[clue-talk] Whiny Bitches

[David Rudder]

Hi David,
I find your categorizations of people interesting.  Which group do you
put yourself in?

I have an example for you.  Your big issue, politically, is abortion.
In the past, I've posted a link that contains statistics, gathered by
the CDC, that shows abortions increased under Reagan, Bush Sr, and
decreased only very slightly under GWBush.  But, those same statistics
show that abortion dropped dramatically under Bill Clinton.  Many
experts say it was because of his wife's emphasis on sex ed.

So, it is safe to assume that Hillary Clinton will usher in a new age of
dropping abortion rates.

So, why aren't you campaigning for Hillary?  You want to reduce
abortions, right?  A Clinton in the White House is the only proven way
of reducing abortions.  Or are you one of those who are always
complaining, but won't take the obvious path to solving the problem?

-Dave

P.S.  Here's my previous email on the subject. 09/26/07, titled "Re: How
do CLUEbies vote?"

I was pretty surprised to hear there are 47 million abortions a year, so
I took the liberty of looking it up.
The CDC has really good data, but I wasn't able to find it in raw form.
 I found it organized very well on Johnston's Archive.  I've never heard
of Johnston's Archive, but it says it uses CDC data and it's numbers
seem to match up with articles from the CDC website.  The Johnston's
Archive website doesn't seem to have a political affiliation.  The guy
who makes it is a doctorate student at U Texas.  Cool picture of him
with a missile on the "About me" page.  I have links to some articles
from the CDC website below.

The data goes up to 2003.  In 2003 we were at 850k abortions, with a
high of around 1.4m.  So, 47m worldwide is a realistic number.  I was
kind of hoping that number was made up.
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/abortion/ab-unitedstates.html
Reagan: Went up and down, with a net change of something around 85k more
abortions at the end of his term.
Bush Sr: Up, up, up, down, down.  Net change of 17k-ish up
Clinton: Down for 7 of his 8 years.  Net change of almost 500k down!
GWBush: down, up, down.  A net of 11k down.

For a comparison with GWB, Clinton was down 15k from 1992 to 1995.
The fact is that Clinton lowered the number of abortions more than any
of Reagan, Bush Sr and GWB did.  This can be for a number of reasons,
which I'm sure we'll argue about, but you can't argue with results.

Look, no one wants to kill babies.  The abortion debate (not the
question, the debate) has gotten out of hand and is no longer about
abortion.  It's about cheap theater.  It's about mobilizing your base.

Here's some good stuff from the CDC page:
NCHS - 1999 Fact Sheet - US Pregnancy Rate Lowest in Two Decades
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/99facts/pregrate.htm>
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/99facts/pregrate.htm

Factsheet on teenpreg.doc
<http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/factsheets/teenpreg.pdf>
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/factsheets/teenpreg.pdf
(it says teen pregnancy dropped from 1990 - 2000

*Estimated Pregnancy Rates for the United States, 1990-2000: An Update*
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_23.pdf

Disclaimer:  I didn't read all of these articles closely.  Mostly I was
just checking to see if Johnston's Archive's numbers were correct.  And
I didn't do a very close job of it.  Feel free to check my work.

-Dave
David L. Willson wrote:
> The first quote I want in my memoirs is "I hate whiny bitches."
> 
> I have found that there is a group of people that find fault in everything.  Nothing is
> grand, glorious, and praise-worthy.  Everything is buggered some way.  Can't stand 'em.
> 
> I have found that there is another, largely intersecting group of people that describe
> problems in grinding detail and never suggest solutions to those problems.  Can't stand
> them, too.
> 
> I have found that there is a small group of people that always propose a solution, a
> beginning to a solution, a thought for how to gain more information, or a resource that
> ought to be consulted, whenever they observe a problem.  It seems to be compulsive for
> them.  Whenever they see a problem, they seek a solution, or help toward a solution,
> until they find it, and then they publicize what they've found, along with the problem
> it solves.
> 
> I have found another small group, which largely intersects with those problem-solvers,
> that sees things shining in the muck of every day life, like stones in the bottom of a
> stream, and they're ever calling me over to see the shiny things they've found.
> 
> I like myself best when I'm able and willing to appreciate the shiny, able and willing
> to contribute to the solution, and not so involved in my myriad of problems that I just
> haven't the time to solve one of them, or appreciate the shiny thing embedded in the muck.
> 
> Hm.  My prose is weak today, but you get the idea.
> 
> People learn best when they're told, and able to hear, what to ~do~, and we learn very
> poorly what ~not~ to do.  Teachers, say, "stay sober", not "don't drink", or "work hard"
> not "don't slack", or "vote for the guy who will accomplish what you want accomplished"
> not "don't vote for that other fellow, (s)he sucks".
> 
> The problem I face today is that none of our candidates will fight my fight, so I have
> to choose from tailings.  The fellow that will accomplish most of what I want done in
> terms of establishing honorable behavior and social responsibility as norms, is dead-set
> against protecting the unborn.  I can't vote pro-slavery, no matter how much I agree
> with the rest of the man's alignment.  The only thing I find attractive in McCain is his
> commitment to victory before withdrawal from Iraq, but he has yet to define the
> conditions of victory, so, like Bush, I distrust his ability and willingness to seek
> closure for that situation.  Hillary...  Dear Lord.  I dislike Hillary as much as I
> dislike her husband, and maybe more.  Maybe I need to read her writing, as I have
> Obama's, so that I can understand her, and know what she says for herself, but I haven't
> yet, and I see her as a political power monster with no true vision for our betterment.
>  So, this time, I will abstain from voting, because the guy I would have voted for
> enthusiastically is out, and the guy I might have voted for, I can't endorse because of
> the depth of his betrayal to my own primary cause.  bleah.  The "gem in the muck" here
> is that Obama probably will win, and we will be several steps closer to realizing how
> stupid it is to divide ourselves, one from another, over conditions of conception and
> birth over which we have no control and should exert none, like skin-color, sex, and
> location.
> 
> David Willson
> 
> abolish abortion
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