OK, so what should Bill Bennett's karma be?

Does he get points for acknowledging that eliminating an entire generation of an entire race is a bad thing?

My karma wish for Mr. Bennett is that he should be a birthing midwife for babies of color  for an eternity so that he can learn to experience common humanity found in bringing life into the world. After about 3,423 years of birthing babies of color, the depravity of his remark and tinyness of his vision may sink into his dense and tiny gray matter. Then he can begin to know what it is to be a human being.

Don, his words:

"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."

On national radio. It was a STUPID thing to say, context or not.

I'm not interested in Rev. Hunter's red herring argument. What Bill Bennet said was stupid.

dontracy - 2005-10-04 11:19 AM OK, I agree that it was stupid. He should have known how people would pick it up and run with it.

But to go from stupid to racist demands a closer examination.

Anyway, is Rev. Hunter's statement a red herring? The issue is about aborting black babies, right? Care to take a walk down the memory lane of Margaret Sanger and her wonderful eugenic friends?

If so, I'll be back after lunch.

It's a red herring insofar as he is trying to divert attention from Mr. Bennet by using the ol' "But... but... Billy says worse things!" tactic.

Know how they make this blow over? By saying "Mr. Bennet is my friend and I respect him. However, my friend said a stupid thing." End of story.

Don,

Reminds me of an article I read about Jane Fonda, post-Christian phase. She was talking about the point at which she realized these good Christian women in Atlanta were perhaps... not so good. These good Christian women were totally against white women getting abortions but black women getting abortions was not so bad.

Bash Jane if ya want, but the story is telling.

Oh, to answer your question: Isn't abortion considered helpful to society by those who support it? No, I think it's hurtful to an individual as it is a self-inflicted loss. What is hurtful to an individual cannot be extrapolated as being helpful to society. I also believe it is a strictly private choice. I like what Hillary Clinton said (paraphrase) that it should never ever have to happen but that it should be available. I like the Kinsey Institute's position that sex carries with it grave responsibility and that we, our society, should do a much, much, much better job of teaching this grave responsibility to our kids, rather than just saying "Just don't do it."

Have you heard the story that abortions have increased since W's tenure? That abortions had gone down during the Clinton tenure and they attribute this decrease to the efficacy of his administration's condom support (and other stuff I don't have details on) and sex education policies?

Don, here's why I think Bennet is racist.

He could have made the argument "if every black child born between now and the next 18 years received a college education, the crime rate would go down." Instead, he chose an extremely odious, contentious "if" statement. I don't think this was accidental. It was deliberate and I believe it betrayed a racist viewpoint. He could have made the exact same statement except changing "black" for "white" babies and still claimed to be technically correct, but he didn't . He zeroed in on the black population. Odious. Reprehensible. Disgusting. He should be trounced from the public arena, run out on a rail in disgrace.

Imagine the blow to the black psyche when a former Cabinet member makes such a stupid, stupid, stupid remark... very sad.

That's exactly why his comments were racist.

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck...

The fact that he's standing by his statement is actually more telling than jus tthe original statement on it's own.

It's pretty good here, though...