The Rules Of The American Race Game Frontpagemag.com ^<http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19693>| 10/3/05 | John Zmirak Excerpt: The current flap over former Secretary of Education William Bennett's<http://www.bennettmornings.com/>remarks last week reveals just what a bizarre set of taboos Americans have imposed on themselves when it comes to race—and what a political booby trap leftists have managed to rig around the subject, ready to explode in a burst of career-destroying shrapnel at the slightest misstep. Yes, it was insensitive of Mr. Bennett to notice the fact<http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/9/29/16450/9195>that black Americans commit violent crimes in highly disproportionate numbers. It's worth making a special effort not to incriminate the vast majority of law-abiding black citizens—many of whom grow up poor in broken homes, subjected to stronger temptations than those of us who grew up differently. Given the history of eugenics <http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/special_issues/population/the_negro_project.htm>in the last century, one can understand a certain touchiness on the subject. But the ferocity with which liberals pounced on Bennett—so soon after accusing President Bush of racism for FEMA's failure to (do black Mayor Ray Nagin's job for him and) rescue black New Orleanians—betray a profound political cynicism, and a willingness to seize crassly (and selectively) upon human tragedy to make cheap rhetorical points. To recap the Bennett flap: Mr. Bennett is being condemned for a slip of the tongue which contravened the rules of polite discourse which govern how crime is depicted in mainstream media. Bennett was speaking on the radio about an assertion by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt, who claimed in their ludicrously overpraised book *Freakonomics* that abortion decreases crime—essentially by imposing capital punishment in advance on babies who are more likely to grow up as felons. Let's leave aside for a moment how morally repulsive this idea is—reeking of precisely the same eugenic logic preached by Margaret Sanger <http://www.spectacle.org/997/richmond.html> , founder of Planned Parenthood, who called for "more children from the fit, fewer from the unfit." Worse than evil, this argument isn't even valid. It has been comprehensively dismantled <http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm> by the clear-thinking and candid Steve Sailer <http://www.isteve.com/> , who showed that the crime decline attributed by Dubner and Levitt to legal abortion in fact had far more to do with a decline in the popularity of crack, and the election of mayors such as Rudolph Giuliani in New York. Since blacks are disproportionately the victims as well of violent crime, any improvement in public order will save far more black lives and livelihoods than white. Of course, because most such tough-on-crime mayors are Republican, they won't get the credit for this. -- Cheers, M.A. Camp, Esq.