PC Victim William Bennett

[Berzerker]

Those who know me also know I think Bennett is scum, but this is ridiculous. He is being grilled because he pointed out a simple fact - which also happens to be an unpleasant truth, i.e., PC territory.

Bennett cited a conclusion from a book, "Freakonomics",
that Roe v Wade is a major cause for dropping crime rates, to suggest aborting black babies would also lower the crime rate, so what? Its still an immoral argument for abortion. He's right, albeit he is countering a strawman. No one suggested we abort babies to lower crime rates. But the pro-life crowd has perceived the data from Freakonomics as if the pro-choice crowd would justify abortion based on crime rates. He could have said aborting babies in really poor families would also lower crime rates and it would have been true, but more immune to PC.

Hypocritically Bennett has no problem punishing large groups of innocent people based on what others have done. He was "Drug Czar" (aint it wonderful how we use autocratic titles?) and saw to it millions suffered for the crimes of others. His beloved drug war is based on guilt by association...

[:) Smiley]

From one of those "here is something to think about" quotes:

"When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail."

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Smiley
From one of those "here is something to think about" quotes:

"When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail."

When one adopts the mindset of a nail, everything starts looking like a hammer.

I loved it when Bennett got off on Teddy about drowning that girl.

[Sava]

eh?

I think Bennett's point is wrong...

it's not about race...

I agree that abortion probably does lower crime, because fewer UNWANTED babies (not just black babies) probably does lead to less people growing up to be criminals.

Bennett is probably a racist... of this I have no doubt. It's obvious in his comments. Abortions is about unwanted pregnancies... not black pregnancies. To singles out blacks like that pretty much makes it clear that Bennett is a racist.

This isn't about political correctness.

[Boris Godunov]

He singled out blacks to make an implication that the evil liberuls specifically desired the abortion of black babies. So I don't think it was racism, really, but just a disgusting implied slur against liberals.

[Whoha]

No, hes no PC victim. this was a deliberate troll on his part, especially the qualifier that such an idea was morally reprehensible. Hes just being an attention whore.

[chequita guevara]

He's no PC victim. He as much as said all Black people were criminals.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Re: PC Victim William Bennett

Originally posted by Berzerker
Those who know me also know I think Bennett is scum, but this is ridiculous. He is being grilled because he pointed out a simple fact - which also happens to be an unpleasant truth, i.e., PC territory.

Bennett cited a conclusion from a book, "Freakonomics",
that Roe v Wade is a major cause for dropping crime rates, to suggest aborting black babies would also lower the crime rate, so what? Its still an immoral argument for abortion. He's right, albeit he is countering a strawman.

Is he right?

Are his comments based on analysis of 100% accurate accounts of who actually commits all crimes (which, of course, do not exist)? Or is he making a clumsy assumption based on far more nebulous samples such as conviction rates, with all their inherent capability for skewing? Just like White Supremacists the world over?

[Chemical Ollie]

A Swedish leftist columnist wrote some years ago that abortion was a good way to reduce crime, removing unwanted kids that would just grow up to become criminals anyway. Her suggestion passed on without anyone else commenting it.

I thought: Well, what a great idea, pre-emptive death penalty!

[Berzerker]

Bennett is probably a racist... of this I have no doubt.

Is he right?

Are his comments based on analysis of 100% accurate accounts of who actually commits all crimes (which, of course, do not exist)? Or is he making a clumsy assumption based on far more nebulous samples such as conviction rates, with all their inherent capability for skewing? Just like White Supremacists the world over?

Yes, he's right.

[Drake Tungsten]

Matt Yglesias sums it up well.

Not only is Bennett clearly not advocating a campaign of genocidal abortion against African-Americans, but the empirical claim here is unambiguously true. Similarly, if you aborted all the male fetuses, all those carried by poor women, or all those carried by Southern women, the crime rate would decline. Or, at least, in light of the fact that southern people, poor people, black people, and male people have a much greater propensity to commit crime than do non-southern, non-black, non-poor, or non-male people that would have to be our best guess. The consequences, clearly, would be far-reaching and unpredictable, but the basic demographic and criminological points here can't be seriously disputed.

Nor, as Bennett says, can the moral point be seriously disputed -- doing any of that would be wrong. Contra Harry Reid, Bennett has nothing to apologize for. Or, rather, Bennett has a great deal to apologize for, but none of it pertains to this statement. He's still a bad dude, but for totally different reasons.

http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/29/16450/9195

[Agathon]

I don't like Bennett, but he is being treated unfairly here. If you look at the context of what he said, he was actually arguing against the discriminatory treatment of people based on their being in groups that have a higher crime rate. According to CNN he was disagreeing with a caller who said that Social Security would be solvent if not for abortions. It's simply true that blacks are statistically more likely to commit crime. It's also true that they are statistically more likely to be poor. Only a lunatic would suggest that abortion would be the solution to the latter problem, and likewise with the former. Bennett explicitly pointed out that it would be monstrous to argue that aborting black babies would be permissible because it lowered the crime rate. That's what he said.

He was making the point that hypotheticals like that can lead you into an ethical quagmire. Bennett's point is that simple consequentialist reasoning like that displayed by the caller is not a good way to argue.

You know... he's right. That is exactly what can happen.

Shame on the people who are using a sound bite and ignoring the context.

[Agathon]

Levitt himself is quoted as saying the same thing that Bennett did.

"Most of the reduction," Dr. Levitt and Dr. Donohue write, "appears to be attributable to higher rates of abortion by mothers whose children are most likely to be at risk for future crime." Teen-agers, unmarried women and black women, for example, have higher rates of abortion, the researchers note, and children born to mothers in these groups are statistically at higher risk for crime in adulthood.

from Drake's link.

[Last Conformist]

He's being bashed unfairly, but I don't feel very sorry for him, since he must've been realized he was going to be bashed for those statements, and made them anyway.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Agathon
Shame on the people who are using a sound bite and ignoring the context.

How about shame on Bennett for making the disgusting implication that pro-choicers goal is to eliminate black people?