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SBD
Admiral
Joined: 19 Aug 2004
Posts: 1022
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 Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 8:48 pm Post subject: Talk Radio Host Bill Bennett-Abort Black Babies reduce crime |
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Email from the Rick Roberts Show!!
| Quote: |
"You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down"
Talk Radio Host Bill Bennett
Actual Clip from Show
http://mediamatters.org/static/audio/bennett-200509280006.mp3
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Ok...if your not already offended, check your pulse, you should be.
The phone lines burned down this morning from callers reacting to Syndicated Talk Radio Host Bill Bennett's comments on how to drop the crime rate in America.
The story is being reported on Media Matters...yes, a liberally slanted organization...but you do hear Bill in his own words.
The Story from Media Matters:
Addressing a caller's suggestion that the "lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years" would be enough to preserve Social Security's solvency, radio host and former Reagan administration Secretary of Education Bill Bennett dismissed such "far-reaching, extensive extrapolations" by declaring that if "you wanted to reduce crime ... if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett conceded that aborting all African-American babies "would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do," then added again, "but the crime rate would go down."
Bennett's remark was apparently inspired by the claim that legalized abortion has reduced crime rates, which was posited in the book Freakonomics (William Morrow, May 2005) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. But Levitt and Dubner argued that aborted fetuses would have been more likely to grow up poor and in single-parent or teenage-parent households and therefore more likely to commit crimes; they did not put forth Bennett's race-based argument.
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.
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Believe it or not, I actually had callers that agreed with Bill Bennett this morning.
My take? If you’re a Conservative, don't try to defend this. You'll just come off bad. This is indefensible.
Personally, my staff listens to Mr. Bennett and enjoys his show. We all wonder what he was thinking to even utter this comment.
For the sake of everyone Bill, please apologize and move on. A week off the air to reflect might not be a bad idea either. |
SBD |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2005 9:31 pm Post subject: |
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Mr. Bennett, IMHO, lost his standing as some sort of moral compass several years ago with the non-personal public revelation of his gambling "problem". This racially insensitive remark which is, at best, arguable, tells me it's time for Mr. Bennett to retire post-haste from the public airwaves.
As SBD failed to comment on the purpose of posting this regretful story, I will assume it's simply noteworthy. Consider it noted.
Further discussion of this rather incendiary event will, IMHO, have no place to go but downhill...fast, and I find the topic, in general, to be inappropriate for this forum. I am therefore locking this topic./me#1 |
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