. . . 1968 was just a bad time for liberals in the South, including southern ones. Look at Leroy Collins' loss in FL, for example. The "law and order" issue and the white backlash were perhaps at their peak.
Seems like there would be some way to sell "New South" of economic growth to the voters?
maybe with the specific of education promoted? I can see this being effective politically, even though I'm not that much of a sincere believer myself. For example, I don't think STEM is the savior of the human race because it mainly just means that we compete more intently for what remains a relatively small number of jobs.
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I think demographics explain 80% or more of crime. That the baby boom generation reached its peak around 1953 or '54 and that young men commit age 16 to 25 commit far more than their share of violent street crime.
It gets tricky because, yes, this sure looks like a gender difference. And we do want to be hesitant before saying that gender differences in other human fields are what we should most talk about. And even in crime, I think there are plenty of female criminals who have committed interesting, colorful crimes for the history books, but also ones which have caused real human harm