Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[jogs]

Have you ever taken a look at the correlation between unmarried teen high school dropouts and political governance? The 10 states with the highest rate of teenage pregnancies are almost all Red states, while the 10 with the lowest are almost all Blue states.

 

You guys on the just make up facts. Your source better not be from a left wing group.

 

You're not even American.

[mikeh]

You guys on the just make up facts. Your source better not be from a left wing group.

 

You're not even American.

 

Why do you not check facts?

 

To a rational person, facts inform opinion. When one holds a view on something, one should welcome learning facts that contradict that view. It means that one has learned something. Whether that merely modifies one's views or completely changes them would depend on a host of factors, but the central point is that an intelligent person should prefer that his or her opinions be based on reality.

 

Btw, I see myself primarily as a person, not a Canadian. Tribal loyalties are part of the same sort of power structure as are religions. Tribal loyalties foster 'othering' of people. Tribal loyalties allow people to act in horrendous ways towards others because they are seen as somewhat less human than fellow tribal members. I'm not some Vulcan wannabe: I'm not impervious to many of these influences, but I try to be aware of them as best I can.

 

As a person with eclectic interests, I read a great deal on many subjects. I like to learn things. This means that from time to time my opinions change. I see that as a good thing. How about you? Would you rather remain ignorant but secure in your views or prefer to find out whether your views accord with or reflect reality?

 

As for commenting on US politics, the reality of being Canadian means that many US political factors have significant impact on my life. Trudeau (the father, not the current PM) once described Canada's relationship to the US as being akin to a mouse sleeping next to an elephant. The mouse needs to be acutely aware of the elephant's movement.

[Cyberyeti]

You guys on the just make up facts. Your source better not be from a left wing group.

 

You're not even American.

 

Or you could do your own research, a few minutes on the net (figures not perfect due to the date mismatch)

 

sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_pregnancy_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_legislatures

 

The top 13 if you ignore DC have 8 republican legislatures, one coalition and 4 democrat

[PassedOut]

You guys on the just make up facts. Your source better not be from a left wing group.

I thought that everyone knew that the red states have a much greater problem with teen pregnancies than the blue states: National Vital Statistics Reports

 

Table B shows the number of births per thousand for girls between 15 and 19 years of age, by state. You can look at the first column for the latest results (2015). As you can see for yourself, girls in states like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are 4 times as likely to have babies as are girls in Massachusetts.

[kenberg]

As to statistics: I am reading a mystery, Munster's Case, by Hakan Nesser. They are investigating the murder of a man in his seventies and the conversation between two detectives goes something like this:

 

First detective: Perhaps we should not exclude the possibility that she [his wife] did it. Sixty percent of all men are murdered by their wives.

Second detective: Thank God I am not married.

First detective: You know what I mean.

 

Like all good jokes, it makes a point. The table B that is referred to speaks of births to women age 15-19 without regard to whether they are married. In more rural/red states it may well be that there are more 18 year old brides than in more urbanized areas.

 

At any rate, I am skeptical that getting pregnant at 17 made a woman into a Trump voter when she turned 18. Perhaps not thinking choices through to their consequences played a role in both events. Mothers do still explain to their daughters that they should not believe everything that a man tells them, no?

[cherdano]

Let's just stop for a second, and take note of what it means to use the following sentence, apparently as a convincing argument that someone is wrong. No further comment necessary.

You're not even American.

[ldrews]

Let's just stop for a second, and take note of what it means to use the following sentence, apparently as a convincing argument that someone is wrong. No further comment necessary.

 

I would not interpret that as the person being wrong but rather the person being irrelevant. There is a difference.

[mikeh]

I would not interpret that as the person being wrong but rather the person being irrelevant. There is a difference.

And there I thought that a discussion was about the facts. lol.

[ldrews]

And there I thought that a discussion was about the facts. lol.

 

You are saying that the phrase "You're not even American" is about facts?

[mikeh]

You are saying that the phrase "You're not even American" is about facts?

[alok c]

Let's just stop for a second, and take note of what it means to use the following sentence, apparently as a convincing argument that someone is wrong. No further comment necessary.

Tribalism & faux superiority complex at it's best.Then no one should comment about anything good,bad or ugly happening in any other country apart from his own as none has the right to criticize others but gets itchy when some pertinent points/arguments are raised regarding his.

[PassedOut]

The table B that is referred to speaks of births to women age 15-19 without regard to whether they are married. In more rural/red states it may well be that there are more 18 year old brides than in more urbanized areas.

Or one could note from the same paper that, of the 22.3 live births per thousand to girls in the US aged 15-19, only 2.1 of those live births were to girls who were married. Even if all of the married pregnant teenagers were from red states (and they were not), it would not overcome the red state - blue state disparity.

[kenberg]

I'm not French, or "not even French" if someone wants phrase it that way. but I hope that doesn't preclude me from expressing an opinion on French elections or other French matters.

 

I suppose the situation is not exactly analogous. My knowledge of French society is meager. I would say très peu except even that might be mangling the language. The US is different. As near as I can see the French pay little attention to what happens in Brazil, and Brazilians pay little attention to what happens in France, but everyone has an opinion about the US. I am speaking here of the monsieur de rue of course, not the diplomats. Diplomats are expected to have opinions about penguin society in Antarctica. Anyway, I wish the French the best tomorrow.

 

It's natural that different countries have different approaches. It's part of why we travel, is it not? Many years ago we were walking from the center of Granada up toward the Alhambra. A Gypsy woman approached some guys a few paces ahead of us. They dismissed her with "Senora, somos de Granada". So she came toward us and my daughter, without missing a beat, said "Senora, somos de Granada". It's just a matter of learning the local customs.

 

Anyway, we Americans are always glad to hear advice. We don't actually act on any of it of course, but we are glad to hear it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Winstonm]

Let's just stop for a second, and take note of what it means to use the following sentence, apparently as a convincing argument that someone is wrong. No further comment necessary.

jogs, on 2017-April-21, 10:15, said:

You're not even American.

If we look at this same type argument in a historical perspective, we find things like this: you have no right to decide the fate of our slaves because you're not from Tennessee or you have no right to tell our schools who to allow in because you're not from Alabama or you have no right to live because you aren't "one of us"...

[y66]

From The Real Trump Agenda: Helping Big Business by John Cassidy:

 

What with U.S. aircraft carriers sailing in the wrong direction, Attorney General Jeff Sessions describing Hawaii as “an island in the Pacific,” and Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, and Kid Rock larking around in the Oval Office, it’s been a pretty typical week for the Trump Administration: jaw-dropping, mind-addling, hard to keep up with. With all the chaos and dysfunction at the top, the Administration’s many pro-corporate regulatory initiatives are being somewhat overlooked by both the media and the public at large. This is wrong: these are decisions and actions that will have harmful consequences, and Trump’s own supporters will be among those hurt.

 

Consider the Environmental Protection Agency, where Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma Attorney General who has long served as a protector of the oil and gas industry, is busy hiring fellow-climate-change skeptics to help him carry out Trump’s edict to dismantle the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan. The end result seems certain to be increased carbon emissions.

 

Pruitt’s aides are also drawing up plans to lay off many of the people at the agency who actually believe in environmental protection. In the budget proposal he released earlier this year, Trump called for the E.P.A.’s funding to be cut by almost a third. According to the Washington Post, Pruitt’s staff has drawn up a detailed plan that would eliminate a quarter of the agency’s workforce and fifty-six of its programs, including ones designed to clean up the Great Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, and Puget Sound.

 

Pruitt is a lightning rod, so the E.P.A. gets a fair amount of attention from news outlets, even, occasionally, from television news programs. This isn’t the case for other agencies whose missions have also tilted sharply right since January, such as the Federal Communications Commission. In 2013, when Barack Obama appointed Tom Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the cable industry, to chair the F.C.C., many commentators, myself included, expressed concern. Wheeler, however, turned out to be a forceful regulator. He rejected the cable industry’s calls to end net neutrality—the principle that Internet-service providers should treat all content providers equally—and supported applying the “common carrier” telephone law to I.S.P.s, rather than continuing to treat them under the less onerous set of rules that apply to “information services.”

 

Wheeler resigned in January. To replace him, Trump promoted Ajit Pai, another Obama appointee to the F.C.C., but one whom Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, had recommended. Under Pai’s leadership, the F.C.C. has already taken numerous steps to roll back regulation and preserve or enhance the power of monopolistic providers like A.T. & T., Verizon (where Pai once worked), and Comcast. On Thursday, the agency moved to eliminate price caps on broadband services marketed to heavy users of data, such as businesses, hospitals, and schools. This change followed decisions to end a program designed to help poor people obtain broadband access, and to reverse an initiative that would have allowed cable customers to buy their own set-top boxes. (At the moment, cable providers force people to rent their boxes at high prices.)

 

Explaining the decision to deregulate broadband data services, Pai parroted the standard conservative line that “price regulation threatens competition and investment.” The reality is that, in most areas, cable companies face little or no competition. The F.C.C.’s own research shows that close to three-quarters of business customers have a single provider of business data services, and ninety-seven per cent have two or fewer providers. In monopolistic markets like this, the only way to prevent incumbents from gouging their customers is to regulate their behavior.

 

The inevitable result of Thursday’s ruling will be higher prices for Internet users. As Phillip Berenbroick, a senior policy counsel at the digital-rights group Public Knowledge, pointed out in a statement, “consumers, and American families and businesses will pay dearly for the green light the FCC has given to the unfettered exercise of market power by dominant telecommunications providers.”

 

Although Pai hasn’t yet targeted the F.C.C.’s broader endorsement of net neutrality, this looks like only a matter of time. This week, he announced that he’s been soliciting views from executives at Internet companies, such as Facebook and Intel, which are vehemently opposed to any change in the rules. On Thursday, the Times reported that Pai “is expected to introduce a plan that would weaken aspects of the net neutrality rules as soon as this month.” When he does, he will almost certainly receive strong support from the White House and Republicans on Capitol Hill.

 

Underlying all of these developments is a message from the Trump Administration to corporate America: the rules of the game are changing. The message has been heard, and the players are reacting to it accordingly. Dow Chemical, for example, is pressing the Administration to ignore scientific findings that some of its pesticides are harmful to endangered species. In letters addressed to the heads of three federal agencies, including the E.P.A., company lawyers “asked them ‘to set aside’ the results of government studies the companies contend are fundamentally flawed,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

Not exactly big news in the WC I know.

[y66]

From The Persistence of Trump Derangement Syndrome by Adam Gopnik:

 

Suddenly, Trump Derangement Syndrome is a thing, or is trying to become one.

 

We’re told by many wise and well-meaning people that it is a huge and even fatal mistake for liberals (and for constitutional conservatives) to respond negatively to every Trump initiative, every Trump policy, and every Trump idea. There are bound to be—in an Administration staffed not by orcs and ogres but for the most part by the usual run of military people and professional politicians—acceptable actions, even admirable initiatives, and we would do ourselves and our country a huge disservice by simply responding to them all with the same reflexive hatred. This may be especially true if that reflexive hatred, however unconsciously, mirrors and mimics the reflexive hatreds of the Trump White House itself. We owe it to our country and to our sanity to go on a case-by-case basis, empirically evaluating each action as it takes place, and refusing to succumb to the urge to turn politics into a series of set responses—exactly the habit, after all, that we so often deplore in Trump and the people around him.

 

This is a perfectly reasonable assertion, and one that would count for a lot in pretty much any semi-normal circumstance. The problem is that it refuses to see, or to entirely register, the actual nature of Trump and his actions. Our problem is not Trump Derangement Syndrome; our problem is Deranged Trump Self-Delusion. This is the habit of willfully substituting, as a motive for Trump’s latest action, a conventional political or geostrategic ambition, rather than recognizing the action as the daily spasm of narcissistic gratification and episodic vanity that it truly is.

 

The bombing of Syria, for instance, was not a sudden lurch either in the direction of liberal interventionism, à la Bill Clinton in the lands that were once Yugoslavia, nor was it a sudden reassertion of a neo-con version of American power, à la both Bushes in Iraq. It was, as best as anyone can understand, simply a reaction to an image, turned into a self-obsessed lashing out that involved the lives and deaths of many people. It was a detached gesture, unconnected to anything resembling a sequence of other actions, much less an ideology. Nothing followed from it, and no “doctrine” or even a single speech justified it. There is no credible evidence that Trump’s humanity was outraged by the act of poisoning children, only that Trump’s vanity was wounded by the seeming insult to America and, by extension, to him. It may be perfectly true that the failure of the Obama Administration to act sooner in Syria will go down forever, in the historical ledgers, as a reproach against it; or it may be that the wisdom of the Obama Administration in not getting engaged in another futile Middle Eastern folly will go down in its favor. But it is self-deluding to think that Trump’s action was meant to be in any way remedial. It was purely ritual, and the ritual acted out was the interminable Trumpist ritual of lashing out at those who fail to submit, the ritual act of someone whose inner accounting is conducted exclusively in terms of wounds given, worship received, and winnings displayed. (Perhaps his elder daughter, Ivanka, did play some small part in the action, as her brother Eric suggested in an interview, but this is hardly a comfort; the politics of a mad king with a court are no more reassuring than those of a mad king alone.)

[kenberg]

Or one could note from the same paper that, of the 22.3 live births per thousand to girls in the US aged 15-19, only 2.1 of those live births were to girls who were married. Even if all of the married pregnant teenagers were from red states (and they were not), it would not overcome the red state - blue state disparity.

 

I gather you are looking the tables where they say the birth rate for women aged 15-19 is 22.3 per 100K and the corresponding rate for unmarried women is 20.2. Your conclusion pf 2.1 does not quite follow although it might be roughly correct to to low marriage rates.

 

To illustrate, suppose that there were 200,000 women aged 15-19 and 40,000 were married, 160,000 unmarried..

Suppose that the 200,000 women, married and unmarried combined, had 4400 births and the 160,000 unmarried women had 3200 births. That would give rates of 22 and 20 for the respective groups. (Rounding 22.3 and 20.2 to 22 and 20 doesn't affect the argument).

 

With this data we would have 4400 births, 3200 to unmarried women, 1200 to married women. That's still a lot of unmarried young women giving birth, but less dramatic than your numbers suggest.

 

 

Now I doubt that 20% of women age 15-19 are married, although it might have been true when I was young and might still approximate that in rural states. I was 21, my wife 20, for my first marriage. But the point is that it matters in figuring from the given data what a baby's odds are of having a married mother given that she is 15-19.

 

the same data sheet says that 40% of births are to unmarried women. It's another statistic that, standing alone, is ominous although inconclusive. We could say that it is one of our business whether the woman is married or not. Fair enough. But then the follow up is often that we have to help these women and children because obviously they are in difficult straits. Also true, quite often. But then wait up. Is it our business or is it not how things go for this woman and child? If a woman lacks the resources to raise a child on her own is it completely outlandish to suggest maybe I well chosen husband might be a good idea? Actually I think we guys can occasionally be useful for something even if all the financial resources are there. But that's another story.

[Winstonm]

This further explains U.S. teen births.

 

Substantial geographic variation also exists in adolescent childbearing across the United States. In 2013, the lowest teen birth rates were reported in the Northeast, while rates were highest in states across the southern part of the country (see Figure 2).1 See how your state compares on birth rates, pregnancy rates, sexual activity, and contraceptive use with OAH’s reproductive health state fact sheets.

[kenberg]

This further explains U.S. teen births.

 

 

 

That's a nice site. I was aware that the teen age birth rate was declining but having all those numbers at hand is nice.

[Winstonm]

That's a nice site. I was aware that the teen age birth rate was declining but having all those numbers at hand is nice.

 

This information is interesting to me:

 

Characteristics Associated with Adolescent Childbearing

Numerous individual, family, and community characteristics have been linked to adolescent childbearing. For example, adolescents who are enrolled in school and engaged in learning (including participating in after-school activities, having positive attitudes toward school, and performing well educationally) are less likely than are other adolescents to have or to father a baby. 7 At the family level, adolescents with mothers who gave birth as teens and/or whose mothers have only a high school degree are more likely to have a baby before age 20 than are teens whose mothers were older at their birth or who attended at least some college. In addition, having lived with both biological parents at age 14 is associated with a lower risk of a teen birth.8 At the community level, adolescents who live in wealthier neighborhoods with strong levels of employment are less likely to have or to father a baby than are adolescents in neighborhoods in which income and employment opportunities are more limited.7

[kenberg]

The tables yo cite show that the drop has been very substantial and I would be interested in explanations of why. We might expect the problem to be self-perpetuating: A teen age mother lives in pverty, the children are prought up ni poverty, the children grow up and have children before they are ready, and so on. But somehow this seems to be not the whole story. One could, optimisticall, thinnk that the child of poverty decided that s/he wants his/her life to be better and so decides to put off child bearing. Or maybe anti-poverty programs have helped. Pr community programs to help young people make better choices. Or some combination. Anyway, it would be interesting to hear what those who study this have concluded.

 

Another point of interest. I suppose few girls age 15 choose to get pregnant, or at least I hope not. Unintended pregnancies still happen. But how about the 17-19 year olds. For statistics to really be useful, details are often needed. Did the pregnancy just happen as one of those things or was it a conscious decision to bear a child? Sometimes one, sometimes the other no doubt, but the numbers would be interesting.

 

Anyway, it is good to see the numbers dropping. I was at a Bat Mitzvah sometime back where the father spoke: "You are now 13, an age where you can marry according to Jewish law. Your father has other ideas." I liked that a lot. What was right in Biblical times, and perhaps was manageable a hundred years ago, is a disaster today.

 

Disasters are sometimes from bad circumstances, sometimes from bad choices, often from a bit of both. The dropping rate of teen pregnancy is a very good thing, I would like to hear just how it came about. The answer might be useful in addressing our many other social problems.

[Winstonm]

The tables yo cite show that the drop has been very substantial and I would be interested in explanations of why. We might expect the problem to be self-perpetuating: A teen age mother lives in pverty, the children are prought up ni poverty, the children grow up and have children before they are ready, and so on. But somehow this seems to be not the whole story. One could, optimisticall, thinnk that the child of poverty decided that s/he wants his/her life to be better and so decides to put off child bearing. Or maybe anti-poverty programs have helped. Pr community programs to help young people make better choices. Or some combination. Anyway, it would be interesting to hear what those who study this have concluded.

 

Another point of interest. I suppose few girls age 15 choose to get pregnant, or at least I hope not. Unintended pregnancies still happen. But how about the 17-19 year olds. For statistics to really be useful, details are often needed. Did the pregnancy just happen as one of those things or was it a conscious decision to bear a child? Sometimes one, sometimes the other no doubt, but the numbers would be interesting.

 

Anyway, it is good to see the numbers dropping. I was at a Bat Mitzvah sometime back where the father spoke: "You are now 13, an age where you can marry according to Jewish law. Your father has other ideas." I liked that a lot. What was right in Biblical times, and perhaps was manageable a hundred years ago, is a disaster today.

 

Disasters are sometimes from bad circumstances, sometimes from bad choices, often from a bit of both. The dropping rate of teen pregnancy is a very good thing, I would like to hear just how it came about. The answer might be useful in addressing our many other social problems.

It appears contraceptive use is the key: (emphasis added)

 

The rapid declines in adolescent pregnancy and births from 2007 to 2012 occurred despite stagnant rates of sexual activity. Instead, we find that the contraceptive behaviors of sexually active adolescents have driven the recent shifts in fertility outcomes. The increases in overall contraceptive use at last sex from 2007 to 2012 are part of a longer trend. Between 1995 and 2012, any method use at last sex among adolescent women increased from 66% to 86%, while use of multiple methods increased from 11% to 37% [14]. Taken together, evidence from this study and our previous studies indicates that the substantial long-term decline of 57% in adolescent birth rates from 1991 to 2013 [1] can be primarily attributed to increases in overall contraceptive use.

[barmar]

This information is interesting to me:

... At the family level, adolescents with mothers who gave birth as teens and/or whose mothers have only a high school degree are more likely to have a baby before age 20 than are teens whose mothers were older at their birth or who attended at least some college.

So apparently teenage motherhood is genetic. :)

[Winstonm]

Understanding Trump. From Politico: (emphasis added)

 

These three statements, 53 words in all, are potent shots of unadulterated, time-tested Trump—short, confident declarations of success, in spite of object evidence of failure, uttered with total disregard for the parsing and fact-checking that constitutes so much of the coverage of him and his administration. Biographers, ex-employees, veteran New York City gossip columnists, public relations professionals and political operatives from both major parties say recognizing this well-established pattern of behavior—stumble, proclaim victory, move on—is imperative to understanding Trump.

 

Normal people wonder how someone can be so totally immune to self-doubt, the consequences of continual lying, etc., and that is reasonable - but Trump is not a reasonable man. He is only interested in self - his ego must be stroked at all times - and if that means entirely disregarding reality so be it.

 

It is plain to see with his continued push of a disastrous healthcare bill, the ridiculous Muslim/travel ban, and the attempted Wall/Aca blackmail of Democrats that this is a man who has no interest in what the consequences of his actions are but only that the spotlight shines on him and he get credit for causing something, anything to be done.

[kenberg]

It appears contraceptive use is the key: (emphasis added)

 

 

 

To push just a little further:

 

The use of contraceptives by teenagers reduces the chance of pregnancy.

 

 

The use of textbooks by teenagers increases the chance of doing well academically.

 

The first seems to be getting applied, the second not so much. Granted the first is probably more fun, but it would be nice t get a little of the second going.