Posted on 10/07/2005 9:21:08 AM PDT by Phantom Lord
Bennett's Critics Prefer to Misunderstand Him
Until we were so rudely interrupted by President Bush's latest Supreme Court pick, we were having an illuminating squabble over Bill Bennett. And since Bennett's remarks on his radio show have already morphed into something of an urban legend in many quarters, I think they're worth revisiting.
A quick recap: Bennett got a call from a listener suggesting that Social Security was in financial straights because so many taxpayers had been aborted after Roe vs. Wade. The caller was making an ostensibly pro-life point. But Bennett, also a pro-lifer, objected. That's not the way you should look at abortion, he said. Such utilitarianism is a distraction and morally unreliable. He cited the book "Freakonomics," by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, which argues, among other things, that the increase in abortions since Roe vs. Wade has contributed considerably to the drop in the crime rate.
And then Bennett offered the infamous hypothetical, saying: "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."
Now, many of you probably know all of this so far. But some probably do not because you've heard about this second hand. And Democrats and many liberals have been trying to distort what Bennett said. Former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe: "The point he was trying to make, I guess, he said, you know, if you were to go out there and kill the black babies, the crime would go down." Ted Kennedy and a predictably long list of others have called him a racist. Radio host Ed Schultz said: Bennett is "out there advocating the murder of all black babies."
There are too many ways in which this anti-Bennett backlash is cheap and tawdry to discuss here. (Though I should note that a considerable minority of liberal writers who loathe Bennett refuse to participate in the witch hunt.)
My first objection is more of a delicious irony. Notice how so many righteously offended liberals keep referring to fetuses as people. In The New York Times, Bob Herbert proclaims that Bennett considers "exterminating blacks would be a most effective crime-fighting tool." Schultz and McAuliffe say Bennett wants to exterminate "babies."
Funny, I thought the bedrock faith of pro-abortion liberals is that fetuses aren't babies. Isn't it interesting how this lynchpin of liberal morality evaporates the moment an opportunity to call Bennett a racist presents itself? Talk about utilitarianism.
Many Bennett stalwarts have spent a lot of time defending him on the grounds that what he said is actually true. Since black crime rates are disproportionately high, they reason, eliminating the next generation - as horrific as that would be - would reduce the overall rate. In response, some liberals have put on their Karnak the Magnificent hats and tried to rebut this by trying to predict what would really happen under the Bennett hypothesis. Tax rolls would go down, schools would close, etc., etc.
All of this is a grand exercise in futility and absurdity. Of course, no one knows what the real repercussions would be if you aborted every black baby in America. One repercussion would probably be civil war or revolution, as nearly the entire black population of the United States, along with large majorities of white pro-lifers and pro-choicers, righteously and legitimately took up arms to prevent the government from committing genocide. And, I should add, one of the guys shouting "Lock and load!" would undoubtedly be Bennett himself.
Which raises the point missed by so many Bennett detractors, often deliberately. His argument wasn't about race at all. His point was to discourage even pro-lifers from demeaning the cause by making abortion into an acceptable governmental tool for social policy.
Bennett was sincere when he said that aborting all black babies simply to lower the crime rate would be "ridiculous, and morally reprehensible." He could have just as easily said to the caller: "Hey, look, we could save a lot of money on skyrocketing education costs if only we aborted the mentally impaired and learning disabled. But you know what? Ends cannot justify the means of murdering the unborn." It would be silly to waste a lot of time trying to rebut him by saying, "Well, actually you wouldn't save that much money."
The former philosophy professor picked a hypothetical that he thought would make the horror of such utilitarianism obvious to everybody. Murder a whole generation just to lower the crime rate? Disgusting!
Bennett's real mistake was in thinking people would be mature enough to get it.
I dont believe black leaders really misunderstoond him.
I think they are taking political advantage.
If there is anything positive here, we can remember what it felt like and try to not do it to others.
If they are attacking on this you can just dismiss them and any further comments on anything because they are identifying themselves as unreasonable people. GLAMIS people. Gee look at me I'm stupid.
The media is so used to being able to define what was said and how bad it was that Bennet should not have given the ammo to them However, it is very difficult in everyday conversation to pass everything through the "what might the left do with this" filter. So I can give Bennet a pass on this.
Of course I would like to see PC die a quick death anyway. It has never been anything except a tool of the left to shame the right wing party and inflame the minorities (and corporation bosses) into being intimidated every day of their lives.
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I heard a left-winger on a local radio show misrepresent Bennett's remarks just yesterday evening. He's not a stupid man, and he's had more than enough time to investigate the issue. I changed the station.
The race-baiters were losing their power until Katrina. Jesse still has a set of keys to the White House for when the locks get changed back to KlintonKwiksets.
They've managed to set back race-relations another generation.
In a nutshell.
I watched Juan Williams comment on this on Brit Hume's Special Report and was disappointed to see that even Williams, who says Bennett is a personal friend, and who acknowledges all the good works done for the black community by Bennett and his wife, he (Williams) has not been able to get rid of the racist chip on his shoulder. Just like those who need to refer to themselves as feminists carry a similar chip. Neither group seems to understand how carrying that chip around does nothing but weigh them down. Just as Islamic clerics and imams try to keep their people ignorant and angry in order to maintain power and control, so too, do black leaders and radical liberal politicians do the same. They know if racism is a non-issue, they have little left that will allow them to maintain their personal political power.
Pretty sad coming from the side that calls itself "progressive."
Juan Williams is a raving moonbat fool, he is on permanent mute when he appears on Brit's showin my house.
They must since nothing he said was remotely racist. Unlike Rangel's "Bush is like Bull Connors..." remarks.
The former philosophy professor picked a hypothetical that he thought would make the horror of such utilitarianism obvious to everybody.
It was an argumentative technique of debate based on reductio ad absurdum. In this case the hypothetical wasn't absurd (it would be true) but the thought of actually implementing it is absurd and he underscored that obvious conclusion by spelling it out in his following comment.
Bennett's real mistake was in thinking people would be mature enough to get it.
It's not his fault the libs have dumbed down education to the point where words have no more meaning to the masses than the grunts of apes. Not everyone wants to run their thoughts through multiple polling groups until their words are so stripped of creative content that they produce nothing but a saccharin-like emotional response from the average couch potato. Not everyone wants to be Bill Clinton.
Excellent article
I've made this argument many times ... that IF it's true that a fetus is a 'potential' person not an acutual person , and IF it's true that this is OK morally, then it should follow that it is OK morally to eliminate potential persons based on race, gender, gentics, sexual orientation, presumed IQ, etc. etc.
Even though it was not what Bennett said, why the uproar about supposedly culling potential people?
After all, they are not real people, so no harm done.
Nice turnabout on the left's distorted logic. I will remember that for future pokes and digs at their agenda.
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