Larry pratt on Warsaw ghetto Jews and Guns

[W. Kiernan]

Katha Pollitt quoted Alexander Cockburn:
> 
> > So the first thing is to fix your kid up with a gun permit, plus
> > plenty of practice at the target range, thus installing a sense of
> > self-respect and social responsibility. The next thing is to make
> > sure that your kid does not get a job. Not? This flies in the face
> > of every puritan instinct. But the Justice Dept. report is clear:
> > "Belief is widespread that work or employment protects us against
> > delinquency and gangs. Unfortunately, the faith placed in youth
> > employment is not generally supported by empirical findings over the
> > last several decades. The relationship between lack of employment
> > and crime or drug use found among adults does not seem to hold for
> > adolescents." Guess what? "Working youth" have levels of delinquency
> > and drug use equal to or even higher than the layabouts on the
> > street corners or on the porch. It's logical. The work ethic and the
> > crime ethic are closely intertwined, as Max Weber spent many pages
> > suggesting.

Thank you for brightening my morning with this wonderful piece of
nonsense.  God it's great to see people turn correlations into causes so
blithely.  Insofar as "drug use" _is_ "delinquency," the conclusion
boils down to "teenagers with jobs take more dope than teenagers without
jobs."  I'm just guessing here: that's because if you have a job you
have more cash so you can afford to buy more dope.

Yours WDK - WKiernan at concentric.net