posted on September 30, 2005 11:40:18 AM
I think Bill Bennett missed the mark when he said, "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..."
Every now and then we see what the real agenda of the neocons are when they slip and make a comment like this. The KKK is still strong in the Grand Ole Party.
posted on September 30, 2005 01:23:05 PM
scratched veneer is ugly. i should know, since i sell vintage furniture.
you obviously have never lived in Jacksonville, Florida or some of the other "southern" cities though. you may think that portland is very racist, but there are many more cities across this country that are obviously more racist than portland.
i would agree that portland has some serious race problems, but what exactly are your issues beyond the most obvious "police profiling" which is as common in this country as a house fly.
posted on September 30, 2005 01:29:34 PM
Have you actually got out and talked to people around this city or listened to small talk at a coffee shop/restauraunt? Outside of a few die hard tree huggers this city has as much hatred for race, national origin, sexual orientation as any city I have ever been in.
Measure 36 showed the true underlying community of Portland.
Oh and btw where are the only two Popeyes located at?
Luckily there are enough good things to outweigh the bad.
But then again people are wanting to commercialize the gorge, that shouldn't be allowed.
posted on September 30, 2005 01:58:49 PM
"Have you actually got out and talked to people around this city or listened to small talk at a coffee shop/restauraunt?"
Just curious, but what exactly have you heard or seen? I've gone well beyond restaurants and coffee shops. I am a minority, or at least a half-breed being that my mother is Panamanian (fyi: my cousin, Alassandra Mezquita, will be representing Panama in the Miss Universe contest this year), and my father is White American. I got my degrees in Race and Minority Relations and Sociology and spent several years working in social service agencies and with the Portland Public School system. My business was located in one of the most racially diverse areas of Portland on Alberta Street. I've seen racism go both ways. I've witnessed the very quick gentrification of Northeast Portland and see it happening in North Portland as well. I've heard long time black neighbors express their concerns about it, but I also know that the gentrification has absolutely nothing to do with race, but rather economics. Black home owners sell their houses because of the boom, and young white families buy them b/c they can't afford any other areas. we can also both agree that Portland's drug problem is now in predominately white communities more than in black ones, unlike many cities across this country.
"Outside of a few die hard tree huggers this city has as much hatred for race, national origin, sexual orientation as any city I have ever been in."
I've also found a much higher rate of diversity in this city than many others. Asians, former Soviet State citizens, hispanics, etc are in much higher numbers than in many other cities outside of the west coast. Drive by Atkinson Elementary on Division and you will see a huge welcome banner in 5 different languages.
"Measure 36 showed the true underlying community of Portland."
Oh and btw where are the only two Popeyes located at?
They are located on MLK about 2 miles apart, but perhaps you forget that Popeyes used to be located on McLaughlin Blvd in Gladstone and I believe there was one out in Beaverton as well. Why did they close those locations? Poor sales. Popeyes is located everywhere down south. Why is that? Not because their Red Beans and Rice give me gas. Why does Safeway on MLK carry a much larger selection of afro hair products than any other Safeway in Portland? It is called marketing. I think the Popeye's reference is pretty poor.
"Luckily there are enough good things to outweigh the bad."
I agree, but there is always room for improvement.
"But then again people are wanting to commercialize the gorge, that shouldn't be allowed."
Once again, we are in agreement.
Just for your info, I was driving around Vancouver one day, when I noticed some jacked up, red-neck driving 4x4 with a homemade sign in the window, "Stop Portland Liberalism in Vancouver!" I laughed pretty hard at that one, and then breathed "Vancouver... Portland's little sister."
posted on September 30, 2005 04:19:34 PM
LOL....I always just love it when the ultra progressives/liberals only post PART of a statement.
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.
Bill Bennett's Morning in America airs on approximately 115 radio stations with an estimated weekly audience of 1.25 million listeners.
---------------
If we aborted all male babies....there would be less rape.
If we aborted all babies....there would be no child abuse.
[b]rusty's attempt to mislead anyone who has not heard nor read the full conversation on his show....just show how extremely low the extremists on the left will go trying to make some look so different than the way it really happened.
shame shame on him.
"Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence." --Ann Coulter
And why the American Voters chose to RE-elect President Bush to four more years. YES!!!
posted on September 30, 2005 04:36:03 PM
Nothing misleading about it there Linda. He wanted to use blacks to make a point, he used abortion and crime as well. Too bad we can't abort the likes of you and the rest of the neocon criminals though. That would be best for America.
posted on October 1, 2005 09:10:50 AM
It's unbelievable to see attempts to defend Bennett's suggestion that genocide in America would have a socially beneficial consequence.
posted on October 1, 2005 09:42:46 AM
"It's unbelievable to see..."
I see that phrase from you a lot Helen. Maybe you should try living within REALITY for a while. You might be amazed at how the world of ideas is bigger than you seem to imagine.
The bottom line is that what Bennett said is statistially correct. As he also said, it's impossible and morally reprehensible. That doesn't mean that it's untrue or incorrect.
Sometimes FACTS can be HARD. That doesn't mean they should never be stated. Remember, at one point people in power wanted to hush up the fact that the world revolved around the sun, too.
--------------------------------------
Quidquid Latine dictum sit altum sonatur.
posted on October 1, 2005 11:43:01 AM "Sometimes FACTS can be HARD. That doesn't mean they should never be stated. Remember, at one point people in power wanted to hush up the fact that the world revolved around the sun, too."
Genocide is not a new and exciting idea and I'm surprised that you see it in the same light as a scientific finding such as the world revolving around the sun.
The book of racist virtues, by Bill Bennett
EDITORIAL BOARD
Saturday, October 01, 2005
Aborting black children is an effective way to reduce the crime rate.
We're not surprised that kind of racist drivel is being peddled over the public airways, but we are stunned by who is doing the peddling: William Bennett, the self-styled virtues czar of the United States and former education secretary under President Reagan. He has a connection to Texas, earning his doctorate degree in philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.
This week, Bennett said on his syndicated radio show: "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," he said. Then he quickly added: "That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."
What is morally reprehensible is that Bennett's racist statements fuel the specious belief that blacks are genetically wired to be criminals. Bennett should know that race is not a predictor of criminal behavior.
Researchers long have pointed to socioeconomic factors as a primary cause for criminal behavior. But Bennett didn't say that aborting all poor children would reduce the crime rate, but rather aborting all black children rich, poor or middle-income is the way to lower the crime rate.
Bennett should apologize. Instead he blames the media for taking his comments out of context. Right.
With the heat in the kitchen rising over his statements, Bennett, who preaches much about taking personal responsibility, isn't doing that. Apparently, that advice is for others.
In explaining his comments, he said: "I was pointing out that abortion should not be opposed for economic reasons, any more than racism or, for that matter, slavery or segregation should be supported or opposed for economic reasons . . . One could just as easily have said you could abort all children and prevent all crime, to show the absurdity of the proposition." Right.
Like the Energizer Bunny, Bennett keeps on going. Similar serious moral lapses would and have shut down other public figures. In 2002, Trent Lott, R-Miss., was forced to step down as Senate majority leader after he commented that the United States would have avoided "all these problems" if then-segregationist Strom Thurmond had been elected president in 1948. Lott at least apologized.
Bennett, author of the best-selling "The Book of Virtues" and "The Children's Book of Virtues," survived another controversy in 2003, when he admitted he was a heavy gambler, losing millions in casinos.
In the absence of an apology, we can add hubris to Bennett's growing list of moral calamities.
____________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
posted on October 2, 2005 06:25:37 PM
But Colin, Lets get retro if all got Aborted you say. The only one left in your NEOCON Government would be George the Chimpanzee without anyone telling him what to say or do.
I can just see it now. George would be setting in the White House eating cake and playing his new Guitar while America flooded.
posted on October 2, 2005 08:52:27 PM
And some goofy group, what? was it the ACLU, or just some off the wall area of the Democratic party? Demanded that Pres. Bush ask Bennet to apologize.
I said, what? Why? What does the current President have to do with a former Secretary of Education, who is now a radio host?
dudududududu weeeell (insert carton character voice) I guess it must be because they are both CON-servatives (did I spell the Conservative part appropriatly? )
posted on October 3, 2005 10:27:42 AM
Those groups (& others) demanded that Bennett apologize, but no one to my knowledge demanded that Bush apologize for him. Though Bush & Co. did step up and express disapproval.
____________________
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- George W. Bush
