cannabisnews.com: State of the Culture





State of the Culture
Posted by FoM on March 09, 2001 at 07:41:41 PT
By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR Associate Editor
Source: National Review
Former Education Secretary and Drug Czar William J. Bennett is director, with Jack Kemp, of Empower America. Empower America has just released The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators 2001, which can be read in full on the website. Kathryn Jean Lopez: Why a new Index now? William J. Bennett: The Index has always been one of the most popular projects I've done. We receive about five to ten phone calls a week requesting a copy. 
I thought it would be a good idea to post the Index on the Internet, so that almost everyone could have immediate access to it. We last released the Index in the fall of 1999, so it was worthwhile to incorporate new data wherever possible in preparing the Internet version. Lopez: As you note in your introduction, some of the most disturbing trends — regarding the breakdown of the family — are just as bad now as they were in 1990. Sure, there are limits to what politicians can address, as you say, but any flunkee student of Aristotle knows that the family unit is fundamental. What does this say about us? Bennett: That we've forgotten many of the most important truths about the human condition and have set off on a path into uncharted waters. But make no mistake: While some people have actively worked to destroy the family unit as we know it, there are many who are uncomfortable with a lot of the changes that have occurred. Unfortunately, they are even more uncomfortable taking steps to fight those changes. There's a soft relativism, I think, about these matters. As one writer pointed out during the impeachment scandal, sex has become a judgment-free zone. And unless we are willing to make judgments about marriage and the family, we will continue to see the sort of family breakdown that has occurred in the past 40 years. Lopez: How has Bush done so far on these issues? Is his rhetoric up to snuff on the more civilization-altering questions? Bennett: President Bush, simply by ending the Clinton-Gore years, is a step in the right direction. He has a gifted speechwriting team, so it's not a question of rhetoric. It's a question of whether he'll put the necessary emphasis on these cultural problems. When he was governor, he showed a lot of attention to these issues. My wife, for example, went and spoke at a conference he held on abstinence education. The most important thing he could do, as president, would be to give a speech about the importance — public and private — of marriage and the family. To remind us that, for example, children whose parents divorce are two and a half times more likely to drop out of high school than children whose parents remain married. Lopez: Is John DiIulio's office a solution? Bennett: The office in itself is not a solution. But if they choose to sponsor the right kind of groups, it could well be a step in the right direction. I believe that the problems of our time stem from a moral and spiritual crisis. The most important programs therefore address not only teenage pregnancy or drug addiction, but their underlying causes. And to the extent that the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives sponsors such programs, it is an example of good government. Lopez: Did anything surprise you while working on this Index? Bennett: Some of the numbers in the "Computers and the Internet" section, which is a section we added to this edition. They are omnipresent in our lives and have become so in a very short period of time. They give us great opportunities; I am the chairman of a company called K12, which is building a wide array of Internet-based education programs. But on the other hand, there are downfalls to the Internet, such as the ready availability of pornography, which also surprised me. Almost 25 percent of Internet users visit a pornographic website at least once a month. That's more than go to the newsstand to buy it. The anonymity of the Internet removes the shame of purchasing pornography. Lopez: "There was a 14 percent decline in the number of abortion providers between 1992 and 1996" — how significant is this? Is this or any other indicator a guide for pro-lifers? Bennett: Despite the fact that there are about 250,000 to 300,000 fewer abortions per year than there were in the mid-1980s, we still see too many abortions. For instance: About 25 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion. Here's a problem: More than half of all abortions take place in the first eight weeks of pregnancy. So any effort to curtail late-term abortions, while laudable and noble, are really failing to address the problem. And very few people in positions of power talk seriously about proposals to stop early-term abortions. There's nothing wrong with approaching abortion incrementally, but we need to recognize the reality of the situation. Lopez: "In 1995, 12.7 percent of students knew someone who brought a gun to school." I mention this because we hear so much about it. What should conservatives be doing in addressing the topic of children and guns? Bennett: The first thing to make clear is that the stories of school violence we hear are the aberrations. Most schools are safe places, and most kids are safe at school. That said, any sort of violence at school is troubling. The tragedies of the past few days really do tell us that something is amiss. Part of it — but only part — is the access children have to guns. That's not necessarily an argument for more gun control, but it is an argument for more parental involvement in their children's lives. More problematic is the "culture of death" about which Pope John Paul II has written, a culture too often promoted by movies, music, and television. It is confluence of factors, ranging from the availability of guns, to the breakdown of the family, to a violent popular culture. Lopez: "Between 1992 and 1999, there was a 16 percent increase in the percentage of Americans reporting the use of any illegal drug within the past thirty days. Between 1979 and 1999, we have seen a 52 percent decrease in illegal drug use." What does this say about the drug war? Does the decrease prove that National Review continue to be wrong on drug legalization? Bennett: There's a gospel of futility about the drug war — that we have lost it, that we can never win it. The problem is that the facts don't support that. Between 1980 and 1992 — the Reagan-Bush years — illegal drug use in this country decreased 59 percent. During the 1990s, we saw a 27 percent decrease in the crime rate, a 28 percent decrease in the violent crime rate, and an almost 50 percent decrease in the percentage of people on welfare. These are all rightly hailed as successes. Why isn't the war on drugs? The war on drugs has been one of the most successful public-policy efforts of our time. If we decreased illegitimacy, or teenage pregnancy, or divorce by that amount, it would be cause for celebration, not surrender. And we shouldn't surrender in the war on drugs. Lopez: "Between 1990 and 1999, the percentage of births that are out of wedlock increased 18 percent. Between 1960 and 1999, the percentage increased 523 percent." Also, single-parent families increased 13 percent between 1990 and 1998 and 248 percent between 1960 and 1998. Is it possible to reverse these — given the death of shame, and the endless available reproductive options that do not require a man and a women and matrimony? Bennett: The availability of these reproductive options — the pill, in vitro fertilization, etc. — is a fact of life. The death of shame, however, is something we do not have to accept and must not accept. We need to make anew the case for marriage and the modern nuclear family. There is a wealth of social science evidence about the benefits of marriage for parents and children. We need to make that better known, as Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite have done. But we need to make the philosophical case for marriage as well. Marriage is a sacred institution, ordained by God. What passes for relations between the sexes these days seems like something ordained by the cast of Animal House. This is something to which I am turning my own attention. My next book will be about the disintegration of the family, as I think it is the most critical issue facing America. Note: An interview with William J. Bennett.Source: National Review (US) Author: Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR Associate EditorPublished: March 9, 2001Address: 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Copyright: 2001 National Review Contact: letters nationalreview.com Website: http://www.nationalreview.com/ Forum: http://www.nationalreview.com/forum/forum.shtmlEmpower America: http://www.empower.org/High Anxiety: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8764.shtmlThe Right Dope: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8736.shtml More Drug Warring: http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8860.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by kaptinemo on March 09, 2001 at 17:39:45 PT:
The nature of the beast
Of all the criticisms levelled at this self-appointed s*****r-of-wisdom, I've found this one to say it all:Drugs, the Nation and Free Lancing: Decoding the Moral Universe of William Bennett http://muse.jhu.edu/demo/theory_and_event/1.1connolly.htmlFrom the article:Drug/Culture Wars "I am not suggesting that we go back to Prohibition. Alcoholhas a long and complicated history in this country, and unlike drugs, the American people accept alcohol." (Emphasis mine; an important insight into Bennett's essentially hypocritical nature is that he is unable to admit that he himself, an imbiber of alcohol, is a drug user - k.) --William J. Bennett "Bill Bennett knows people like me. He may even be obsessed with us. He sure talks about us a lot. We are of the same generation. He and we have spent large parts of our adult lives in the University. Most of us, like him, drink spirits freely. And each of us, as a type, is energized, even sometimes intoxicated, by the appearance of the other. The only thing is that Bennett is far more effective at identifying, marking and demonizing my type than my type has been at responding to him. We don't seem to understand how he feeds off us, how he uses us to engender, enlarge and energize the "cultural war" he wages. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from this former philosophy teacher, Secretary of Education, Drug Czar, Republican publicist, and contemporary intellectual of the American nation. "And some more:"Bennett forges two links between academics and drug users.First, the university of the late 1960's was the place where "America lost its moral bearing regarding drugs." 7 Note that other candidates for this honor--such as the end of Prohibition, the formation of subcultures of hopelessness, the withdrawal of the state from programs of development for the inner city, or the organization of commercial advertisement around immediate pleasures--are simply ignored. Second, the loss of character and demoralization associated with drug use in the inner city and elite art communities today co-responds to the "radical nihilism" and "cultural deconstruction" that governs universities. Once those two links are forged, Bennett can render suspect everything the academic says about drugs because of the suspicious source from which it emanates. He accents the difference between him and us by saying that academics interpret the world through abstract theories while his post-academic conservatism emerges from "what I have seen with my own eyes, traveling up and down and back and forth across America and visiting hundreds of cities and schools over nine years." 8 Once liberal media and academic elites have been rendered alien, those same elites can provide the reference point through which to devalue the ideas of anyone anywhere who sees things differently than Bennett does with his own two eyes. Even if they serve on the front lines in that war. Listen to how Bennett devalues cops who dissent from his war on drugs. (This is especially important; Bennett is fundamentally incapable of accepting conflicting information from those best able to provide realistic appraisals of the efficacy of the DrugWar, even when they are his supposed 'natural allies'.)During the tour of downtown {Detroit}, one of the police officers accompanying me asked, 'Why should a kid earn four bucks an hour at McDonald's when he can make two or three hundred dollars a night working drugs?' 'For a lot of reasons, I said on that first tour, as I was to say a hundred times after. The police officer had picked up this line of reasoning from the media."Rommel is credited with having said, after witnessing one of Hitler's insane rants, in which he was making plans to win a war that everyone of his Generals knew was lost, that Der Fuehrer was living in 'cloud-cuckooland'.If there is a 'cloud-cuckooland' today, you can bet Bill Bennett is making some big bucks off of renting it. 
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Comment #4 posted by sm247 on March 09, 2001 at 16:59:08 PT
LIer lier 
These figures are bull.. how are you going to count every drug user, criminal, crime in America???Hell half the crimes in America go unreorted. These officials should not be allowed to lie to the public like this. That is exactly what it is too a LIE it is not FACT .
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Comment #3 posted by Dan B on March 09, 2001 at 10:39:10 PT:
Something Interesting about Bill Bennett . . .
. . . he's overweight.That's right; this guy who thinks he can claim moral superiority over drug users (and everyone else, for that matter) partakes in at least one-seventh of the deadly sins: gluttony (not to mention scorn, pride, and gluttony's partner-in-obesity, sloth). Not only that, but in terms of his definition of "immorality" (which seems to be any conduct that can harm the physical body), his sin is the greatest of all, as obesity kills far more people each year than all drugs, licit and illicit, combined.Even worse, because he is the horrible glutton that he is, he has no business telling other people to refrain from what he perceives as "sinful" activities. Because he does so, he commits the sin most often criticized by Jesus of Nazareth himself: hypocrisy. So, in short, there is no need for anyone to take Bill Bennett's analysis of sin seriously. He's a disgrace to humanity--the ultimate sinner, a fascist hypocrite of the first order (or, perhaps more appropriately, the Third Reich).Dan B
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Comment #2 posted by zenarch on March 09, 2001 at 09:53:02 PT
Bill Bennett inspires me!
with a seething disgust that tastes of bile and stinks of roadkill! How does such a vile creature get so much play?!?anti-emetics are in order.
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Comment #1 posted by Duzt on March 09, 2001 at 09:18:29 PT
no common sense
"During the 1990s, we saw a 27 percent decrease in the crime rate, a 28 percent decrease in the violent crime rate, and an almost 50 percent decrease in the percentage of people on welfare. These are all rightly hailed as successes. Why isn't the war on drugs?"Well, let's see, drug use was up in the 90's and we had less crime, less violent crime and fewer people on welfare; and more people apperantly using drugs. Drug use was down 52% during the Reagan/Bush disaster according to their invented numbers. Well, that's all nice ang good, but their numbers pretty much say that with lower drug use you have more crime and people on welfare, then they turn around and say that drugs cause violence and lack of productivity. McCaffey stated that marijuana use was down (around 15% I think) while Ashcroft says it is up 20 some percent. These politixians just throw out numbers with no facts, when is someone going to question their numbers? Nothing, really nothing the government says is difficult to counter, nothing they say makes any sense. I would love to debate with these idiots one day.
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