Bloodless Coup

You're saying that teachers shouldn't respond "respectively" as is called for by the law to differences in opinion regarding beliefs in science class, but only in history class regarding cultures of origin? The law of which you speak as calling for creationism to be taught in the classroom (and I quote): "E. This Section only protects the teaching of scientific information, and 13 this section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote 14 discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote 15 discrimination for or against religion or non-religion." Where is the part about teaching creationism in the classroom?

I have to agree with Ben Stein here, science was made as a venue to explore new knowledge, not a rigid dogma to ban exploration and thought, the kind of censorship this very law prohibits. In the left's hatred of the church they've become like the Christian church of the middle ages or the fundamentalist islamic church of today that punishes exploration and freedom of thought. Without these protections, teachers can no more research the plausibility of intelligent design than German scientists in WWII could research the goodness of the Jews.

I know your former democratic majority leader not getting to be health secretary puts the brakes on the left's national socialist health care eugenics plan he'd called for that would require in its scientific purity the elderly (first) to sacrifice themselves in dignified disease for the good of the tribe. But we're not there yet, thank God, only a few steps closer due to the so called stimulus plan that calls for sanctioning doctors whose treatments aren't efficient enough to meet government standards. Why does the Left always want the government to decide who's right and who's wrong/who lives and who dies? Why not let individuals decide for themselves?

I'm not saying anything about this Morris, and most of what you've just written here isn't relevant to this topic. I have not read the law. I'm merely noting that scientific organizations that have followed this debate read the law differently than you do and are taking action they deem appropriate.

I will note that all you have posted is one section, a section that appears inserted by legislature to try to protect its ass from 1st Amndt. challenges.

And you're 1) insulting and lying about a fair a bit of "the left" who happen to be religious people, and 2) asserting that this has something to do with scientists views of religious organizations. Ummm, no. This has to do with what's taught in schools. Those are distinct matters.

"I'm merely noting that scientific organizations that have followed this debate read the law differently than you do and are taking action they deem appropriate."

Why wouldn't a scientific organization read the law? This is telling. If they really were scientific instead of simply political, they would examine the law and not just what Dan Rather might say about it.

"I will note that all you have posted is one section, a section that appears inserted by legislature to try to protect its ass from 1st Amndt. challenges."

Here is the law. If you read it, you'll see that the substance is contained in a single section, that section (1) referenced above.

"And you're 1) insulting and lying about a fair a bit of "the left" who happen to be religious people"

Just because people were fed up enough with corrupt Republicans that they voted in corrupt Democrats who are expanding the Obama budget deficit (over 8 months of Obama term and over a trillion extra spending so far this past month) to eight times of what Bush had reduced it to a couple years ago doesn't mean they're Lefties. As much as the favor collectivism over individuality, they would represent faceless people who think nothing of the gift of human individuality and seek to blot it all out in favor of their own authority's particular idea about what God would want, not unlike Islamic extremists in ideology but lacking their zeal.

"2) asserting that this has something to do with scientists views of religious organizations. Ummm, no. This has to do with what's taught in schools. Those are distinct matters."

Via science daily:
"After using science or God to explain such important questions, most people display a preference for one and a neutral or even negative attitude toward the other. This effect appears to be independent of a person's religious background or views, says University of Illinois psychology professor Jesse Preston, who led the research."

So there is no distinction because each of these competing explanations, the scientific and the religious, have (at least) a crowding out effect on each other. This explains why so many scientists think religious types don't fit the mold, a la Obama and his new emphasis on science that actual is just emphasis on the particular beliefs of certain scientists instead of on a process of discovering knowledge. It's all about metaphysical epistemology, and the ways people determine what's real.

Actually, Morris, the meat of the act is this:

C. Neither the Louisiana Department of Education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, superintendent of schools, or school system administrator, nor any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrator shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course or courses being taught. Such topics may include those topics listed in Paragraph A(4) of this Section.

Section A(4) lists "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning" as topics discussion of which is to be protected.

Honestly, on the face of the law, I have no problem with it. Unfortunately, I recognize that for some people "God did it" falls within "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life," which is only true if by "chemical" you mean "magic pixie dust," more or less.

I know Democrats who would put your faith to shame, Morris. Loving, wonderful people of God who believe Jesus's views on reserving judgment for the afterlife and that loving and caring for each other (without regard to whom they pray to or whether they believe god wants them to shoot moose from a helicopter) trump hating the gays and mischaracterizing people's views on abortion so you can decline to engage what is, at root, a pragmatic debate. People who grapple honestly (rather than holding their breath and stamping their feet) with the irreconcilability of a so-called culture of life and a policy of endless war, capital punishment, poor sheerly-for-profit healthcare, etc.. People who recognize the hazards of forcing more unwanted children into a world where you resent every single social service offered to someone who is poor, and who are scientific enough to realize that if their stated goals are disserved by a policy (ahem, abstinence-only education, I'm talking to you), that the policy needs to go.

Usually people who choose to demonize rather than engage their opponents are more subtle about it. You're just lazy.

Moon,
I don't believe God made a mistake in creating individuals. When people reserve judgment for the afterlife, they deny themselves because they assume their own responses might make things worse, as though they're not supposed to respond naturally with fear that values what they fear to lose. I do appreciate the many years it took you to sharpen your tongue, I can't imagine how much you must have lost to make it so important that you win. But the answer to loss isn't surrender of what remains.

How is it that the loving people you describe are so convinced that so many children must be unwanted? That's a hell of an assumption for a loving person to make, because either they think some children don't inspire parents to want them or they think so many parents would prefer to be rid of their kids that there must be something to it, something worth marching in the streets about.

To me, a loving person would appreciate that even in the case of malignantly narcissist parents, such individual failure to care for their kids illustrates what the rest of us get: that it's important to care for kids; but we wouldn't recognize the depravity of their condition if there weren't individual failures, and we wouldn't appreciate the gift that is love which most of us feel for most others most of the time.

Capital punishment and all violence against criminals is a way to value those against whom crimes were committed, and the importance of treating each other well. If we treat those who commit crimes with equal compassion as we treat those who don't commit crimes, we have failed to celebrate the importance of compassion, of love. If we allow vile dictators to operate rape rooms and treat them with as much patience as we have for those filled with honor, we fail to make a distinction in our lives as to what we value, as to what condition we want to return.

Could there be a teacher who promotes a particular set of religious beliefs in a classroom? Sure, anywhere in the country there could. But just as in the rest of the country, our law forbids it. I remember the Bloodless attitude: F- the South. I get your prejudice against us, I get that you feel threatened by our culture. But since when did faith become about putting people to shame, as you suggest? Loving people don't use their faith that way.

Science, used in a rigorous way instead of as a malleable one-size fits all way, has certain key characteristics absent from faith. Indeed, those omissions are implicit in an equally rigorously defined sense of "faith."

As for the rest, what do you have, like two, maybe three boxes you fit people into? I refuse to engage your ridiculous generalizations. If they weren't personally offensive in their facile dismissiveness, they'd be insulting to my intelligence. And in either case, trying to engage you would be an utter waste of my time.

But I applaud you on your ability to rationalize yourself right out of the plain text of the New Testament (you may want a hide-bound constitution, but you sure pay fast and loose with Jesus's teachings, don't you?), and to bathe a defense of vengeance -- There must be blood! -- in putrid perfume. Alas, your inability to envisage setting a better example by behaving more righteously than society's meanest elements, even if the payoff is minimal or remote, reeks just the same as a profound failure of moral imagination.

Culture of life, indeed. With a big fat footnote attached to life, eh? Whatever.

Wow, you used big words. That almost makes up for lack of substance, just like Obama. How unsophisticated you truly are to be unable to tell the difference between random violence for personal profit and answering that violence so that it will not happen again. You attack me for lack of creativity, and you can't see that one motivation is better than the other. It all looks the same, eh?

If you're such a fan of science, how about emailing Obama to ramp up funding for the missile defense agency? That's the most cutting edge science in the world, and your Lefty friends think it's a threat, that we shouldn't research stuff like that, only stuff like God particles that could rip a hole in space time and swallow the Earth. Like so many of your arguments, this is yet another straw man, I have no objection to the process of discovery in science. It is you who is close minded so you cannot accept the process of discovery in faith.

This bill is about allowing students to use the same critical thinking skills in science you would applaud them for applying in philosophy, about teaching them to figure out what's real for themselves; but then they wouldn't need your government media complex to tell them, right?

Shorter Morris - "If you have faith and believe you can wish it true, it's all good. Especially when I get to decide what's legitimate."

Hey, that's what saved Tinkerbell after all, right Mo?

What's taught in class apparently needn't be related to the scientific consensus of the field the students are actually taking a class in. Silly me for basing my syllabi on that for all these years.

And man on man do you like to drift off target, but since you insist on doing it again I'll follow your lead (and Baltar can jump in here if he's in the mood) - 1) missile defense is faaaaaaar from the most cutting edge science in the world, and 2) Obama's not getting rid of it - he's just focusing the money on the parts (there are several missile defense programs)that actually work. I hear Republicans always want government run like a business - isn't that what a business would do?

"How unsophisticated you truly are to be unable to tell the difference between random violence for personal profit and answering that violence so that it will not happen again. You attack me for lack of creativity, and you can't see that one motivation is better than the other. It all looks the same, eh?"

Not unsophisticated, just principled in ways with which you disagree. But since anyone who doesn't want the blood of the EEEEEEvil on his hands can't possibly be rational, and must needs necessarily be a namby pamby liberal who wouldn't last two minutes in the nasty brutish and short world of a non-welfare state, your response is perfectly on point. But a propos Armand's point about free marketeers ignoring a market-type environment's failures when they occur, retribution doesn't work -- whether you goal is reduced crime, increased deterrence, greater efficiency. It's another massive incredibly costly (in economic and human terms) example of ideology over result, like abstinence only education, tax cuts as the exclusive panacea for all economic ills, and so on.

All of these examples fit the classic definition of insanity: You just keep doing the same thing, convinced this time it'll work, even though it never has before.

Armand,
Your dismissiveness of my commentary illustrates better than I could the lie of Moon's remarks regarding the Left having faith. Blind faith in what scientists have "discovered" is magical thinking, because the Titanic wouldn't have sunk and Columbia wouldn't have disintegrated if they were as infallible as you believe.

Scientists have become the authority not in their assumption of how to figure out what they don't know but by becoming politicians who tell people what they're supposed to believe, telling them to ignore their experiences of continued science failures over the last two thousand years; they have no monopoly on knowledge, they are knowledge only to those who seek blind faith. Actual faith is based in mystery, the blind spot which continues to elude scientists no matter how much money Obama spends on it.

"Obama's not getting rid of it - he's just focusing the money on the parts (there are several missile defense programs)that actually work. I hear Republicans always want government run like a business - isn't that what a business would do?"

This illustrates the blind grasping of science so well; if it hasn't been discovered yet, it's not meant to be. If global warming looks likely based on information we have in 1998, it must be true. Science when it is about discovering knowledge has a place for mystery and discovery, that is necessary for science to exist. The earth is no warmer now than we were 25 years ago.

People telling other people what they should believe is not science, that's slavery. Of course we want to build and deploy systems that already work, and if you actually believed in science you would want to discover how to make other systems work.

But the Left isn't interested in technology to defend ourselves from other countries because the only enemies the Left attacks are Americans; why else has Obama said more against Rush Limbaugh than he says against Iran's puppet? He said we won't get anywhere listening to Rush, but that he doesn't want to continue evil Bush's hateful policy that ignores what Iran's puppet has to say. Dude, that's seriously bent.

Moon,
Props on using "must needs," that's one of my favorite phrases.

You write: But a propos Armand's point about free marketeers ignoring a market-type environment's failures when they occur, retribution doesn't work -- whether you goal is reduced crime, increased deterrence, greater efficiency.

See Ehrlich in 1977, Dezhbakhsh in 2002, Mocan and Giddings in 2003, and Cloninger and Marchesini in 2001. Capital punishment works, saving up to 18 lives per execution, depending on the estimate. That is reduced crime, increased deterrence, greater efficiency. Insanity is that believing the human condition will change if we're nicer to people after they do bad things, convinced this time it'll work, even though it never has before.

Ummm, maybe when Rush runs a resource rich country of 70 million people that's been growing in influence in an unstable part of the world he'll be more worth listening to. As he doesn't run such a country, of course the president is more interested in dealing with a major international actor than he is with Rush. That shouldn't be hard to understand.

So teaching people biology in a biology class is slavery? Uh-huh. Well why don't we also add a class unit on how the stork is responsible for human reproduction. B/c, you know, with faith and science we can make it so. Or at least we shouldn't dismiss the possibility. That'd be pessimisitic. Or is it that you want to teach mysteries in biology class? Shouldn't those be taught in mystery class? And if your response is that there isn't mystery class - well, if school boards want to fund mystery class, let 'em do that. But as long as it's biology that's in the curriculum, how about we teach biology?

And as to your views on the defense budget and missile defense ... so I take it you'd be in favor of us throwing billions at alchemy, right? I mean just saying it can't be done is loser non-science talk right? Un-American. So funding for alchemy! Oh, wait - wasn't Rush telling us that government spending was bad? If so, then how can we fund alchemy?

And the notion that a government that's supporting a $500 billion budget for the DOD, to say nothing of the intel budgets, doesn't care about foreign enemeies ... pardon me while I roll on the floor laughing my ass off.

As for the death penalty, and the "studies" you cite (and the myriad other thin efforts at same), this is as much work as I'm willing to put in refuting someone who would take one hack with no credentials or qualifications over a dozen people who know what they're talking about if the hack said what he wanted to hear. The studies failing to unearth any correlation between the death penalty and deterrence are legion, and either you know that, or . . . well, if you don't, I really don't care. I've spent a ton of time on this issue, and I'm not going to rehash it for a fingers in ears lalalalaing audience.

I'm glad you agree that sometimes technological progress requires government investment and a degree of optimism about the outcome. I'll expect to jump in in support of alternative energy right about, er, how's now for you?

And as for science, science came up with the penicillin and other antibiotics that statistically played a big role in your making it this far. Religion might have made you smile, might have made you feel better about the impermanence of this mortal coil, but last I checked the bible couldn't chase the little nasties out from under your skin. In that regard, then, either science isn't faith, or it's a superior faith, one or the other.

Also, re "Insanity is that believing the human condition will change if we're nicer to people after they do bad things, convinced this time it'll work, even though it never has before."

Look at you imputing motives and expectations.

I don't care whether abolishing the death penalty improves the human condition, and it's not really about it "working" either. Setting aside deterrence, which the inconclusiveness of the evidence requires, putting killers away for life without parole (which is the inexorable effect of a first-degree murder conviction in every state in the union) "works" precisely as well as the alternative at the only improvement it can manifestly offer: taking the bad actor off the street for good.

There are additional benfits. It costs less. And folks like me don't go to sleep thinking of the blood on their hands, including, most notably, the blood of the wrongly executed. I don't arrogate to myself the power to decide who lives and who dies, not especially, and since I don't need to kill to ensure precisely as great a degree of safety, imperfect though it may be, as will be assured absent the death penalty, why would I?

To cater to the baser urges of the victims' families? You do realize, I assume, that there are plenty of grieving families who would call for capital punishment for all sorts of crimes, not just murder. Should we have capital punishment for a pedophile first offender? For a drug dealer whose heroin kills somebody? For a rapist? For someone who robs tens of thousands of his loyal employees blind to enable him to go from can't-spend-it-in-ten-lifetimes rich to can't-even-fathom-what-it-is-I-have rich?

Having spent time closely connected to the criminal justice system, all I ever think about are the mistakes it has and will continue to make. And since just such a mistake could catch you or me in its web, I'd think that would have some effect on you. But then maybe you'd simply thrust out your jaw and sleep in the bed that you made. Somehow, I doubt it.

It's a pity more law and order types can't get themselves charged with a felony, wrongful or otherwise, and see the system from the inside. I'm guessing there'd be more clemency, and certain there'd be more sentencing discretion, than there currently is.

"As he doesn't run such a country, of course the president is more interested in dealing with a major international actor than he is with Rush. That shouldn't be hard to understand."

So it's a kowtow? He's afraid of Akh's power, so he's going to kowtow?

"But as long as it's biology that's in the curriculum, how about we teach biology?"

How about we teach intelligence, and we won't have to get into these disagreements. You've got fluid intelligence which is our ability to adapt and figure things out, and you've got crystallized intelligence which is teach people to parrot information: dates, memorizing formulas, etc.

I don't want teachers talking about universal design if they don't have a better explanation than, "Some big explosion happened, so crap threw all over the place. Some of that crap became apes which turned into people." That's like the old far side cartoon with the guy writing a formula on the board, and one midsection says, "A miracle happens." It needs work. If the teachers said that they don't understand what happened, or that a big crunch happened too, then we're at physical principles of opposing forces.

Being a taoist, I could live with that, because opposing forces have always been and continue to be a part of our lives, and nobody knows where they came from. But suggesting that universal design is of material origin makes no sense when we know of no materials that could set into motion opposing material forces without something beyond our material understanding setting them into motion.

People who attribute universal design to genetics, suggesting it is mutually exclusive to a force beyond our materials, don't seem to get that we don't know enough to say that genetics is more than a temporary mechanism. That would be (using Kagan's example) like figure out combustion was happending in my car engine on the way to Dallas, so combustion is the cause of my trip to Dallas. It is a material correlate to an experiential process without a known cause.

So, yes, I want biology taught as a material correlate to an experiential process because that's what we know of it, for now. Genetic recombination is the action of opposing forces within DNA but has nothing to say of who or what designed our parts to run according to the mechanism that is DNA.

"And as to your views on the defense budget and missile defense ... so I take it you'd be in favor of us throwing billions at alchemy, right?"

Who do I look like to you, Minerva Mayflower? We have made advances in all types of missile defense technology, I encourage you to check out their website www.mda.mil because they detail much of their work and give updates on their advances and setbacks.

"And the notion that a government that's supporting a $500 billion budget for the DOD, to say nothing of the intel budgets, doesn't care about foreign enemeies ... pardon me while I roll on the floor laughing my ass off."

I do believe it is Moon but correct me if I'm wrong who often chastises correlational research as not identifying trend lines. The trend lines are that despite our military equipment being worn by years of war, Obama wants to cut money from the military rather than buy new body armor, etc.

That is his voodoo budget math, that he's taking as his baseling military budget one that includes the Iraq surge despite the fact we never intended to maintain it indefinitely (hence surge, not occupation), and he's acting as if he's cutting the deficit he himself quadrupled in half by refusing to spend money on missions that were never planned to begin with. He should spend that money refitting our troops, but he has to make sure we all get viagra first.

Moon,
I'll get to your comments later.

"rather than buy new body armor"

That's almost as hilarious coming from a Republican circa, you know, now, as bitching about deficit spending.

"Setting aside deterrence, which the inconclusiveness of the evidence requires, putting killers away for life without parole (which is the inexorable effect of a first-degree murder conviction in every state in the union) 'works' precisely as well as the alternative at the only improvement it can manifestly offer: taking the bad actor off the street for good."

No. Taking the bad actor off the street doesn't send a message people can see. It's like reading in a textbook about something versus seeing somebody do it; seeing it is much more real and memorable and sends a message, hence more deterrence. When we're talking about norms in a system, we're talking about the effect it has on society.

I don't care just about whether we prevent some bad actor from committing another crime; I care about preventing and responding to crime. It's not about the bad actor, he gave that liberty away when he killed somebody out of his own depravity. He is not the one who gets consideration. They people who get consideration are people in the community and the one against whom the crime was committed.

Beyond that, there is a mythos, whether or not true, that somebody can be a star in prison if they kill someone, and there are many in criminal communities who buy into it. If we kill them, we're telling them they're so evil they're worth killing because of the good they took from this world. We're drawing the distinction between what they do and what good people do so others can learn from it. I think they are worth killing because of what we have to lose that we value.

"And folks like me don't go to sleep thinking of the blood on their hands, including, most notably, the blood of the wrongly executed."

If there is a poisonous animal in my yard, I look at what effect it has on the system versus what effect it has on me. I live and let live with a wide variety of pests because they accomplish something worthwhile that maitains balance. But if a spider that resembles a recluse or a widow approaches me or my dogs, I'm gonna kill it, and I don't cry about having blood on my hands. It may have never done anything wrong, it may be beautiful in appearance, but my place is to protect what I value, and what's done in the service of what I value I can live with.

Your assumption is the criminal justice system could get it wrong. They have in the past, so you are basing this on some experience. I don't know about you, but I've long since ceased to plan my day and expect it to go as planned. By your approach, the fact that I leave my home increases the probability that something could go awry, so I shouldn't leave my home because I'll still be alive, and I can maitain my illusion that I have control over how I affect things.

But I don't, because this world is relational. The same thing I say to someone that might help someone else may convince somebody else that they should jump off a building. And if I went into session and just listened to what they had to say, I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not blood is on my hands. But typically if someone's thinking about killing themselves, they have talked to themselves quite a bit about it in their head, and they may need a person to listen and then respond from a different point of view.

We could lock them away, and they'd be safe. They'd live the rest of their lives without clothes they could use to hang themselves, without sharp implements they could use to cut themselves, but they'd be protected from themselves, they wouldn't be able to hurt themselves. I don't want to be that hopeless, showing such a lack of faith in their human potential to overcome their circumstances. When we kill someone who takes a life out of their depravity, we are sending them the message that they were capable of more than that.

"You do realize, I assume, that there are plenty of grieving families who would call for capital punishment for all sorts of crimes, not just murder."

Right, that's why our people elect leaders who write our laws and appoint juries of peers to determine when someone doesn't deserve the same punishment that might be accorded another offender. We have to educate our people based on common values; democracy only works when people act morally.

"Having spent time closely connected to the criminal justice system, all I ever think about are the mistakes it has and will continue to make."

That doesn't sound very balanced. Most cops put most bad guys in jail for the right reasons. The mistakes stand out because they're not the norm. I get fed up with the way addicts and alcoholics work the system to put lives in jeopardy one more time, but those individuals have choices. I sleep as well as I do because I don't harbor the illusion that any system could control what they do, giving opportunities to those who will succeed while keeping them from those who will fail. We aren't meant to be able to control that, that's why the criminal system exists at all.

"It's a pity more law and order types can't get themselves charged with a felony, wrongful or otherwise, and see the system from the inside."

What you're doing is confusing defense mechanisms with reality testing. If I get charged with a crime, I will tell myself that somebody else did something worse and they didn't have it as bad. That makes me feel better, because then I can say there is something in control, that it doesn't have to be this way, and that I'm getting screwed. This makes me feel unaccountable, so I don't have to feel guilty, and angry at the system. But there is no control in the system, there is uncertainty, and when I commit a crime, I open myself up to the worst consequence the system has to offer. Telling myself that people in the criminal justice system must abide by better judgment than what got me into my mess is living in a comfortably uncomfortable illusion.

I didn't call for the abolition of the criminal justice system, warts and all, so you kicking the shit out of that argument is non-responsive. Because I don't buy the studies you cited and others regarding deterrence, for the reasons set forth in the at least equally rigorous studies cited in the Huffington item I linked, you adding a sentence that, in effect says, "No, see, deterrence means this," and letting that stand in for actually dealing with the terms of what I set forth (viz., that there is serious disagreement about the deterrent effect of capital punishment vs. life imprisonment), doesn't do a thing for me, and also leaves you non-responsive to my argument for the life sentence as leaving open the prospect of correcting, at some later time, the mistakes that inevitably are made, which cannot be corrected when the wrongly convicted are executed.

When I said I wish the law and order types would find themselves locked up wrongfully (or otherwise), my point was they might not inanely rest an argument on the ludicrous proposition that being a superstar in prison (which is ludicrous in any event for a mere killer, who is going to be in max along with other killers and rapists and others not easily impressed) somehow offsets for the permanent loss of freedom a life sentence entails.

Lots of words. No real response.

Alright, you want to get into a methodology of death penalty studies debate and lose the interest of everyone else? Let's do this. If you'd gone past the Puffington Post, you might have figured out that they're a bunch of self serving idgits whose interest is promotion of their own deluded agenda. What your article doesn't mention is that Donohue and Wolfers used evil Cheney's data mining technology that libs hate to find selective results which indicated no deterence, and they systematically ignored research which indicated the death penalty deters homicide.

They and you who believe them make outrageous claims to have dealt a death blow to 21 death penalty studies showing deterence when the vast majority of their research focused only on 2 studies. To quote from an actual researcher:

"After all, obtaining someone else’s data
and tweaking their model over and over till a different inference emerges is much easier
than collecting your own data, building an econometric model, developing a statistical
strategy, and making an inference."

But I'm not going into the lengthy ass whipping they apply to Donohue and Wolfings when you can read it yourself.

As to your criticism of my "ludicrous" idea, Keckler writes in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Policy: From an ex ante perspective, previous time in prison appears likely to “condition” individuals to experience prison as less painful. Indeed, Robinson and Darley argue that this psychological “adaptation” influences post-release decision-making because the experience of prison “remembered after the fact, [ ] has taught these people that prison ‘isn’t so bad after all’ and risking it is not an important consideration in one’s thinking in deciding whether to offend.”88

Some, "...however, perceived the prison as at least a tolerable place where they could “play basketball, get high, dress well, work out, have sex and watch color television . . .”90 Generally, those having the easiest time are, naturally, the “toughest criminals who committed the worst crimes” because they usually have established contacts for contraband goods and services, obtain supervisory positions in the prison work details, and can effectively terrorize the “timid, short-term first offender[.]”91

Non-response that.

There were something like five studies cited in Huffington. If you won't acknowledge that there's a huge body of work, of varying degrees of quality, that disputes the deterrent effect of life vs. execution, the rest is windowdressing, not argument. I didn't say no plausible studies have concluded that there's a deterrent effect. I said many other studies have concluded that there is not.

As well, not a single rigorous study has concluded anything but that race of offender and race of victim both have statistically significant correlations with the likelihood of one being tried capital, and being sentenced to die.

So how much arbitrariness is your There Must Be Blood account willing to tolerate? And would it still apply if you were on the short end of the stick?

Most killings are crimes of passion, Morris. And by definition those don't entail a whole lot of contemplation of the consequences.

So you skipped went all the way past non-responsive and went into full irresponsive? I read the work you cited, you ignored mine because if you'd read it, you'd know the points your making are BS, complete BS.

For instance, measuring a state's murder rate against whether or not it allows the death penalty may look good on its face, but it's statistically worthless. It ignores the true independent variable we are measuring, the application of the death penalty, and instead measures the level of violence in a state's culture. I do not argue that a culture with less violence may also have less homicide, but that says nothing, at best. My point as with all the exhaustive studies and meta analyses is that when the death penalty is applied, the murder rate declines, proven again and again.

"I said many other studies have concluded that there is not."

Well, you're either lying or you're mistaken, because the only actual studies to dispute the deterence value of capital punishment versus life imprisonment rather than describe how violent a particular state's culture is, are the mendacious ones your Huff Post describes obliterated by the above research and the Shepherd study that concludes, "...capital punishment generally succeeds in the few states with many executions." Of course, the fair and balanced agenda driven Huff Post didn't mention that, and either you didn't read it or you chose to ignore it.

I'll get to the race card later.

"Most killings are crimes of passion, Morris."

I know you've heard that in a movie somewhere, but what does that even mean? The fact that people don't control their anger doesn't excuse it their actions, it is only their excuse.

You don't know what a crime of passion is Morris? You who seems to be all emotion and all passion all the time?

And Moon isn't excusing anything, he's noting the circumstances of most killings.

I'm not going to get into the studies b/c unlike Moon I've never worked with criminal law (neither have you Morris) but I will note a gigantic social science problem with you preferred approach - looking at the application of the death penalty. Since the death penalty was reinstated in the 70s 1 state counts for over a third of executions and 3 states count for well over half of them. That is going to present major problems for models.

I'll also note that your approach suggests that death penalty laws in and of themselves are meaningless.

Armand,
"And Moon isn't excusing anything, he's noting the circumstances of most killings."

Saying someone was angry when they killed somebody else is like saying water's wet. Where does that lead us? If there is an association between passion and the taking of life, it would actually be an argument for applying the death penalty because people in that state of mind aren't thinking logically about consequences, but something emotional like the idea of being electrocuted might make an impact whereas picturing the absence of what a person has to lose by being in prison may be less potent.

"I'm not going to get into the studies b/c unlike Moon I've never worked with criminal law (neither have you Morris)"

Why is it the Left insists people can't have an informed opinion about anything (except the military and war) unless that person has been there? How about listening? I actually do, to correct you, work in a court referral program, and I actually do work with many cients who come through that and other court referral systems, and I listen to plenty of what they have to say about it, as well as to my best friend who as you know is an assistant DA.

How do you guys on the Left presume to have contempt for war without having actually fought in any, then tell me I can't have an opinion about capital crimes unless I've committed one? By that ass backwards standard, the only people allowed to judge a murderer would be another murderer. And why do you bother writing and reading research when it has no value to help you form an opinion unless you were a participant, in which case recording research would lose its value?

"Since the death penalty was reinstated in the 70s 1 state counts for over a third of executions and 3 states count for well over half of them. That is going to present major problems for models."

Sure, but how do you resolve that by throwing out the state with the most executions? It may very well be that execution only works when it is applied with sufficient frequency, or that it only works in states with a violent culture, or that it only works when it is sufficiently painful as is suggested by some studies suggesting electrocution is a more effective way to deter. But why take it off the table for all states in all conditions if it works in some states when applied correctly?

"I'll also note that your approach suggests that death penalty laws in and of themselves are meaningless."

How do you get there? Without legalizing execution, there wouldn't be as many executions in Texas, Louisiana, etc., so you're dismissing the mechanism required for the action that deters as meaningless which is only true if it's meaningless to prevent murder. It is true and likely that given the violent cultures of Texas, Louisiana, etc., there would continue to be executions of brutal murderers even if the state did not sanction them, but the number may not reach the threshold required for legal executions to deter, unless you want to consider that executions outside the law might have a more powerful effect, which is likely.

Moon,
I'm sure you know it's a myth that blacks are more likely to kill whites, right? They're more likely to kill other blacks, so when we execute murderers who are black, given that there seems to be a culturally encapsulated social effect (state by state versus nationally), this likely means that less blacks will be killed. But if you want to lead the charge to kill white trailer trash who operate meth labs so as to get an equal effect in the white community, it sounds pretty selfishly racist, but I won't stand in your way.