William Bennett: you could abort every black baby

[loseyourname]

Bill Maher was defending Bennett the other night, saying it is obvious that he was only illustrating a point and not advocating this, and that people wouldn't give a hoot if he had singled out any group other than blacks. To prove his point, he said that we could raise the average SAT score in the US by aborting every baby born in Kansas. Nobody was outraged; instead, the whole audience cracked up laughing.

 

[cronxeh]

Bill Maher was defending Bennett the other night, saying it is obvious that he was only illustrating a point and not advocating this, and that people wouldn't give a hoot if he had singled out any group other than blacks. To prove his point, he said that we could raise the average SAT score in the US by aborting every baby born in Kansas. Nobody was outraged; instead, the whole audience cracked up laughing.

Now that I'd laugh at too

 

[hitssquad]

The best areas of the United States for applying negative eugenics

Bill Maher [...] said that we could raise the average SAT score in the US by aborting every baby born in Kansas.

Not according to this IQ map.
childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/eugenics/pages/articles/IQStatesMap.gif

The best negative-eugenics bets, according to that map, are Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.

 

[cronxeh]

Not according to this IQ map.
childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/eugenics/pages/articles/IQStatesMap.gif

The best negative-eugenics bets, according to that map, are Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina.

What about Floriduh?



But I'd have to agree with North Dakota - It has consistently ranked very high on SAT. The Average scores for 2003 were 1215 (602v+613m)

http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2003/pdf/table3.pdf

 

[hitssquad]

SAT scores and IQ - Massachusetts vs North Dakota

North Dakota [...] has consistently ranked very high on SAT.
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2003/pdf/table3.pdf

And it ranks below all other states but one for participation rate - 4%. In contrast, Massachusetts had a participation rate of 82%, and a combined score of 1038. Steve Sailer, the source for the IQ-data for the Children of Millennium IQ map, estimated Massachusetts' IQ at 105.

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/041114_iq_table.htm

 

[klusener]

Those who are defending him constantly point out that he added that it was a morally reprehensible thing to do and I give him credit for that, but he makes this entire ad absurdum on the assumption that black babies are born with an inherent criminal intent.

 

[loseyourname]

Those who are defending him constantly point out that he added that it was a morally reprehensible thing to do and I give him credit for that, but he makes this entire ad absurdum on the assumption that black babies are born with an inherent criminal intent.

How so? Whether a person is born a criminal or made a criminal, the correlation is there. For the statement "If we abort all children that fit description X, we will lower the crime rate," consider the different things we could replace "description X" with:

• Born in a city
• Born into poverty
• Born to abusive parents
• Born to a father in prison

The statement that eliminating these children will lower the crime rate is true regardless of whether their eventual criminal behavior is something inherent in their genetic code or something learned. There is no presupposition whatsoever as to what causes their criminality. The only presupposition is that there is a correlation between trait X and criminal behavior, which is a simple matter of empirical statistics.

 

[Smurf]

Correlation is not Causation.

Edit: Clarification: His statement (intentional or not) is inherently racist because it inferes that blacks cause crime.

(It could be argued that aborting every black baby does not change the flaws in the social/economic structure that cause crime in the first place, a different social group would merely take up the (alleged) role of being predominantly criminal.)

Thus, even though he stated that the act would be morally reprehensible, his statement is, while not nazi-level racist, still racist.

This is in contrast to Mill Maher's statement that:

we could raise the average SAT score in the US by aborting every baby born in Kansas.

because there is no causation infered in this statement.

 

[cronxeh]

Well the Canadians obviously will never understand the "problems" we deal with here in United States. See if you have 32 million people per that big arse chunk of land and we have about 10 times that many people per this amount of land, plus some of it is a desert, then you'd see where those socio-economic issues arise from. Thats why the bad are really bad, and the good are really good here, and the sheer progress through competition is characteristic to United States.

You haven't seen the worst of the worst until you walked in NYC's central park on a Saturday night

 

[Smurf]

See if you have 32 million people per that big arse chunk of land and we have about 10 times that many people per this amount of land, plus some of it is a desert

Most of ours is frozen all year around...

 

[loseyourname]

The statement that eliminating these children will lower the crime rate is true regardless of whether their eventual criminal behavior is something inherent in their genetic code or something learned. There is no presupposition whatsoever as to what causes their criminality.
The only presupposition is that there is a correlation between trait X and criminal behavior, which is a simple matter of empirical statistics.

To drive home the point, consider another analagous statement:

If we abort all children born in St. Louis, we can lower the national murder rate.

Since St. Louis has the highest murder rate of any city in the country, this statement is true. However, it would be absurd to suggest that there in anything inherent in being from St. Louis that causes criminal behavior. There is probably little to no difference between the gene pool of St. Louis and the gene pool of any other major US city. However, being born in St. Louis is correlated with growing up in the city with the highest murder rate in the US. That culture of crime, and the general poverty of the city, creates criminals. In the same way, being black does not directly cause criminality, but being black is correlated with being poor and impoverished, with living in the inner city, and with having parents who engage in criminal behavior. The correlation isn't huge, but it is higher than with other US ethnic groups, and these things that being black is correlated with do cause criminal behavior.

 

[Smurf]

Since St. Louis has the highest murder rate of any city in the country, this statement is true.

Not necessarily... but besides the point.

 

[jimmie]

"I" have a better idea.

Lets, individuals that intend to be right, abort every living adult human being from the human race that intends to not be right, thus making such remarks, and make them EXTINCT.

Such individuals have drained enough energy from individuals that intend to be right. Those individuals have taken attention away from what should be thought of, and have directed it to things that should NEVER be thought of.

Those individuals have served their purpose already by bringing to the forefront topics of discussion that needed to be discussed so that individuals would learn the difference between "right" and not right, and choose to be "good".

However, I believe that human beings now know the difference between right and not right. Any further discussion about such remarks made from such "individuals" is a "total waste". Intelligent human beings that intend to be right are still obligated to discuss such remarks in a setting such as an online forum. The same individuals should be discussing anything except remarks made in the same vein-of-contempt for humanity.

We the people, RIGHT human beings, must demand that the human race as a whole do a 180, because there is nothing left to learn in the low bandwidth domain. Been there-done that. It's about breaking-trail, and there hasn't been any breaking-trail for a long time. The waters are stagnant and its getting awfully stuffy in here.

Anything short of a complete turnaround renders the human race, the planet, all of its inhabitants, and all life as you think you know it, a comedic circuitous folly.

It's getting to be late Friday afternoon in this 4-day golf tournament of life, and as everyone knows, not every individual makes the cut.

And there shall be a cut!

 

[moose]

This guy never said he believed he wanted to do that, he said that it just would, its a FACT(if supported by statistics). Nothing crazy here... Just as much as saying, if you abort almost every child born, in a few years, there will be less 2nd graders...

you know, if we abort every single child whose parents don't have a college degree and keep the children whose parents are financially independent, blah blah blah blah, maybe crime rates would go down too...

 

[Smurf]

It's a racist comment, with or without advocating it, he still inferred racism.

 

[moose]

It's a racist comment, with or without advocating it, he still inferred racism.

How is it different from saying "If we abort every white child born, we will decrease obesity in the US"

because whites are generally more obese than blacks I presume...

 

[hitssquad]

Racial profiles of crime capitals such as St. Louis

If we abort all children born in St. Louis, we can lower the national murder rate.
[...]
There is probably little to no difference between the gene pool of St. Louis and the gene pool of any other major US city.

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566927/St_Louis_(city).html

"According to the 2000 census, blacks were 51.2 percent of the population..."


http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html#People

People United States
[...]
black 12.9%

 

[hitssquad]

whites are generally more obese than blacks

http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=522848

Black men had higher BMIs -- 29.1 compared to 28.2 -- than did white males. A level below 25 is considered healthy. Forty-four percent of the black men were obese, compared to 33 percent of the whites; 37 percent of the black women were obese, vs. 27 percent of the white women.

"I don't think it is a surprise that African-Americans had a high level of obesity," Lavie said. "Other studies indicate that as well."

 

[loseyourname]

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761566927/St_Louis_(city).html

"According to the 2000 census, blacks were 51.2 percent of the population..."http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html#People

Ha ha, I know, but I better not mention that unless I want the smurf police branding me as racist.

 

[moose]

http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=522848

Well, I did say I presume. Guess I was wrong, but I could find another issue to talk about... It's just the idea of it...

It's not racist what he said, it just happens to be that way that blacks apparently commit more crime. If whites committed more crime than blacks, then you could change the statement to say whites and it wouldn't change a thing. It's not racist!

 

[Smurf]

How is it different from saying "If we abort every white child born, we will decrease obesity in the US"

Nothing. That's pretty racist too.

 

[Smurf]

Well, I did say I presume. Guess I was wrong, but I could find another issue to talk about... It's just the idea of it...

It's not racist what he said, it just happens to be that way that blacks apparently commit more crime. If whites committed more crime than blacks, then you could change the statement to say whites and it wouldn't change a thing. It's not racist!

Yes it is! Just because being racist against whites is considered almost acceptable in this society doesn't make it non-racist.

 

[moose]

Yes it is! Just because being racist against whites is considered almost acceptable in this society doesn't make it non-racist.

What if one were to say that bombing a certain area of town would decrease crime rate? What would that qualify under? It's only racist in the way that it says blacks, as in a single race. Aside from that, I don't find it a horrible thing to say simply because (and if) it is backed by statistics. I find it stupid for someone to say it, but it's not something to go crazy about.

 

[Tide]

Smurf,

he still inferred racism.

Well, no. You inferred racism. He may or may not have implied it.

Moose,

What if one were to say that bombing a certain area of town would decrease crime rate?

The bombing would be the crime and offset any possible decrease.

P.S. Does anybody really care what an insignificant "has been" says about anything?

 

[Smurf]

What if one were to say that bombing a certain area of town would decrease crime rate? What would that qualify under? It's only racist in the way that it says blacks, as in a single race. Aside from that, I don't find it a horrible thing to say simply because (and if) it is backed by statistics. I find it stupid for someone to say it, but it's not something to go crazy about.

I don't know.. if someone said that I'd think they were an idiot. But I wouldn't go crazy about it.. but it's very rarely I go crazy about anything, nothing these dumbass corporatists say surprises me enough to go crazy.

And yes, it's only racist because it's specifying a race... obviously... but it is racist...

 

[Smurf]

Well, no. You inferred racism. He may or may not have implied it.

wtf?
Inference
n.
The act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true.
The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=infer


That statement, no matter who says it, inferes that blacks cause crime. See previous post for explanation.

 

[loseyourname]

Bennett's statement doesn't infer, but rather presupposes, that blacks cause more crime than other races in the US. This is not a racist statement; it is a factual statement.

 

[Tide]

Smurf,

There's no need to get bent out of shape! You're confusing the words "imply" and "infer." One infers something from what another has said. That other person may or may have implied something.

 

[Smurf]

Bennett's statement doesn't infer, but rather presupposes,

Whatever - if bennett's statement presupposes that blacks cause crime, it is inferred from that statement (should it be assumed to be true) that.. blacks cause crime.

blacks cause more crime than other races in the US. This is not a racist statement; it is a factual statement.

No, Correlation is not Causation. Bennett's statement is racist because it implies/presummposes/leads to infer that blacks cause crime. Which is racist, and unproven.

There's no need to get bent out of shape! You're confusing the words "imply" and "infer." One infers something from what another has said. That other person may or may have implied something.

Right - you know what I meant. My bad.

 

[loseyourname]

No, Correlation is not Causation. Bennett's statement is racist because it implies/presummposes/leads to infer that blacks cause crime. Which is racist, and unproven.

If a black person commits a crime, is he not the cause of the crime? Actually, even if the answer is no, that doesn't make Bennett's statement false. Without the criminal there can be no crime, even if that criminal has absolutely no will and is not the cause of his own actions.

Note: It's not just that there exists a correlation between the number of blacks in a given area and the crime rate of that area; it is that blacks are actually committing crimes at a higher rate than other races.

If you generalize his statement to its logical end, we can restate it as "If we remove group X of people from population Y, with group X being the group that commits crimes at the highest rate of any group in population Y, then we will lower the crime rate for population Y." We can arbitarily choose any classification scheme by which we can assign people to groups, and find a scheme that identifies a causative factor. In this particular case, we isolate a racial scheme, and find that, according to this scheme, the group that commits crimes at the highest rate is blacks.

This can get a little tricky here, because there get to be a lot of grey areas. Is being black actually a causative factor in the fact that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than other races? Well, what are some of the factors that are known to cause criminal behavior? A couple:

-Being raised by abusive parents.
-Being born into poverty.
-Growing up in a crime-ridden neighborhood.
-Generally becoming acculturated at a young age into a society wherein crime is commonplace.

Now we simply ask ourselves - does being born black make one more likely to be born into the above circumstances? If the answer is yes, then being born black means that one is more likely to become a criminal than someone who is not born black. This is simple probability; it is not racism.

 

[Smurf]

That's the same kind of logic used to justify racism in Nazi Germany, Zionist Israel and Segregated America. It's still racism, and it's still wrong - and it will remain wrong until someone proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the color of your skin (alone, regardless of circumstances) affects criminal behaviour in any significant way.

 

[loseyourname]

All right, fine, that last paragraph was a footnote, a throwaway. Now that I've removed it from my post, can you respond to the actual post?

First: Is it true that you think Bennett's statement requires one to believe in genetic-level causation of criminal behavior in blacks?

Are you contending that it is false that blacks commit crime at a higher rate than other races in the US?

Another thing to note is that this statement is meant as a parody of an argument used to justify abortion. That argument is that unwanted children that grow up in poverty are more likely to commit crime later in life, so aborting them before they are born will lower the crime rate. He chose to paraphrase the argument and insert race into the mix because he knew that was the one thing that people would not be comfortable touching. Somehow, identifying potential people by socioeconomic status and eliminating them is okay with proponents of abortion, but identifying people by race is not. Bennett sees this situation as being hypocritical. If we are going to be outraged by the isolation and elimination of a racial group, then we should be just as outraged by the isolation and elimination of a socio-economic group.

 

[Smurf]

Are you contending that it is false that blacks commit crime at a higher rate than other races in the US?

No. I'm assuming it's true for the sake of the argument.

First: Is it true that you think Bennett's statement requires one to believe in genetic-level causation of criminal behavior in blacks?

Not necessarily genetic. But yes, to make that statement requires one to presuppose that being black, alone, will make one more likely to cause crime.

Bennett's statement

you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down

presupposes that black babies will grow up to be criminals merely because they are "black". Which, until a time one finds a genetic "criminal" gene which only exists in those with black colored skin, is untrue, and racist.

Don't you agree?

 

[jimmie]

Just how much monetary crime do you think there would be if all individuals were guaranteed to possesses all that is needed for as long as they live?

 

[Smurf]

Nice delivery...