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Bill Bennet: abort every black baby, crime would go down

 
 
Reply Wed 28 Sep, 2005 09:10 pm
This from the moral voice of the Republican Party
Quote:


Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."

Bennett's remark was apparently inspired by the claim that legalized abortion has reduced crime rates, which was posited in the book Freakonomics (William Morrow, May 2005) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. But Levitt and Dubner argued that aborted fetuses would have been more likely to grow up poor and in single-parent or teenage-parent households and therefore more likely to commit crimes; they did not put forth Bennett's race-based argument.

From the September 28 broadcast of Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America:

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Bill Bennett's Morning in America airs on approximately 115 radio stations with an estimated weekly audience of 1.25 million listeners.

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Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 2,753 • Replies: 27
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Slappy Doo Hoo
 
  1  
Reply Wed 28 Sep, 2005 09:24 pm
HAHAHAHAHA! That's funny. Even if he's not really meaning to be racist, doesn't he realize how many people he's going to piss off with comments like that?
0 Replies
 
Green Witch
 
  1  
Reply Wed 28 Sep, 2005 09:27 pm
Re: Bill Bennet: abort every black baby, crime would go down
Chrissee wrote:
This from the moral voice of the Republican Party
Quote:


"(if) you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down."


Replace the words "black baby" with the word "politican" and I would agree.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Wed 28 Sep, 2005 10:52 pm
smile.
0 Replies
 
goodfielder
 
  1  
Reply Thu 29 Sep, 2005 12:44 am
What a grub....what an absolute grub. I know - as has been said elsewhere - that people speak in a first draft but the old subconcious really pushed through on this one eh?
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 10:31 am
BBB
bm
0 Replies
 
Bi-Polar Bear
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 10:36 am
penis with ears...
0 Replies
 
BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 10:42 am
BBB
blueveinedthrobber wrote:
penis with ears...


Turd with a yellow ribbon tied around it---topped off with a coward's white feather.

BBB
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 10:46 am
Just looking.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 10:56 am
Re: BBB
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
blueveinedthrobber wrote:
penis with ears...


Turd with a yellow ribbon tied around it---topped off with a coward's white feather.

BBB


I thought Fisk was the topic of a different thread. Did he get moved here?
0 Replies
 
Bi-Polar Bear
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 11:03 am
Re: BBB
McGentrix wrote:
BumbleBeeBoogie wrote:
blueveinedthrobber wrote:
penis with ears...


Turd with a yellow ribbon tied around it---topped off with a coward's white feather.

BBB


I thought Fisk was the topic of a different thread. Did he get moved here?


wipe your nose....
0 Replies
 
dreamaker
 
  1  
Reply Fri 30 Sep, 2005 04:59 pm
Bill Bennett
Why wait to kill black babies? Why not just eradicate the parents, aunts, uncles and cousins? By Mr. Bennett's logic, wouldn't this eliminate crime and leave a white, crime free society? ...if that is his purpose to eliminate crime.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 04:31 pm
He is not advocating that at all. It's pure ignorance to believe he is. You are not ignorant, are you?
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 04:38 pm
McGentrix

Correct he is not advocating the aborting of all black babies. However, IMO he by his statement is indicating that he believes that the high crime rate can be laid at the feet of black people.
0 Replies
 
McGentrix
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 04:42 pm
How do you figure. I read absolutely NOTHING in his statement saying that. He said, in answering a stupid question from a caller, that the crime rate would go down. Taken at face value, that is a true statement. But, nothing people say can be taken at face value anymore in America. Everything has to be dissected and analyzed and reduced to it's most baseless roots so some people can become outraged over nothing.
0 Replies
 
gustavratzenhofer
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 04:49 pm
Are you saying we should kill all the eskimoes, McGentrix?
0 Replies
 
au1929
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 05:06 pm
Mgc wrote
Quote:
Taken at face value, that is a true statement.


Explain!!
0 Replies
 
Acquiunk
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 05:07 pm
McG, the first rule, when you find yourself in a hole, is to stop digging.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  1  
Reply Sat 1 Oct, 2005 05:42 pm
slappy and GW has the right ideas. BB should be a whole lot smarter than what is reflected from his statement about black babies.

Only sensible way to get rid of our government representatives is to "burn them in hell." Too many ill-informed voters continue to reelect people who do not belong in government, and includes local, state, and federal. Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad
0 Replies
 
Finn dAbuzz
 
  1  
Reply Sun 2 Oct, 2005 01:00 am
au1929 wrote:
McGentrix

Correct he is not advocating the aborting of all black babies. However, IMO he by his statement is indicating that he believes that the high crime rate can be laid at the feet of black people.


You (and like-minded others) are completely wrong.

This issue is an unfortunate example of partisan reflex overwhelming rationality.

Very depressing.
0 Replies
 
 

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