What is the Matter with Bill Bennett?????

His excuse was to say that is was a hypothetical situation.

If he had any brains, he could have said something like.....

"Now, I'm going to bring up a purely hypothetical situation that would never actually occur, nor would I advocate"......

How is that so much more acceptible than what he did say?

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.

I read the book of virtues way back and thought, oh come on....then when I heard of his gambling problem, I felt justified in ignoring him after that.

It wasn't a sound bite, but it showed an incredibly insensitive thought process. He should know better than to float such a ridiculous "final solution" idea on the air or in private. And by the way, I don't think I cursed his name, I just got scared. And also, Jesse Jackson got in a lot of trouble for the way he characterized New York some years back. But he wasn't talking about abortion as a solution to change the balance of New York. Shame on Bill Bennett and shame on anybody who trys to justify that odious remark. He needs to apologize sooner rather than later.

Your wife would respect you more and be a better wife if you would beat her senseless everyonce in a while,,,Of course, I don't recommend doing that, because that would be wrong, and possibly something you could go to jail for (especially if you had a whole bunch of tree-hugging liberals on the jury)......but she would defininately pay more attention to your needs if you walk into the room carrying a bat.

This is a ridiculous analogy. It is an absolutely true statement that if all black babies were aborted, the crime rate would decline, just as it is an absolutely true statement that if all men were imprisoned for life at the age of two, there would no longer be instances of husbands battering their wives.

What you are trying to do with Bennett's comments is intellectually dishonest. He did not, explicitly or implicitly, advocate aborting black babies as a solution to any problem. His statement that it would be morally reprehensible to follow such an approach was not at all the cyncial "wink-wink; nod-nod" sort of remark your analogy implies.

Clearly Bennett made the comment to emphasize that extreme actions, executed without moral consideration are unacceptible, not-with-standing that they might be effective in an incredibly narrow sense.

The sort of clamor that has eminated from the Left in response to these remarks is alarmingly irrational.

But of course that would be wrong, but it would reduce the amount of back talk from that woman you allow to raise your children, fix your meals and clean your house. Men just don't get the right amount of respect from women, I blame the femi-nazies that Rush has warned us about. Whole damn family value thing right in the crapper once they gave those girls the vote. Sad.

Your attempts at sarcasm ("especially if you had a whole bunch of tree-hugging liberals on the jury," or "Whole damn family value thing right in the crapper once they gave those girls the vote.") only demonstrates how distorted your view of Bennett's comment is.

Well, am I on board with the right message now????

You think you've found a hidden message in Bennett's comments, but none exist.

Poor helpless Bill Bennett, I bet the person who asked the question was some uppity female.

The black babies have not even been born yet to be part of a statitic, so his remarks just assumes that if they were born rather than aborted chances are high they are going to be criminals.


The book Freakonomics, to which Bennett referred, points out that statistics show that as the rate of abortion increased, the rate of crime has decreased. Of course this is not proof that abortions lead to less crime, but there is a logical premise behind such a notion. The vast majority of babies who are aborted are unwanted. I doubt that anyone would argue that unwanted children face tougher life circumstances than those that are welcomed to life, and that, consequently, they likely have a higher rate of criminality than the general public. But even if we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that higher abortion rates led to lower crime rates it would be wrong to employ abortion as a crime fighting method.

For all sorts of reasons, the chances (proportionately) are better that black children will eventually engage in criminal activity than white or yellow children.

I'm not sure how Liberals are able to explain inordinate levels of black crime and incarceration with claims of racsim, but at the same time, albeit in a different context, deny that these inordinate levels exist.

Moreover, with the way that blacks are systematically under represented in courts because they can't afford good lawyers and profiled when they go in to stores or drive down a road, the fact that blacks might make up more of criminals is not an indication of anything more than we have an unjust system in America that most people will not admit to.

And here we go.

It appears that you accept that blacks "make up more of criminals."
Irrespective of why this is the case, it follows that with less blacks there will be less criminals. Of course this is a ridiculous notion for reducing the number of criminals in the US, but that is precisely the point Bennett is making.

Black people are not inhertently more apt to commit crimes than any other group. The other races that live in the same circumstances probably commit the same amount of crime. It is just that Blacks so happen to represent more of the majoirty of the poor in America which is not to our credit.

Likely true, but this doesn't wipe away the reality that blacks have a higher crime rate than whites. It may very well be because of circumstances that have been wrongly imposed upon them, but the disassociated notion that aborting black babies will reduce crime rates doesn't factor in causation.

This is why McGentrix, rightly, claimed that if Liberals paused a moment and refrained from their knee jerk negative response to anything a professed conservative might say about blacks, they would find themselves in agreement with Bennett!

The problem is poor and downtrodden neighborhoods with no hope with poor education and few opportunities. Some people overcome and get out of the hoods and poor neighborhoods (and the difference between hoods and neighborhoods is?) but it is a uphill battle which makes it unfair to judge on the same scale with the rest of the world. Fix the issue of the poor in America and crime rate will go down.

Crime, more frequently, springs from impoverished environments. This is probably something with which most of us will agree (Not-with-standing our friends on the Hard Left who would probably argue that there is a greater representation of the criminal among the wealthy than among the poor. After all, we all know that from poverty comes nobility!). Why people find themselves in poverty is the substance of another discussion. Certainly, societal injustices play a role, but how large that role might be is subject to debate. I do think though that we, just about, all can agree that absent societal and cultural imperatives, crime rates don't align themselves with race.

Having said this, Indians and African-Americans have (proportionately) higher crime rates than Whites and Orientals. Therefore, less Indians and African-Americans mean less crime, just as less jewish parents having children means less incidence of tay-sachs. No one, though, (including Bennett) would suggest that the way to combat crime is to reduce the number of Indians or African-Americans any more than they would endorse the sterilaztion of all jews as the way to eliminate tay-sachs.

Speaking of abortinig republicans in order to drive down crime.

Only a fool responds to Bennett's comments with jibes about aborting Republicans. Differences of opinions abound within intelligent discourse, and we are all likely to consider our own opinions as fact or truth, but it is very unfortunate when such a considerable degree of stupidity is introduced to the discourse simply because of indeological reflex.

The Compleat Scold will, I suspect, use up on his "I have sinned" confessorial about one one millionth of the words he's used for the "you have sinned" advices.

If they aborted administration babies, I bet the crime rate would also go daown.

Among other things, he said that poverty in that area had "roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America."

And, he said, "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."

If nothing else, Bush's words are a step in the right direction -- that direction being reality -- for him to pair race with poverty. I chuckled when he did that because, if nothing else, it puts his jihadists at a loss when they try to argue that poverty is colorblind. For a long time, Bush probably believed that too, until the Superdome's overwhelming black, huddled minions too poor to escape the path of a hurricane proved otherwise. Only the diehards of denial who insist on seeing black people strictly through the lens of pathology rather than social injustice would continue to hang on to that argument.

What should Bennett apologize for?

That he believes aborting all black babies is a morally reprehensible idea?

That he has said what is simply true: That if all black babies were aborted the crime rate would go down?

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

What should Bennett apologize for?

That he believes aborting all black babies is a morally reprehensible idea?

That he has said what is simply true: That if all black babies were aborted the crime rate would go down?

What makes you think that's true?

Evidently ironic jokes are lost on you, Finn Abuzz. If Bennet should not apologize, then why should we?

Evidently, because I still can't find the ironic joke of which you speak. Please point me in the right direction.

Who asked you to apologize?

The fact that among blacks and Indians the crime rate is higher is noteworthy because both have been systematically oppressed in our society.

If you take the time to read what I have written rather than assume you know what am thinking and writing, you would see that I do not dispute that blacks and Indians, as races, have been subject to systematic oppression, and I do not believe that, absent societal factors (such as systematic oppression) crime rate does not attach to race.

You acknowledge that the crime rate is higher among blacks and Indians. It must follow, therefore, that to abort all black and Indian babies would reduce the crime rate. It does not follow of course (and again Bennet has clearly pointed this out) that it would be, in any way, a feasible approach to take.

The difference between hoods and poor neighborhoods is that not everyone in poor neighborhoods belongs in the 'hoods'.

I'm afraid I don't understand this explanation.

In any event something that seems to have been lost in the over the months is that even Bush is admiting that the poor of Blacks is due to oppression in our society. Whether that was empty rehteric to boost his ratings is up for questioning.

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/sayitloud/weathersbee921

Quote:

Among other things, he said that poverty in that area had "roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America."

And, he said, "We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action."

If nothing else, Bush's words are a step in the right direction -- that direction being reality -- for him to pair race with poverty. I chuckled when he did that because, if nothing else, it puts his jihadists at a loss when they try to argue that poverty is colorblind. For a long time, Bush probably believed that too, until the Superdome's overwhelming black, huddled minions too poor to escape the path of a hurricane proved otherwise. Only the diehards of denial who insist on seeing black people strictly through the lens of pathology rather than social injustice would continue to hang on to that argument.

Well, I hope that made you feel better. It has nothing to do with what I am arguing, but what the heck.

Finn, why do you hate Black people?

Didn't have an answer for my last, eh, Finn?

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

What should Bennett apologize for?

That he believes aborting all black babies is a morally reprehensible idea?

That he has said what is simply true: That if all black babies were aborted the crime rate would go down?

What makes you think that's true?

Simple math.

The crime rate among blacks is greater than the crime rate of the combined non-black races in the US. It follows then that if the statistics related to blacks was removed from the overall crime rate calculation, it would decrease.

A disproportionate degree of poverty and its associated ills among blacks than whites plays a far more important factor than race. In fact I would argue that race only enters the picture in terms of the consequences of oppression directed at a given race.

Connecting the two is not racism unless one argues that blacks are inherently more likely to be impoverished and therefore (and separately) inherently more likely to be criminals. Again, neither Bennett nor I have made such arguments.

It is utterly amazing and sadly predictable that so many people allow their reason to be overwhelmed by ideologically fed emotion.