It’s so true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been at a cocktail party and blurted out “we should kill all the blacks!” in an attempt to make conversation.
:eek:
Context is a funny thing.
Unrelated aside: for some reason, I can’t load page 4 of this thread. It just wraps back to page 3. Let’s see if adding another post fixes things…
test post
I don’t see a page 4.
there’s a page 4?
The number of pages displayed is a user selected option. At 40 posts per page one will have more pages with 121 posts than one will have at 50 posts per page.
The board is behaving oddly, today, with a lot of double posts, but while Giraffe’s display may have been affected by that, the actual page count may not be relevant to the discussion.
Mine, mine, mine, mine!
Well, it seems to be working now. But it wasn’t before, I swear! I didn’t imagine this! Probably!
damned gulls
'Tisn’t.
Now it is!
[sub]and if it isn’t I’m giving up[/sub]
Wish they all could be California gulls.
OUT! OUT! OUT!
Sorry this comment is late, seeing as the thread is already on page 3, but, why shouldn’t he be allowed to say whatever he wants on air? Why not?
Oh he can say whatever he wants (free country and all), BUT he should be prepared to endure the shit storm that’s to follow and to defend his comments. I saw a bit on the news where he claims he was misunderstood (just like Pat “Kill Chavez” Robertson).
The question is “Why should he be allowed to say whatever he wants with impunity?” if you say “the First Amendment,” I will personally offer the Reader $14.95 to stop you from posting again. 
Actually, I think I addressed this in the post immediately after the one you quoted, and I was elaborating on what I figure Conyers et al are saying. If you don’t like what someone says on the air, you’re allowed to complain. I think people complain about these sort of things much too much, and (for example) Rush is responding to the wrong part of Bennett’s remarks, but they’re allowed.
One of the most controversial theses of Freakonomics is that of abortion and crime. Levitt is very very careful to be racially sensitive in his thesis. What he discovered, statistically was the causation for the drop in crime in the 90s.
If you remember fifteen years ago, when crime was on the rise and there was talk of the coming “superpredator,” one of the deep concerns was the coming descent into lawlessness. It didn’t happen. Instead of crime continuing to increase, it actually went down. Credit was given to the new social programs, more efficient police, more police, Reagan’s war on crime, or what have you.
Levitt however could find no causative action between these things. What he did find was a causative link between abortion and crime. After Roe versus Wade, abortions became generally available. A woman who was most likely to have an abortion was young, undereducated, poor, single, and who did not want her baby.
Similarly, men who become career criminals are most often the children of young, poor, undereducated, single woman who did not want them.
Less of these children were being born, crime went down.
There is a large correlation between a woman being black and her fitting into the group of women likely to have criminal progeny/abortions. While noting the correlation Levitt bends over backwards to point out that correlation is not causation. There is no statistical distinction between a black women or a white woman who falls into the group. They are equally likely to have criminal progeny and/or abortions.
Levitt also points out the correlation between this group of women and of being racially black. The correllation is high.
Abortions available to young, poor undereducated women who did not their child can be demonstrated to causatively affect the crime rate, according to Levitt. These women happen to be overwhelmingly black.
To me, the correllation seems to be due to the legacy of slavery, discrimination, underprivilege, and the failed experiment of housing projects which have condemned these women to this group, rather than to any innate predisposition.
That’s the theory that we’re talking about.
Now to the comment.
The caller was making a comment which delves into this theory, namely one of what are the lost tax revenues due to abortion. Bennett has had issues with Levitt’s theory. Namely, that the socioeconomic merits or lack thereof pertaining to an issue like abortion should not be considered. Abortion, he maintains, is a moral decision, not an economic one.
It’s a point he has made before.
In this instance, he points out, quite accurately, that if all black baby’s were aborted crime would go down. He is referencing Levitt’s theory and Levitt’s correllation. It would undoubtedly have been more sensitive for him to say if all baby’s from poor, single, undereducated women who did not want their children were aborted than crime would go down. To name the correllation is simpler. That’s what he did.
Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that any time a sensitive issue comes up it is de riguer to include all kinds of disclaimers and soft-stepping to avoid offending the sensitive.
It is doubly ridiculous if we are talking about a man like Bennet, who was a long and sterling record of championing civil rights, and who has written extensively on the subject of underprivilege and discrimination.
What happened though was that a website picked up Bennet’s one sentence without context and repeated it with a charge of racism. It got picked up by the media.
He is a fine and admirable man, who is deeply concerned with ethics and morality, and I think his views on race are laudatory. Read his books and find fault with him on this issue, if you can.
There is a liberal smear machine (a Republican one too) that does nothing but look for opportunities to take statements and actions from the opposition out of context in order to libel them.
Bennet has been victimized by this machine. It is partisan politics at its worst. I support partisan politics when ideas are being discussed and debated. I support partisan politics when a man’s record and statements are being accurately represented and discussed.
This is simply taking Bennett out of context to make him appear bigoted when his actual point was one arguing against prejudice and discrimination. I think it’s disgusting.
I will point out that Levitt doesn’t take issue with the accuracy of Bennet’s statements only that he seems to be both endorsing and rejecting his thesis at the same time.
You can read Bennett defending himself here:
Good to see that the even the President and leading Republicans criticized Bennett…
Oh never mind, I guess **Scylla ** exposed them already as the rotten partisans they are.
I would like to point that this exact same issue works both ways. People on all sides of issues correlate race with poverty.
In the wake of hurrican Katrina Bush and the Federal government were accused by prominent liberals and activists of racism.
The overwhelming majority of katrina victims who needed help were black.
Bush et al were racist because these people were vicitimized while white people were not in the same proportion.
So, why is ok for a liberal, or an activist to use name the correllation between race and poverty, but not ok for Bennett?
In all fairness, if we are to take Bennett to task, should we not also take all those who made the race argument in the wake of Katrina to task as well, since they are making the exact same correllation?