Bill Bennett

[Nephythys]

Originally Posted by lizziebith

Quote taken out of context: reprehensible.

Quote taken within context: disturbing. What made him choose this particular rhetorical argument?

Abortion should be a woman's private choice, made for her own abundant reasons...it should never be dragged into some horrid economics argument. Sanger would be spinning in her grave, actually.

Hardly- her stated goal was the reduction of the black population. Don't fool yourself- that woman was no patron saint of "choice"

[lizziebith]

Originally Posted by Nephythys

Hardly- her stated goal was the reduction of the black population. Don't fool yourself- that woman was no patron saint of
"choice"

Honestly, I've never seen that goal stated, so I'll not argue that point. I have seen her letters wherein she stated her frustration with the Comstock Laws of the time. She was a LOT more about birth control than abortion, from what I've read. Yes I know she joined a eugenics movement, but I'd read she quit, disgusted, because she'd thought it would help her, but was it obviously was something QUITE different from what she expected. I'll have to go rooting through some books to find more info...

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by lizziebith

Quote taken out of context: reprehensible.

Quote taken within context: disturbing. What made him choose this particular rhetorical argument?

I would guess it is because it is something he has been in on before. From the article:

"Mr. Bennett, who was the secretary of education in the Reagan administration and is the author of a best-selling book on morality, said he was referring to a debate in the online magazine Slate that had discussed race in the context of an argument about whether abortions contributed to lowering the crime rate. That debate, involving Steven D. Levitt, an author of the best-seller "Freakonomics," apparently appeared in Slate six years ago."

[Prudence]

I understand what he meant, but I also have a problem with what he said because it plays into racial perceptions in a way that I think someone of his political stature should try to avoid.

His statement would be true even if it were altered to hypothesize aborting all white babies. Crime rates would then presumeably drop by whatever percentage is committed by white people. Chosing "black people" as the group capitalizes on both the reality of higher crime stats and the public stereotypes of criminal identity. I can't help but think that part of his argument stands on the idea that white criminals are so few that the idea is ludicrous on its face, but black criminals are so numerous that it would actually be a solution to crime. A reprehensible solution, but effective. In contrast, a more racially neutral expression of the same argument would be to argue that mandatory abortions across the board would reduce juvenile crime and then continue with thoughts on abortion itself.

I suspect that this was an off-the-cuff remark and that he didn't really put that much though into it. Those of us that now have the luxury to examine this post-mortem, as it were, can take away the lesson that one should really watch what one says in interviews.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Prudence

I understand what he meant, but I also have a problem with what he said because it plays into racial perceptions in a way that I think someone of his political stature should try to avoid.

His statement would be true even if it were altered to hypothesize aborting all white babies.

The first part of your statement - I don't want to have to agree with it. It is the ignorance of those listening to what he said that is the problem, not what he said.

Statistically and mathematically, the second part of your quote above is not true. If you have a section of the populace committing crimes at a higher rate than the other, taking them out of the equation lowers crimes rates overall. If you remove the section of the populace committing crimes at a lower rate than the other, the crime rate raises overall.

I couuld come up with an example with numbers, but that would bore everyone.

[innerSpaceman]

I'm not buying the context argument. If that was the example he chose to illustrate his point, it illustrates his racism quite a bit better.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

I'm not buying the context argument. If that was the example he chose to illustrate his point, it illustrates his racism quite a bit better.

Is Howard Dean then a racist in your eyes because of his comment on how Republicans could only fill up a room at a convention by bringing in all of the hotel staff? That has no context at all.

[innerSpaceman]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Is Howard Dean then a racist in your eyes because of his comment on how Republicans could only fill up a room at a convention by bringing in all of the hotel staff? That has no context at all.

No not racist. Republicans not being a race. But yes, a diss on Republicans, absolutely.


Ya know, though, it's a lot less politically correct to diss blacks than it is to diss a political party. Dissing jews in a public remark is bad form, also. So is dissing gays or women or muslims.


Dissing Democrats or Republicans is not nearly as insulting to the nation at large. Figure out the difference if it's not already apparent to you.





(I'm not sure where dissing Dominicans would fall into this, much less Dominican Republicans)

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

No not racist. Republicans not being a race. But yes, a diss on Republicans, absolutely.

As Nephy pointed out, the point was his assumption that the entire hotel staff had to be minority.

As an aside, I don't think Dean is a racist. Byrd - most definitely. But not Dean. He was trying to be clever and diss Republicans.

[wendybeth]

I understood the context in which the statement was made, but if anyone was being intellectually lazy, it was Bennett. He is a public figure, and should know to phrase things better, or not say anything at all. It's cannon fodder to his political opponents, and was incredibly stupid on his part. I agree with NA- if he had to say anything, it should have been a general comment, not one regarding a specific race. Stupid, stupid ,stupid........ Not unlike Mrs. Bush's comment regarding the current residents of the Astrodome. Btw, she's certainly keeping a low profile lately.