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September 30, 2005
Race just isn't sexy
I really didn't want to write a post defending Bill Bennett (about whose politics I share roughly John Cole's opinion), because there are plenty of people in need of defending and because he'd probably never do the same thing for me. But Jeff Goldstein (in a wonderful post linked by Glenn) did such a good job of defending Bennett against the charge of racism -- especially the more complicated charge that one shouldn't say things that might be misunderstood or misinterpreted -- that I feel emboldened. Why, it's almost as if I can defend Bennett without feeling susceptible to being attacked as a racist myself! To back up a bit, via John Cole, here are Bennett's remarks in context: 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—(BTW, I'd rather credit John Cole than that mean Media Matters place he got it from, lest I be misunderinterpretated. But I will supply the Inquirer link.) It's real obvious (to me, anyway) that Bennett isn't proposing the abortions of black fetuses any more than he's arguing that blacks cause crime. He's just extrapolating from statistics to show the monstrous results which can be created if we rely on them. But to show how ridiculous the charge against Bennett is, let's turn off the race meme, and switch to the sex meme. Suppose Bennett had said the following: 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 male 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.Indeed it would. And if the extrapolated statistics are correct, it would go down a whopping 90% -- because that's the percentage of crime which is committed by males. (Men also comprise 95% of the prison population.) Would that have been a sexist remark? By the same logic applied to Bennett, of course it would. But would Bennett have been slammed for it? By anyone? I think not. (More likely, he'd have been praised -- at least by organizations like this.)
(Bennett's statement was not racist, but few will care. Truth is an increasingly losing venture -- even in context.) posted by Eric on 09.30.05 at 05:33 PM
Comments
Here. here. I agree. I also took the defending position. It's absurd to think that he's proposing this "abortion solution". As a black guy the whole melodramatic reaction scares me more than the bennett's innocuous remark. context and intent is everything. I rant on it in further detail on The Assimilated Negro. ciao The Assimilated Negro · September 30, 2005 08:49 PM I have had it with the race pimps. The only whites in America who have any reason to feel guilty over slavery, segregation, and lynching are South-Eastern Democrats (or "RINOS"*) whose party plunged America into a Civil War in order to preserve and extend slavery. It doesn't apply to a Northern or North-Western (i.e., real) Republican like me who has always been opposed to that. Right now, I'm extremely mad at the South-East for what they did. Lincoln was too merciful. *"RINO": Republican In Name Only -- yes, that description applies to the South-Easterners who defected from the Democratic Party only because of their dislike for McGovern but whose politics are otherwise indistinguishable from Lyndon Johnson or George Wallace. The only real Republicans are those who choose to stand squarely in the tradition of Lincoln, Stevens, Sumner, Taft, McKinley, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Goldwater, Dirksen, Reagan. In other words, a real Republican stands for individual rights, individual responsibility, capitalism, militarily strong but Constitutionally limited government, fiscal responsibility, fiscal integrity, a sound dollar. Nothing less. (Yes, I'm more partisan now than I have ever been in my life. Reading the history of the two parties, and also observing their behavior since 9/11/2001, I don't know why I kept calling myself an Independent instead of what I really am, a rock-ribbed Republican.) Negro is one of the noblest (and sexiest) words in the English language, redolent of power, of dignity, of true manhood, true womanhood, reminiscent of a time when the Negro stood on his own feet and fought for his freedom against South-Eastern Democratic governments which kept him enslaved -- before he became "assimiliated" into but one more "pressure group" of the Democratic Party (the Party of the Plantation), squabbling over subsidies from the federal government. A tragedy. I'm very glad to see more and more Negroes (e.g., Thomas Sowell, a genius) thinking for themselves and breaking from the plantation. Ironically, the last word on this whole race swindle as far as I'm concerned was written by a Russian Jewess back in 1963. See Ayn Rand's essay on racism ("the lowest, most primitive form of collectivism") in The Virtue of Selfishness. I, for one, can't think of a single word I or anybody else could add to what she wrote. Anyway!.... On to abortion: Yes, I have been hearing this argument from the pro-abortionists, that abortion reduces crime and is therefore a good thing. They're always careful, of course, to make that argument between election years when they think nobody else is listening. During election years, abortion is, of course, a tragedy and should be safe, legal, and rare, we're not pro-abortion just pro-choice, etc.. That's the hypocrisy that turned me against abortion. As to the argument itself, it falls flat on its own face, since abortion, i.e., murdering a baby in his or her mother's womb, is itself a crime as far as I'm concerned. You don't reduce crime by committing more crimes. I believe that abortion will someday be seen the way we now see slavery. Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · October 1, 2005 02:29 PM I keep hearing the Battle Hymn of the Republic (John Brown's Body). Funny, I took a nap and had a dream about men swinging hammers. And now we're having a thunderstorm. Thunder and lightning. Thor. The Wrath of the North.... Steven Malcolm Anderson the Lesbian-worshipping man's-man-admiring myth-based egoist · October 1, 2005 08:14 PM |
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Very well said. The politicians and the race warlords know damned well that Bennett is no racist. But they can't pass up this opportunity to tar him and by extension the whole conservative talkshow commentariat as being anti-black. Thank goodness for the blogosphere!