it’s only april of 2023, yet the year’s most important story has already been published. it is a story concerning narratives.
narratives shape public policy. narratives serve as the impetus to enact laws. narratives have been used to argue before the supreme court. famously, there was the innovation of the brandeis brief which relied upon a compilation of scientific information and social science than on legal citations. wikipedia.org narratives, however, are problematic. false narratives arise when false premises and bogus statistics are adopted to make conclusions. relying upon false narratives has proven to be disastrous.
an example of such a disaster was in the lending industry. years ago, the beneficial nature of home ownership created a false narrative. essentially, the narrative was that home ownership made better people. this belief was used to implement wildly irresponsible lending policies which led to a collapse of the united states’ banking system. during that time, i vividly recall one of my clients, who earned $15.00 per hour, telling me about how she purchased a $400,000, home with no money down with an interest only loan. despite the favorable entry payments, within six months of obtaining the home, she was already behind in payments and would eventually lose her house. the fact that the loan was made was both insane and criminal.
home ownership, in contrast with the assumption made, was the sign of successful people. people who own houses have positive underlying qualities; they are likely healthy, have steady employment, have some education or vocational training, have some financial training or knowledge, understand the value of saving money, have the discipline to save money for a down payment, and are surrounded by family and friends who also may assist them in the endeavor. thus, narrative was bogus.
the new york post reports that “a florida state university criminology professor abruptly left his $190,000-a-year position following allegations that he fudged data on racism studies during his 16-year tenure.” there are claims that ” he fabricated data by altering sample sizes to make the results appear more racist, the florida standard reports.” he was accused by a co-author of one of his studies. the particular study was “whether the public was increasingly demanding longer sentences for black and Hispanic criminals as those minority populations grew.” the fsu’s professors conclusion that there was an increase was disputed by the co-author. he pointed to improper statistical analysis. nypost.com
what is scary is that these bogus studies may be circulating with politicians who are making decisions based upon the false assumption of racism. for instance, the county of los angeles wants to release prisoners from jail. since liberal politicians can no longer use covid-19, as an excuse to do so, they have embraced the notion of racism in sentencing as a justification for early release. leaders, such as hilda solis, a member of the los angeles county board of supervisors, has touted racism as a basis to unleash dangerous criminals back onto the streets to the detriment of law abiding citizens.
when hearing ms. solis’ arguments, ms. solis, it appears that her, and other politicians, may have been bogusly influenced by the professor’s alleged academic fraud. criminal justice reform policies are likely being enacted based upon false assertions of racism. as a result, it is likely that criminals have been improperly released and they are now terrorizing neighborhoods. as a result of this corrupt scholarship, the public has been plagued unnecessary crime and violence.
our world is filled with many false narratives driving big policies. one tell for false narratives is the imposition of censorship upon opposing views. those pushing covid-19 policy, climate change and gender identity narratives often seek to silence and destroy those who voice dissent. this website has already been banned from microsoft’s bing search engine. when i asked the bing ai, i did not get an answer as to why.
be well!!
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