Posted on 09/30/2005 3:31:28 PM PDT by patriciaruth
"There is also a strong correlation between crime and gender. Do we condemn all men because men commit more crimes than women? "
Do we? I don't. Bill Bennett did not. Nor did he condemn all blacks because blacks commit more crimes than non-blacks.
"There's more than a correlation."
So, you're saying poverty is the root cause of crime? As opposed to a lack of morals?
"And how does one estimate morality in a fetus? Are you suggesting we abort babies based on the perveived morality of the parents, of the race?"
My point exactly. I was not suggesting, nor was Bennett, that we abort anyone. Of course, there is no way to abort babies based on perceived morality. Characteristics like race and sex are easily identifiable. That is why Bennett used an easily identifiable characteristic in his example. Bennett could have just as easily used men in his example instead of blacks. But since he did not, many are attributing all kinds of ill will toward him. ("He could have said men but he did not, so he must be a rascist.")
"Not openly, but the melody plays in the background."
Do you think conservatives are usually racists? More racist than non-conservatives? Hogwash.
"Are you suggesting these cultural problems are race based?"
Non-blacks are certainly not immune from these cultural problems, but it would be wrong to suggest that certain cultural problems (fatherlessness) are not experienced more frequently in black communities now and in the recent past than in non-black communities.
I see the highest English homicide rates were in the 13th and 14th Centuries.
Wasn't that the era of the very high black migration into the country?
Sarcastically Yours,Riverman
The incidence of violent rape is also much higher in the underclass community. From one way of looking at it, the urge to rape is created by a poverty of women willing to sleep with the rapist. Another way of looking at it is the rapist having a sense of entitlement to the woman's body, which is not subject to a willingness to acquire her free consent
Similarly, the impulse to rob comes not from poverty, but from the sense of being entitled to wealth without being obligated to exchange anything of value for it. This same attitude motivates the inner-city robber, and the white-collar criminal who already has $millions, but still feels entitled to more
The people doing the robbing do not have any physical need to do so. Even a mentally-deficient illiterate can make enough money to feed himself and get a warm place to sleep with a minimum wage job. McDonalds and the rest are always looking for people who are willing to work
The problem with the criminal is his self-esteem -- he has entirely too damn much of it. He feels that work is "beneath" him, that work is for the "chumps", and he prefers to TAKE what he needs
Jorge,you have hit the nail on the head.You are not afraid to be an honest critic of black culture because you have earned respect by walking the walk in the black community.You have LIVED your beliefs and that gives you way more crediblity than some white guy up in the hills commenting without really having the slightest idea about the people he is criticizing.
Example-I know this Jewish guy who vociferously opposes affirmative action and does not hold his tongue around black audiences.Yet no one has ever called him a racist.Why?Cause he has numerous black friends and black grandchildren who he loves with all his heart.
He gets respect and that respect gets reciprocated.
I partly agree with you on the poverty-crime connection.
However,I recall some very well to do white kids where I grew up who were running burglary rings,pushing major dope weight and involved in criminal conspiracies with subversive groups.
These were kids who had it all.They just had poor character.
Yes, but they got a handle on that after they passed Roe v. Wade.
That is evil, deplorable and statistically speaking... true.
> creepy what google searches can produce:
Indeed. I think the article gives more evidence of liberal's "self loathing" that I find so commonly to pervade their groupthink.
"The liberal activist Left are traitors at heart".
----Yes, but that would be impossible to prove, as
we know from years of trying. The "dialogue" we
may have all fondly hoped for during the Clinton
Years never got off the ground, and never will, especially as regards The Great Stainmaker, who still undergoes a process of Martinizing, Scotchguarding, and
Sanitizing, courtesy of the Loyal Opposition party.
I will quote Stendhal who said "Bad taste leads to crime". For "bad taste" I will substitute "lack of imagination" and apply it to our Left, and most of the world's Left (what's "left of the Left")for that matter. The Left is simply OUT of ideas, and every public statement it makes is designed to slander and destroy the other party ,but is actually a confession of sorts: "listen with the Third Ear and you will hear them talking about and revealing themselves". The Left is about NOTHING except a desperate, wholesale removing of responsibility and blame off of THEIR shoulders, and placing it on the shoulders of others. They continue to get away with murder, courtesy also of the Loyal Opposition party. To pull just ONE name among hundreds out of the hat, what actually happened to Sandy Berger for the commission of HIS crimes, and why, oh, why, when the "crime" itself was reported, were there NO details about the documents and why they
were removed in the first place????
These are conclusions to motivate us, not to parade in front of the general electorate.
I agree he should be able to say anything he wants - I aslo agree that he should stand prepared to defend himself, as should we all when and if we choose to take the public stage and make a political statement.
I also believe that the people rushing to his defense bring back bad memories of people rushing to the defense of liberals who made stupid statements just because they were on the same 'side'.
You could insert any racial or economic group into that statement - and you could defend that statement statistically.
No more whites, the white portion of the crime rate goes away, latinos - same thing, asians ditto - it's a silly statement to make as it has no bearing on legitimate discussion.
The problem lies in how he presented his statement showing, as I said, a mental association between race and crime, and there is no way to engender a reasonable discussion of social policies and politics when you isolate ANY racial group, period.
I agree.
In # 15, you're putting a very fine point on it, but when I review what Bennett actually said, and what he said in defense of himself, you may actually be right. I've heard many libs make similar statements, while issuing a concurrent "denial" of the same sort: Two come to mind immediately.....After the Paul Wellstone death in a plane crash, staunch Lib Garrison Keillor said "Now there are some people who actually believe that there is something very suspicious about the crash, that Wellstone's plane was set up by his enemies.." Keillor proceeded along this conspiratorial trail, then said "Of course, I am not one of those that believes this....." (He just HAD to float the outrageous suspicion of the set-up just to get it out there one more time for a wider audience, hoping a new batch of young Libs just ready for a conpiracy theory might grab it and run with it. And 2. I just heard the editor of the NEW YORKER, David Remnick, a more sophisticated person than Keillor, on the insufferable Charlie Rose Show , discussing his piece "Rising Water" in the current issue of The New Yorker. He cites the wild claims in parts of "the black community" that perhaps the levees were intentionally weakened to that a hurricane would some day get rid of the poor blacks in the 9th Ward, and get them out of the way, to make way for people more likley to become taxpaying citizens,etc. (Supposedly something like this happened in the flood of 1927, orchestrated by White politicos, but that may also be urban legend.) Then Remnick says "Of course, I don't subscribe to any of that",etc."
The nagging part of Bennett's reply to the radio caller was that he SAID IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, as if he were just trying to offer the hypothesis with one hand, while taking it away with the other, but, hey, look! it's still there!
And we're still talking about it, and wondering whether the guy really is a bit of an A**hole. I have alway been of two minds about Bennett, finding his "Virtue" stuff a bit tedious and completely untroubled by any sense of irony. But in the final analysis he does have his good points.
In # 15, you're putting a very fine point on it, but when I review what Bennett actually said, and what he said in defense of himself, you may actually be right. I've heard many libs make similar statements, while issuing a concurrent "denial" of the same sort: Two come to mind immediately.....After the Paul Wellstone death in a plane crash, staunch Lib Garrison Keillor said "Now there are some people who actually believe that there is something very suspicious about the crash, that Wellstone's plane was set up by his enemies.." Keillor proceeded along this conspiratorial trail, then said "Of course, I am not one of those that believes this....." (He just HAD to float the outrageous suspicion of the set-up just to get it out there one more time for a wider audience, hoping a new batch of young Libs just ready for a conpiracy theory might grab it and run with it. And 2. I just heard the editor of the NEW YORKER, David Remnick, a more sophisticated person than Keillor, on the insufferable Charlie Rose Show , discussing his piece "Rising Water" in the current issue of The New Yorker. He cites the wild claims in parts of "the black community" that perhaps the levees were intentionally weakened to that a hurricane would some day get rid of the poor blacks in the 9th Ward, and get them out of the way, to make way for people more likley to become taxpaying citizens,etc. (Supposedly something like this happened in the flood of 1927, orchestrated by White politicos, but that may also be urban legend.) Then Remnick says "Of course, I don't subscribe to any of that",etc."
The nagging part of Bennett's reply to the radio caller was that he SAID IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, as if he were just trying to offer the hypothesis with one hand, while taking it away with the other, but, hey, look! it's still there!
And we're still talking about it, and wondering whether the guy really is a bit of an A**hole. I have alway been of two minds about Bennett, finding his "Virtue" stuff a bit tedious and completely untroubled by any sense of irony. But in the final analysis he does have his good points.
Well said, but I don't think they are going to get it. As I mentioned previously, men commit something like 90% of all crime but you don't see anyone writing "Statistically, it would be correct to say if you aborted all men, the crime rate would go down.". They want to be focused on race and that is what makes it disturbing...and it keeps flying right over their heads.
BTT
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