This 'n' That

Monday, October 03, 2005

What Were You Thinking?

"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 impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down."

No excuse for a supposedly well educated man. William Bennett, a former Secretary of Education, is sadly misinformed or terribly naive. Why else would a man of his stature in life make comments of such an inflammatory nature on live radio? For those of us who believed that racism is a thing of the past. Think again.

Sadly, This 'n' That has heard Mr. Bennett's sentiments repeated by a longtime friend, who had also read the book "Freakonomics", by Stephen D. Leavitt and Stephen J. Dubner. Both are possibly suffering from a terminal case of ignorance.