Steven Levitt essentially defends Bennett. But he adds an interesting point:
There is one thing I would take Bennett to task for: first saying that he doesn’t believe our abortion-crime hypothesis but then revealing that he does believe it with his comments about black babies. You can’t have it both ways.
And I think, pondering again Bennett’s remarks, that by reflexively relating race to an argument he simultaneously rejects, his remarks do indeed have a tinge of racism in their assumptions. I’d still give him a pass – for an off-the-cuff response on a hypothetical policy whose immoriality he immediately emphasized.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “It’s always been clear to me that you have a fine mind and the ability to write, but these talents are attenuated by your unremitting homosexuality – the emotional need to have aberrant sex. Clearly, your perversion and deviancy have affected your reason. Thus, you have no credibility as an observer of the current social and political climate. You are simply another frustrated fag who is trying very hard to legitimize his sexual perversion by striking out against anyone who wants to maintain thousands of years of normalcy. God, what must the average and decent American do to put the sexual deviates in their place (in concentration camps or mental institutions).”
(Every now and again, I post emails like these, which I receive regularly, not to grandstand but simply to remind people, especially in relatively enlightened circles, what pockets of hatred still exist in our culture).
The Dish 