It's been a while since my last blog entry. Maybe the problems appearing in the media--floods, wars, deficits--just seem so enormous as to be unapproachable. So why even try to write about them, right? But now I have something to write about. As I lay awake at three a.m., my heart was pounding and my mind was racing--all swirling around one question: Who the heck does William Bennett think he is?
If you've been living under a rock, or have just been so overwhelmed by news of floods, wars and deficits, I mean William J. Bennett, former Secretary of Education and self-appointed arbiter of all things moral in our world, gambling addict, and de facto racist. What's a de facto racist? Unlike a de jure racist who actually set out consciously to be a racist, a de facto racist just shows his racism by the effect of his words or deeds.
What bothers me about William Bennett is too long and detailed to list here. But what bothers me about him at this moment is not. Apparently, some "enabler" has seen fit to provide Mr. Bennett with a radio show (as if, say, dice to a gambler, or whiskey to a lush). On his radio show, Mr. Bennett received a call from a man seeking Mr. Bennett's opinion for the proposition whether all the fetuses aborted since the legalization of Roe v. Wade might be the missing delta whose societal presence could erase the shortfall for Social Security funding. The notion, frankly, is possible, I suppose. But why stop there? Might one of them have discovered a cure for cancer? Or perfected solar power? Or have been merely a loving and respectful human being? Perhaps yes to all those questions. But Mr. Bennett chose to see a darker side, um, no pun intended.
Instead, Mr. Bennett advised his caller against such an argument on the basis that not all of those aborted fetuses would have become productive citizens. One wonders precisely what was swirling through the vast empty spaces of Bennett's mind at that point--what exactly he was picturing. Something tells me it wasn't the possible life of one of those aborted fetuses as he was imaginarily truding to work each day trying to make the world a better place. Nope. Something tells me he was imagining a poor, uneducated, black person sitting in a prison cell. We'll never know, because we can't yet read minds. But I suggest we can draw some conclusions based on what Mr. Bennett said next. For most of us (at least for most of us not actively involved in electoral politics) what we say bears some relation to what we're thinking. And what Mr. Bennett said next was an absolute humdinger. Here is the exchange, verbatim (as provided at www.mediamatters.org):
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.
I always knew Bennett was an offensive jackass. But who knew he was also such a moron? First, Bennett could not possibly "know" that aborting every black baby in the country would reduce crime, because there is not one empirical fact to support such an unspeakable notion (ah, yes, would that the term "unspeakable notion" still meant somehing).
It's also telling how he next backtracked--obfuscated, really--by saying that aborting every black baby would be "an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do..."? Notice his first word was "impossible". Good God Almighty! It sounds as if that sociopathic, moronic jackass had previously considered such an evil notion, but merely concluded was "impossible". Ponder that for just a second. Please. If it were actually "possible", might he never have proceeded with the rest of his sentence? One conjures a mental picture of Hitler, Goering and other white, educated and, for their day, productive Nazis sitting around a table pondering, "....but if it were only possible....". Truly, Bennett's attempt to minimize his racist notion should frighten even the marginally civilized.
But for the record, when it comes to aborting all black babies in the country as a means to reducing crime, Bennett is as wrong as he could be. I for one would be so incensed at the mere suggestion of such evil, that I would expect to commit a whole slew of crimes Mr. Bennett never even considered. A lot of property damage, for one thing. And maybe some assaults and batteries--all against the evil thugs who'd dare propose such a notion. Yep, it's highly unlikely my disobedience to such a morally reprehensible proposition would be even remotely civil; I'd make it my purpose to commit a whole lot of statutorily "criminal" acts against anyone in a position to carry out such a genocidal notion. And I hope I wouldn't be alone. So as to just this point, Mr. Bennett is probably wrong--I would do my best to see to it that "crime" in this country went way, way up if such a notion were ever attempted.
And further, why did Mr. Bennett choose to discuss aborting "black babies" as way to reduce crime? Why not "white babies"? Really. And, for the record the dark-skinned people to which Mr. Bennett refers are not black; they're brown. Just as Mr. Bennett himself is more of a peachy, pinkish beige--not white. Even if brown people comprise a disproportionate share of the prison population, there are certainly reasons for that, and they mostly have to do with pinkish-beige cops more than with brown people. But Mr. Bennett spoke in absolute terms. So in real numbers, at least by Bennett's sick and twisted logic, one might expect to reduce crime even more by aborting all "white" babies. Mathematically, at least, this seems so because there are so many more "white" people than "black"--yes, even in the prison system. But Mr. Bennett never suggested that as a possibility, and focused instead on aborting "black" babies. Perhaps it's because he could never even fathom such a thing. Go figure.
William Bennett is probably a sick man, mentally speaking. He certainly has an inflated sense of self-importance. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I suspect there are some worrisome things going on in his mind. What else could possibly possess anyone to even think of such a dark, evil thing? Want to discuss abortion? Social Security? Go ahead. But to drag into the discussion such an abominable notion as Bennett's is to reveal inner workings of a mind which is patently disturbing.
At the very least, someone should pull the plug on his radio show. I'm all for free speech, but I'm not sure his free speech deserves a microphone and a broadcast tower.
