Home
In this issue
Nov. 20, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: How to make every second of your life come first
Caroline B. Glick: Whither American Jewry
Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
Jonathan Tobin: ADL Crosses the Line with Report Bashing Obama Critics
Nov. 18, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: What Judaism has to say about the secret of the Mona Lisa's smile
JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 4, 2007 / 18 Tamuz, 5767

Studies show: Felons smarter than libs

By Ann Coulter


Printer Friendly Version
Email this article

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Just in time for the Fourth of July, John Lott, author of the groundbreaking 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime," has released another amazing book: "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't." This book provides studies and analysis proving that your every right-wing instinct is based on sound economic analysis.


To wit:

  • Women shouldn't vote: "What changed ... that explains the growth of government? The answer is women's suffrage."

  • Fox News Channel isn't conservative: "Even employees of Fox News, which is widely regarded as a conservative channel, donate 81 percent of their contributions to Democrats."

  • Public schools are government re-education camps: "(P)ublic education was actually designed to spread government-approved values."

  • Nothing good has come from abortion: "(A)bortion, in fact, increases crime."

  • Felons vote Democrat: "Remarkably, it looks as if virtually all felons are Democrats."


To make your flights even more enjoyable this summer, consider this interesting incentive system described by Lott: "To receive disability benefits due to job-related stress, air traffic controllers must present a well-documented stressful incident — a collision or close call — that has caused a deterioration in their performance. Unsurprisingly, when it became easier to file for disability, flights suddenly started experiencing more 'close calls.'"



BUY THE BOOK …


at a discount
by clicking HERE.


Say, wouldn't it be even more stressful, deserving of a greater disability payment, if the near-miss involved an Iranian Air jet?


Lott shows that there are pretty clear answers to what lowers the crime rate, what increases the crime rate and what doesn't have any effect at all. Despite their popularity as explanations for the remarkable drop in crime in the '90s, the aging of the population and the enforcement of quality-of-life crimes both had virtually no effect.


What did work was higher arrest and conviction rates, concealed-carry laws and the reinstitution of the death penalty. "Generally, the studies found," Lott writes, "that each execution saved the lives of roughly 15 to 18 potential murder victims." So basically, there's a much bigger death penalty for having no death penalty.


Meanwhile, gun locks and gun self-storage laws lead to more deaths, for the obvious reason that if the owner can't get to his gun in time, the beneficial effect of having a gun is lost. Lott also shows that crime skyrocketed in cities that implemented affirmative action policies that lowered allegedly "biased" and "irrelevant" tests for cops.


Speaking of crime, there's even something for Paris Hilton in this book! Lott says that "when we analyze the overall consequences a criminal faces after conviction, we find a surprising result: Rich criminals face disproportionately high penalties."


The Los Angeles Times recently did an analysis of jail sentences for Hilton's precise offense: i.e., driving with a suspended license after being arrested for drunk driving. The majority of these offenders served four days, exactly what Hilton got — until she was returned to prison. By serving her full 23 days, Hilton served more time than 80 percent of people arrested for the same offense.


In addition to losing their reputations, their inheritances and generally their spouses, according to Lott, wealthy felons also earn less money post-conviction than poor defendants. Not relative to their prior salaries, but in direct comparison. "Amazingly," Lott says, "after controlling for a variety of social and demographic factors, wealthier ex-convicts on average earn a lower salary after their conviction than poorer ex-convicts."


Let's hope so. Felons are usually Democrats. As Lott notes: "Michael Milken, Martha Stewart and Leona Helmsley share something in common besides being convicted felons — they are all Democrats. While their wealth sets them apart from the typical felon, their party registration is the same as most former convicts."


I believe this point was subtly highlighted when Willie Horton told the press in 1988 that of course he supported Michael Dukakis for president. "According to academic studies," Lott says, "from 1972 to 1996, on average, 80 percent of felons would have voted Democratic. An overwhelming 93 percent ostensibly would have voted for Bill Clinton in 1996."


This is not because, as you might imagine, blacks have high crime rates and also happen to be overwhelmingly Democratic. Lott compares the voting patterns of felons and nonfelons, controlling for race, age, education level, religious habits, employment, age and country of residence. Wholly apart from all these factors, felons were still more likely to vote Democratic. Indeed, in the 2004 election, Lott says, felons in Washington state "voted exclusively for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry."


With so many felons being Democrats, the party might want to think about changing its mascot from a donkey to a jailbird.


Needless to say, Democrats are neurotically obsessed with restoring the right to vote to felons. But the ex-cons themselves rarely express any interest in regaining this particular right. What ex-cons want is the right to own a gun. "Felons," Lott says, "who frequently live in poor, high-crime neighborhoods, want to be able to defend themselves."


So the evidence is in on that one, too: Preferring the right to bear arms to the right to vote (for choice), convicted felons have a superior value system to liberals.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Ann Coulter is the author of, most recently, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism".

Ann Coulter Archives

BUY ANN'S LATEST
"Godless: The Church of Liberalism"  

GODLESS is the most explosive book yet from #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Coulter. In this completely original and thoroughly controversial work, Coulter writes, "Liberals love to boast that they are not 'religious,' which is what one would expect to hear from the state-sanctioned religion. Of course liberalism is a religion. It has its own cosmology, its own miracles, its own beliefs in the supernatural, its own churches, its own high priests, its own saints, its own total worldview, and its own explanation of the existence of the universe. In other words, liberalism contains all the attributes of what is generally known as 'religion.'" GODLESS throws open the doors of the “Church of Liberalism.”

© 2006 Universial Media

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Michael Barone
  Dave Barry
 Tony Blankley
 Andy Borowitz
 David Broder
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 John Fund
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Lloyd Garver
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Lewis Grossberger
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 David Horowitz
 Laura Ingraham
 Cheri Jacobus
Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ed Koch
 Ch. Krauthammer
 Michael Ledeen
 John Leo
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Dick Morris
 Bill O'Reilly
 Jim Mullen
 Clarence Page
 Kathleen Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Jonathan Rauch
 Celia Rivenbark
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Pat Sajak
 Debra J. Saunders
 Culture Shlock
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
  Lisa Benson
 John Branch
 Gary Brookins
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holber
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Ranan R. Lurie
 Jimmy Margulies
 Rick McKee
 Michael Ramirez
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Ed Stein
 Danna Summers
 John Trever
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters

Lifestyles
 How 2
 Lori Borgman
 The Savvy Consumer
 Elder matters
 Fixit
 Dr. Peter Gott
 GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
 Richard Lederer
 Tech Maven
 Every Monday Matters
 Nutrition Myths
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams
 How Stuff Works