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Bill Bennett may get some heat for this one.


erynthered

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Hows the Kool Aid?

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA :w00t::lol::D;) , you are just so freaking funny. That one is just so clever I can see why you repeat it so often, sure beats having an original thought now doesn't it? As always, a less than smart a$$ comment to mask your lack of anything worthwhile to add. Why actually make a semblance of a point when you can indulge your juvenile penchant for insults? How old are you anyway, 12? 13?

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA  :w00t:  :lol:  :D  ;) , you are just so freaking funny.  That one is just so clever I can see why you repeat it so often, sure beats having an original thought now doesn't it?  As always, a less than smart a$$ comment to mask your lack of anything worthwhile to add.  Why actually make a semblance of a point when you can indulge your juvenile penchant for insults?  How old are you anyway, 12? 13?

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Tough looking inward, apparently.

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Yeah, no kidding. Mick's really surprising me on this issue. Thought he was smarter than this.

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Ideologues lay claim to no limited IQ range. Some are smart like Mickey, and some are on the level of blzrul. Same goes for the righties.

 

All you need to read on this thread is Post #12 by OnTheRocks and post #42 by OGTEleven. #12 provides the context of Bill Bennet's remarks, and #42 explains why Bennett used the analogy of aborting black babies instead of poor babies.

 

End of story. Even if BB is a racist, be it of the blatant conscious type or the subtle subconscious type, the evidence is not to be found this week. Maybe next.... :w00t:

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Now if he had recommended that all male babies be aborted, THAT I could see reason behind.

 

Except of course that was tried, sort of, a couple of thousand years ago, and those who survived still managed to find ways to exercise their human failings.

 

So in all fairness maybe it's just times for humans to admit that we're just human, we had a good run, and it's time to evolve into something else.

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By JAMES TARANTO

 

 

Forbidden Thoughts

Bill Bennett is standing firm in the face of an attack launched by David Brock's foul MediaMatters.org site. In a week-end roundup, MM clarified what it found invidious about Bennett's comments regarding abortion, crime and race, which we analyzed Friday (italics in original, boldface ours):

 

Bennett and his defenders have seized on Bennett's original statement that it would be "impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible" to actually abort all black babies. But that isn't the issue; of course everyone understands that Bill Bennett doesn't want to abort all black babies. The issue is that Bennett, upon thinking "crime rate," immediately thought of black people. The issue is that Bennett thinks and speaks of crime as an issue of race.

 

Here we see the totalitarian mindset of the politically correct left. "The issue," it turns out, isn't just what Bennett said but what Bennett thinks. Yes, MediaMatters is accusing Bill Bennett of thoughtcrime. It's "1984," and Big Brock is watching. Fortunately, Brock and his force are more Keystone Kops than Thought Police, and therefore this column, like Bennett, is not afraid to entertain some forbidden thoughts.

 

It is a fact that blacks in America have a far higher violent crime rate than nonblacks. MediaMatters and politically correct folks everywhere do not want you to think about this fact, at least if you are white. But which is a bigger problem, the fact itself or white people's thinking about it?

 

To explore that question, consider the practical implications of the high black crime rate. If you are white, it affects you only insofar as you come into contact with black people. Whites often respond to their knowledge of the higher black crime rate by engaging in what we might term defensive stereotyping, or what some have called "rational discrimination": avoiding black neighborhoods, crossing the street to avoid an approaching black man, etc.

 

Importantly, to say that such discrimination is "defensive" or "rational" does not mean it is harmless. Many an innocent black man has been insulted, inconvenienced or worse by such stereotyping. That is why "racial profiling" by law-enforcement agencies is problematic even if it is an effective anticrime tactic.

 

But the implications of the high black crime rate are much more significant to the average black man:

 

He is subject, in his encounters with whites, to the stereotyping we have just described.

 

He is more likely to be a criminal, and thus more likely to be incarcerated and to suffer all the other disadvantages that come with having a "record."

 

He is more likely to be the victim of violent crime, since most crime is intraracial.

 

He is more likely to have a father, son, brother or other relative who is a criminal or a victim of violent crime.

At least the last two of these points apply to black women as well.

 

Now, as long as we are living dangerously, let us conduct a thought experiment of our own. Suppose that all whites stopped thinking of crime in racial terms--that is, that their minds were washed clean of any knowledge about racially disparate crime rates. Would this be good for black people?

 

Perhaps it would, up to a point. It would solve the first of the four problems we've listed--that is, it would ease their encounters with whites by doing away with stereotypes based on crime rates. But it would leave untouched the underlying problem of crime in the black community. And that problem would be harder to deal with if a majority of the American population were unable even to acknowledge its existence and thus to think about how to solve it.

 

When white liberals berate white nonliberals for thinking about crime in racial terms, then, they are not acting in a way that actually promises to improve the lives of blacks. Rather, they are showing off their own putative moral superiority. And how seriously can we take even their implicit claims that they do not think of crime in racial terms? Is David Brock any more likely than Bill Bennett to take a midnight stroll through Anacostia? Color us skeptical.

 

Hypocritical Hypotheticals

On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Juan Williams joined the attack on Bennett. The way in which he did it made our jaw drop, and let us count the ways. This is from the Factiva transcript (alas, not available publicly online); "Brit" is Brit Hume, who was defending Bennett:

 

What's clearly wrong is if you wanted to say, oh, gosh, you know, [1] maybe we should have abortions for every woman who has a history in her family of mental illness or anybody who has a disabled child, or [2] let's get rid of all the Christians, they certainly have been involved in lots of wars. [3] How about the Jews? You know what? [4] We have trouble with older people in this country. Clearly, they, you know, cause a great burden on our Social Security system. Maybe we should do away with some of these older people.

 

You know, Brit, it really speaks to a deeply racist mindset to imagine America somehow as better off if we didn't have those black people around and all those racial issues and all these--you know, so many of these blacks end up in jail, as if they're criminals because they're black. . . . He certainly said it to me. That's what . . . I heard, Brit. . . .

 

Brit, if I'm sitting here on a national talk show and I say, you know, [5] maybe if we killed off these white people, we wouldn't have so many mass murders in America, you'd say, Juan, are you out of your mind? . . .

 

Words have meaning, Brit. . . . I think what you're misunderstanding is it's the idea that he gave voice to this notion. If you were in a Nazi regime and said [6] you know, gee, you know, a lot of these Jewish people have businesses and they dominate the academy, and therefore wouldn't it be better--that's not a good idea, Brit. Not a good idea to give voice to.

 

No fewer than six times in a 10-minute segment, Williams did exactly what Bennett did that so offended him--namely, offer an outrageous hypothetical to illustrate a point. We're no more offended by Williams's doing so than we were by Bennett's, but Williams's hypocrisy is simply mind-boggling.

 

Brilliant!

 

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007353

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Hypocritical Hypotheticals

On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Juan Williams joined the attack on Bennett. The way in which he did it made our jaw drop, and let us count the ways. This is from the Factiva transcript (alas, not available publicly online); "Brit" is Brit Hume, who was defending Bennett:

 

What's clearly wrong is if you wanted to say, oh, gosh, you know, [1] maybe we should have abortions for every woman who has a history in her family of mental illness or anybody who has a disabled child, or [2] let's get rid of all the Christians, they certainly have been involved in lots of wars. [3] How about the Jews? You know what? [4] We have trouble with older people in this country. Clearly, they, you know, cause a great burden on our Social Security system. Maybe we should do away with some of these older people.

 

You know, Brit, it really speaks to a deeply racist mindset to imagine America somehow as better off if we didn't have those black people around and all those racial issues and all these--you know, so many of these blacks end up in jail, as if they're criminals because they're black. . . . He certainly said it to me. That's what . . . I heard, Brit. . . .

 

Brit, if I'm sitting here on a national talk show and I say, you know, [5] maybe if we killed off these white people, we wouldn't have so many mass murders in America, you'd say, Juan, are you out of your mind? . . .

 

Words have meaning, Brit. . . . I think what you're misunderstanding is it's the idea that he gave voice to this notion. If you were in a Nazi regime and said [6] you know, gee, you know, a lot of these Jewish people have businesses and they dominate the academy, and therefore wouldn't it be better--that's not a good idea, Brit. Not a good idea to give voice to.

 

No fewer than six times in a 10-minute segment, Williams did exactly what Bennett did that so offended him--namely, offer an outrageous hypothetical to illustrate a point. We're no more offended by Williams's doing so than we were by Bennett's, but Williams's hypocrisy is simply mind-boggling.

 

Brilliant!

 

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110007353

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The difference being that the mentally ill, Jews, Christians, and whites are legitimate targets for discrimination in this country. Blacks aren't.

 

Though I'm surprised he got away with that statement about the elderly. Probably because it didn't involve abortion.

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