This post might also go in the Pit or IMHO, but as it addresses (mainly) rhetorical stylings in making arguments I’m going to put it here. Mods move if you must.
I’m not a huge fan of Bill “Virtues” Bennett, esp after the gambling stories broke, but it seems he was making a reasonable point of logic and rhetoric with this counter-argument in responding to the crime-abortion relationship posited by a radio show caller, and I’ll bet the book he (the caller) was referencing for this question is the one I bought the other day called "Freakanomics" which addresses exactly these sorts of relationships, and argues that more readily available abortions to the poor in the 60’s & 70’s had a lot more to do with the reduction of crime in the 80’s than the effects of more aggressive policing, which is usually credited with the drop in crime rates.
In any case why is everyone, including the White House, behaving like idiots. As an example about the limits of means (in his opinion) he answers this question by positing a ridiculous counter-scenario, (which he condemns, in strong language). I’m not seeing what’s there to be outraged by. You may or may not think his counter-argument had merit, but it hardly dis-respected black people.
Was his argument completely off base or are people being ignorant and hysterical?
I read that the caller was linking abortion and the problems with social security. So it seems Bennett was actually correcting a right winger with a reduccio ad absurdem. I’d like to see the Republicans take another one in the teeth as much as the next guy, but this is completely ridiculous.
I know Bennet wasn’t advocating genocide, and simply wanted to propose an absurd hypothetical as a cautionary example. Obviously, what he was assuming is that black kids born today are so likely to be criminals tomorrow that if they were absent for some reason, the crime rate would naturally go down. Given economic disparities that are not likely to vanish tomorrow, and the impact poverty has on risk for criminal behavior, maybe he’s technically correct.
I just can’t see any rhetorical value in proposing that particular thought experiment if some other possibilities might have been lurking in his imaginiation; and, given its hopeless and hurtful premise, the gratuitous nature of his statement all the more mystifying and egregious. You throw rocket fuel on the flames of racial tension and sexual politics in the US in such a wanton and tasteless manner, you will get burned, and perhaps rightly so. I have no sympathy for the guy if he’s going to be that much of a fool in public.
As long as this discussion stays on the topic of the appropriateness of the analogy, I am not looking for excuses to move it. Since a Pit thread exists, if this thread resorts to flaming, we’ll just shut it down.
I agree. A politically stupid (almost unbelievably stupid) comment. Say “abort every child with a parent that has been to jail”. Say “abort every child” (crime rates go down as the population ages). Say “kill every human” (maybe the only way to have a crime rate of zero). Absolutely no reason whatsoever to bring race into the picture.
Although there is a correlation between race and criminality in the US, I believe that it was a stupid analogy to make, because it looks like there is an assumption that they ought to be correlated. It would have been better to talk about aborting the children of convicted criminals, because then there is a correlation that is ikely to exist across all societies, and not just be linked to discrimination against Blacks in the US. The woirrying thing to me is that for Bennett, and for some of his audience, there probably is a belief that race is intrinsically linked to criminality, and that it isn’t just an accident of history.
I think I see the point he was trying to make. I don’t know what the caller said, but if he was arguing that abortions are good because they lower the crime rate, then that’s a pretty crappy argument. As others have pointed out, while Bennet’s analogy is factually correct, he could have made the same point without bringing up the fact that black people commit more crimes. (Which is debatable anyway, since some argue that blacks are only prosecuted more than whites.) I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he chose that example because it would be a particularly egregious thing to happen, and shows the absurdity of the argument. Unfortunately, it had the side-effect of making a correlation that’s not PC to talk about in that way.
Leavitt’s data suggest that the availability of abortion, for children who are unwanted (no mention of race), had a correlated effect on the crime rate. Bennett seems to be the one who introduced race. Based on the data he does make a good argument that the availability of abortion does lower the crime rate. I guess one’s personal politics/religion might dictate whether or not the availability of abortion is a “price” worth paying in order to have lower crime rates. (Also, I may be recalling incorrectly, but this was related to violent crime and property crime, not necessarily all crime).
For Bennett’s analogy to work, you don’t need to adjust for economic class, so an adjustment by class is hardly necessary for such a cite. And, of course, you can’t directly measure criminality: you can only count those who are caught, i.e., those who are arrested or those who are convicted. So, do I really need a cite? Or is it not pretty well established that Blacks are vastly over-represented in the US prison population?
So the question wasn’t really about Freakonomics. Unless the Post has it wrong. I think he was simply looking for the most egregious way to demonstrate how silly it is to pursue that line of reasoning. If he’d said children of criminals, it wouldn’t have had the same impact on the audience, I think, because they wouldn’t be so angry about that. IIRC, they did sterilize repeat criminals in one of the Scandahoovian nations until pretty late in the 20th Century.
Am I the only one who doesn’t read Bennett’s comment as an attempted refutation of the caller’s comment, but as one of the statements in Freakonomics?
Bennett did not at any point disagree with his caller. In fact, he brings in a liberal statement that has the opposite spin of the caller’s suggestion, and then tries to refute that. Am I wrong?
I know this thread is not about Bennett per se, but folks are talking about his comments here in a way that seems very contrary to what it seems went on. In no way, based on the article, was Bennett using this comment to criticize the caller’s viewpoint.
I don’t think Bennett’s comments addressed his caller at all. But I don’t see your point. How would this thread change if people believed he did address his caller’s comments?
And, while they are mildly tangential to the specific quesitons in the OP, it seems like some folks are arguing some things here based on false premises.
So, that’s it. I’m just asking for a little closer reading of the text at hand.
From the Washington Post story:[Bennett’s comments came Wednesday, during a discussion on his talk show “Morning in America.” A caller had suggested that 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.
Bennett said “maybe,” before referring to a book he said argued that the legalization of abortion is one of the reasons the crime rate has declined in recent decades. Bennett said he did not agree with that thesis.
“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,” Bennett said, according to an audio clip posted on Media Matters for America’s Web site. “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, you know, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.”](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/29/AR2005092902126.html)
Would it be too generous too offer that if Bennett had said “all white babies” or “all male babies” we would not be having this discussion?
Not that I can’t see how the demographic he chose is by it’s nature and cultural history in America is highly inflamatory, just trying to give the dude the benefit of the doubt.
Why hasn’t anyone mentioned the fact that if if you aborted all these black babies, who are more likely to be poor, then they will just be replaced by poor people who aren’t black. These poor people will, in all likelihood, commit the same amount of crime.
Many, if not most, black people in jail, are in jail for drug offenses. Do you think people would stop using/selling drugs if the all the black drug dealers/users disappeared? These crimes would still be commited because people like drugs.
His argument is stupid, and tinged with subtle racist overtones, because the absurd hypothetical only exists if the small upside (crime being reduced) were actually true. In all likelihood, that would not be the case.