Bill Bennett Busts
Sometimes, my fellow Republicans make it really hard for me to be a happy-go-lucky moderate GOP guy.
Bill Bennett — America’s favorite gambler, former Reagan Administration Education Secretary and now a talkradio host — made one heck of a statement on a recent program:
“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 was trying to somehow link the rise in abortions to the decrease in crime rates in recent years. Its an interesting argument, but not sure if Bennett is on the mark. Bennett qualified his statement by adding that aborting black babies would be “an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”
Bennett is correct in that statistics show the Black Americans committ a disproportionate number of crimes, relative to their numbers in the general population. Liberals would say that its because most Blacks live in poverty (not true - most Blacks live at the middle class level). Conservative Black leaders like Larry Elder say that disproportionate Black crime rates are based on fatherless homes, unwed pregnancies, drugs, Black on Black crime and other conditions that exist in higher percentages in the Black community than in others.
So this goes back to Bennett’s claim, would a lower Black birth rate result in lower crime rates, and is a lower Black birth rate a result of increased abortions? You would have to look at the percentage of abortions had by Blacks and I have got to believe that a higher percentage of abortions are had by upper middle class, single, professional white women.
I would maintain that lower Black birth rates are not the results of abortions, or at least solely abortions, but due to a rising Black middle class. As well, a lower crime rate can be partially attributed to lower overall birth rates in America, which started dropping in the late 80s and early 90s. Fewer teenagers = less crime. You can add to that increased efforts to fight crime - better technology, increased police staffing levels (not in LA, but other cities), new policy methods, etc.
So getting back to Bennett, I understand what he was saying, but he’s off the mark. More importantly, it was an incredibly stupid thing to say. You can expect it to only further inflame those who play racial politics - already in overdrive over the Federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Quite honestly, it was a very stupid thing to say. Thanks to Bennett, we’re now going to get a parade of the usual suspects - Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters and all the liberal race baiters who are going to ride this train to glory. They will call on Bennett’s employer to fire him and on President Bush to denounce him, taking attention away from the issues of the day.
Even Howard Stern is on the rampage, and that can’t be good.
Way to go Billy!
(You can hear the audio from Bennett’s program here.)
Editor’s note: In a post related to the topic of semantics, ProteinWisdom discusses “Bennett and the linguistic turn”
(Hattip: Instapundit)
October 1st, 2005 at 11:37 am
White House Condemns Bennett’s Remarks
The White House on Friday criticized former Education Secretary William Bennett for remarks linking
October 1st, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Listen to the comment in total and you will find that Mr Bennett was making a Socratic arguement and rejected the premise as completely absurd and immoral. The libs cut the last part to make a soundbite used to persude moderates and independents to reject conservatism as racist.
Another great example of racebaiting by the left…
October 1st, 2005 at 4:20 pm
You’re right that is not what Bennett believes or is advocating. And indeed, the left is looking for any piece of red meat to race bait with. THAT is exactly why what Bennett did was dumb. He’s created a distraction from anything else of valule he might say, caused a huge headache for the GOP and forces the President to be involved in silly games like repudiating Bennett.
He could have chose his words more carefully and not have said he had to know would fan the flames.
Just my 2 cents.
October 2nd, 2005 at 8:16 pm
Planned Parenthood Advocates Abortion to Reduce Crime
And the bizarre thing is that Bennett, who explicitly rejects abortion, is under attack.