these last few years, you don't find homosexual marriage in Europe, at least in the last couple of millennia. Even in classical civilization, which was a bit more tolerant of homosexuality than the last 1500 years have been, you don't find homosexual marriage. The analogy utterly fails here as well. UPDATE: Here's the Maryland statute of 1884 that made interracial marriage a felony. Like Virginia, they did not simply refuse to recognize it. Assault Weapons: Not the Magic Weapon of Sure Death That Some People Think My co-blogger over at the civilian gun self-defense blog just put this up from the Houston Chronicle of February 24, 2004, but it's worth reading just for the reminder that an AK-47 is not a substitute for goodness and intelligence: Police say a southeast Houston homeowner shot an armed intruder who'd broken into his house overnight, but no one realized the suspect died until a neighbor found the body a block away this morning.They aren't magic, okay? Bad guys (and gun control advocates) may think an assault weapon makes a criminal invincible (like Rambo), but no, it really doesn't. Consequences of Low Birth Rates Greenspan is talking about the need to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees, because of the danger of rising deficits as the Boomer generation starts to retire. It's scary--the crowd that wore tie-dyes, created an epidemic of STDs, dropped acid, and smoked pot--are going to be using walkers and getting the senior discount! "What a long strange trip it's been." What no one talks about, however, is that part of the problem isn't just all those Boomers retiring at once--it was also that so many Boomers listened to the worried talk about overpopulation, and decided to limit themselves to one child, or had none at all. Because Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (but one backed by the full faith and credulousness of the federal government), the generation paying Social Security needs to be pretty much as large as the generation receiving it. Uh oh. I shudder to think of what Social Security or income tax rates are going to have to be in another ten years to make up for the shortfall of young people who are working. The Passion of the Christ: Perhaps Too Intense? I've heard that it is intense, but this incident brings back memories. In the early 1960s, I can remember scary movies being advertised with, "Nurses will be on duty in the lobby," with the implication that the film was so terrifying that some people might need medical attention. This was just hype, but Gibson's new movie apparently is quite intense: A woman collapsed in an East Wichita theatre this morning, during a showing of "The Passion Of The Christ". The woman, in her 50's, was pronounced dead a short time later at a Wichita medical center. Supreme Court Again Shows Its Hostility Towards Religion I am shocked and disappointed by this 7-2 decision in Locke v. Davey (2004). Here's the essential facts: Washington State creates a scholarship program for smart but not rich kids. They can use this scholarship at any accredited college in the state, public or private, for any degree program that they want, except one: theology. One major is specifically excluded. It is clear to me that the Framers's intent for the First Amendment prohibition on religious establishment was to prevent any particular denomination or church from being given special privileges or status by the federal government. (They had no such intention with respect to the states, although all eventually disestablished state churches by the 1840s; the 14th Amendment eventually extended the First Amendment to apply to states and local governments.) The evidence of how the Continental Congress, the First Congress, and the Jefferson and Madison Administrations operated, demonstrates that everyone understood that the First Amendment did not prohibit policies and actions that were supportive of religion in general (which at the time was understood to be Christianity, even in Jefferson's rather unorthodox definition of it). Fast forward. Liberals on the Court have, over the last 40 years, decided that it is not enough for the government to be neutral towards a particular branch of Christianity, or even neutral towards all religions. It must be neutral on the question of religion vs. non-religion. I would argue that this is an ahistoric understanding of the First Amendment, but as wrong as it is, it is an improvement over this decision, which decided that a state government may constitutionally treat religious studies specially and worse than other fields of education. When the student challenging this special exclusion argued that the Court had previously taken the position of complete neutrality with respect to religion, their response is exactly the sort of sophistry I expect from the secularists who have taken over the Court: [Davey] contends that under the rule we enunciated in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, supra, the program is presumptively unconstitutional because it is not facially neutral with respect to religion. We reject his claim of presumptive unconstitutionality, however; to do otherwise would extend the Lukumi line of cases well beyond not only their facts but their reasoning. In Lukumi, the city of Hialeah made it a crime to engage in certain kinds of animal slaughter. We found that the law sought to suppress ritualistic animal sacrifices of the Santeria religion. 508 U. S., at 535. In the present case, the State's disfavor of religion (if it can be called that) is of a far milder kind.Because the law in question isn't sending anyone to prison, the Court expreses doubt that this is "disfavor of religion." They specifically exclude one, and only one field of study from this scholarship fund. Next thing you know, they will decide that because homosexuals are only being excluded from marriage, this "disfavor of homosexuality (if it can be called that)" is too mild to worry about. Yet we know which way the Supreme Court will vote on the gay marriage issue. To my pleasure, Professor Volokh sees the serious flaw in the reasoning of the majority, and that Scalia's dissent gets it right. For Those Convinced NRA Is Trying To Get the Assault Weapon Ban Renewed Perhaps they can explain this NRA-ILA alert to members: Anti-gun Senators will likely attempt to amend this bill with legislation to ban gun shows and to extend and expand the ban on semi-automatic firearms (www.clintongunban.com). To protect the future of America's millions of gun owners, it is vital that the Senate pass S. 659/S. 1805/S. 1806 without any anti-gun amendments.Is this clear enough to everyone? They want their members to ask for a straight up and down vote on the frivolous lawsuit ban, and passage without any anti-gun amendments. Labels: gun rights Kansas House Considering Non-Discretionary Concealed Handgun Bill From the Lawrence, Kansas Journal-World: The House Federal and State Affairs Committee voted 13-7 to send the legislation to the full House, along with an amendment defining school property. The bill prohibits concealed guns in government buildings and schools, but the committee had a hard time determining what constitutes school property.This is going to be a tough one, because the governor has made it clear that she intends to veto any such bill. I know the first reaction of many people when they hear that Kansas has no concealed weapon permit system at all right is surprise. You shouldn't be surprised. Kansas, in some respects, is more Southern (old South) than Northern. "Bleeding Kansas" was a full-scale civil war in the 1850s between abolitionists and pro-slavery folks. The famous case that ended de jure segregration of public schools, Brown v. Board of Education, was against the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education, which assigned students by race to different schools. Of course, tight regulation of concealed carrying of firearms has a long history of identification with the Old South and racism in the postbellum South. Tuesday, February 24, 2004
Time To Fire Up The Email and Phones Contact your U.S. Senator and let them know that the ban on frivilous lawsuits against gun makers needs to be voted on--and without any assault weapon ban renewal amendments. NOW! Here's the director page that takes you to the web page for your senator. Even if you are represented by useless slime like Dianne Feinstein or Barbara Boxer, let them know that this is important to you. Be polite, but let them know that the real issue isn't the type of gun, but the person holding it. A convicted felon with a .22 rifle is more dangerous than a law-abiding adult with an AK-47. The Left Continues Its Descent Into Irrationality Both David Bernstein* and Eugene Volokh* made mention of this article. Once you read it, you'll understand the significance of the stars after their names--and why the left has gone completely off the deep end: A lot of ink has been spilled chronicling the pro-Israel leanings of American neocons and fact that a the disproportionate percentage of them are Jewish. Some commentators are worried that these individuals -- labeled "Likudniks" for their links to Israel's right wing Likud party -- do not distinguish enough between American and Israeli interests. For example, whose interests were they protecting in pushing for war in Iraq?Gee, putting a little symbol next to the names of the neocons who are Juden--who might get the wrong impression from that? At least Adbusters didn't use yellow stars--although it wouldn't have surprised me. Alas, I don't even quality as a Mischling to Adbusters--the converts in my family tree were too many generations back. It doesn't even occur to the left that a legitimate concern of Americans (regardless of ethnicity or religion) is to do something about a region that seems to be breeding suicidal terrorists. If the IRA had killed 3000 Americans on 9/11, the U.S. would probably be combing through Ireland at the moment. Declining Oil Production in Saudi Arabia This article reports that oil production is now in decline in Saudi Arabia. This is probably a good thing. A friend of mine who speaks Arabic was in a taxicab in California a few days ago, and noticed an Arab newspaper on the floor. He asked the driv |
