Bennett defends remarks on blacks, abortion and crime rate

[UpInArms]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002532526_benn01.html

WASHINGTON — William Bennett yesterday defended comments he made on his "Morning in America" radio talk show suggesting that aborting black children would reduce crime, saying he was merely musing about a hypothetical argument and he made plain to listeners he was not stating his own position.

Bennett is under fire for saying Wednesday that "you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." He followed this by adding that such a thing would be "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do."

Yesterday, he refused to apologize and released a statement saying critics unfairly pulled his comment out of context: "A thought experiment about public policy, on national radio, should not have received the condemnations it has."

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called on him to apologize.

...more...

What a pig.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Public policy experiment? Haven't black people had enough of those?

Forced sterilizations? Tuskeegee?

Sorry, Mr Bennett, you could abort every black baby in this nation and white people would then have to find some other minority to prosecute for bullshit and it would not reduce the white collar crime rate one scintilla and that's the crime that harms a greater portion of society and WORSE!

[salin]

4. white collar crime? What's that - oh bizasusual under GOP rules.

eom

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

11. We need to stop calling it white collar crime and call it looting

[salin]

12. or pillaging or that old plundering

which gives the accurate image of taking - while trashing the place so that there is NOTHING left.

[pokercat999]

38. How about economic treason?

We are after everything is considered "at war". And you know the penalty for treason while at war!

[Star]

42. Call them all "robber barons"

that's what they are, after all

[salin]

2. says he now "he was not stating his own position" BUT he prefaced

his comment with this phrase: "I know this to be true that... That preface really should be included when his quote is repeated - as it makes it harder to say things like "It isn't my opinion..."

[skooooo]

3. "..morally reprehensible thing to do..." He didn't end it there...

...He ended the sentence with, "..but your crime rate would go down."

The Seattle times should examine the whole quote and not edit that part out.

[carpediem]

5. his comments are worse in context than out

I read the transcript of Bill Bennett's radio show and he should be thankful his comments were taken "out of context". When "in context" he says he doesn't believe that abortion overall has lowered the crime rate, and follows that statement with if all black babies are aborted the crime rate would go down.

[HappyMoonBat]

22. Yep. In Bennett's world, it's worse to be black than unwanted.

.

[nolabels]

39. And abortion is viable operation as long as government does it

I believe almost absolutely zero of what the government says anymore and mostly it's their track record I am watching.

[AirAmFan]

32. YES! The TRANSCRIPT from Media Matters backs up your argument precisely

Bennett clearly disagrees with the Freakonomics book's argument that ALL abortions since Roe have lowered the crime rate. He goes on to argue that only the abortion of BLACK babies would in his opinion have lowered the crime rate. Notice also that Bennett brings in his genocide hypothesis completely out of the blue--the caller he was talking to was talking about Social Security!

From http://mediamatters.org/items/200509280006 :

"From the September 28 broadcast of Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America:

CALLER: ... 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....

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens? ... 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."

[AirAmFan]

41. Authors of the abortion-crime study Bennett misused DISAGREE with him

DUer Thtwudbeme found a very recent link with Steve Levitt's response to Bennett's racist misinterpretation of his academic work:

"2) Race is not an important part of the abortion-crime argument that John Donohue and I have made in academic papers and that Dubner and I discuss in Freakonomics. It is true that, on average, crime involvement in the U.S. is higher among blacks than whites. Importantly, however, once you control for income, the likelihood of growing up in a female-headed household, having a teenage mother, and how urban the environment is, the importance of race disappears for all crimes except homicide. (The homicide gap is partly explained by crack markets). In other words, for most crimes a white person and a black person who grow up next door to each other with similar incomes and the same family structure would be predicted to have the same crime involvement. Empirically, what matters is the fact that abortions are disproportionately used on unwanted pregnancies, and disproportionately by teenage women and single women....

4) When a woman gets an abortion, for the most part it is not changing the total number of children she has; rather, it is shifting the timing so those births come later in life. This is an important fact to remember. One in four pregnancies ends in abortion and this has been true for 30 years in the U.S. But the impact of abortion on the overall birth rate has been quite small....

7) ... I would take Bennett to task for: first saying that he doesn't believe our abortion-crime hypothesis but then revealing that he does believe it with his comments about black babies. You can't have it both ways."

IMO, the last quote (#7) is unfortunately worded--it must be read in light of point #2:

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4949418&mesg_id=4949735

[napi21]

6. I never listen to his radio show. Hell, I never knew he HAD one!

I must say, he surprised me with that comment. He's an atty, and apretty good one! To say that he should have know what the reaction would be is a gross understatement. I wonder if he's just trying to be a Limpball clone? You know, the shock factor MO.

[rodeodance]

7. " ridiculous and morally reprehensible" yup--bill--you are that!

[gulliver]

8. What a great thought experiment! Mengele would be proud.

Why didn't he just allude to aborting his own children if the allusion isn't offensive? You know, if we aborted all Bennett family babies, we could reduce the population of problem gamblers.

Hey, just a thought experiment.

[tularetom]

9. By no means do I advocate this and it would be

morally reprehensible but if every fat white evangelical christian baby in America was aborted the rate of bullshit would go down.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

10. Don't abort the babies of Christian fundis!!

I am counting on their assistance in the backlash against their parents foolish political policies...you know how kids like to rebel against their parents! ;)

[msongs]

13. replace "black baby" with "christian baby" and see the response! nt

[Solly Mack]

14. Let's see , it was - "it's not racism if it's true" and now

we have "thought experiments"

so it's not that I am expressing my racism, it's merely a "thought experiment"

The pathology runs deep.

[yorkiemommie1]

19. scary phrase

'thought' experiment.

[AirAmFan]

21. Bennett's use of the term "thought experiment" is JUST AS RACIST as what

he said originally. It was a right-wing extremist's "thought experiment" 20 years ago that contributed to reversal (since 2000) of a strong downward generational trend in child poverty.

Remember Charles Murray, author (with Richard J. Herrnstein) of "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life"?

Most people have forgotten about another very influential book Murray wrote in the early 1980s, "Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980". That book laid out a rosy scenario for consequences of TERMINATION of cash welfare for parents of poor children. Republicans like Bennett worked tirelessly for over a decade to finally turn that racist propaganda into law in 1996 (see http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/welfare/stories/op092596.htm ).

Hundreds of thousands of poor parents, disproportionately Black, now have no safety net for their children. Murray's "thought experiment" has spawned generations of harm to Black people, who are three times more likely to be poor than Caucasians. Now Bennett responds to the outcry over his casual contemplation of genocide with the explanation that it was only a "thought experiment". I hope this doesn't mean that 20 years from now we'll see revival of anti-Black eugenics laws of the kind that were common, especially in the South, 75 years ago.

[shanti]

27. yes

isn't that what they do in the conservative think tanks? they're just thinking, not making policy

:eyes:

[alarcojon]

15. So we can be openly racist as long as we assure our audience

that we are merely engaging in a "thought experiment"? Goebbels would be proud.

Now I'm starting to think Bennett is just trying this out for ratings.

[AirAmFan]

16. He can't see that hypothesizing GENOCIDE trumped whatever else he wanted

to say. In the minds of every decent human being, Bennett's remarks were only tangentially about abortion. The main thing most people heard was casual musing about the extinction of a people.

Bennett says his remark is being "taken out of context". But there never is a proper "context" for contemplating genocide. And Bennett's remark came out of the blue:

"Bennett's comments came after a caller suggested 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." ( http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=watch30&date=20050930&query=Bennett+caller+black+babies )

Thus the "context" only demonstrates that Bennett's remark was a deeply telling Freudian slip revealing what sick things are inside his head.

[dkofos]

17. Reduce the crime rate,and make the country safer,

Abort Republicans

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

18. Self delete.

I was stooping the level of bill bennett. MKJ

[ridgerunner]

20. Of course

no white person has ever committed a crime :sarcasm:

Bill Bennett is a moran.

[Ishoutandscream2]

23. I'll say it again, "Just stroke out, Bill"

Yeah, it's damn cold, but his fat ass deserves it.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

24. Bennett: I meant to say, "Kill all the Jews..."

"...but that's already been tried."

Book of Virtues, my ass!

[Piperay]

25. You could abort every white baby

and the crime rate would go down too. Or how about every male baby or every female baby either one would take the crime rate down because any decrease in population would lower crime...DUH!

[Kaylee]

26. Genocide as public policy!!!!!!

Keep digging.

[patricia92243]

28. Any word on Bennett losing his job? n/t

[bluestateguy]

29. There is a lesson here people

Notice that when their wackos mouth off they don't apologize. Never. They know that it it will not mollify the critics, and instead they stand their ground. That's why a lot of people trust the Republicans to say what they mean and mean what they say, without flip-floppery or waffling. That's why our side is often depicted as mealy mouthed and slippery. The lesson: never apologize, just dig in and reiterate what you said even more.

[sampsonblk]

33. Yep

Contrast that with others who say he's digging a hole for himself. I agree with your view instead: what he's doing works. That's why he's doing it. Its time for our side to learn this lesson, or continue to suffer defeats.

No matter what he says, he isn't going to cave in to public pressure and apologize. And he's never going to admit that he was wrong, and that what he said is immoral. Not gonna happen.

Heck, he'd piss off half his supporters and gain absolutely nothing.

[delete_bush]

43. Not only do they not apologize, they

go into attack mode, as in Ted Kennedy. Unfortunately with the average mindset of the American public, this seems to work more often than not.

[AirAmFan]

46. No--when Rethugs don't back down, Plan B is: take away their MONEY.

IMO, their recalcitrance sets up MUCH BETTER long run consequences for their gaffes than being able to force them to apologize within a few days. Taking away their MONEY puts them out of action for a long time, and may have substantial deterrent effect for many other racist politicians, making them keep their foul mouths SHUT.

Most Republican big shots are on corporate boards, or are connected to extreme-right projects that are funded by governments or by foundations.

Black parents and other anti-racists now have a mission: ELIMINATE Bennett's involvement in all these sources of his income. As a former Secretary of Education, Bennett presumably is getting paid by many public, religious, private, and charter schools for his "advice". (Can you believe this?!)

For revealing that GENOCIDE is on his sick mind, Bennett is highly likely to become radioactive, with a half life of decades. People tend to remember for a long time those who have advocated their ANNIHILATION.

The Philadelphia public schools have started a snowball rolling that has the potential to crush Bennett. A corporation with a $3 million school system contract has Bennett on its board -- but not for long. See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1820502&mesg_id=1820502 .

[goclark]

30. Have you noticed how their bigoted statements keep flowing?

Recall Pat Rpbertson suggesting that some one harm Chevez?

Everybody kept saying , "Awful" but the point was made.

Well I think that the Abortion for Blacks had been discussed many times and it was Bennett's turn to say it.

They know exactly what they are doing.

[truthisfreedom]

31. i say good. i say this is the way for bennett to destroy himself.

he can do it better than we can.

[damntexdem]

34. He can hang all the qualifiers he wants around the statement --

as he did. The point is that it's disgusting that he even THOUGHT it, much less opened his mouth and stated it over the airwaves. He has freedom of thought and of speech; and we have freedom of thought and of speech to denounce him for his statement, to seek to have his company's contracts renounced by school districts, and to celebrate if he loses his place on the air.

[daleo]

35. Besides being racist, it shows a lack of understanding of capitalism

Capitalism itself will always generate poverty. It is in the nature of the system, especially the U.S. form of capitalism. It is ludicrous to say that poverty would be eliminated if the poor just somehow vanished, whether it be by abortion or alien abductions. It is another example of blaming the oppressed for their own oppression.

[bos1]

36. www.FIREBENNETT.cjb.net ... nt

[cassiepriam]

37. Watching these guys squirm is so much fun.... nt

[Window]

40. Bennett is one sorry sack of shit!

Period.

Peace

[sattahipdeep]

44. But where and when?

In a press almost magically turned from scandal and witch-hunting after January 20,
2001, revelations of high rolling games of chance funded by Bennett's stacks of gold
chips and his piles of $1000 tokens will die swiftly. No point in starting a moral fuss. The
after midnight Bennett with sleeves rolled up and sweat on the brow will dissolve. The
folksy prophet of moral probity will soon reappear,. But where and when?

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0508-13.htm

[Rex]

45. Ah yes, musing the annihilation of a race of people.

I'm sure Hitler and Stalin did that all the time.

[AirAmFan]

47. Finally! Consequences (K12 Board purge) for Bennett's genocidal racism

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-03-2005/0004157888&EDATE=

"Bennett RESIGNS from K12 board over racist remarks

MCLEAN, Va., Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- K12 Inc. today announced that William J. Bennett has resigned as an employee, and as Chairman and member of the company's Board of Directors, effective immediately. K12 Inc. said the Board accepted his resignation, thanking him for his contributions to the company. K12 Inc. said that it has no relationship with, or involvement in, Dr. Bennett's radio program. The opinions expressed by Dr. Bennett on his radio program are his and his alone.

Dr. Bennett, in a separate statement said: "I am in the midst of a political battle based on a coordinated campaign willfully distorting my views, my record, and my statements. Given the controversy surrounding the remarks I made on my radio show, I am stepping down from my positions at K12, so that neither the mission of the company, nor its children, are affected, distracted, or harmed in any way.""

See also the DU thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1823560

[Supersedeas]

48. why is the World always wrong when a Neo-Con is called to task?

[triguy46]

49. Keep it up Bill. Get louder!!!

Keep your scotch scarred face on the camera showing us your love for humanity!!