Croggled

[pecunium]

I have a bunch of "Chain Links" to offer up, but this thing, well it deserves a rant of it's own, and a better one than I can give it.

Bill Bennet... remember him. The man a lot of people point to as the "foremost moralist in America." Secretary of Education under Reagan, after being head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Drug Czar under Bush Pere, author of such wonders as, The Book of Virtues, The Children's Book of Virtues and other such wonderful tomes explaining to us where America has gone wrong.

He is a big supporter of the War on Drugs, going so far as to say that beheading drug dealers would be, "morally plausible."

Right there you know he has a problem, because one of the defenses he made when it was revealed he lost millions of dollars (yes, millions) playing the slots (and for those who think if they keep putting money in, the laws of averages means they have to win sometime,... there's your example of statistics and probability in action) was that, because he was Catholic gambling isn't forbidden, well capital punishment it.

But he's got himself a gig (which I'm sure is helping to restore the millions he pumped into the coffers of BallY) doing a Radio Show, Morning in America (which is, in itself an appeal to that other "great moralist," Ronald Reagan) where he takes calls and imbues the audience with his wisdom.

Take the other morning.

A caller got past the screeners to ask about abortion, specifically to ask about the theory that if Roe v. Wade hadn't been decided the way it was all those babies which would have been born would have put enough into the pot to prevent the crisis breaking it now.

It went like this:

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. [which might be because it's utter rubbish]

Bennet, he says:

BENNETT: Assuming they're all productive citizens

Bad enough, one might think. In a word he posits a lack of merit to any kids who might have been born, but whose mothers/parents decided it wasn't a good idea. He backs it up, sort of, with a different sort of backhanded slap, in which he brings up a couple more nastygrams.

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 occurs among single women? No.

There you go, single women, who have kids, are a net drain on society, and the children of such women aren't productive citizens when they grow up. I'll be sure to tell that to my mother, and to all the other people I know who reared single kids. Nice to know they were bad for America, and bear some of the responsibilty for the terrible way things are.

It gets worse.

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 --

Ye Gods, and little fishes, that stuff. It's an interesting piece, but not (I think) well supported. First, there are a lot of variables, and second, with immigration, the fact that birthrates aren't in that much a state of decline, I don't think the theory stands up, but we'll cut him some slack, because he's gonna need it to tie the noose.

CALLER: Well, I don't think that statistic is accurate. [points to the caller]

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.[hey, points to Bennett, a bit more slack, but wait for it, the jerk as the rope fetches up against the gibbit is coming fast] 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.

Tricky. Yep, it's damned tricky to argue for genocide. It's damned tricky that you argue it can't be proven that generic abortions reduce crime, but targeted ones; ones aimed at killing off the black presence in America, that will. It says a lot that, "morally reprehensible," (recall that beheading drug dealers is "morally plausible.") is the last thing you can think of, right after ridiculous. He is now entering the Volokh Zone, where the only argument against torture is that it's not really feasible in the present environment, but if it it were, it would be a good thing.

Me, I happen to wish that one of Bennet's books hadn't proved so aptly titled, so true to the mark over the past five years.

The Death of Outrage

Because he ought not have had a job the next morning, and the only talk shows which put him on should be roasting him alive.

But I don't think that will happen. I think he will get away with spouting his racist crap, and the Republican Party will ignore it, and the people, like me, who rage about it will be called cranks, and oversensitive, making mountains out of molehills and trying to divert attention from the issues that really matter.

Well, this matters. It matters a lot what the people who have supported him say. The O'Reillys, the Savages, the Hannitys of the nattering-nabobs need to step up to the plate and condemn him.

But they won't, they have no outrage left.

Comments

[sinboy.livejournal.com]

Being outraged does us no good, because they can say anything they want, and conservatives will nod and agree, as long as it slanders non-conservatives.

These days, if Nixon was president, he'd have gotten away with the Watergate break in.

[kibbles.livejournal.com]

You could abort every white baby too and there would be a reduction in crime.

Any race, really. There are criminals in all races. Eliminate them and you're bound to eliminate SOME criminals, which would reduce crime. No fucking shit.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Single mothers, especially young women, take an enormous amount of shit from everyone, including serious liberals.

K. [I note, aside]

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Oh my friggin god. There are no words, for apparently, there are no limits anymore.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

That...that...is just so vile I feel like scrubbing my brain with a wire brush. I honestly have no idea how people like Bennet sleep at night.

Do you have a link to the transcript or the audio?

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Devil's advocate here: I've read Freakonomics. It's a very thoughtful and thought-provoking book. There is a verifiable statistical correlation between the legalization of abortion and the reduction in violent crime. Steven Levitt's demonstration of that correlation is what kept him from holding a Bush appointment (Levitt himself told the Bush vetter to read the study and call him back if they were still interested; they didn't call back).

It doesn't have to do with single mothers; it has to do with (mostly) single women who weren't. forced to have children they didn't want, and therefore didn't rear children they resented. Those kids weren't there to be treated badly, therefore they weren't there to go and commit crimes.

Bennett's immorality consists in stretching the argument to be one purely of race, rather than of unwanted status.

Single women who choose to have children are a very different category from single women who are forced to have children, something we'd best keep in mind as Roe v. Wade is threatened.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

There is a correlation but he can't show causation.

Absent some way to run the experiment of running the last 30 years with the exact same factors, save legal abortion, that's all it ends up being, an interesting theory, and correlative links.

One can show correlation between all the people we have been locking up in the past time frame, but we can't show cause.

TK

[skeetermonkey.livejournal.com]

How outrageous is it to suggest genocide when there's proof that it's already happening?

See: Family Planning. They have an interesting criteria for where they put their abortion clinics. This guy is just hot air. FP has been quietly going about their anti-black/mexican/jew agenda for 50 years and come out of it with a lily-white reputation and the ability to vilify the opposing side. Many minorities laud FP as being a great help, etc.

This guy is an idiot, though. It's a stupid what-if argument. What if we could kill all the autistic kids (sorry, "children with special needs")? Wouldn't that be convenient to everyone? The educational system would benefit. What if we could have a lower crime rate by killing off a racial group? That's a great reason to kill your fellow humans.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Sigh.

First, this idiot gets held up as a paragon.

Second: I can think of a number of reasons for Free Clinics (or just reduced cost clinics) being in poor neighborhoods, which have nothing to do with genocide (and have you got any recent citations to back this up, or are you taking the quirks of Margaret Sanger and projecting them to the present).

TK

[skeetermonkey.livejournal.com]

The organization has never refuted MS's positions, and her belief was that birth control and abortion would be an excellent way to control the populations of what she considered weeds on the genetic garden of life. Their placing of their clinics (which wholesale abortion, paid by the taxpayers) in schools is highly suspect. I recall the percentage of minority schools being about 95% of the totals,BUT I don't remember the statistic at the moment, nor can I cite it, so it's moot.

You could successfully argue that the clinics are for the poor, and the poor happen to be (in this case) black or brown, and that the clinics provide many beneficial services. These things are all true. The poor need medical care, too. But there's also no question the organization we speak of here is making a lot of money doing abortions, and that they're a business where people want to get rich. (I can't think of a single instance where I've heard of any individual who finds solace or peace in providing abortions.)

This doesn't change fact:
1) The founder supported eugenics and had prejudices against the non-aryan races.
2) The founder created an organization for the purpose of controlling those populations.
3) The organization has never refuted the founder's beliefs in eugenics.
4) The organization began a program of providing clinics in schools.
5) Almost all of the schools had a majority minority popultion.
6) The clinics provide easy access to birth control and referrals to abortion clinics.

Conclusion: The organization supports a program of eugenics which uses a means that appears innocent (birth control) in order to slow down and halt the reproduction of minorities.

Did I mischaracterize any part of the argument? You seem tired of the MS connection, at any rate, already.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's withdraw PP clinics from poor neighborhoods, eliminate any aid to or access to birth control or abortion to poor black or brown women. Because of course they are too stupid to decide for themselves whether or not they want the services offered. And of course they should not decide for themselves whether or not having children is in their own best interests -- their reponsibility to oppose a "program of eugenics" overrides whatever their own concerns are.

And you know... I don't know anyone personally who works in an abortion clinic, but I have read the writings of many women who have found that their work in helping provide abortions gives them a sense of helping their fellow woman through a difficult time, and who take pride in that.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

Oh, since tone is not always apparent in cyberspace, the first half of that last comment was completely sarcastic. I think people can pick up on these things, but I've been burned a couple of times recently, so better to make sure.

[skeetermonkey.livejournal.com]

Got it, no prob. :)

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Wow. Do you really believe all of that? I find it astonishing you would cite writings that are almost a hundred years old to characterize the operations of Planned Parenthood clinics today. The fact Sanger may have, and I stress the may have, believed in an idea back in 1912 does not mean that eugenics is the driving force behind Planned Parenthood and family planning in 2005.

I should also remind you that many, many people, respected and otherwise, harbored prejudices against what you call 'non-aryan' races at the beginning of the 20th century. There were also just as many people who felt the same way back in 1912 about the Irish, the Italians and Roman Catholics. And I think if you look closely enough, you'll find the same prejudices in may segments of the U.S. population today.

Planned Parenthood has clinics everywhere and serves everyone. My daughter, who is white and middle-class, goes to PP for her birth control because her insurance won't pay for it. I know a lot of other young, white and middle-class women who go to PP for the same reason. College students, of all races, use Planned Parenthood clinics because they are accessible and affordable.

It doesn't take a huge leap of logic to figure out that PP is providing clinics in schools in low income areas because these young women have no other access to health care or birth control information. Teen-aged girls in middle to upper income areas have options that young women in poor neighborhoods don't have. That is a fact that has more to do with economics than race.

And I don't see easy access to birth control or referral to abortion clinics as a bad thing, no matter what the young woman's race or her income. All women should have equal access to this information and equal access to all health services. That is not eugenics or genocide. That is empowerment and giving them a choice.

[skeetermonkey.livejournal.com]

Try:
http://blackgenocide.org/sanger.html

Looks like it's more around 1940 when MS was really coming into her own in creating programs for the purpose of exterminating blacks. Some of those quotes are doozies. I don't think there's anything I can say to change your mind if you choose to not look at the evidence and realize that MS was an American version of a Nazi (and I'm not using that word as a flash point; understand that she was a pen pal with Dr. Goebbels, they exchanged articles on the fine points of exterminating the impure non-aryans. This charming sort of correspondance is rather grotesque, but I don't make this stuff up. It happened). Everything I pointed out in the numbered points is true and can be supported with evidence. You choose to see it that PP is doing good because they've benefited you; and yes, sometimes they are doing good, but there's still something wrong there.

For instance, why would PP continue to whitewash the fact that their founder was an extremist who believed in genocide? They could come clean and say, "yeah," (toe in ground) "that Margaret was a bit batty. And we can not in any way support her beliefs that minorities should be controlled and wiped out. We refute that. We believe what she's started is a good thing, but we do not hold to what she believed." Who could fault them?

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

We are never going to agree on this. I went and googled Margaret and didn't find any of the quotes in the link you put up. I also read a lot of the quotes in the article you cited as wanting to eliminate the poverty and misery large families caused, not as a call to wipe out an entire race. So be it.

As to who could fault PP for issuing a statement about their founder starting the clinics as a way to practice genocide--which I still don't buy-- the line would be around the block and up the next street. The anti-abortion movement would grab that and run with it as just one more reason to repeal Roe vs Wade and shut down all the PP clinics in the country. Every right wing group that wants to meddle in the sex lives of their fellow Americans would jump on it. The outrage expressed from leaders in the Black and other minority communities would be deafening. It would cause more harm than good.

I can't see any good that would come from such a statement to be honest. She was not a saint, but few people are. All of Sanger's supposed sins and statements were in the distant past and have nothing to do with the organization as it is today. Planned Parenthood is not out there trying to wipe out any minority group. The work they do helps women take control of their lives and make their own choices. I have to really wonder at the motives and agenda of any individual or group who wants that work to stop.

And I'm done now. You're not going to convince me Planned Parenthood is an evil entity and I see no point in filling up Terry's comment section with an endless debate.

[thrrrnbush.livejournal.com]

I do not work in a clinic, nor do I know people who do. That said, I did study under a midwife for a while and she encouraged us to seek further education on extralegal ways to assist women in not being pregnant against their wishes. We did NOT learn to perform abortions, that would be illegal and likely unsafe with the means afforded to us. We did learn about emmenogogues and menstrual extraction; means by which menstruation could be made to come on time, regardless of conception. I did not go on to become a midwife, but am instead a housewife and mother. Still I have, free of charge, counseled some friends in time of need. I did not take joy in helping them bring on reluctant periods, but yes I think I did find some solace and peace. I enabled these women to do for themselves as they chose for themselves and I feel good about that.

I also recall that the Planned Parenthood in Marin County had a waiting room filled with mostly white teens and underfunded hippies, this was a long time ago when I largely qualified as both. I think that the general awareness of birth control and abortion was higher when I attended a largely white and upper middle-class Jr. High in Studio City than when I attended a largely latino and working class Jr. High in Sun Valley, but rates of sexual activity seemed about equal. If these organizations were targeting minorities in the late 80s and early 90s they were doing a rather inadequate job of it then. This is merely anecdote, observation and opinion, it's hardly a formal study. Now that I've said my piece I have a load of diapers to move from the washer to the dryer. Thank you for your time.

[skeetermonkey.livejournal.com]

Actually, nothing wrong with anecdotal evidence (although it rarely proves the fact), as I opened that can of worms in the previous post by essentially soliciting it.

Thank you.

[ladymeow.livejournal.com]

Let's just abort everyone... then all our problems would disappear.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Devil's advocate again: I can't stand Bennett. I think he's a smarmy hypocrite. Nevertheless, I do think he's getting a bum rap here. He was not actually advocating aborting all black fetuses; he was arguing that the economic argument against abortion was no more morally acceptable than the economic argument in favor of abortion. I believe that he is correct so to argue. Again, where he went wrong (and here I use "wrong" in the sense of "made a mistake which made it impossible for other people to follow his argument) was in using race. Had he been as extreme as (let us say) Swift in his analogy, he might have been better understood. That is, had he pionted out while that one could wipe out crime altogether by wiping out humanity altogether, one would nevertheless not choose that means for wiping out crime, his point might have come across more clearly.

All that aside, I'm not displeased to see him in the hot seat. He did his best to destroy the Department of Education, and he is a force against freedom in my opinion.

I would flip his argument and point out that it's no more appropriate to argue in favor of legalized abortion on economic grounds than it is to argue against it on those grounds. The only grounds on which I'm comfortable discussing abortion are those concerning the woman's rights, which must (in my mind) take precedence over those of the fetus.

Like many people, I'm uncomfortable with legal abortion, but I insist it must stay legal, because in desperate situations, women will choose it, and desperate women must have a way to avoid dying in their desperation.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't think, since he is against all abortion, he was advocating abortion, per se, as a cure for all ills, but he chose to make the paired points (which I did bring up) that 1: you can extract a given end from abortion across the spectrum, but 2: if abortions were limited to blacks, you can make an extrapolation.

I know he's trying to make the Swift analogy, but I don't believe him. As you say he's a hypocrite and I don't see where I should believe him to not be one in this case.

If he'd made the statement that aborting males would reduce crime, I'd have to agree with him.

But he didn't.

TK

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

This is the point at which I'd offer you one of the beers we brought back from the Yukon and suggest that we argue about something that we actually disagree on rather than Bill Bennett, since I realize that my position is that his statement clumsily exposed his racism, and your position is that his statement clumsily exposed his racism.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, if you think it will keep, save one in the fridge.

TK