When Bill Bennett took a call during his Morning in America radio talk show from a caller who wanted to discuss abortion, he knew exactly what was coming. Bennett, a champion of the anti-abortion movement for decades, is uniquely comfortable with such discussions and carries an unwavering confidence in his philosophy of moral issues.
The pro-life caller wanted to argue the abortion of millions since Roe v. Wade has reduced the amount of young workers paying into the Social Security Trust Fund, which now finds itself on shaky legs. Because Bennett is staunchly pro-life, it would have been easy to take the bait and praise the caller’s reasoning. But Bennett, a legend of intellectual honesty, resisted.
To demonstrate the flaw in the argument, Bennett engaged in a thought experiment that actually supported abortion based on similar social engineering. He played the devil’s advocate and restated a theory by other economists and social theorists, postulating, “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.” As many media reported it, one might assume Bennett embraced the idea.
As a former philosophy professor, such thought experiments are nothing new for Bennett. But he could not have imagined how these words, said specifically to show why opposing abortion on moral grounds was so important, would set the political punditocracy ablaze with accusations that he actually advocated systematic abortion. The ignorance and ridiculousness would be funny if it weren’t so serious.
But given the outrage, wouldn’t it be great if Bennett were able to correct that reasoning as soon as possible? At best, he could correct that thought not days after he said it, not minutes after, but in the same breath – which he did. Unfortunately, many media reports emphasized the first portion of his exercise without the full context of the quote, which read, “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.”
But for character assassins, true intentions are irrelevant. Those who are too intellectually lazy or incapable of addressing an opponent’s actual arguments will always resort to the ad hominem. The dirty game is played on both sides, but because it is so easy to accuse someone of being a racist simply because he or she is white and Republican, the demagoguery of the left has sunk to new lows.
Making matters worse, outlandish assertions from both sides are not treated equally in the media coverage. When the Rev. Jerry Falwell suggested Sept. 11 was God’s response to abortionists and others (a statement he later retracted), the public ridicule he received was harsh and justified. But when Minister Louis Farrakhan suggested the government purposely blew up the levees in New Orleans, the media silence was deafening.
Further disturbing is the lack of outcry over similar rhetoric from prominent leaders ostensibly representing the mainstream of the left. The reaction was minimal, for example, when Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean, speaking before the Congressional Black Caucus, quipped, “You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? Only if they had the hotel staff in here.”
So with the elite media institutionally opposed to conservatives, the demagogues on the left will continue to wield more influence than their counterparts on the right. But with quiet intellectual confidence, conservatives can strive for honest debate even while in the crosshairs of character assassins. Defending himself at a recent speech, Bennett explained, “We could do worse than going back to that 3,000-year-old model of dialogue – three things old Socrates said are needed for such dialogue – candor, intelligence and good will. Let’s work on the good will.”
Troy Sookdeo is an aerospace engineering graduate student. He can be reached at troy@umd.edu.
