Bennett under fire for remarks on blacks, crime

[LRB]

Originally posted by: chumdawg
Do we all agree that the great majority of crime takes place in large urban areas? If so, here's an exercise for you. Find some large urban areas where the population density of blacks is significantly lower than it is in the large urban areas in the US. Find some statistics that show that those "less black" areas have lower crime rates. (Find enough of these to be able to make a strong correlation, if you can.) And then maybe I will at least consider the point Bill Bennett and some of you make, which is that getting rid of all the black people will guarantee a reduced crime rate.

Chum suppose you are a memeber of a swat team or a special forces unit sent in to take out some terrorists who have taken some hostages. You are armed with a shotgum with buck shot with a special barrel that spreads the shot over a wide but thin horizontal area. Your team breaks into the room where the terrorist are being held. In the area of the room that you are responsible for are 3 terrorists and 5 hostages all standing within the radius of horizontal spread from you shotgun. If your aim is to solely eliminate the terrorists, you pull the trigger and inflict lethal damage on all 8 people. The only problem is that you're hurting more hostages than terrorists. But that's OK if your sole aim is to eliminate terrorists.

Likewise the hypothetical proposal that Bennet discusses is a scatter gun approach that takes out more innocents than guilty. It is purely hypothetical and definitely not pratical nor even plausible. Likewise no swat team or special forces team even semi competent would arm a member with a shot gun as I described and task them to clear an area of mixed terrorists and hostages.

No let's get back to the crime statistics. Let's assume that poverty is the major factory dictating high crime rate. Area's where there is high poverty have the highest crime rate. So let's say that Al Queda set's off a bomb in a neighbor hood with a high poverty density and kills 150,000 people, 80% of which are in poverty. That 120,000 people in poverty. Is it reasonable to assume that in our nation 120,000 people not in poverty will move downward economically into poverty to replace those who were killed? If so why? I can't think of any good reason for this to happen. Certainly not for those who weren't working and were dependent on government handouts for their support.

OK, so we know a higher % of blacks are in poverty than the rest of the population. So if we magically transport all blacks out of this country to somewhere else. That would mean that the % of people in poverty would go down. Since we've linked poverty as being the #1 factor to crime, it is likewise logical to assume that crime would go down. For crime not to go down one of 2 things would need to happen. 1. Some other factor or factors other than poverty would need to increase substantially that "causes" crime. 2. a substantial portion of the remaining population would need to move into poverty. I don't see any logical reasons to assume that either of these 2 would likely take place. However, we'll never know for sure unless we remove all black people from America. Unless we elect a virtual clone of Adolf Hitler or Joesph Stalin to be President, I don't see this happening. I certainly would hope that we never see it happening.

So while I can see where you personally don't see it being sure thing that eliminating all blacks would reduce the crime rate, I don't understand how someone having a differing opinion and expressing it is being racist. Certainly there are logical and factual arguments to support their opinion. And bottom line we'll hopefully never be sure whether this would or would not reduce the crime rate.

The important thing to note is that statistics show that the crime rate among blacks is much higher than among the rest of the population. I think that this is a problem for all of our society. Thing is we can't even begin to solve the problem unless we can publicly talk about this in a logical and rational manner in public without being labled a racists if our opinion based on fact differs from someone else's. Bennett has a right to his opinion that this would be the case as much as you do that it would not. I tend to agree with Bennett more though. I think that hard questions need to be asked about the cause and more importantly how we can effect a solution. If people aren't willing to be a little thick skinned, we have virtually no hope of effecting a solution IMO.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Uh-huh.

Care to divine what Rangel REALLY meant with these remarks?

...that he has an interesting sense of humor? the line about "grunting" could work at the improv.

[LRB]

Originally posted by: Usually Lurkin

That is exactly what the hypothetical argues.
The antecedent in the causal argument is the abortion of black babies. Nothing else changes - not poverty level, not opportunity in the environment - nothing. If there is a change in the crime statistics, then it would be because the genetic makeup of the population changed. That is a causal argument. Now, you might be thinking that if you abort all black babies, you'll get rid of poverty (or some other societal crime factor), but that would be silly. Aborting all poor people, for instance (a more direct approach) would not remove poverty.

UL we can't know for sure exactly what this Bennett's hypothetical argument implied because there is not enough context surrounding it to dissallow more than one interpretaion. The best and most logical practice IMO then is to ask Bennett followup questions to see what he meant. From Bennett's followup questions it appears clear to me that he is not arguing that it is the black gene that causes crime. Rather that blacks committ a higher % of crime than the rest of society. It's therefore logical to assume if we eliminate all blacks then the crime rate would drop. Is it possible that the crime rate wouldn't drop? Sure it is. We'll never know for sure unless we eliminate all blacks. No one is for doing that except for some nutjobs most of whom run around with their bed sheets over their heads. I can see how you'd have a different opinion than Bennett, but that shouldn't make Bennett's statement racist just because he interprets the facts differently than you do.

Now you use an argument that aborting all poor people wouldn't remove poverty. But can you honestly say that you believe that poverty wouldn't decrease if all poor babies were aborted? Or rather can you honestly say that it's impossible that poverty would decrease if those in poverty stopped having children? Likewise can you say that it's impossible that the crime rate would go down if all black babies were aborted? The quesiton is not whether Bennett was right or wrong as what would happen to the crime rate, but rather was it a racist statement. For it to be a racist statement it would have to have no reasonable backing by fact. I do not think that this is the case even though there can be logical and factual based arguments to the contrary, that it precludes this argument from being logical and factual based.

That is one of the possibly infinite causal arguments that might underlie the correlation between race and crime. Here's another metaphor: For years my lawn has been covered roughly 30 percent by dollar weed (I know, I know, I've got no green thumb). And there was roughly 10 percent clover, and 10 percent root rot. (I know, I know - I get nasty letters from my neighbors). So my lawn was roughly 50 percent lawngrass, and 50 percent crap. So at the end of last summer and the beginning of this one, I decided to do something about it. I killed off all the dollar weed. Do you think my lawn went to 70% lawn grass? Nope, the clover has taken over, and the root rot is starting to grow. The lawngrass to crap ratio in my lawn has not changed in any significant way.

This metaphor fails in that your lawn occupies a certain amount of space. If you eliminate something from covering that space, then something has to take it's place even if it's just barren dirt. If 10% of our society are criminals and we eliminate 40% of them, nothing says that we have to take sufficient numbers from the 90% that weren't criminals and make them criminals until we have a 90/10 balance of criminals to law abiding citizens. We can see that the crime rate has fluxuated over time. Different conditions case it to change. It's not logical to believe that eliminating a large % of our society that has a much higher than average crime rate would not at least have a decent possibility of lowering the crime rate. That doesn't mean it's a sure thing, but only that it has a better than trivial chance of being true. We'll hopefully never know for certain.

[kg_veteran]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

interesting that when Bennett makes a wild ass statement, your position is to let him explain, give him the benefit of the doubt. yet when rangel says something which is not even close to the outlandish quote of bennett you want him censored.

I didn't give Bennett the "benefit of the doubt." I simply read and listened to what he said. But that wasn't even the point. How ironic that you are trying to practice the exact same technique on me (taking my comments and attributing to them a meaning they never had) that was used against Bennett.

My point was that there is this whole manufactured furor when a friggin' radio talk show host makes a comment, but when elected representatives make blatant race-baiting comments, no one even bats an eye. In fact, they applaud those types of comments and say (paraphrase): "You're being too kind."

It doesn't surprise me coming from the MSM and the Democrats. I expect double standards from them. I'll continue to call them on their hypocrisies, but it doesn't surprise me. I was, however, terribly disappointed that the White House was goaded into issuing a statement disapproving of Bennett's comments.

I find what rangel said following his speech to be very insightful:

so he is NOT saying that bush acts like Bull Connor or believes like connor but rather he can be the image that unites people. unfortunately for bush, that is to unite people against his party...

This is a bunch of contrived, after-the-fact, butt-covering nonsense.

As an aside, someone should inform Rangel that Bull Connor was a Democrat.

[chumdawg]

Chum suppose you are a memeber of a swat team or a special forces unit sent in to take out some terrorists who have taken some hostages. You are armed with a shotgum with buck shot with a special barrel that spreads the shot over a wide but thin horizontal area. Your team breaks into the room where the terrorist are being held. In the area of the room that you are responsible for are 3 terrorists and 5 hostages all standing within the radius of horizontal spread from you shotgun. If your aim is to solely eliminate the terrorists, you pull the trigger and inflict lethal damage on all 8 people. The only problem is that you're hurting more hostages than terrorists. But that's OK if your sole aim is to eliminate terrorists.

LRB, I understand the logic of what you are saying. And in fact, what you are saying does a great job of making my point for me. (And the point UL has quite crisply and clearly delineated in this thread.)

The point is that in your analogy, the unborn black kids are the terrorists. HOW IN THE WORLD can it not be racist to assume any person not born yet will, if born, exhibit certain negative characteristics for the sole reason of his genes? That is EXACTLY racism!

Question: if we aborted all black babies in this country, would the average SAT score go up? Give an honest answer, please.

The general tone I am getting from thread is a lot of people seem to believe strongly that whites are superior to blacks (they find proof in things like crime statistics, income levels, unwanted pregnancies, and SAT scores), but at the same time they don't think that believing that is tantamount to "racism."

I suggest that we carefully examine exactly what the word "racism" means and implies.

[LRB]

LRB, I understand the logic of what you are saying. And in fact, what you are saying does a great job of making my point for me. (And the point UL has quite crisply and clearly delineated in this thread.)

The point is that in your analogy, the unborn black kids are the terrorists. HOW IN THE WORLD can it not be racist to assume any person not born yet will, if born, exhibit certain negative characteristics for the sole reason of his genes? That is EXACTLY racism!

No the point in my analogy isn't that the unborm black kids are terrorists or criminals for that matter. It's that a few are, but most aren't. However a higher % of black babies in the US only will most likely be criminals that the same % of all babies of all races in the US only. That doesn't mean it's just because of their race, because there are many more factors at play than just race. For one, it's limited to only people in the US. But there are far more factors involved that that. The most import IMO is that a higher % of blacks in the US live in poverty than compared to the % of the overall US population that lives in poverty. So to harken back to may analogy, let's say that your responsibility is to "clear" the left side of the room of terrorists. If you shoot and kill all it may look like you're trying to kill everyone on the left side, but in actuality you killed everyone on the left side to get to the terrorists on the left side. If all the hostages in the room had been on the left side and all the terrorists on the right side, you wouldn't have killed anyone on the left side. It is simply due to situation IMO that blacks account for a higher % of crime than the norm for the population. Change the situation and they could well account for a smaller %. But if we don't change anything, it is unreasonable to believe that blacks will "magically" start committing less crime.

Question: if we aborted all black babies in this country, would the average SAT score go up? Give an honest answer, please.

Yes, I believe that SAT scores would go up if all other factors remained relatively the same. But it's not because blacks are inherently less intelligent, it's because of other enviromental factors and that have a greater or lesser affect on blacks than the general population.

I also believe if we aborted every white baby that the rate of child molestation and the murder rate by serial killer would go down as well.

The thing is that race is not the determining factor in these differences. To show that we would have to place test cases of black babies and babies of other races in environments that would be exactly the same and not have a prebuilt in dispositon to favor or discriminate against one race or another in any way. Well we know we don't have that. But if you look at the segment of the black population that doesn't live in poverty and compare it to the segement of the rest of the nation that doesn't live in poverty, I believe that we'll find that the crime rate doesn't vary much by race, certianly not any where near as much as between living in poverty and living without. The real question is why do so many more blacks proportionally live in poverty? I do not believe that it is race, but I don't believe that we have the whole answer yet. And we need to look at the differences in race and ask those hard questions as to why there are gaping differences in some cases. That is if we want to try and help those who are on the negative end of the difference.

[Rhylan]

Statistical correlations between blacks and poverty and blacks and crime have been thrown up all over everywhere by the left for years and YEARS. Are they racist? Clearly not, according to public opinion.

Acknowledging a statistical correlation and drawing an exaggerated conclusion from it does NOT mean you believe that the correlation identifies the CAUSE.

Rule #1, I state it again: Correlation does not equal causation.

Chum, you have to understand this difference to understand why kg, LRB, and myself are NOT racist. C'mon. Have any of us ever exhibited discriminatory behavior in the past? Far from it.

Just because there is a positive correlation between two data points doesn't mean one causes the other or vice versa. That is just basic scientific/philosophical/sociological/whateveral fact.

It's especially true when talking about human behavior.. no single characteristic of an individual can cause or prevent a specific behavior. But you can compare each characteristic against the occurence of the specific behavior - and you will get some positive correlations, some negative correlations. None of them will ever, taken singularly, identify a cause.

The point that Bennett was making was that desired ends (statistical reduction of the unwanted condition) are achievable by using a one-dimensional correlation as if it was causal, but that doing so is ludicrous and immoral.

[chumdawg]

Rule #1, I state it again: Correlation does not equal causation.

Are you sure you didn't mean to say that correlation does not necessarily imply causation?

At any rate, the claim that Bennett made was more or less that if there were no black twenty-year-olds in this country twenty years from now, then there would be less crime in this country twenty years from now than there is today. [Edit: or, more probably, he meant that the crime rate in twenty years would be lower than it otherwise would have, if the blacks had been born.]

Not, to me, THAT is the ridiculous claim that can be torn apart with all sorts of logical arguments. But what Bennett did was present that claim itself as incontrovertable, and use that incontrovertable claim as part of a, different, ridiculous argument.

Folks are right to be incensed about a ridiculous argument, but they are looking at the wrong argument.

[dude1394]

Originally posted by: Mavdog
interesting that when Bennett makes a wild ass statement, your position is to let him explain, give him the benefit of the doubt. yet when rangel says something which is not even close to the outlandish quote of bennett you want him censored. I find what rangel said following his speech to be very insightful:.

You mean when Rangel says something so completly stupid like: And you want to say that Bennet is saying something stupid? You comparing Rangel to a sentient being is pretty far-fetched.

Speaking of mythology, Radioblogger stops another Rangel urban legend before it gets rolling. Rangel told a local New York reporter that Dick Cheney should resign as Vice President, because Cheney is "too old for the job, and he doesn't have any experience." Apparently between guffaws of laughter, Duane "Generalissimo" Patterson points out that Rangel misses a few facts regarding Cheney's experience and the age of American politicians:

Dick Cheney was born on 1/20/41. He currently is 64 years old. At the time he was sworn into the Vice Presidency, he was a week shy of 60. As for experience, he had been a Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and White House Chief of Staff, among other government positions. He also was very successful running private sector businesses as well. I may be mistaken, but there was this little company called Halliburton that he ran. Anyway, the point being, Rangel just loses credibility when he tries to maintain with a straight face that Cheney has no experience for the job. As Chief of Staff, you're pretty attuned to the workings of the Executive branch.

Charley Rangel, the man who thinks Cheney's too old, was born on June 11th, 1930. He is 75 years old. But I guess ageism doesn't count if it's applied to Republicans.

Other Democratic notables for whom Rangel needs to reserve rooms at the retirement home:

John Kerry: 62 in December
Joe Lieberman: 63
Nancy Pelosi: 65
Robert Byrd: 87

Rangel should lead by example, and resign immediately. I'm sure the rest of the above will follow shortly. Trust us, Charlie ... trust us.

[LRB]

Originally posted by: chumdawg

Are you sure you didn't mean to say that correlation does not necessarily imply causation?

At any rate, the claim that Bennett made was more or less that if there were no black twenty-year-olds in this country twenty years from now, then there would be less crime in this country twenty years from now than there is today. [Edit: or, more probably, he meant that the crime rate in twenty years would be lower than it otherwise would have, if the blacks had been born.]

Not, to me, THAT is the ridiculous claim that can be torn apart with all sorts of logical arguments. But what Bennett did was present that claim itself as incontrovertable, and use that incontrovertable claim as part of a, different, ridiculous argument.

Folks are right to be incensed about a ridiculous argument, but they are looking at the wrong argument.

1st of all correlation does not equal causation because there is a much higher theshold of proof that must be met to show causation than to show correlation. Just because something is both the cause of an event and is correleated, and this can be found sometimes, does not make correlation and causation equal. To prove causation you must 1st prove correlation. But then you must go farther and prove not only are the two correlated but that A causes B. It's like sex does not equal pregnancy, however sex can lead to pregnancy. However, just by showing that a male and a female had sex, does not mean that the female is pregnaunt. Sex only implies that there is a possibility of pregnancy without any other factors known. This is the same with correlation and causation. It's possible that correlation could be causation if no other factors are known, but it is a long way from proving it.

And you have still yet to show how Bennett believing that removing a segment of society with a higher % of criminals historically than the norm for society and expecting the crime rate to correspondingly go down is racist. Just because he belives in the future extrapolation of historical statistics seems a very caprecious think to call someone a racist for.

[dude1394]

Hmmm...seems that the new "bennet" standard should cut both ways....Here is Juan Williams talkinga bout bennett.

----------------

Hypocritical Hypotheticals
On "Fox News Sunday" yesterday, Juan Williams joined the attack on Bennett. The way in which he did it made our jaw drop, and let us count the ways. This is from the Factiva transcript (alas, not available publicly online); "Brit" is Brit Hume, who was defending Bennett:

What's clearly wrong is if you wanted to say, oh, gosh, you know, [1] maybe we should have abortions for every woman who has a history in her family of mental illness or anybody who has a disabled child, or [2] let's get rid of all the Christians, they certainly have been involved in lots of wars. [3] How about the Jews? You know what? [4] We have trouble with older people in this country. Clearly, they, you know, cause a great burden on our Social Security system. Maybe we should do away with some of these older people.

So is Juan saying
1. We should have abortions for all disabled people?
2. If we aborted all christians we would have less wars?
3. If we aborted Jews we'd have less wars in the middle east?
4. If we killed all old people we wouldn't have so pesky a problem as social security?

You know, Brit, it really speaks to a deeply racist mindset to imagine America somehow as better off if we didn't have those black people around and all those racial issues and all these--you know, so many of these blacks end up in jail, as if they're criminals because they're black. . . . He certainly said it to me. That's what . . . I heard, Brit. . . .

Brit, if I'm sitting here on a national talk show and I say, you know, [5] maybe if we killed off these white people, we wouldn't have so many mass murders in America, you'd say, Juan, are you out of your mind? . . .

Words have meaning, Brit. . . . I think what you're misunderstanding is it's the idea that he gave voice to this notion. If you were in a Nazi regime and said [6] you know, gee, you know, a lot of these Jewish people have businesses and they dominate the academy, and therefore wouldn't it be better--that's not a good idea, Brit. Not a good idea to give voice to.

No fewer than six times in a 10-minute segment, Williams did exactly what Bennett did that so offended him--namely, offer an outrageous hypothetical to illustrate a point. We're no more offended by Williams's doing so than we were by Bennett's, but Williams's hypocrisy is simply mind-boggling.

5. If we aborted white people we wouldn't havs mass murderers?
6. If we aborted the jewish folks they wouldn't dominate academies?

But let a white man, give an example that he espouses as abhorrent and whom everyone knows isn't a racist.....and he's a racist prick.

That dog just doesn't hunt anymore, black america better find a new shtick.

[LRB]

If we aborted white people we wouldn't havs mass murderers?

There is absolutely no credible factual evidence for this as there is if we had no blacks in America the crime rate would be less, but we'd still have crime. If we had no white people we might have less mass murders, I can see a factual argument for that, but to say that we have none has no factual backing.

And this jerkwad Juan Williams has to be about the biggest hypocrit around besides being stuck on stupid.