He was the US Secretary of Education
He also wrote Book of Virtues and Children’s Book of Virtues. But William Bennett isn’t sounding so much like the Tsar of Homeland Virtue now that he proclaims that if you want to reduce the crime rate, you could abort every black baby in the US:
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. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.
I guess Bennett doesn’t subscribe to systems theory that include environment as a factor in behavior. By this I’m referring to studies that show that in certain places–the worst of the inner city–crime rates remain basically the same no matter the race or ethnicity of the population. What would Bronfenbrenner say?
Bennett continues to defend himself, saying he’s not a racist. CNN reports Bennett as saying, “We’ve got to have candor and talk about these things while we reject wild hypotheses.” Candor and wild hypotheses indeed!
In case you missed the audio, you can hear it at Media Matters.
