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Bennett
Topic Started: Oct 1 2005, 07:07 AM (773 Views)
cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
William Bennett, a leading spokeperson of moralist social conservatism: "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....an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

Bennett claims mischaracterization.

Scott McClellan: "The president believes the comments were not appropriate."
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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MDPD6320
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Frank - Gainesville, Florida
Chris,

You got the quote right, but you failed to place it in the context it was made.
" The government big enough to give you everything you want it is big enough to take everything you have."

"Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue"

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
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passinthru
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John - Gainesville, FL
Reminds me a little of the approach the pope is considering for another problem.

This was not one of Bennet's brighter moments.
Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money...
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
MDPD6320
Oct 1 2005, 08:41 AM
Chris,

You got the quote right, but you failed to place it in the context it was made.

Guess the Pres got it wrong too.


I looked for a transcript. Got one? Anyone?
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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passinthru
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John - Gainesville, FL
Transcript:
Quote:
 

From the September 28 broadcast of Salem Radio Network's Bill Bennett's Morning in America:

CALLER: I noticed the national media, you know, they talk a lot about the loss of revenue, or the inability of the government to fund Social Security, and I was curious, and I've read articles in recent months here, that the abortions that have happened since Roe v. Wade, the lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30-something years, could fund Social Security as we know it today. And the media just doesn't -- never touches this at all.

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens?

CALLER: Assuming that they are. Even if only a portion of them were, it would be an enormous amount of revenue.

BENNETT: Maybe, maybe, but we don't know what the costs would be, too. I think as -- abortion disproportionately occur among single women? No.

CALLER: I don't know the exact statistics, but quite a bit are, yeah.

BENNETT: All right, well, I mean, I just don't know. I would not argue for the pro-life position based on this, because you don't know. I mean, it cuts both -- you know, one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up. Well --

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate.

BENNETT: Well, I don't think it is either, I don't think it is either, because first of all, there is just too much that you don't know. 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. 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, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.

Bill Bennett's Morning in America airs on approximately 115 radio stations with an estimated weekly audience of 1.25 million listeners.


It basically is saying that blacks are responsible for crime and if we got rid of all future blacks that there would be less crime. Talk about a wide brush! (Thus the parallel I mentioned before)
Faster horses, younger women, older whiskey, more money...
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MDPD6320
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Frank - Gainesville, Florida
Chris,


I don't have a transcript; however my best info is that he was discussing abortion with a caller on a radio show (his). The caller was a proponent, and of course he is against abortion. What he was saying was that no matter how great a good is obtained abortion is an evil. He used the quote to illustrate his point that even if a great deal of crime is eliminated abortion is still wrong.

Granted it was a poor (dumb) way to make his point, however this is what this exchange and the subsequent fall out means to me. That, political correctness has eroded our right to speak freely in the public (and many private) forums without being cast as an evil, and perhaps even more damaging, stupid person. The resulting outcry, vilification, and politicalization of breaking the law of "failing to bow to political correctness" do us all a disservice. It inhibits free speech, discussion, and new ideas to improve ourselves. Political correctness is a muzzle that prevents the discussion of race, crime, religion, immigration, and a host of other things.

I have heard various people on TV decry his allegation that blacks are responsible for a great deal of crime in the US, however they are and that’s a fact.
" The government big enough to give you everything you want it is big enough to take everything you have."

"Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue"

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
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Julie
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http://www.neuro.jhmi.edu/profiles/carson.html

Anyone ever read any of the books written by this guy?

Quote:
 
Brain surgeon beats the odds of poverty
(CNN) -- Before becoming a world-renowned neurosurgeon, Ben Carson spent his early years in a poor neighborhood in Detroit, Michigan, suffering from low self-esteem.

But after years of hard work, the 49-year-old doctor has become famous for his breakthroughs in pediatric medicine.

Carson captured worldwide media attention in 1987 for the successful separation of conjoined twins who shared a portion of the same brain. However, his dream of becoming a surgeon -- difficult work that involves life-threatening operations, long hours and desperate conditions -- did not emerge from the usual refined beginnings.

His parents, Robert and Sonya Carson, divorced when he was 8. His mother scraped by as a domestic worker to support him and his brother, Curtis.

Academics were not a priority for Ben Carson, whose lack of confidence mirrored his family's depressed living conditions.

"My initial problem was that I thought I was stupid," Carson said. "And everybody pretty much agreed. So my nickname was 'Dummy.' "

Carson's mother had a different agenda for her two sons, choosing education as a way for them to escape poverty.

She devised a strict schedule with limited time in front of the television and frequent trips to the library. In addition to their homework, the boys had to turn in two additional book reports each week.

Carson recalled that his mother made check marks on the reports although -- unknown to him at the time -- she couldn't read then.

Soon after he began his extracurricular studies, Carson started to excel in class. He discovered he could make good grades but then had to confront another obstacle, his adolescent anger.

"When I was 14, I tried to stab another youngster with a camping knife because he angered me," Carson said. "And fortunately under his clothing, he had a large metal buckle, and the knife blade struck with such force that it broke."

Carson said he remembers thinking over the repercussions of this kind of behavior. "Your choices are jail, reform school or the grave. So there aren't any other choices. I didn't like any of those," he said.

After that day, Carson no longer struggled with anger. He graduated from high school with several honors and would go on to earn his bachelor's degree in psychology from Yale University in 1973. He then received a medical degree from the University of Michigan School of Medicine in 1977.

Using his 'gifted hands'
At 33, he became the youngest chief of pediatric neurosurgery ever at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Maryland.

In his work, Carson reaches beyond medicine. His passion to inspire youth led to the founding of a scholarship fund to reward promising young adults.

Carson and his wife, Candy, are the parents of three sons, Murray, Benjamin Jr. and Rhoeyce. The highly regarded doctor is also a respected community and spiritual leader.

But his outstanding work with pediatric medicine is where some observers say he shines the most.

Christopher Pylant is living proof of Carson's so-called "gifted hands." Eighteen years ago, the 4-year-old boy was given 18 months to live.

"He was a young boy from Georgia who had been diagnosed with a brain stem tumor, inoperable. The parents were told nothing could be done," Carson said.

Desperate attempts at surgery with other doctors had taken a toll. Pylant's parents then learned about Carson and took their son to him.

Carol Pylant, Christopher's mother, recalls, "When he walked in, it was like we knew in our spirit, that this man was sent to us by God."

The operation was a success. Nearly two decades later, Christopher Pylant is alive and well, attending college with hopes of becoming a minister.


Feeling the weight of the world

The Pylant surgery was early in Carson's career, but similar stories soon filled his case files.

In 1985, Carson operated on a 4-year-old girl who was suffering from 120 seizures a day. He performed a hemispherectomy, a complicated operation in which one hemisphere of the girl's brain was removed. The patient made a full recovery.

Two years later, the story of conjoined twins Patrick and Benjamin Binder of Germany caught Carson's attention. The boys were joined at the back of their heads, making separation seem impossible without loss of life.

Surgery of this kind had never been successful. Carson, with a team of 70, worked for five months to rehearse the operation. After 22 hours of surgery, the 7-month-old boys were separated successfully; however, they suffered from severe disabilities.

Twins joined at the head occur approximately once in every 2 million live births, according to the John Hopkins Medical Institutions.

In late 1997, Carson traveled to South Africa to face another conjoined twin case. Eleven-month-old Zambian twins Luka and Joseph Banda were joined at the head but were facing in opposite directions.

"There had been 13 previous attempts to separate twins like that, none of which had been successful," Carson said.

Carson recalled a traumatic moment during this operation while speaking at the 2000 commencement at the University of Delaware. The twins had lost a considerable amount of blood.

"I really felt the weight of the world on my shoulders as I walked back into that operating room," Carson said. "I didn't have my $350,000 Zeiss operating microscope that I have at Hopkins or my $400,000 3-D wand or my lasers or my ultrasounds or any of that fancy equipment. I just had my loupes and a scalpel and faith in God, and I went in there and said, 'Lord, it's up to you.' "

Carson was successful in separating the boys, and the twins did not suffer from any neurological deficits.

Carson has won acclaim for his work with conjoined twins. However, the modest man doesn't credit himself entirely but points a finger to faith as his guide.


Crime has nothing to do with skin colour but with character flaws that are also present in other races.
Poverty can be due to a number of things...but I dont beleive people are poor "because" they are black, thats like saying people are red-haired and poor....as if the 2 go hand in hand. :dunno:
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.
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MDPD6320
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Frank - Gainesville, Florida
Julie,

A fact. Crimes are predominately perpertrated by blacks. This doesn't mean that they committ crimes BECAUSE they are black. There are many reasons why people of any color will committ crimes, but the fact that much crime can be attributed to blacks is easily proven.
" The government big enough to give you everything you want it is big enough to take everything you have."

"Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue"

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Frank, I respectfully disagree.

John just posted the exchange in full--of which I will ignore the open commentary as someone else's perspective.

As background, I recently read Freakonomics. The author, Stephen D Levitt, does address this question and reports that statistics do show that as abortion has increased crime has decreased. He does not, however, as best I understod him, go beyond casual statistical correlation to a causal conclusion. If you like I can type in the author's conclusion.

It is not Levitt but Bennett who draws that conclusion: "one of the arguments in this book Freakonomics that they make is that the declining crime rate, you know, they deal with this hypothesis, that one of the reasons crime is down is that abortion is up."

The caller questioned that immediately.

Bennett agrees it's a questionable position to hold--what, the book or his reading into what the book says?

And then repeats loud and clear his position: "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."

Perhaps the caller, who cannot be identified as an abortion proponent at all, set Bennett up.

That does not justify Bennett and his position.

I am not much interested in how some might politicize this. It is not a political issue.

And, personally, as you might well already know, I have no use for political correctness, and will not allow it to prevent my saying Bennett is a morally despicable person.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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Julie
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Quote:
 
Julie,

A fact. Crimes are predominately perpertrated by blacks. This doesn't mean that they committ crimes BECAUSE they are black. There are many reasons why people of any color will committ crimes, but the fact that much crime can be attributed to blacks is easily proven.


Im not arguing that fact. What I am curious about is the "why".
Is it poverty? Lack of good parenting? Is it the prison system? (I happen to think the current penal system is a doorway to more crime, not a rehabilitative effort). Is it the likes of "black leaders" who teach a "you owe me" attitude?

If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Dependency, Julie. It's what comes of dependency.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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Julie
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(taken from strike-the-root.com)

How did all that dependancy happen in the first place?

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It's always amusing to watch different factions of the political class lambaste each other, if only because there is truth in so many of the rude things they say. It was quite a spectacle, for instance, when Barbara Boxer (D-CA) left her own LA and flew to the other LA to lecture the Republican President on his allegedly miserable failure to do more to help the poor left stranded by the recent hurricane. Her flow of venom was just as unimpeded by the fact that the controversial relocation to the sports arena had been executed by a Democratic Mayor and a Democratic Governor, as the hurricane had been by the government levees in its path. If Shakespeare was right when writing about Hell, that woman must have been really, really, really scorned, way back long ago when she was young and pretty. 

Her unsolicited critique made good press, and helped stir that industry into a frenzy of anti-Bush sentiment that even I felt was rather overdone. They all seem to want government to do more; I want it to do nothing. A bumbling, inefficient government is a terrible thing--but an efficient one would be a very great deal worse. 

One thing, though, the visiting cyclone may have achieved: She drew attention to the plight of the untermensch. Are the poor, usually black and not too bright, really as helpless as the news reports from New Orleans and Houston appeared to show? Ms. Boxer thinks government does too little for them. Is she right? Let's take a rational look. 

Conditions in the Superdome may have been even grimmer than we here have so far been told. A group of foreign students were caught in the government roundup and told a lurid tale of how the evacuees behaved like animals so that, rather than a place of refuge, the arena became a terrifying trap. Is that what America 's underclass has become, and if so why? 

Let's start by discounting some of the problem. These scores of thousands of New Orleanians had just been ripped from their homes with next to none of their property and left dry but hot, tired, hungry, thirsty, sleepless, bed-less and only too soon, toilet-less. By one account, the crowd included inmates from New Orleans' jails, who had not unreasonably been let loose rather than left to drown, and who no doubt included many who were violent as well as the majority who had merely broken some silly government law about drugs. Put any of us in that situation and we might fairly soon forget our civilized composure and good manners. 

Do that by all means; but we're still left with the ugly fact that in the richest country on Earth, 20% or 100,000 residents of a major city were unable to evacuate when disaster approached, because they lacked their own transport and the initiative to hitch a lift or walk to the nearest bridge. That is pretty sick, and cries out for an explanation. 

The Reasons  

A lack of self-sufficiency is clearly the key. Many living in cities choose not to own a car, because feet, buses, trains and taxis are more cost-efficient ways to travel; but if a giant tsunami were poised to break over Manhattan tomorrow, I doubt if many pedestrians living on the Upper East or West Side would wait around to see it. In New Orleans too, 80% of the population noticed the weather forecast, heard the government admit that its levees might not hold, and made their escape in good time. We hear little about them; presumably, most found refuge with friends or family upstate and others are living in motels over a wide area. While I have no data, it would seem amazing to me that someone without a car could not or did not hitch a ride with a neighbor who had one, assuming space was available; yet in the underclass, apparently that did not take place. Apparently, its members didn't think to ask; the need to take care of themselves had been drowned out too long ago, by the government-induced culture of dependency and welfare. 

That process has a long history. Here is how it happened, and how it's continuing today. 

1. They were enslaved. Notice, this horrible practice would have been impossible without the force of government, whose laws and courts forbade black slaves to regain ownership of their stolen lives and which returned them to their masters if they escaped. So for a century and a half, Southern Black culture was impregnated by dependency: obey the master, and he will provide the basics of life.

2. They were hobbled. When freedom came at last, few knew how to use it and once again, government did everything it could to keep the "niggers" from finding out, branding them as second class citizens so as to protect the jobs of low-talent whites. In slavery, hard work was a dead loss; it brought no extra reward. The smart slave was the one who performed just that minimum of work needed to avoid punishment. This was the exact opposite of the route to success in an open job market, and so each rising black generation was taught the exact inverse of a successful work ethic. The outcome was no contest; a century and a half after "emancipation," poverty in America is predominantly black. 

3. They are excluded from "nice" white suburban neighborhoods when the White Flight took place in the ‘50s and ‘60s as proliferation of cars permitted. The exclusion continues today and is achieved ever so subtly using zoning laws that pretend to protect the environment. Thus were the ghettos created. 

4. They are bribed to not compete in the labor market, to overcome the hobbling noted in #2 above; the bribery takes the form of welfare checks. No need to get a job--government will ensure you have enough to live on, with free medical care as needed, maybe.   

5. They are forbidden to work for less than a government-decreed wage rate, and potential employers are forbidden to hire them just in case the bribe isn't high enough. 

6. Their family life is destroyed by bribing them further; single mothers get government checks only for as long as they don't live with a father for their children. All the values that a two-parent family might bring those children, in terms of later upward mobility, are obscured. 

7. They are mis-educated by being forced to attend government schools--which in the ghettos are frequently nightmares of indiscipline which make learning impossible; upward mobility is thereby again slowed to a trickle. 

8. They are terrorized and held in dependence on government "protection," such as it is, by the "War on Drugs." This ingenious device achieves three objectives at the same time: (a) it imprisons those young black males who show promising skills of entrepreneurship, who might otherwise succeed in business and prosper; (b) it intoxicates all their customers by the "forbidden fruit" syndrome, so rendering helpless for work the next most promising layer of young people, and © it turns most of them into real criminals (to rob so as to get the next fix) thereby reinforcing the white perception that blacks are incurably uncivilized. 

9. They are further terrorized and kept dependent on government by being forbidden to own their own handguns. Handgun prohibition began in the late 1800s as a racist measure in the South; at first only the cheapest were outlawed, and of course, the cheapest were the only kind poor blacks could afford. That odious origin is reflected today in government bias against "Saturday night specials." 

All nine of these systematic government tools for repressing black Americans have been and are supported by voters, both "liberals" and "conservatives" for reasons that look different but are surprisingly close. The result, which shocked everyone when the test came in New Orleans , is therefore a direct consequence of massive government action--of the entire political process that made all nine of those actions possible. The only question is whether it was all deliberate and cynical, or just a tragic mistake--a case of noble motives and unintended consequences. 

Take your pick; those are the only two alternatives. The entire political class is either dead stupid, for the consequences are perfectly clear and the logic above is easy to follow, or else it is cynical and viciously racist. Either way, the result is an underclass whose slave mentality lies close beneath the surface, a century and a half after it was supposed to end. 

For myself, I don't think the political class is particularly stupid.
If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.
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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
"That process has a long history."

Decent article. Not much political correctness there. Our government bears a lot of responsibility.

But why so religiously correct? Religion, Christian religion bears an equal responsibility, it was afterall Christian nations who enslaved blacks, it was Christians who thumped the Bible all those years in defense of slavery.

And let's face it, blacks are to blame too, for falling for all the lies and not standing up and doing something about it, taking responsibility. Some great blacks throughout our history stood up, George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, Martin L:uther King, the list goes on and on, why not more though?

And, no, I don't mean someone like Jessie Jackson who, like Bennett, is a politically pandering moral midget.
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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campingken
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Actually whites commit more crimes than blacks however a much larger percentage of blacks commit crimes. Why, is anyones guess. When crimes rates go down our elected leader stand in line to take the credit.

Ken


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cmoehle
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Chris - San Antonio TX
Same with the economy, ain't my fault it's taking a nosedive, but when it goes well, hey, look at what I did!



Ken, not clear on the number of crimes vs percentage, could you explain?
Politics is the art of achieving the maximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with the maintenance of social order.
--Barry Goldwater
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