> You want to say Bennett could have picked a better example? Fine. But
> realize you'll be demanding an impossible standard if you want talk
> radio to be honest, and frank, and courageous enough to deal with the
> topics political correctness and the mainstream media want banished
> from civilized discourse. Which is to say, topics that depart from the
> "conventional wisdom" they seek to script.
>
> But if you're going to criticize the example he articulated, at least
> deal with it on its own true terms. Bennett wasn't offering an
> assessment of congenital "blackness," so stop condemning him as if he
> were. He was dealing with life as it currently is - a life in which it
> is true not only that blacks commit crimes at a rate higher than the
> national average but that blacks are more likely to be victimized by
> crime than any other identifiable group.
>
This is a clever red herring - assert that there is some factual basis of the argument and denounce the detractors as being unreasonable. That diverts attention from the fact that this is not about crime statistics (which nobody disputes), but about - oh irony! - personal responsibility. More specifically - personal responsibility for what one says and how it is likely to be interpreted. Bennett, that self-styled advocate of personal responsibility fails miserably by his own standards. As the author of the above passage admits, Bennett could have expressed the same idea in a less contentious, more matter-of fact way - but he instead chose a way that he knew or should have known would be highly contentious.
So let's judge the ratfucker by his own standards - personal responsibility for one's own words and actions - and add the aggravating circumstance that with his educational background he should have know better. In my book, he is a fair game.
Wojtek