Yeah, but he, like, said “black”, which proves that he’s a racist fuck.
And of course, there’s this sick bastard.
He said black, which proves that he thinks “blackness” is relevant to his example.
I was one of the people who called BS on Bricker last time… but he’s right this time. Bennett was clearly making a reductio ad absurdum argument.
Nonsense. For example, if someone is advancing a specious argument in support of the Kelo decision on the ground that it will improve municipal tax bases, and I respond with the reductio ad absurdum suggestion that all synagogues be condemned and replaced with Wal-Marts, that does not mean that I am anti-Semitic or that I believe that Judiaism has any particular relevance to the abuse of eminent domain.
Oh, they certainly clear up misunderstanding. But the humor suffers.
It seems like a pretty good argument, to me. If you’re trying to defend abortion on the grounds that it reduces violent crime… well, that’s getting a bit uncomfortable close to arguing in favor of eugenics. Bennet (who is, in general, a scumbag) is making the problem with the argument more obvious by comparing it to something that would absolutely be eugenics: the removal of a “criminal race” from society. Obviously, being born black doesn’t guarantee that you’ll grow up to be a criminal, no more than being born to a parent who didn’t want or expect to have a kid guarantees that kid will grow up to be a criminal. I’m pro-choice, but this isn’t an argument I’d want to hang my hat on in a debate on the subject, and Bennet has demonstrated why its flawed pretty aptly.
He was probably attempting to mae a reductio absurdio argument, but even so, his reduction included a racist assumption that black people are inherently more likely to commit crimes than white people. If he had said “poor” intead of “black” it would have made his point, as it stands, all he did was unwittingly expose a racist mentality.
Of COURSE he wasn’t really advocating forced abortion for black babies. Nobody thinks he was. I wasn’t pitting him because I believed he thought such a thing would be right, but because he thought it would work. That belief, in itself, is racist.
I disagree. Words mean something. That you have chosen synagogues, especially if you’re talking to a majority non-Jewish audience in the same way that Bennett is likely talking to a majority non-black audience, means something.
It’s quite simple. If you use a minority as an example, and especially if you use a minority as an example of something negative, and it wasn’t necessary for you to use that minority in the example, I will wonder why you did.
Is there a bit of wink wink nudge nudge “See, we’re against abortions even for black people” or “You know we wouldn’t have a crime problem if it weren’t for the *black people” going on? That’s how it strikes me.
And since Bennett makes it his business to thrust his opinions unto the world, he doesn’t get to complain when I thrust mine back at him.
Of course it would mean something. It would mean that I deliberately chose the most outrageous example I could think of to cast the flimsiness of the argument into stark relief. That’s what the reductio ad absurdum argument IS.
The problem is, many people don’t believe it’s absurd that part of the problem with “blacks” is that they have too many children, either out of wedlock or abandoned by their fathers.
We as a nation, are repeatedly drowned in images of blacks being arrested. It isn’t automatically absurd to tie blacks, crime and reproduction together. In fact, it’s standard operating procedure for certain factors of our society.
There was no reason for Bennett to tie race into this. This is how I viewed the comment:
If you believe that crime rate is being lowered because unwanted children aren’t being created then, using your standard, if we aborted all black babies, then crime will go down, since THEY commit the majority of crime in this country. Now of course it would be absurd to do that or even suggest it, because genocide is wrong, and abortion is wrong…but IF WE DID… lowered crime would be the result…because we’re removing the blacks from our population.
I’m am more that willing to be shown what I missing here and I’m not calling anybody a racist. However there was no need to include race in that conversation, it served no purpose and certainly wasn’t required for the reductio ad absurdum argument and in fact distracted from it, but it feeds into people’s notion that blacks, crime and reproduction are wants hurting this country…as opposed to abortion itself.
Interesting. To me, it’s obvious that it would work. What makes it racist or potentially so is the idea that it would work uniquely well.
To make up an example:
Say I suggested that all gay men should be killed to reduce the frequency of child molestation.
This is a homophobic statement not because it wouldn’t work. It probably would reduce the frequency of child molestation. But so would killing all straight men. So would killing all children. Singling out one part of the population and saying “Things would be better if you weren’t here” while ignoring that “Things would also be better if I weren’t here” is the offensive part to me.
Incidentally, Bennett was still flogging a strawman even on the reductio basis. If, hypothetically, it can be shown that legal abortion leads to a reduction in the crime rate, then changing the subject to mass, forced abortions is just flogging a strawman and avoiding the point. The caller had not suggested that forcing abortion was a cure for social ills, so Bennett was altering the point, not reducing it, in order to make it seem absurd.
But for a non-Jewish audience, it isn’t the “most outrageous” example. Saying all the churches will be taken over by WalMart is way more “outrageous” an example for people who attend churches. The point in such arguments is to hit people where it hurts, show them how they would be impacted were certain things to be done. The “most outrageous” thing to show in a Christian-dominated society is how Law A would affect Christians. Otherwise, your audience just says, “So some synagogues get plowed under. Who cares?”
I am quite certain NBennett hasn’t done a full-fledged study about this. i think he knows - and I know, and you know - that crime is disproportionatly higher among the black population. So as a spur of the moment attempt to show the fallacy of trying to set policy based on these statistics he pulls out this argument. And it is true in a most simplistic way, correlation between black and crime is higher than the average, ergo a reduction in the crime rate can be achieved by eliminating the black population. It wasn’t a policy statement or the result of extremely critical line of thinking, it was simply the raw numbers he was using as an instant attempt at redcito ad absurdum.
I don’t think it can be shown that crime is disproportianately higher among black people, only that black people are more likey to get arrested or convicted and that they are more likely to be poor. The intimation that any black baby is inherently more likely to become a criminal than any white baby is unmistakable in Bennett’s words, and if that wasn’t his assumption, he should haveat least been smart enough to realize how it sounded.
Er, I would? I don’t have to be Jewish to be appalled at the idea of destroying synagogues, and I don’t have to be black to be appalled at the idea of aborting all black fetuses. I don’t see any reason to assume that Bennet’s audience is any different. Bennet’s comparison works because he’s comparing one “minority” in the country (unwanted fetuses) that isn’t protected, with a minority that is protected, to highlight why the actions towards the first minority is unacceptable. It’s no different than, say, arguing for gay marriage by comparing it to anti-miscegenation laws. I’ve done that too many times to count: obviously I’m not arguing in favor of miscegenation, I’m trying to make a point by comparing something that some people think is okay to something that no reasonable person thinks is okay.
Look, there are two facts we’re dealing with here: blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crime, and children of disinterested or absent parents commit a disproportionate amount of crime. If you’re going to argue that abortion cures one of these social ills, why not argue it for the other one?
Do you find this offensive because it’s true or because it isn’t?
If he wanted to effectively point out the absurdity of the hypothesis, he should have paired a factor and an outcome that more strongly exhibit a “toss the baby out with the bathwater” relationship.
“We could eradicate breast cancer by forcing every woman to have a double mastectomy at the age of 21, but that is ridiculous.”
“We could slash our Social Security costs by 90% by euthanising everyone too old or infirm to work, but that is immoral.”
“We could eliminate global warming if only we got rid of that pesky sun, but that is absurdly stupid!”
But he didn’t go that route. He succeeded in countering a contentious point with something even more contentious. Maybe he thinks it is patently absurd to view blackness as a cause of crime, but way too many people–either consciously or subconsciously–do not think it’s all too absurd of an idea.
Ask black people who get profiled in the stores whether they appreciate the implication that it is okay to view them with suspicion because, afterall, everyone knows that they cause most crime. It’s not okay to forceably abort them, as Bennett reminds us, but its okay to attribute criminality to them, without respect to other factors. That’s the take-home message from Bennett faux paux, whether it was intended or not.
What is the evidence that blacks commit a disproportionate amount of crimes?