William Bennett & Freakonomics
By Brian on Sep 30, 2005
Vallejo Times Herald - Associated Press
The White House on Friday criticized former Education Secretary William Bennett for remarks linking the crime rate and the abortion of black babies.
“The president believes the comments were not appropriate,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
Bennett, on his radio show, “Morning in America,” was answering a caller’s question when he took issue with the hypothesis put forth in a recent book that one reason crime is down is that abortion is up.
“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,” said Bennett, author of “The Book of Virtues.”
He went on to call that “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.”
The book referenced is Freakonomics, a fascinating book that looks at topics as wide-ranging as the impact of abortion on crime rates, teachers cheating on students’ standardized tests, the safety benefits (or lack thereof) of child safety seats for older children, and why most crack dealers still live at home with their mother.
This is the second time in recent months the White House has had to publicly distance itself from one of its staunchest allies. This incident follows Pat Robertson’s August call for the assassination of Argentinian President Hugo Chavez.
With friends like Bennett and Robertson, President Bush doesn’t need enemies (except they’re not in short supply either).
At the rate this country is falling, the future may hold that Robertson could be charged with advising the government without a license (while Americans die at the front in an ill-advised war), and Bennett could be charged with advocating genocide (while abortion clinics kill a million or more babies per year). If not for Christian-hating media, these remarks hardly would cause a stir, since both Robertson’s and Bennett’s shows do not have high ratings.
There are American Christian soldiers killing the enemy on the battlefield. Any Christian who condemns what Robertson says about a government-backed killing of a foreigner condemns American Christian soldiers who are killing the enemy with government backing.
Michael Rew | Oct 1, 2005 | Reply
thought provoking ideas.
l. | Oct 2, 2005 | Reply
Freakonomics Author Tries to Cover Butt in Wake of Bennett Comments
In fact, the authors of Freakonomics made explicitly racial arguments in economics journal articles. They said nothing remotely racist, but they did stress the empirical connection between race and abortion and crime.
John McAdams | Oct 3, 2005 | Reply
I agree with the Michael, if it weren’t for the media’s bias against
Christians neither comment would have created much of a reaction. Such was
indicated
by
my pointing out the hypocrisy of the outrage over Robertson’s comments, but
their silence in the face of
George
Stephanopoulos’ similar comments regarding Saddam Hussein.
It is also interesting that you would bring Robertson’s comments up again
yourself after I explained this hypocrisy to you
a
few posts ago.
There seems to be a common theme on this blog regarding outrageous comments
by conservatives (Dobson,
Robertson,
LeHaye,
Jones,
Bennett, etc.), but an oversight of the same from liberals. Do you
find it comforting to always agree with the hypocritical media when it attacks
conservatives or orthodox Christians, specifically those who are both?
Galatiansc4v16 | Oct 4, 2005 | Reply
Tony-
No, I just have higher standards for the behavior of Christians.
B
Brian Baute | Oct 4, 2005 | Reply
Statements and behaviors are not necessarily the same
thing. One can make an incorrect statement, but that isn’t the same thing as an
immoral action. I thought the motto here was to "love God, love people?" Or do
you only "love God, and love - the people whom you don’t hold to a higher
standard of behavior?" i.e. – “non-fundagelicals.”
You do the same thing here that you do with the Scriptures,
and you follow the liberal media lockstep in doing it. Namely, taking one
statement, out of context, and placing a label on the totality of the person,
rather than looking at his entire life for a contextual conclusion.
Bennett offered what he called a "noxious"
hypothetical example on his talk show saying that abortion might be used
to lower crime rates in the black community–but that it would be morally
reprehensible to do so—and liberals pounced. They attacked Bennett as a
racist. Anyone who knows Bennett’s heart and his history knows this is a lie.
Bill Bennett taught at Southern Mississippi University in 1967 and used Dr.
Martin Luther King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail in his classes. As
Education Secretary, he brought inner-city middle schoolers to the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial and there taught them about The Federalist Papers.
Bill’s wife Elayne founded Best Friends. Best Friends is a leading abstinence
organization that has helped thousands of young girls–black and white–to set
positive, life- affirming goals. Bill Bennett backs parental choice to help poor
parents choose safe and excellent schools for their children. Yet Bennett, like
many conservatives, is targeted by liberals for the politics of personal
destruction. What is most galling is that many of those who attacked Bennett’s
hypothetical example have no problem with the reality of
more than 1,400 black babies being aborted each day. It’s incredible,
but it’s not unprecedented: We’ve heard about people who swallow camels and yet
strain on gnats.
You did the same thing by piling on to James Dobson when
the media distorted his comments regarding SpongeBob. You likewise called him
out when his intentions were distorted and misquoted by the same politics of
personal destruction.
The only consistency you offer by your critiques on this
blog is that you seem to mostly agree with the liberal politics of personal
destruction when it comes to those whose views are labeled by the “Emergents” as
“Fundagelicals.” You show your true colors by this lack of depth and shallowness
in critique.
In contrast, those who critique Brian McClaren take, not a
single statement, where he mistakenly put his foot in his mouth or
got misquoted on, and generate a straw-man to attack, but rather, they take the
totality of his writings and speeches in order to formulate a contextual
understanding of his true beliefs: “that anyone can get to heaven without
knowing Jesus or repenting.”
It can’t go without noting that you hold historical
orthodoxy believing Christians to a higher standard for stupid, out of context,
and misquoted statements that run contrary to their overall lifestyle, but you
allow and defend heresy coming from the mouths of those who agree with you in
your anti-fundagelical positions. I find that hypocritical, shallow, and
contrary to the LGLP you portray to be the motto.
Tony Rose | Oct 5, 2005 | Reply
I think Bennett
made some good points in his response to this issue. This dialog would not be
complete without hearing from him.
The hypocrisy of
these folks to respond to Bennett and not to these others examples he sites is
incredible. Party loyalty truly is more important than truth.
Bill
Bennett Responds to Critics over Black Abortion
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid,
who said last year that the Supreme Court’s lone black member was "an
embarrassment to the court," is demanding that Bennett "issue an
immediate apology not only to African Americans but to the nation.”
Left wing Democrat Ted Kennedy, whose
brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, ordered the illegal wiretapping
of Martin Luther King, called Bennett a "racist."
And Democratic National Committee
chairman Howard Dean, who suggested last year that most blacks hold
menial jobs, called Bennett’s comments "hateful" and "inflammatory" -
and called on him to apologize.
Responding to his critics, Bennett told the Fox
News Channel’s "Hannity & Colmes":
"I’ll not take instruction from Teddy Kennedy.
A young woman likely drowned because of his negligence . . . . He
should make no judgments at all about other people. He shouldn’t be in the
Senate."
Neither Kennedy nor Dean nor Reid
has ever condemned Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, who rose to the rank of
Grand Cyclops in the Ku Klux Klan based on his ability to recruit new
members.
In an autobiography released earlier this
year, Byrd said the Klan was a "fraternal group" made up of
"upstanding’ people" - a characterization which drew no protest from Reid,
Kennedy and Dean.
Tony Rose | Oct 11, 2005 | Reply
I saw that Walter Williams chimed in on this discussion today
in
his column. He makes some very good points and explains how the
"interpretation" was incorrect and was used for the politics of personal
destruction. By the way, in case you don’t know,
Walter
Williams is black.
"Bill Bennett, former secretary of education and drug czar, now host of the
"Morning in America" talk radio show, caused quite a stir and hand-wringing in
his response to a caller. The caller hypothesized that had there not been so
many abortions in America, Social Security wouldn’t be facing its deficit
problems. Why? Because there would be more workers per retiree.
Bennett dismissed what he called "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations,"
giving the following conditional statement: " . . . 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."
So what does that comment make Bennett? Permit me to make some statements of
the same genre: If a 100 square-mile meteor strikes the Earth, millions of
people will be killed. If a person falls off the Empire State Building, he will
die. Here’s another: If a person goes 30 days without water, he will die. All of
these statements, as well as that made by Bennett, are what are known as
conditional statements. A conditional statement is an "if-then" statement of the
form: "if P, then Q." P is the antecedent, the "if" part of the statement, and
"Q" is the consequent, the "then" part of the statement. Going back to my first
example, "If a 100 square-mile meteor strikes the Earth," is the antecedent;
"billions of people will be killed" is the consequent.
To test the truth of a conditional statement, one need only examine the
evidence. That is, will going without water for 30 days or falling off the
Empire State Building cause death? Is making a conditional statement advocacy?
In other words, do you interpret my conditional statements as calling for a 100
square-mile meteor to strike the Earth, or calling for people to fall off the
Empire State Building or go 30 days without water? One would have to be an idiot
to make such an interpretation.
Let’s examine Bill Bennett’s conditional "if black babies were aborted the
crime rate would go down." According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) Uniform Crime Reports for 2003 (http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/pdf/03sec4.pdf),
blacks, who are 13 percent of the population, were 49 percent of murder arrests,
33 percent of arrests for rape, and 54 percent of arrests for robberies. That
means Bennett’s statement was true.
One could make another conditional statement: If male babies were aborted,
there would be an even larger reduction in crime. While males are slightly less
than 50 percent of the population, according to FBI reports, they constitute 90
percent of the arrests for murder, 99 percent of the arrests for rape and 90
percent of the arrests for robberies. What the crime statistics unambiguously
demonstrate is that males, as a group, and blacks, as a group, are
disproportionately represented in criminal activity. If making the true
statement that males are disproportionately represented in criminal activity
doesn’t make one a sexist, at least I haven’t heard such an accusation, why then
would making the true statement that blacks are disproportionately represented
in criminal activity make one a racist as Bennett has been charged?
Actually, there’s little originality behind Bennett’s comment. Economists
Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner argue in their best-selling book, "Freakonomics,"
that the legalization of abortion has reduced crime because babies who have been
aborted were more likely to have grown up poor and in single-parent or
teenage-parent households and therefore more likely to commit crimes. Their
hypothesis has encountered criticism within the profession, but so far, no one
has charged them with racism, sexism or making inappropriate comments."
Tony Rose | Oct 13, 2005 | Reply
I’ve made the point before of giving the benefit of the doubt to those
conservatives whom the liberals jump on at first opportunity, and that in giving
them the benefit of the doubt we should not pile on with them until the truth or
context comes out.
Starr Parker brought out this issue again with her comments on the Bennett
situation. Oh btw, Starr Parker is also black:
The Bill Bennett flap
Oct 10, 2005
by Star Parker
Words are as fragile and sensitive as the human beings who
utter them. They need careful nurturing and appropriate context
and presentation for their meaning and intent to be realized.
This point was made effectively in a best-selling book on
punctuation a few years ago that showed how a sentence pointing
out the simple truth that "The panda eats shoots and leaves"
takes on a new life and meaning with the addition of a few
commas, becoming "The panda eats, shoots, and leaves."
So we have it with the recent
almost-too-ridiculous-to-discuss incident with Bill Bennett’s
alleged racist remarks on his radio show. The remarks, taken out
of context by those attacking Bennett, are being used to make
the exact opposite point of his and brand him a racist.
A listener called in suggesting that abortion might be an
explanation for our Social Security crisis (with more adults
around paying Social Security taxes, we wouldn’t be in the mess
we’re in). Bennett replied that such a hypothesis is as absurd
and repugnant as the suggestion made in a best-selling book
called "Freakonomics" that aborting more black babies would lead
to a lower crime rate.
Bennett’s point, perhaps to belabor what for some reason to
many is not obvious, was that such an allegation is a bizarre,
perverse way to view the world.
What is going on in our country today? Is there not enough
evil around that we have to look for it and manufacture it where
it doesn’t exist?
Sure, one could argue that Bennett should have considered
that he broadcasts to a large audience and that he might have
been insensitive to not appreciate that such a supercharged
example might elicit emotional responses. However, even if this
captures what happened, an insensitive moment is not racism.
A number of questions and ironies come to mind as I review
this strange incident.
Ask yourself, in moments when you have doubts about someone
and her motives, if you tend to err on the side of suspicion of
bad or attribution of good. I sadly think that, overwhelmingly,
our tendency is to be suspicious and accuse. Why does the
natural tendency seem to drift toward the bad and not the good?
Ask yourself, when you listen to someone speak, if you are
truly listening to him. Are you really paying attention? Did you
walk away hearing what he said, or were you really listening to
yourself and did you walk away with what you think he said or
want to believe he said? How many of us really listen carefully
to those speaking to us?
Regarding the army of those attacking Bennett, most of whom
are black, my question is this: Why are you outraged about
Bennett’s supposed remark about black abortions and not
outraged, every day, about the 400,000-plus black babies that
actually are aborted every year? Or about the 13 million black
babies that have been aborted since the Roe v. Wade decision in
1973?
If what you truly care about are black babies and black
lives, why do you overwhelmingly vote for candidates who support
abortion and perpetuate a culture that devalues and cheapens
lives - black and white?
Ironically, Elayne Bennett, wife of the alleged racist,
founded and has run for a good number of years the Best Friends
Foundation. It runs programs for teenagers, largely black, in
communities all over the country, helping these kids build
satisfying, responsible lives. In the words of the mission
statement, Best Friends "promotes self-respect through the
practice of self-control and provides participants the skills,
guidance, and support to choose abstinence from sex until
marriage and reject illegal drug and alcohol abuse."
Perhaps the explanation for the tendency to suspect rather
than to give the benefit of the doubt, the tendency lean to the
negative, rather than to seek the positive, is because it is
easy. Suspicion, accusation and blame take little effort.
Careful listening, clear thinking and a pure heart require real
work. Maybe that’s why, unfortunately, we see so little of these
things.
Tony Rose | Oct 14, 2005 | Reply
I know that Louis
Farrakhan is not someone who is a Christian who you "hold to a higher standard"
as you have stated above. But I was wondering if you would be posting a new blog
that points out the hypocrisy of the media for attacking Robertson and Bennett
for radical comments, but ignoring
Louis Farrakhan for saying that the levees in New Orleans were blown up to destroy
black New Orleans?
Rush
commented on this briefly in his post regarding the media’s "alternate
reality."
"And, by
the way, they can then give respectability to people like Louis Farrakhan and
Al Sharpton, who want to go out there and say that the levees were blown
up to destroy black New Orleans. They give it credence. When Pat Robertson
comes up and says whoever that little thug down in Venezuela is ought to be
taken out, why, it’s news for a week, Robertson is losing his mind. Robertson
is absolutely crackpot. When Robertson says all these floods and hurricanes
and earthquakes might represent the Second Coming and the last days, they go
bananas!
Ooh,
he’s an absolute Looney Toon, this Robertson, and he’s an idiot and they go
down to New Orleans and they talk to people, "Do you think this is the last
days? Do you think there’s a conspiracy down here to blow up the levees?"
Meanwhile, Calypso Louie who is ten times, a hundred times — to average people,
now — a hundred times the crackpot that anybody on the right is, is given
respectability. He’s going to do a million gazillion man march, and it’s all
going to be focused on the fact that the levees blown up and it’s going to get
covered and the media is going to give him respectability. He’s a bigger kook
to the American people, and worse, he’s a dangerous kook, than Robertson could
ever hope to be in the minds of most Americans. Media can’t see this. I ran
this theory by a good liberal buddy of mine the other day. When I drew this
comparison between Calypso Louie and Pat Robertson, face went blank. Never
even thought of it that way, never even considered it. And I said, "Okay, go
ahead and defend Farrakhan to me. I want you to intellectually defend Farrakhan
to me. I want you to tell me where he’s gotta point. I want you to tell me
where it’s important to hear what he has to say." Ba-da ba-da ba-da ba-da ba-da.
They just instinctively believe it because any enemy of Bush’s is a friend of
theirs and since he’s out there saying Bush set the charges to blow up the
levees, hey, he’s on our side, that’s all we need to know. What they fail to
grasp is that the vast majority of the American people now do not trust them in
the mainstream press, are very dubious and skeptical of what the mainstream
press is reporting, because it is so obvious what their agenda is"
Tony Rose | Oct 14, 2005 | Reply
Another very interesting example of hypocrisy in exposing statements of those
who are not radicals, but ignoring the statements of those that are truly
radical:
“>http://www.newswithviews.com/Duke/selwyn22.htm
EXTERMINATING
WHITE PEOPLE
by Selwyn Duke
November 1, 2005
NewsWithViews.com
It
has long been an assertion of mine that there’s only one difference
between Adolph Hitler and some of the misbegotten souls who lurk among
us: means. I don’t know that I subscribe to the notion that power
corrupts, but I do know that it releases inhibitions, causing one’s true
colors to shine through.
Inhibitions, however, don’t seem to bedevil one Dr. Kamau Kambon. The
Raleigh, N.C., activist, book store owner, and former professor at North
Carolina State University advocated the "extermination of white people"
while speaking at a Pro-black Media Forum at Howard Law School, in an
event that was covered in its entirety by C-SPAN.
This
esteemed molder of young minds contended that whites have an
"international plantation" for blacks, making "every white person on
earth a plantation master." He continued, "You’re either supporting
white people in their process of death, or you’re for African
liberation."
Kambon expanded upon the transgressions of white devils and emphatically
promulgated a solution, saying,
Then, waxing particularly passionate he stated,
"White people want to kill us. I want you to understand that. They want
to kill you. They want to kill you because that is part of their plan."
The
cherry on top of his demagoguery was when he entreated the audience to,
" .
. . get very serious and not be diverted from coming up with a solution
to the problem, and the problem on the planet is white people."
Would this be the "Final Solution"?
I
might add that while most in attendance did not applaud the
recommendation of genocide, there was some noticeable clapping.
One
ironic aspect of this story is that it arrives on the heels of a piece I
just wrote that dealt partially with the West’s increasing inclination
to criminalize "hate-speech." Of course, you won’t find this scribe
playing the hypocrite and calling for the muzzling of this sick puppy,
for, the last mistake I want to make is to empower Uncle Scam to censor
discourse. I would, though, like to see Kambon suffer the scorn and
ostracism that should be a consequence of such hate-mongering. But,
given my instinct for self-preservation, I won’t hold my breath waiting.
In
my view, however, the real villains here aren’t the loathsome Kambon and
his acolytes, but those university administrators and effluent-stream
media talking heads who enable them through their mistakes of comission
and omission. After all, there will always be nuts around, but the media
is supposed to be a watchdog. Where is the outrage and copious coverage
of remarks that, if uttered by a white man about black folks, would
result in excoriation in the press and persona non grata status at
future college events? The relative silence is deafening. For sure, if
the effluent-stream media is a watchdog, it’s mighty well trained. It
only sics those who have skin that’s light or views on the right.
For
instance, contrast the treatment of this story with the recent tempest
surrounding Bill Bennett’s much derided comments. For those who don’t
know, Bennett was in the midst of addressing the notion that legalized
abortion reduces crime and endeavored to make the point that the end
doesn’t justify the means. So he put forth a hypothetical: "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 quickly dismissed the idea as "an impossible,
ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do," while reiterating,
"your crime rate would go down."
For
daring to get to the heart of an issue with intellectual honesty and
incisive argument, Bennett was rewarded by being decried as a bigot by
the most scurrilous of character assassins. Of course, Bennett is an
infinitely more prominent man, but that has to be at least equalized by
Kambon’s infinitely more egregious remarks.
So,
using a hypothetical involving racial-genocide while expressing disgust
for the idea makes one a pariah, but wholesale advocacy of
racial-genocide while spewing venom is met with indifference? Why the
grossly unfair treatment?
We
know why: the watchdog’s training.
One
person who did showcase this story was Bill O’Reilly, the irascible
progenitor of the "No-Spin Zone." Unfortunately, his treatment of the
subject left me with the impression that a better moniker for his show
would be the "No-Depth Zone."
In
O’Reilly’s October 26 segment about Kambon, the pundit interviewed the
organizer of the Pro-black Media Forum, radio talk show host Opio Sokoni.
When asked to respond to Kambon’s acid-tongued rhetoric, the most Sokoni
could muster was that he thought the comments "were unproductive." To
this, O’Reilly, who is seldom loath to express moral outrage, stated
quite soberly, "I think you used the right word when you said
‘unproductive.’" Really, O’Reilly?
Now,
call me old-fashioned, but in my book "unproductive" is when your child
tries to do his homework between station breaks. But a man sounding a
clarion call for the extermination of a race? Propriety must demand
adjectives such as evil, wicked, genocidal, maniacal and psychopathic.
C’mon, Bill, "unproductive" didn’t strike you as just, oh, let’s say, a
tad lukewarm? I think it’s the understatement of the year.
I
also have to ask, if a white man had encouraged the genocide of blacks,
would O’Reilly be persuaded that "unproductive" was sufficient
denunciation?
Truth be known, it was poor interviewing. I, for one, would like to know
what Mr. Sokoni meant by "unproductive," a word that could pertain to
many different implications of an action. Is it that he doesn’t think
it’s a bad idea, but it doesn’t serve his cause to voice such sentiments
at the present time? Unfair question, say you? I beg to differ. Sokoni
equivocated, using what sounded like a codeword and refusing to damn the
damnable. Equally troubling was the flatline, dispassionate tone in
which Sokoni made his remarks - it certainly didn’t bespeak of outrage.
And remember, if you want to know what a person wants you to believe he
believes, listen to what he says. If you want to know what a person
believes, listen to how he says it.
Moreover, O’Reilly refused to pick up the ball when Sokoni started to
demonize white people. While defending his extension of an invitation to
Kambon, Sokoni shrugged off the matter by saying that Kambon has no
history of genocidal violence, unlike white people. Sokoni mentioned, "
. . . a history that white people have had of not talking, but doing."
He also said, "Black people are not that way."
Well, well, have you, Mr. Sokoni, ever heard of the Hutus and the
Tutsis? You know, that little 1994 event in Ruanda in which Hutu
militias slaughtered almost 800,000 Tutsis, who, by the way, were called
"roaches" by the Hutus. Maybe I have to brush up on my contemporary
history, but I could have sworn the Hutus were black.
The
no-spin truth is that Sokoni is an anti-white bigot, and O’Reilly should
have called him on it.
But
from media double-standards to higher miseducation’s low ones, there is
something positive here since I learned that Kamau Kambon had actually
been fired by North Carolina State University. So, I’m now more closely
attuned to the pulse of academia, as I finally have a closer bead on the
point at which a radical left-wing professor can be ousted from his
position. It lies somewhere between likening World Trade Center victims
to Nazis and advocating the worldwide genocide of a whole race of
people.
Tony Rose | Nov 2, 2005 | Reply