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 hile
having dinner recently with John Lott, author of More
Guns, Less Crime, one of life's enduring debates came
up: Are liberals evil or just stupid? I was surprised to discover
that Lott vigorously disputed those of us staking out the evil position.
Lott couldn't even be fairly described as calling liberals stupid.
They just believe "different facts," as he put it. Facts other than
his number-crunching study analyzing 18 years of crime data from
every county in the nation, for example. That study famously demonstrated
that concealed-carry laws reduce certain types of crime. Lott's
results contradicted the prevailing liberal ethos on guns, and liberals
are hopping mad about it.
Consequently, it was kind of a shock to see the hard-nosed economist
getting all gooey-eyed and "We Are the World" sappy when discussing
the people who have declared World War III on him. He adamantly
refuses to believe that anyone would knowingly support a policy
that costs lives.
This is where economics and politics clash. As Franklin D. Roosevelt's
pal "Uncle Joe" Stalin summarized the politician's view: "A single
death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
Pumping fresh data into the evil-or-stupid debate, the week after
our dinner a liberal weekly published an article on Lott. It was
not immediately clear what prompted Newsweek to write about
him. There was no new law, study, or sensational crime in the news.
(The school shooting in California came days after the article was
published.)
There was, however, a nice new Republican president. One of the
liberal arguments against Lott's study is that no one should hire
him. Not universities and — just in case a Republican administration
might be interested in hiring an economist who is not intimidated
by liberal censors — not the Bush administration either.
Consequently, Newsweek ran a timely piece on Lott, stating
| “It
was kind of a shock to see the hard-nosed economist getting
all gooey-eyed and "We Are the World" sappy when discussing
the people who have declared World War III on him.” |
|
in a neutral, nonjudgmental way that he is "vicious," as if it were
a bullet point on his resume. This is another important liberal
argument against Lott's research — the man is "vicious."
The article also revealed insights only a telepath or psychiatrist
could claim to know, such as Lott's purported "need to attack."
It was reminiscent of the FACT magazine article published
during the 1964 presidential campaign that quoted numerous psychiatrists
saying Barry Goldwater was — in their professional opinion
— nuts.
Commendably, the Newsweek article did not repeat some of
the old lies about Lott, such as that he was funded by the gun industry.
It did, however, make up some new lies, such as that his research
on the Florida election was funded by Republicans.
Among the many liberal ripostes to John Lott — he was funded
by gunuts or Republicans, he is "vicious," he should not be able
to make a living — this argument does not appear: He is wrong.
Newsweek quoted a Stanford University law professor, John
Donohue, who has "spent years reviewing Lott's data" saying only:
"What a lot of people worry about is that if it really is the case
that the results aren't good, then he's really peddling a false
message."
Wait a second. But if Lott's results are good, then it's gun-control
advocates who are peddling a false message. One position or the
other is going to cause more people to die. So which is it? Gee,
if only we had someone who had "spent years reviewing Lott's data."
How about Donohue? Why didn't it occur to the Newsweek reporter
to ask Donohue why he was unable to cough up an attack on Lott's
research?
It's not as if Donohue is shy about leaping into the political fray.
He has raised objections to law professor Paul Cassell's research
on the Miranda warnings. (Leading Cassell to remark, "I chased my
opponents from empirical assertions to untestable arguments.")
Last year Donohue co-authored the winsome study purporting to link
legalized abortion to reductions in crime. ("Given that homicide
rates of black youths are roughly nine times higher than those of
white youths, racial differences in the fertility effects of abortion
are likely to translate into greater homicide reductions.") He once
ran for the Connecticut state senate — as a Democrat, one need
hardly add.
But the worst Donohue can say about Lott's study, which he's spent
"years" studying, is that "people" worry that if it's wrong, that
would be very bad. If Lott is wrong, why can't Donohue say so, rather
than tossing out irrelevant and painfully obvious epistemological
points?
"People" probably worried that if reports of Stalin's systematic
starvation of 10 million Ukrainians weren't true, then those who
said so were peddling a false message. (None more so than the New
York Times, which whiled away the years of the Ukrainian famine
denying it.)
That's not believing different facts; it's squirting octopus fluid
on the facts that exist.
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