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

joefromchicago wrote:

In sum, Bennett's statement wasn't immoral or even racist, it was just stupid.

... and that was exactly Bennett's point: He made the statement for the sole purpose of labelling it as stupid.

joefromchicago wrote:

And for someone who was the secretary of education, that's just sad.

In my view, the sad thing is that the sensitivity police isn't bothering with forensics anymore before making their arrests. Here is Bennet's quote in context, as offered by mediamatters.org.

Quote:

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.

Source

Translation: Bennet is saying that just because there may be a correlation between abortion or opposition to it on the one hand, and some uncontroversioal social benefit on the other hand, that shouldn't be used as an argument in the abortion debate -- on either side. Even if the claims are true, they are not what the abortion debate ought to be about. As I see it, Bennet tried a reductio ad absurdum there, and his attempt misfired because he made it on talk radio, an ill-suited medium for the finer points of logic.

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Maybe his fine points of logic was missed because his entire argument was not logical.

He appeared to have went both ways on the issue of whether the statitics were true. First he said he agreed that he didn't think the statistics were true because there is too much we don't know. Then in the next sentence he made a definitive statement and said:

Quote:

"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. "

By saying that crime would go down if you abort every black baby in this country he is in effect agreeing with the static of:

"

Quote:

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"

He just upped the ante by saying it is blacks that are committing the crime and if we wanted to reduce crime we could abort every black baby in the country.

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revel wrote:

He just upped the ante by saying it is blacks that are committing the crime and if we wanted to reduce crime we could abort every black baby in the country.

Not "if we wanted to reduce", which we do -- what he said was "if that were your sole purpose", which it isn't.

Anyway, Bennet's argument is that it doesn't matter if the underlying statistics are true or false; they are a bad kind argument to make in the abortion debate regardless. This was a valid point of him to make, just a bad idea to make it on talk radio. For one thing, it is hard to control your wording in real time, which I suspect is where your incident of 'having it both ways' comes from. Secondly, talk radio soundbites are susceptible to strategic cutting and replaying on other talk radio stations, and to selective quoting in the press. I see a lot of that in the reporting about the Bennett incident. Put together, the two make talk radio a bad place for Bennett to have made this argument.

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As revel pointed out -

Quote:

"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. "

If Bennet had said "It is likely" then this would have gone away quickly. He made it a statement of fact by his choice of words. He may have mispoke but his defense of the statement seems to dispute that he mispoke.

The problem is that Bennet is defending the abortion as a hypothetical but not addressing the issue of "blacks committing the most crimes" which led to his racial genocide remark.

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Thomas wrote:

As I see it, Bennet tried a reductio ad absurdum there, and his attempt misfired because he made it on talk radio, an ill-suited medium for the finer points of logic.

Well, you might have a point there, Thomas, but in the real world, you watch your reductio al absurdums.

For one thing, a person who really wants to say something has some degree of merit, even if he can't endorse the idea on balance, might put something in a reductio al absurdum form. Just so that his audience can get a little thrill out of hearing something they might themselves be thinking.

The reductio al absurdum form gives him a nice cover to say it. "But I'm arguing against it", the speaker could say, truthfully. Yes, but while he argues against it, he's also floating the idea out in the realm of present political discussion, where it was not out there before.

Even if that is not what Bennett is doing, the fact is that if you have any sense, you don't leave that interpretation open as a possibility.

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parados wrote:

The problem is that Bennet is defending the abortion as a hypothetical but not addressing the issue of "blacks committing the most crimes" which led to his racial genocide remark.

Perhaps we are talking past each other, but this seems wrong to me several times over. First off, Bennet is not defending the abortion as a hypothetical. He is attacking the argument as invalid even if it may sound valid on the surface. Second, the issue of blacks committing the most crimes is amply documented in crime statistics, so arguably didn't need specific addressing in this spefic context. (The effect of race goes away when you control for income and single-parenthood, but no serious statistician doubts that blacks are more likely than whites to be poor, to be single parents -- and to commit crimes. Third, Bennet's wasn't talking about genocide. He was talking about mass abortions. Abortion is not murder! And with apologies for painting with a broad brush, the very people who fail to make this distinction when accusing Bennett get outraged at Christian conservatives when they fail to make the same distinction in other contexts, such as debating Roe v. Wade.

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I think it is obvious that when a speaker says something, he is not only responsible for the truth and logic of the statement, but for the predictable response to that statement.

Yes, many politicians have made seemingly innocuous statments only to find themselves caught up in a firestorm. These are not predictable, and when they occur, I am glad I am not a politician.

But can anyone with any savvy at all truly say that the reaction to Bennett's statements was not just predictable, but understandable?

There might not be a good way, in 1920's America, to say that scientific evidence does not support the Adam and Eve theory. But in turn of the 21st century America, there must have been 100 ways that Bennett could have made his point that would be better than the way he made it.

Anyone who truly wants to convince a general audience of his point does not draw up awful imaginary scenarios singling out a single group, just for the sake of arguing against the idea. And then act miffed when criticized for it.

The fact that Bennett, who has spent his adult lifetime speaking to groups, did so makes one suspect he knew exactly what he was doing when he said it, that he predicted the response and feels it furthers some political goal he has.

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kelticwizard wrote:

But can anyone with any savvy at all truly say that the reaction to Bennett's statements was not just predictable, but understandable?

I assume that you meant 'deny' when you wrote 'say'. No, I am not denying that the reaction was predictable and understandable -- only that the people reacting that way are right.

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Sorry Thomas, but a speaker is responsible for the way he puts things.

The people criticizing Bennett are right. You don't invent awful scenarios singling out groups on the air, just for the sake of arguing against it. You can be sure that the members of that group will be upset-and rightly so.

And, if you read my previous post, there is also the matter that the scenario is now put into the realm of public discourse, where it was not before.

It is one thing to come put against something that has already befallen a group. Quite another to invent something awful, just for the sake of arguing against it.

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Thomas,
You are promoting racial genocide whether you force an abortion on every pregnant woman of that race or sterilize everyone of that race so there are no future children or shoot the kids after they are born.

No matter which route you take it is still racial genocide. You are systematically attempting to eliminate a race. Bennett's hypothetical is pretty dang close to Hitler's solution with the Jews and that is why it is so repugnant; eliminate a race because they cause the most crime.

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kelticwizard wrote:

It is one thing to come put against something that has already befallen a group. Quite another to invent something awful, just for the sake of arguing against it.

But that's not what Bennett did! He was inventing something awful, but not for the sake of arguing against it, but for the sake of demolishing a bad argument for his own position -- that position being pro-life, and the argument being "abortion is bad because it destabilizes Social Security". His counterargument was that by the same logic, you could make an argument the other way, which he and his caller agrees is awful. To make this point, he had to make up an awful argument for abortion -- and call the argument a bad one. Bennet tried to quality-check an argument on his own side. He fumbled his wording, which caused a big brouhaha about his alleged racism. In my book, internal quality checks are so rare in America's political climate, and so much needed, that I am very forgiving about the fumbling part.

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parados wrote:

No matter which route you take it is still racial genocide. You are systematically attempting to eliminate a race. Bennett's hypothetical is pretty dang close to Hitler's solution with the Jews and that is why it is so repugnant; eliminate a race because they cause the most crime.

Thanks for invoking Godwin's law. This thread is over as far as I am concerned.

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Thomas wrote:

kelticwizard wrote:
It is one thing to come put against something that has already befallen a group. Quite another to invent something awful, just for the sake of arguing against it.

But that's not what Bennett did! He was inventing something awful, but not for the sake of arguing against it, but for the sake of demolishing a bad argument for his own position -- that position being pro-life, and the argument being "abortion is bad because it destabilizes Social Security". His counterargument was that by the same logic, you could make an argument the other way, which he and his caller agrees is awful. To make this point, he had to make up an awful argument for abortion -- and call the argument a bad one. Bennet tried to quality-check an argument on his own side. He fumbled his wording, which caused a big brouhaha about his alleged racism. In my book, internal quality checks are so rare in America's political climate, and so much needed, that I am very forgiving about the fumbling part.

That's interesting.

I haven't followed this particular story at all, I just came here cos I saw you had posted.

Very interesting indeed.

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Thomas wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
In sum, Bennett's statement wasn't immoral or even racist, it was just stupid.

... and that was exactly Bennett's point: He made the statement for the sole purpose of labelling it as stupid.

I think you misunderstand my point. Bennett's statement was stupid because it was false, not because it was intentionally absurd.

Thomas wrote:

Translation: Bennet is saying that just because there may be a correlation between abortion or opposition to it on the one hand, and some uncontroversioal social benefit on the other hand, that shouldn't be used as an argument in the abortion debate -- on either side. Even if the claims are true, they are not what the abortion debate ought to be about. As I see it, Bennet tried a reductio ad absurdum there, and his attempt misfired because he made it on talk radio, an ill-suited medium for the finer points of logic.

I agree that Bennett attempted to employ a reductio ad absurdum here, but the problem was that his example didn't reduce to that absurdum. Bennett, remember, said that it was true that aborting black fetuses would lead to a reduction in crime:

"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."But that is simply not the case, and I don't think even Bennett would agree with it (if he gave it any thought).

As I've mentioned previously in this thread, Bennett is only right if there is a causal connection between race and crime, otherwise we could not confidently predict that aborting black fetuses would have any effect on reducing (or increasing) crime. Bennett, therefore, cannot effectively attack the original argument about social security with a reductio ad absurdum if the reductio itself is invalid. That's where Bennett went wrong, and that was my point.

As I've noted before, I think many people have unfairly criticized Bennett for a position that he didn't take, but that doesn't mean that the position he actually took was correct.

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It doesn't matter if he was arguing against using the crime rate as a reason to support abortion. That is not the point.

The point was that he said he knew that if we wanted to reduce crime, we could, abort every black baby in the country. He agreed with the caller that he didn't know if the statistics were right then he turned right around and said that crime would go down if we aborted every black baby in the country. His argument infers an agreement in statistics that abortion keeps the crime rate down.

Quote:

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.

He made the definitive statement that crime would go down twice so there is no doubt that he thinks if we was to do such a morally reprehensible thing as to abort every black babies in the country, crime rate would go down. He made those two statements after agreeing with the caller that he didn't think the statistic is accurate "either."

But it's ok for him to say that because everyone knows that black people commit the most crime in America and he really wasn't advocating to abort black babies; he just wanted to make the point of saying that crime rate would go down if we aborted every black baby in the country but to use the statistics argument is a tricky argument in the pro life position because it could go both ways.

That bit up there in the above paragraph is my poor attempt of sarcasm.

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Thomas, I have re-read my post a couple of times and I concede that Bennet did not go both ways when he agreed with the caller about statistics not being accurate and then saying if we aborted black babies then crime would go down. Apparently he feels that only aborting black babies would have the effect of lowering the crime rate which not only would be reprehensible but would also help in the pro abortion position argument.

All in all it was a totally tacky thing to say and as joefromchicago pointed out, might not even have been accurate.

But I guess I have beaten it to death.

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revel wrote:

Thomas, I have re-read my post a couple of times and I concede that Bennet did not go both ways when he agreed with the caller about statistics not being accurate and then saying if we aborted black babies then crime would go down. Apparently he feels that only aborting black babies would have the effect of lowering the crime rate which not only would be reprehensible but would also help in the pro abortion position argument.

All in all it was a totally tacky thing to say and as joefromchicago pointed out, might not even have been accurate.

But I guess I have beaten it to death.

Why do you insist on saying such blatantly foolish things? He doesn't feel that way. YOU fell that Bennett feels that way. You want him to feel that way to satisfy some weird superiority complex or something.

It's not that you have beaten it to death, it's that you have been completely wrong in your attitude in this matter.

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I have a hard time believing that anyone who would say such things, as a politician, on national radio. is not an inherent racist. I don't care if the statistics match up to what he was saying; it was an idiotic thing to say and Bennett deserves what he is getting.

The truly delicious part of this is that all the Righties defending Bennett don't matter one whit; the man is ruined, and rightly so.

Cycloptichorn

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I considered answering McGentrix post but the excerp is there for anyone to read.

Quote:

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.

I'll just let it the issue from my end rest there.

cyclop, I agree 100% on alll counts.

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I don't remember who said it, but the idea of floating the absurdity of abortion as a means of "social benefit' is, is, is, as ugly as the original text of Bennett' musings. However since we are all intellectuals here, how many of you are willing to admit to genocidal fantasies/arguments to cure social ills? Just curious.

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

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