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Colpul
gatherer
Username: Colpul
Post Number: 162
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 12:31 am: |     |
From a Washington Post story on William Bennett's unfortunate remarks:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/09/29/AR2005092902126.html
"The former U.S. education secretary-turned-talk show host said Wednesday 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." Bennett quickly added that such an idea would be "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do." But, he said, "your crime rate would go down."...
Bennett's comments came Wednesday, during a discussion on his talk show "Morning in America." A caller had suggested that Social Security would be better funded if abortion had not been legalized in 1973 because the nation would have more workers paying into the system.
Bennett said "maybe," before referring to a book he said argued that the legalization of abortion is one of the reasons the crime rate has declined in recent decades. Bennett said he did not agree with that thesis.
"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," Bennett said, according to an audio clip posted on Media Matters for America's Web site. "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, you know, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.""
As you might imagine Bennett has been taking a lot of heat for say that. The reaction is way over the top IMHO. Leaders of the civil rights community haven't been very civil about it. Even other conservatives have attacked the guy. On the radio the morning DJ's were "you have to be sick to say something like that! You aren't normal if you could even think of something like that." I mostly don't like what Bennett says but sorry, I got to fight for his right to say it. Normally I'd be bandwagon jumping on his ass but what he said in the context he said it he did nothing wrong. Here is the full text of the call to his show:
"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."
I just don't think he was out of line here. He didn't suggest that we should abort black babies, in fact he called doing such, "an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do." All he did was point out that you could make that argument. If he had said poor instead of black would it have been such a big deal? African American's do have a higher rate of poverty and thus crime so the statement isn't without merit on a cursory level. That isn't raceism its statistical fact. I don't think the reasons for it are racial but it is none the less true that black Americans tend to have a higher poverty and crime rate than the average American with all Americans taken as a group. It would be ethically wrong to abort one group's babies by coercion but to suggest a possible out come if society did do something unethical isn't unethical.
Now I'm certainly no Bennett fan but has PC just fallen out of the stupid tree and landed head firt in a pile of dumb ass?
Dr. Sanderson: "Think carefully, Dowd. Didn't you know somebody, sometime, someplace with the name of Harvey? Didn't you ever know anybody by that name?" Elwood P. Dowd: "No, no, not one, Dr. Maybe that's why I always had such hopes for it." |
Da_bear
flint knapper
Username: Da_bear
Post Number: 743
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 3:01 am: | |
Its almost as bad as when a college professor( I think it was), in a speech, said the appropriation was "niggardly". And has to apologise for the "offensive" language.
OR, a teacher used the word nigger when explaining why the work was not acceptable to use. The parents had NO problem cursing and insulting her, are calling for her lynching.
I am no fan of Bennett, but you should not take words out of context for the purpose of creating a furor.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. |
Angakuk
hunter
Username: Angakuk
Post Number: 342
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 4:37 am: | |
The assumption underlying Bennett's remark is that because the crime rate is higher among black people, reducing the number of black people would reduce the overall crime rate. Is that a reasonable assumption? If the underlying cause of crime is poverty and not race, which seems to be a reasonable assumption, isn't it likely that other populations of the poor would fill the vacuum created by the reduction of poor black people? In other words, without addressing the underlying causes of poverty the mere reduction in the number of any particular ethnic group is not going to result in a reduction of poverty and hence no reduction in the crime rate. If racial discrimination is a primary underlying factor for poverty, then reducing the number of targets of racism in the general population might result in a comparable reduction in the poverty level. On the other hand it is just as likely that some other ethnic group would become the new primary target of racism, and the cycle would just repeat itself, albeit with different players. So, if Bennett meant to target poverty, his comments are not racist. However, if he meant to target poverty, why didn't he use poor people as an example rather than black people. I think his comments do imply racist assumptions, because he targeted a specific sub-population and did not explicitly limit his remarks to those living in poverty. It is reasonable to conclude, from his remarks, that he was referring to all black people, rich, middle class and poor. Do I think Bill Bennett is consciously racist? No, I think he is subconsciously racist and a bonehead to boot.
"It takes all kinds to make a world and I'm just one of them." My Grandmother
I don't blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don't believe in that god either. George MacDonald (paraphrase)
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Thalion
flint knapper
Username: Thalion
Post Number: 1786
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 9:33 am: | |
I have no idea who Bennett is, but I'm with Angakuk here. The fact that he chooses black people and not poor people for that example of outrageous interpretations of statistical data shows the need for PC. Even if PC goes overboard sometimes.
Consciously or unconsciously he thinks racist. PC is meant to make us stop and think about the use of our language, to analyze the hidden discrimination in the use of our language. If someone uses the term nigger or niggardly - this may be perfectly ok if there is no other commonly used term for the same thing. If there is - why would you want to use the term that is loaded? Just because it's been always used isn't good enough a reason. You can only fight racism and discrimination when you're aware where it's hidden. Being PC may not be the perfect way to help with this, but it is one way.
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they pass by - Douglas Adams |
Thales
gatherer
Username: Thales
Post Number: 71
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 1:00 pm: | |
"If someone uses the term nigger or niggardly - this may be perfectly ok if there is no other commonly used term for the same thing. If there is - why would you want to use the term that is loaded?"
My dictionary translates "niggardly" as "kitsas, saita, niukka" which in turn correspond to words like "stingy, miserly, scarce". Maybe the dictionary is not good enough or maybe there is a problem with my thinking, but I see nothing racist in these words.
And why would I want to use the word "nigger" or its Finnish equivalent "nekru" (except in a context like this)? I wouldn't and I don't. However, there is another Finnish word "neekeri" ("negro"), which used to be a perfectly ordinary and acceptable word when I was a child, and now people are fined for using it when addressing someone. Still, if someone has suggested a replacement, I haven't heard about it. Am I supposed not to use any word at all? Should I not group people, even if people have a strong tendency to group other people and name the groups. Considering that many such groups use names for themselves, I suppose naming groups is OK. But knowing intellectually that meanings of words can change over time does little to help me accept that people are punished for using words they learnt at school.
Encyclopaedia Britannica explains in some length why it is not useful to say "Native American" instead of "Indian". According to Britannica, "Native Americans" have no word or concept for themselves as a whole, but sometimes it is useful to have a word for it (in contrast Europeans had and have a concept and words for the entire group "Europeans"). (This is in a context where inuits can be ignored, the title being "Latin America, history of".) Still, many people think that it's better to refer to Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, as if his name describes inhabitants of another continent better than another word referring to a different continent. Beats me.
Reunite Gondwana! |
Colpul
gatherer
Username: Colpul
Post Number: 163
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, October 04, 2005 - 5:12 pm: | |
I think you can argue against Bennett's conclusion that if there were fewer blacks there would be less crime but that doesn't make the question unethical. It is just a fact that if you are black in America you stand a much hire chance of being involved in a violent crime either as victim or perpetrator for whatever reason. That can't really be questioned it is an IS. What we need to be doing is asking "why is this so?".
It is also a statical fact that most embezzlement crimes, corporate crimes and scams such as bait and switch, identity theft, false charities and such are perpetrated in America by those of northern European descent by and large. Thus, if you abort all the white babies it at least appears that you would cut down on the number of old people being taken advantage of and workers being screwed out of their savings. That doesn't mean that all white folks are scammers only that for some reason society is setup in such a way that makes it more likely that whites commit white-collar crimes.
I don't think it is in and of itself racist or racialism to acknowledge a statistical fact. That would depend on WHY one believes the statistical differences exist. I still think that even if the explanation for the statistical discrepancy one gives is racist or racial it should still be able to be freely expressed. How can one prove something wrong if it is never discussed or isn’t allowed in the debate? The worst thing about a closed mind isn't that good ideas can't get in but that bad ideas can't get out. They lay there and fester.
Personally I don't believe in race as a biological truth but only as an abstract human construct. We create race and by doing so create all the problems real or imagined that are part and parcel of race. I don't know how much those outside the US know about the early 1970's TV sit-com "All in the Family" but the racist character Archie Bunker maybe did more to end racism than Martin Luther King did. Don't get me wrong here, King did far more to get equal rights for African Americans but Archie showed the average white American just how silly and stupid racists are.
(fonnettik spelling here so get them lips a moving Purple Pizzazz) I abso-frigg'n-lootly HATE PC. It serves no useful purpose. It is pure semantics to no reasonable purpose. 1) The listener has the power not the speaker. Originally the term for homosexuals 'gay' was a derogatory expression. Gay men took the word as their own and stole its power. "You're gay"; "Why yes I am, thanks for noticing", “Shoot, now got to find something else to call you.”
2) It assumes that it is the word and not the intent or action that is the problem. Black folks call each other nigger and no one faints or rants so it isn't the word. Words are abstract things and are neither good nor ill, actions are good or ill. Putting to death all who utter “nigger” will only deter use of the word not the belief that blacks are germanely different from whites.
3) It assumes that someone has some right not to be offended. Bull, I choose not to go around being offensive but that is a choice not an obligation and there are times, often against those who are racist, to be offensive. I may not like what someone says but in a free country they have the right to say it.
4) You can't legislate thoughts, only actions. You can't make it illegal for a man to think women are inferior only to act on said belief. You can make laws that give women equal opportunity and making abuse of women illegal but not to say “women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.” If you do that then at some point it would have been ok to make illegal the idea that it is ok for women to vote.
5) If you hate tall Americans of Irish decent I would like to know that. I want to know where you are coming from, what might be being said behind my back and what prejudices I'll need to over come or deal with.
6) PC bludgeons something but never persuades anything. "You can't say that its wrong", "Why is it wrong?", "It just is so shut up you redneck!"
7) Where does it end? It is unacceptable by PC standards to say nigger, chink, Mick, whop, frog, gook, spic, retard..... is Redneck next? ‘Racist’ itself can be an offensive word.
Everything and I mean everything should be able to be discussed and on the subject’s own terms without preconceived ideas. Every belief should from time to time be questioned even and especially the ones we are sure are moral absolutes. What is there to fear? That we find out we were wrong? That there is another way? That something has to change? On the other side we gain the ability to change minds to a more enlightened path.
Dr. Sanderson: "Think carefully, Dowd. Didn't you know somebody, sometime, someplace with the name of Harvey? Didn't you ever know anybody by that name?" Elwood P. Dowd: "No, no, not one, Dr. Maybe that's why I always had such hopes for it." |
Angakuk
hunter
Username: Angakuk
Post Number: 346
Registered: 6-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 7:34 am: | |
Colpul, I agree that Bennett has the right to say what he said. Others have the same right to castigate him for saying it as well as to criticise the content of what he said. So far the public/media response has been heavy on castigation and woefully short on productive criticism.
Colpul:"I don't think it is in and of itself racist or racialism to acknowledge a statistical fact."
Of course it isn't. However, the conclusions one derives from those statistics may very well reflect a racist attitude. In that case the conclusions ought to be challenged and the attitude ought to be condemned. That is not PC. It is fair-play.
"It takes all kinds to make a world and I'm just one of them." My Grandmother
I don't blame you for not believing in the kind of god you think I believe in. I don't believe in that god either. George MacDonald (paraphrase)
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Colpul
gatherer
Username: Colpul
Post Number: 165
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 - 5:04 pm: | |
What bothers me about this mess most is that all the criticism has been dismissive of what he said. "That's just racist" doesn't address the question raised. No one is claiming that what he said, namely that if Blacks were aborted at birth the crime rate would go down, isn't a strong argument. Rather than saying "we don't want to think about that so you are a racist for bringing it up" why doesn't someone say, "why is that and is there something we can do to reduce or eliminate the reasons for black poverty and opportunity and thus crime rates?" Bennett never said blacks commit more crime because they were inferior or naturally more criminal he just pointed out a 'what is'. Bennett is offensive and I have little use for him and who knows maybe he is racist but I think we should consider the message before out of hand discrediting the messenger.
I am not arguing that people shouldn't have the right to make poor points or illogical arguments. If that were codified what would I do with all my free time? All I'm attempting to do is point out that if we were half as concerned about the crime rate for blacks as victim as well as perpetrators as we are about what Bennett said maybe what Bennett did say wouldn't be true. Besides, I find the caller's idea that if abortion were illegal social security would be funded better awfully offensive and I'm not raking the caller over any coals. What Bennett was really saying is that when you start using something like abortion for social control reasons you open up a can of two-sided knifes to mix metaphors.
Go to PBS.org and look at the ‘Frontline’ that aired last night. It was a look back at the OJ trial and the perspective it gave through time is quite interesting. It shows the divide that is sometimes subtle from the white perspective but isn’t subtle at all from the black perspective. Funny thing is that both sides agreed not on whether OJ did it or not but whether or not the verdict was correct. Both sides thought the police had framed a guilty man. We, the white community, don’t see outside that community very well. We totally lack the ability to get inside someone else’s skin and see the world through their eyes thus we are truly blind though we believe we see.
Here let me add the link. It is very interesting in what it says about race and our leagal system:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/oj/
Dr. Sanderson: "Think carefully, Dowd. Didn't you know somebody, sometime, someplace with the name of Harvey? Didn't you ever know anybody by that name?" Elwood P. Dowd: "No, no, not one, Dr. Maybe that's why I always had such hopes for it." |
Bartholomewcm
hunter
Username: Bartholomewcm
Post Number: 485
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2005 - 4:43 pm: | |
The joker in this deck, from the standpoint of pure mathematics (which is what some theoretical physicists tell us the universe/manifold is the result of), the best way to stamp out abortion is to let the practice proceed unrestrained. The people who see it as useful and proper for whatever reasons will gradually, but surely, be bred out of the race. Thank goodness Bennett doesn't seem to have much of an inclination for numbers.
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
--Sir James Barrie |
Matt
hunter
Username: Matt
Post Number: 393
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2005 - 4:59 pm: | |
I don't think so, Bart. It seems to me that each generation would practice some level of abortion (or not) as it seems useful to the individuals' and families' changing socioeconomic needs. Attitudes can change dramatically just within the span of a single generation (let alone over the amount of time needed for that "weeding out" phenomenon that you've suggested to occur).
September, the Final Hiking Album
"We sit together,
the mountains and I,
until only the mountain remains." -- Li Po (701-762 A.D.) |
Pine
flint knapper
Username: Pine
Post Number: 1098
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2005 - 5:12 pm: | |
The best way to reduce the demand for abortion is to improve education and access to effective birth control as well as improve accessibility to social programs and vocational education for the needy. Desperate women will do what they need to do, legal or not.
"We have something offensive for everyone. If nothing that we own offends you, please complain." - sign in a library. |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2303
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 08, 2005 - 11:12 pm: | |
The minefield he (William Bennett) stepped into is, IMO, the confusion between the attributes of race and those of poverty. Too many people cannot separate the effects of poverty from demographics. They see a false correlation between the two. They don’t realize how temporary those two are in history.
US Blacks are the current majority percentage of people in poverty in the US. While their entry to the US was unique among residents, they are not the only ones who have represented the “poor” at various times. New York City (NYC) is practically the diary of US impoverished peoples. Jews, Germans, Italians, and Irish (I’m sure there were others) have all had their turn at the bottom of US society and it is reflected in the changes is ghetto/slum populations in NYC.
IOW, it’s not race, it’s poverty that creates the negative behaviors and that people form stereotypes about. If the poorest group of people in New Orleans had been Irish, then the people we saw taking TV sets from New Orleans stores would have been Irish. Ditto Chinese. Ditto Hispanic. Ditto English. Anything else is just racial or ethnic superiority, and I will have none of that.
So Bennett’s point was if there were fewer of whatever group constitutes the group that tends to commit more crimes by percentage of population, there would be less crime. I’m somewhere between “duh” and “well, yes, of course”. Now, I don’t know whether Bennett is a racist or not. But, as spoken, his statement is correct. There are some true statements you can speak that get you in trouble anyway. Accuracy is not a very good protection against public opprobrium and outcry.
I don’t like defending someone I don’t like, but this time I have to. I don’t think that any group of people have any more genetic tendency to commit crimes than anyone else. And if it isn’t genetic, it’s cultural (and that cultural cause is not reducible to race or ethnicity).
Machiavelli was pretty devious. For a guy... |
Cavebear
cave painter
Username: Cavebear
Post Number: 2304
Registered: 9-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, October 08, 2005 - 11:16 pm: | |
(Bart) "The joker in this deck, from the standpoint of pure mathematics (which is what some theoretical physicists tell us the universe/manifold is the result of), the best way to stamp out abortion is to let the practice proceed unrestrained. The people who see it as useful and proper for whatever reasons will gradually, but surely, be bred out of the race. Thank goodness Bennett doesn't seem to have much of an inclination for numbers."
I don't understand quite what you are trying to get at. Could you explain further, please?
Machiavelli was pretty devious. For a guy... |
Scott
flint knapper
Username: Scott
Post Number: 1337
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, April 27, 2006 - 4:15 am: | |
Yes they will, especially in South Dakota - abortions allowed only if the woman's life is in danger. Surely roe vs Wade solved this ridiculousness. What is wrong with people?
Scott
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Ces gens, Jondalar, ils sourient. Ils me sourient. - Ayla |
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