Posted on 09/30/2005 7:52:43 PM PDT by veronica
Former Drug Czar and Secretary of Education Bill Bennett's comments over skin color, crime and abortion have lots of folks howling, from Nancy Pelosi to Howard Dean to the NAACP to Ted Kennedy to the White House (go figure). What prompted this bipartisan outrage?
Here's the incendiary remark that he made on his popular radio program:
"…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."
Bennett has pointed out, correctly, that his remarks have been taken out of context. Even liberal commentators like Matt Yglesias and Brad DeLong feel the context of the remarks is mitigating and Bennett has no reason to apologize for them.
But let's forget about the context for a minute. Context can be so… so… oh, well, it can take all the fun out of it. So let's just focus on what Bennett said, totally out of context.
DeLong and Yglesias and are sufficiently reality-based enough to know that blacks commit a disproportionate share of violent crimes in the United States. This is not news. It's not even a controversial proposition. Given that fact, it's not a monumentally difficult conceptual leap to surmise that if you aborted every black child in the country from here on out (a hideousness that no one is advocating), the crime rate would drop.
Without getting into the tricky context of Bennett's remarks -- that doing so would be morally reprehensible, etc. -- what more is there to say about it? That it isn't true? No one, as of this writing, has argued that.
Bill Clinton claimed while he was president that he wanted to have a "national conversation on race." Perhaps he was being sincere. But it's plain from recent events that hardly anyone else in this country really, truly wants to have a "conversation" on this topic. If the mindless, knee-jerk reaction to Bennett's remarks -- including from places like the White House -- is any indicator, no one has any interest in an honest discussion of race.
Perhaps it's nothing new, but we live in a time where uncomfortable truths -- even challenging questions -- are to be shouted down and, if possible, driven from the public square. Harvard University's Larry Summers discovered this recently. Now Bill Bennett is on the receiving end of this same idiotarian nonsense. America is the worse for it. Thank goodness some liberals were honest enough to defend him. Let's hope others see fit to do the same.
They could have said,President have not yet reviewed the full remarks,the White House reserves comment.
In public in front of an open microphone it is never a good idea to discuss controversial issues. It's always better to say, "I'll get back with you on that."
But, if they're able to lift words directly out of what someone says regardless of the context, then that makes it exponentially worse and threatens discourse even more.
The truth is that the only ones able to discuss poverty issues in America are the race pimps and the liberal whores.
Desperate to put the false charges of racism that erupted after Katrina, behind them. All in all, appeasement everywhere, by the bucketload. From Karen Hughes in the ME (what a disaster) to kicking Bill Bennett. Great way to alienate the base.
There are so many games going on around the racial issue right now, people smell power over who can be THE MOST sensitive to our minorities.... like blood in the water. There are plenty of people with agendas who are waiting for the opportunity to get on their soap box about who is a racist and who can pander the best.
AND there are people who benefit from keeping race relations in the dumper (and some of those people post on FR). Don't be discombobulated- it is what it is.
We already know everything we need to know about how to keep crime down and how to raise people up out of the ghettos, which is not always "poverty", we have known for a long time- but too many people benefit from keeping those people right where they are- and the sad thing is- it is not just liberals who will keep them there. *sigh*
Mr. Bennett may get thru this witch hunt in tact- at least he has more people willing to "testify" in public on his behalf than Mr. Lott did.
Howard Brush Dean III, child of privilege, Birkenstock doc, and beneficiary of some $3.8 million in trust funds, equities and financial instruments, asked the rhetorical question, "Are these the values of the Republican party and its conservative allies?"
Why, no, Howie. But aborting members of the "lesser" populations is very much the policy of Planned Parenthood, and by extension, of the liberal Dem'crats. This goes back to the days of Margaret Sanger and her "eugenics" movement.
For more information, go to this link:
http://blackgenocide.org/negro.html
Do you honestly believe that David Gregory and Terry Moron would let Scott get away with that comment??
05/17/2001
Study Links Abortion, Race And Lower Crime posted on Free Republic, 05/17/2001
(CNS) -- A controversial study linking a reduction in crime during the 1990s with legalized abortion two decades earlier has been published in one of the nation's foremost scholarly journals.The study, entitled The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime, was published in the May 7 edition of the Quarterly Journal of Economics,...
... the study had been privately circulated since 1999, ...
An abstract of the study, published in November 2000 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, states, "legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime," during the 1990s.
The study also suggests that abortion particularly among young black women results in a significant decrease in crime.
I thought so at first, too. But I realized Bennett was probably referring to a controversial study that was well-discussed on FR about 4 1/2 years ago. Bennett was merely the messenger, who actually disagreed with the message The authors of the study should be contacted for their opinions.*
Study Links Abortion, Race And Lower Crime
The study also suggests that abortion particularly among young black women results in a significant decrease in crime.*The research by Donohue and Levitt is also among the scholarly readings available at the Georgetown University Law Center and the report is listed among the readings for courses in Labor, Economics, Public Policy and Human Capital at the University of California-Los Angeles."Fertility declines for black women are three times greater than for whites," stated the study. "Given that homicide rates of black youths are roughly nine times higher than those of white youths, racial differences in the fertility effects of abortion are likely to translate into greater homicide reductions."
Rush made reference to the George Soros media monitoring site that was the spring board for outrage on this quote. Anybody know which one that is?
If every word you said for three (or whatever) hours a day five days a week was recorded and checked by your enemies, I'm sure something could be found to make you look stupid.
The Cambridge liberals who want his scalp had signed a petition and used their political clout to close down a private school for inner-city black youths located near Harvard Square 10 years ago.
It was Media Matters
Sorry...I disagree.
Even seems that you've blown it....As either you didn't read the whole conversation..and it's context..or you did, and didn't understand it.
FWIW-
What is going on here is not about Bennett, Delay, Frist or President Bush. It is about the upcoming elections in a year for the House and Senate. The Dems are painting a "Climate of Crime" (DNC talking points), which surrounds the GOP according to liberals. Listen to MSNBC..all the "news readers" use the same language. The readers say the GOP has been in office too long, and it is time for a change. They haven't been able to unseat the President, so they go after the Presidents men, and notice, the ones who have power and get things done. Bennett is a fine spokesperson for President Bush, an honest man and a staunch supporter of this administration and the War in Iraq. He is one more of those the libs will go after. They are looking for more.
The far left does not want to have a conversation about anything. They want to be the only voices and deeply loved and respected.
Wow......that's a pretty stupid thingh to say.
You blew it, Baldwin.
What you say is exactly right...it is the only thing they have left to keep what few voters they have left among those to listen to the old templet. The big picture is the Democrat Party has no agenda, nothing new to offer and no ideas on how to solve any problems. BIll Bennett is a fine American, deeply religious with a sence of history and understand how freedom works in America. Thank God for him and those like him.
Whether they commented on it or not is the central issue, it's the MSM's attempt to again carry the water of the Democrat party. The MSM has not nor ever will be honest with the American viewer.
I'm reminded of the Jim Bohannon show that I happend to catch the other night on the radio, and his guest was some host of a CNN discussion show where he brings in people into a studio at George Washington Univ., and he was saying stuff like "Bill Frist is awash in scandal", and "Tom DeLay is fighting to salvage his political career", and not once did he mention anything scandalous on the left. He left the impression to the casual radio listener who would pay little or no attention to day to day politics that Republicans are corrupt and racist.
Do we really need two educators and a study to tell us that?
Bennett made the mistake of saying it, that's all.
I didn't read or hear anything about him referencing this study in his statement, although no doubt it was in the back of his mind.
What we really could use is for those demagogues, Sharpton and Jackson, to admit there is a crime problem among blacks and begin preaching the right stuff.
After all, they claim to be preachers of the Gospel. As it stands now they're acting as enablers, wagging the "racist" finger at anyone who calls attention to the fact that there is a problem.
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