Too Sensitive to Get It

During my self-imposed hiatus, I missed a chance to comment on the Bill Bennett imbroglio. By way of background, Bennett stands accused of being a racist for using an ill-advised hypothetical on his radio show, where he cited Steven Levitt's book Freakenomics and its evidence that the increase in abortions following Roe v. Wade led to a drop in the crime rate. Bennet made the mistake of saying the following: "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."

That's a rather unwise way to make a point in a society where race-consciousness is a point of hper-sensitivity... but it doesn't make Bennett a racist. And to give credit where it's due, many liberals have noted as such.

But Jonah Goldberg rips into those who attacked Bennett, and makes some great points along the way...

My first objection is more of a delicious irony. Notice how so many righteously offended liberals keep referring to fetuses as people. In the New York Times, Bob Herbert proclaims that Bennett considers "exterminating blacks would be a most effective crime-fighting tool." Schultz and McAuliffe say Bennett wants to exterminate "babies."

Funny, I thought the bedrock faith of pro-abortion liberals is that fetuses aren't babies. Isn't it interesting how this lynchpin of liberal morality evaporates the moment an opportunity to call Bennett a racist presents itself? Talk about utilitarianism.

...His argument wasn't about race at all. His point was to discourage even pro-lifers from demeaning the cause by making abortion into an acceptable governmental tool for social policy.

Bennett was sincere when he said that aborting all black babies simply to lower the crime rate would be "ridiculous, and morally reprehensible." He could have just as easily said to the caller: "Hey, look, we could save a lot of money on skyrocketing education costs if only we aborted the mentally impaired and learning disabled. But you know what? Ends cannot justify the means of murdering the unborn." It would be silly to waste a lot of time trying to rebut him by saying, "Well, actually you wouldn't save that much money."

The former philosophy professor picked a hypothetical that he thought would make the horror of such utilitarianism obvious to everybody. Murder a whole generation just to lower the crime rate? Disgusting!

Bennett's real mistake was in thinking people would be mature enough to get it.

Well-stated. Maybe if people started listening to more than just the words "black" and "white", they might understand it.