{"id":613,"date":"2007-12-04T09:12:12","date_gmt":"2007-12-04T17:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=613"},"modified":"2007-12-04T09:12:12","modified_gmt":"2007-12-04T17:12:12","slug":"the-sky-isnt-falling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=613","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Isn&#8217;t Falling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/bostonglobe\/editorial_opinion\/oped\/articles\/2007\/12\/02\/the_sky_isnt_falling\/\">couple<\/a> of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commentarymagazine.com\/viewarticle.cfm\/Crime--Drugs--Welfare-and-Other-Good-News-10999\">articles<\/a> in the past few days about the inevitable disintegration of American society into barbarism:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Both violent crime and property crime are at their lowest levels since 1973. Even lower in some places: New York City, it was reported a few days ago, is expected to have fewer than 500 homicides this year, the lowest number since the early 1960s. Contrast that with 1990, when New York recorded 2,245 homicides.<\/p>\n<p>Teenage drug use has fallen by 23 percent since the 1990s, and by more than 50 percent for certain specific drugs, such as LSD and ecstasy.<\/p>\n<p>Welfare? The US caseload has dropped a remarkable 60 percent since 1994 &#8211; as much as 90 percent in some states. Not only that, write Wehner and Levin, &#8220;but in the wake of the 1996 welfare-reform bill, overall poverty, child poverty, black child poverty, and child hunger have all decreased, while employment figures for single mothers have risen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As the title promises, the good news doesn&#8217;t end there. There is less abortion. A lower divorce rate. Higher educational scores. The high-school dropout rate, now less than 10 percent, is at a 30-year low. Teens are drinking less, smoking less, and having less sex.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of articles in the past few days about the inevitable disintegration of American society into barbarism: Both violent crime and property crime are at their lowest levels since 1973. Even lower in some places: New York City, it was reported a few days ago, is expected to have fewer than 500 homicides this &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/balafon.net\/?p=613\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Sky Isn&#8217;t Falling&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/balafon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}