SUBSCRIBE NOW WELCOME BACK. Do you want to continue reading where you left off? New Republic subscribers can pick up where they left off no matter which device they were previously using. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Go Home Apples And Oranges

THE PLANK AUGUST 12, 2009

Apples And Oranges

BY JAMES KIRCHICK

Ed Kilgore has a puzzling article on our website today, in which he compares opponents of the president's health care plan to anti-gay bigots.

Kilgore begins by arguing that the real motivation of most people who oppose gay marriage is that they just don't like gay people. But because "dehumanizing gay people isn't as generally acceptable as it used to be," you don't hear them making arguments invoking personal distaste for homosexuality (at least as much as you used to). In other words, gay marriage opponents mask their disgust for gays by discussing the issue with language like "saving traditional marriage" and "protecting religious freedom." While I believe that it is possible to oppose gay marriage and to do so for non-bigoted reasons, this is a fair point.

But then Kilgore takes this dynamic to the health care debate, where he argues that a similar disgust for "the beneficiaries of Obama's polices lurks," "Right Beneath the Surface," as his article is entitled. I don't doubt that there are opponents of the president's plan who just don't like poor people or ethnic minorities, who would presumably benefit disproportionately from it. Yet Kilgore's evidence for this supposedly widespread sentiment is awfully thin. The examples he provides of this barely-suppressed selfishness and bigotry are a woman at a town hall who shouted, "I shouldn't have to pay for your health care!" to a disabled person (a rude gesture to be sure, but hardly an unreasonable sentiment), and ABC News' John Stossel, who called the plan, "a form of expensive, taxpayer-funded welfare." These individuals are, in Kilgore's eyes, comparable to those who think that gays are immoral and unworthy of the same rights as straights. Sorry, but that's an awfully big jump to take. 

"Whether we are talking about gay marriage, government-backed mortgages, or health care reform," Kilgore writes, "there may well be a strongly dynamic relationship right now between privately held feelings of strong disdain for the purported beneficiaries of Obama's agenda, and some of the wilder arguments being made publicly to attack it." Or, it could just be that opponents of Obama's plan are satisfied with their health care (like most Americans) and skeptical of a massive overhaul of the system for fear that it will reduce quality, lengthen waiting times for critical procedures, and dramatically increase deficits. I'm no expert on health care, and these concerns may be invalid. But I'd rather we debate these arguments on the merits as opposed to accusing the people espousing them of barely-concealed bigotry.

--James Kirchick

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

Show all 42 comments

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

42 comments

"it could just be that opponents of Obama's plan are satisfied with their health care (like most Americans) and skeptical of a massive overhaul of the system for fear that it will reduce quality, lengthen waiting times for critical procedures, and dramatically increase deficits."

Anything's possible.  It could also "just be" the case that opponents of "Obama's plan" (a curious personalization of a Congressional process that hasn't produced a unitary plan yet) haven't a clue what they are against, or indeed for, as they (a) don't take the time to inform themselves, (b) believe a whole bunch of ludicrous conspiratorial crap being fed to them, and (c) have a deep-seated hostility to the concrete fact that Obama won the presidential election and is now in the White House.

- ironyroad

August 12, 2009 at 6:20pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I'm no expert on health care, and these concerns may be invalid." Jesus Christ, you are aware that you write for TNR aren't you, and there is a whole section dedicated to health care issues? Really, you are such a tool.

A large segment of these people railing against the health care reform are the same people who are against gay marriage and they use the same logic so putting two and two together ain't too hard.

"But I'd rather we debate these arguments on the merits" what merits? The vast majority of these people are stupid people who have no arguments beyond yelling "death panel" and "rationing" as well as "it will cost to much" You have presented zero argument by way of how your concerns might occur.

Go write for the Weekly Standard please. TNR hire a thoughtful Conservative please, someone who will present evidence of how the proposed reforms are worse than the mess we have now. And for the love of God, a majority of people being "satisfied" with their care is a stupid argument. What, that means it can't be improved, maybe Microsoft should have stopped with Windows 3.1 since most customers were satisfied with that. And the song of the "we got ours, fuck those that don't" ain't exactly inspiring is it? Just fucking read Cohn please.

- blackton

August 12, 2009 at 6:42pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

What blackton said.  Don't you read your own magazine?

- acria multa

August 12, 2009 at 7:05pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I think that Kilgore is onto something. Most people think health care reform is about helping out poor people. Some people think thats a good idea, but others feel that they will be made worse off. And some people probably will be worse off at least from this specific policy..

- CraigMcGil

August 12, 2009 at 7:23pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Ed's right, Jamie. You're wrong.

- WoodyBombay

August 12, 2009 at 8:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"...skeptical of a massive overhaul of the system for fear that it will reduce quality, lengthen waiting times for critical procedures, and dramatically increase deficits."

But the point is that this is not the argument we are hearing. Instead, we have hysterical people screeching about Socialism and death panels and shouting down any attempt to discuss the issues you raise. Issues that you openly admit may be imaginary in this particular debate anyway.

"I shouldn't have to pay for your health care!" Oh yeah? Well, I shouldn't have to pay for the police to respond when you are being murdered. But I do. We all do. Cuz that's what an enlightened society does.

- porkido

August 12, 2009 at 9:59pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Not one of Kirchik's best posts, but his critics here are missing his point, which, admittedly, he makes rather infelicitously. His point is not the merits of the health care debate but to disclaim the assertion of an analogy between the Obama's critics on this and homophobia, hwoever dressed up it appears and to ask for meritorious debate.

Doesn't irony's characterization of the outraged fools who yell about socialism and death panels and the like go to the margins of the opposition, which media coverage gives sensational over exopsure to?

And isn't this comment, "...I think that Kilgore is onto something. Most people think health care reform is about helping out poor people. Some people think thats a good idea, but others feel that they will be made worse off. And some people probably will be worse off at least from this specific policy....." the very opposite of Kilgore's argument as presented by Kirchik?

Finally isn't Kirchik simply asking for a rational discussion on the merits free of the kind of inflated theses about those critical presented by Kilgore si=uch that a parallel is drawn between these critics and homophobes?

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 12:35am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

John Stossel never met a gay healthcare bureaucrat he did not immediately compare and contrast with John Galt. He's an Ayn RandDroid. Enough said?

As for assigning a relationship between a state of mind and a behavior that follows, Gilgore follows in the grand tradition of Jung and Freud...folks hellbent on poking around inside human emotional and psychological states just long enough to convince themselves they understand what they mean.

Think about it: How would one go about setting up a double blind experiment that would effectively extrude subjective bias and prejudice from the results?

Instead, we are always left dangling between what we suspect might be true given our anecdotal experiences and what others suspect might be true given their's. We then try to integrate these personal experiences by coming into places like this and bumping into the inferences others have drawn.

And here there are effectively two kinds of people: Those who convince themselves it can be done and those can't stop checking their heads in disbelief listening to them.

But: When you think about it some more you have to admit you really don't have much choice but to soldier on----picking up as many pieces as you can and putting them back together again in an order that makes the most sense to you.

george walton

d/a

- iambiguous

August 13, 2009 at 4:36am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

My Kirchick meter tripped on sentence one.

- aeromonas

August 13, 2009 at 9:54am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Health insurance for everyone--what's so scary about that?  Gay marriage--what's so scary about that?  On health care, it's that all but nearly 50 million of us are reasonably happy with what we have now and fear that a plan to help those other people buy their own insurance might in some way hurt us.  How selfish is that?  On gay marriage, it's the "ick" factor.  How selfish is that?

Republicans were against Medicare in 1965; they're against health insurance for the remaining 40+ million of us now.  The other guy's suffering is not a very high priority for them.

- kyoung

August 13, 2009 at 10:10am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

...My Kirchick meter tripped on sentence one....

Well this is sentence one: "Ed Kilgore has a puzzling article on our website today, in which he compares opponents of the president's health care plan to anti-gay bigots."

I think this is a fairly accurate--leave out the "puzzling"--(albeit at a highly level of generality) outline of the subject matter of Kilgore's piece.

So why the inane reflex?

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 10:42am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Who else would call Ed Kilgore's article puzzling that blogs on this page?

- kbecker

August 13, 2009 at 10:57am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Who else would call Ed Kilgore's article puzzling that blogs on this page?

- kbecker

August 13, 2009 at 10:57am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"I don't doubt that there are opponents of the president's plan who just don't like poor people or ethnic minorities, who would presumably benefit disproportionately from it."

Come on basman, Republicans had 8 years to do something about America's health care system, the only thing they got done was schip, and even with that left it for the poorest children, and barely funded it, it was only under Obama that it was expanded. Most of these people who are out protesting are out and out stupid, anyone who shouts "death panel" or "socialism" is an idiot, how much of it is a leap to realize that these same idiots are also bigoted or anti-gay? I am on vacation in the states and have had conversations with family members who are opposed to this, as well as some other people. I ask what provision in which bill upsets them, I have not met anyone who has a clue of the legislative process. I don't think it is hubris to say I know more than most people about this issue, as do you, as do most TNR readers. Now I accept legit reservations about the public option (that it will be bailed out if it does run red no matter legal strictures) but outside of that issue it is all horseshit.

- blackton

August 13, 2009 at 11:41am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

...Who else would call Ed Kilgore's article puzzling that blogs on this page?...

Why isn't it puzzling?

Please spell out the case for the clear analogy for me.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 12:03pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Blackton:

Let me try to unravel all this as I see it.

Kilgore argues that there is a parallel between homophobes, people who reflexively and virally hate gays to the point of being phobic about it, and critics of Obama’s health care efforts in relation to the beneficiaries, the poor and minorities {I’ll call the latter group simply the “critics” for ease of reference.)

Kirchik writes a post that allows on the margins for some comparison between the homophobes and the critics, but otherwise argues against the parallel and says the critics have rational concerns worth being debated. The implicit argument Kirchik makes is that the critics cannot be assimilated, as Kilgore does, to the rabidos who see Obama as a closet pinko/socialist/nazi setting up death panels and eviscerating the last vestiges of American free market capitalism, (who, I say, the media highlight in their race to the bottom in their obsession with ratings.)

Kirchik pleas for civil discourse without the Kilgorian extrapolations.

And then posters here yell at Kirchik on this thread for even suggesting there are concerns to be had, questions to be asked, and arguments to be made. Those posters replicate the elision Kirchik tries to fill in the: the difference between the nuts and those critics who may have thoughtful concerns.

They unfairly saddle Kirchik with a burden he never undertook and does not deserve: defending the position of the critics. And they deepen that unfairness in failing to heed the distinction Kirchik argue for between the nuts and the non nuts.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 12:21pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Maybe Kirchick just hasn't been paying attention, basman. The "non nuts" you mention are AWOL.

Actually, there are a few "non nuts" critics of health care reform around -- they're Blue Dog Democrats. But on the other side of the aisle? Anyone with an R after their name? GOP leadership in Congress fuels the lunacy. Two days ago Obama mentioned Chuck Grassley as someone on the other side he was working with on reform. Grassley responded yesterday by talking about Dems wanting to "pull the plug on grandma."

The media deserves a lot of blame for this, but the critics on the right lately have fallen into the "nut" category. Sarah Palin, after all, is one of the GOP's favorite daughters. I would LOVE to hear a health care reform discussion that included "those critics who may have thoughtful concerns." Sadly, those critics are being out-shouted (and in many cases, allowing themselves to be out-shouted) by loons who either lie about various Dem proposals, or reflexively believe lies about Dem proposals.

Anyway, maybe the anti-reform crowd aren't just analogous to anti-gay bigots -- maybe they're the same crowd: blogs.tnr.com/.../obamacare-gay-conspiracy-edition.aspx

- WoodyBombay

August 13, 2009 at 12:44pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I think, bassie, to split the difference, that both Kilgore and Jamie are correct, in their own ways. Or at least Jamie is partly correct.  I agree with Kilgore that the main argument against health care comes from the bigoted, small-minded, angry right, whose arguments range are largely disgusting fallacy, and come from a very small, mean and paranoid place.  But I do think that Kilgore presented his argument poorly, using one (admittedly revealing) anecdote.  

But Jamie tries to brush off the overwhelming evidence of complete derangement that is coming from reforms opponents.  Reading the opposition, I have yet to come across a decent argument that isn't tinged with insanity.  I agree with Jamie that rational discourse is what is needed; I disagree with him posing that the irrationality is displayed equally on bot sides.  If our dander is raised, it is because of the debasing of dialouge by health care's opponents.

But this is obscuring the real issue here- they let blackton back into the country?  While Roman Polanski is still an exile?

- boneill

August 13, 2009 at 12:49pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"We're painfully accustomed to hearing that Obama is herding Americans into socialism, is destroying the private-sector economy, and is determined to create a health care system that combines the bureaucracy of Great Britain with the ethics of Nazi Germany. Do the people repeating and encouraging this sort of talk really believe it?" Is this statement from the article true? Absolutely, yet Kirchik states "Yet Kilgore's evidence for this supposedly widespread sentiment is awfully thin." As though Kirchik has to rely on thewhat Kilgore writes as being all there is, what, Kirchik doesn't have a TV? you acknowledge the networks are bottom feeding, yet Kirchik does not even go that far, as to the rest Woody covered it. Where are the non nuts?

- blackton

August 13, 2009 at 12:52pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Seriously basman, it's not hard to figure out why the Kirchick Threshold was one sentence.

First, the sneering tone at his fellow TNR writer (Kilgore "has a puzzling article".

Second, the fact that Kirchick, as a writer, only bothers to be liberal on gay rights issues, and it otherwise a flaming conservative (flaming in a flamboyant, vituperative know-nothing since rather than a pun).

Easy Kirchick threshold.

- Crock1701

August 13, 2009 at 12:52pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

hey bone, let me in? the ins (now ice, but i figured you would not possibly know that) had to let me back since I presented evidence that she was indeed 18, and that was not rufenol in her system, and that she had been out of her coma for at least an hour.

- blackton

August 13, 2009 at 1:09pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

My Kirchick Meter went off on the word "puzzling." Having read the Kilgore article, I was aware that it obviously was not "puzzling." Wrong, perhaps, or ungenerous, or misguided. But not "puzzling," which to be true requires that the article be difficult to understand. And of all TNR posters, only Jamie would open an article by bragging about his own poor reading comprehension as though his inability to understand a rather simple bit of writing was a knock against the writer rather than his own intellect.

- rhubarbs

August 13, 2009 at 1:18pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Ed Kilgore is managing editor of The Democratic Strategist , a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy

- Anonymous

August 13, 2009 at 1:27pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Also, a Jamie article ending with "But I'd rather we debate these arguments on the merits as opposed to accusing the people espousing them of barely-concealed bigotry." is unbelievable comedy.

"Puzzling" was my threshold as well.  

- boneill

August 13, 2009 at 1:46pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Baaa" means "no", blackton, at least this side of the border.  

- boneill

August 13, 2009 at 1:46pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

and blackton- "baaa" means "no", at least on this side of the border.

- boneill

August 13, 2009 at 1:58pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

The use of "puzzling" is a tactical maneuver that almost never means that the speaker finds something actually puzzling.  "Puzzling" means that the speaker, who knows exactly what's going on, finds something to be a stream of incoherent drivel, but rhetorical SOP demands that that judgment be held in abeyance until some discursive exercizes are completed which show the drivel to be indeed such.

"Puzzing" is meant to suggest an unbiased and even potentially supportive perspective which has stumbled over a minor problem in the other's statements.  This is entirely a rhetorical move, however, that I've made myself many times.

- ironyroad

August 13, 2009 at 2:23pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Sorry for the double post- I got excited.

- boneill

August 13, 2009 at 2:44pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Where is everybody?

Call me pisher; I don't care; just answer me some now that I have shown the declaimers the errors of their ways.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 3:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Two answers in brief:

1. The use of the word "puzzling", rhetorical though it may be, is a too precious and slight a peg on which to hang the hair shirt of denunciation of  Kirchik as is evident here;

2. And WoodyBombay makes an excellent point as to the existence of an example of the non nuts-the blue dog Demos. and their concerns.

No?

p.s. Just so any one knows if they care, I'm a Canadian who has fso far found that I and mine have been well served by our system including for signifcant things like in one instance (thank God not mine) pancreatic cancer with the offer of surgery the next day and like but lesser afflictions, that I think for profit and health care are an oxymoron and that if I were king I would ordain a single payer universal health care system with some private for pay allowances along the edges. Thus far in my 39 years  (plus the unmentioned 33) years of existence nothing has come between me and my Dr. Calvins.

p.p.s.s. I invited you all to call me pisher before I read your posts that came after the invite.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 3:47pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Don't worry, bone; the thought of you, blackton, and a sheep gets me excited too.

- rhubarbs

August 13, 2009 at 3:48pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

"Puzzing" is meant to suggest an English teacher who never won a spelling bee.

Physician, heal thyself.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 3:48pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I always heel myself!

I'm sorry basman, but if one doesn't get the passive-aggressive signals embedded in "X has a puzzling article/comment/argument" one might just as well try another profession, such as law, or politics.

- ironyroad

August 13, 2009 at 4:25pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

basman-

1. The use of the word "puzzling", rhetorical though it may be, is a too precious and slight a peg on which to hang the hair shirt of denunciation of  Kirchick as is evident here;

Perhaps, but this article hasn't appeared from a void- we have a whole body of work.  And, beside- the proof is there: at least three of us knew it was Jamie just from that word.  You could call it a lucky guess, but at some point it becomes statistically relevant.

- boneill

August 13, 2009 at 4:31pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

...I'm sorry basman, but if one doesn't get the passive-aggressive signals embedded in "X has a puzzling article/comment/argument" one might just as well try another profession, such as law, or politics...

I tried, am still trying, law, and besides fame , fortune, universal well regardedness, a Staples points card for office supplies and the stimulation that comes from pondering the new increased monetary jurisdiction of the Ontario Small Claims Court, your implication is right, there's not much in it.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 4:44pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

...Perhaps, but this article hasn't appeared from a void- we have a whole body of work.  And, beside- the proof is there: at least three of us knew it was Jamie just from that word.  You could call it a lucky guess, but at some point it becomes statistically relevant...

But the article, the article, the article.

Forget all the other digressions, Bone, and your shot at a minor in statistics. I know you made some inner points before in a post trying to split differences. But forget all the extraneousness. At the risk your repeating yourself, take apart the article, the article, the article,  however you like; and let's, as these things go, fight about it.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 5:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Sorry all you contra-Kirchik posters.

On this one I'm the Spider and all you all are poor Forrest Griffin.

- basman

August 13, 2009 at 5:19pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Ed Kilgore is mischaracterizing what I wrote yesterday when I criticized his postulation that it is racism

- Anonymous

August 13, 2009 at 5:46pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Ed Kilgore is mischaracterizing what I wrote yesterday when I criticized his postulation that it is racism

- Anonymous

August 13, 2009 at 6:16pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

I had to google "spider forrest griffin." You bastard.

- WoodyBombay

August 13, 2009 at 8:09pm

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

basman: "I think this is a fairly accurate--leave out the "puzzling"--(albeit at a highly level of generality) outline of the subject matter of Kilgore's piece.

So why the inane reflex?"

But, as several posters have noted, you can't leave out the "puzzling."  "Puzzling" is the key to the Kirchickness of the opening sentence.  Leaving aside the finer points of the rhetorical function of the word, it is obviously pejorative, and what I was reacting to had nothing to do with the soundness of Krichick's argument in this case (How could it?  The reaction occurred upon reading just a single sentence), but instead with my belief that it requires a special personality to make such a habit of going after other writers at one's own publication.  

I mean, picking apart other journos' opinion pieces is a low form to begin with.  But since Kirchick feels compelled to piss away his and our time with such knocked-off pieces, is there a shortage of essays published elsewhere with which he disagrees strongly enough to register his counter arguments?  Does he see no virtue in showing loyalty to the institution of which you are a part?  I imagine JK would argue that his attacks on the writings of fellow TNR writers strengthen the magazine, that they promote an atmosphere of intellectual rigor and that having open disagreements demonstrates that the publication is place that values contrasting perspectives, but to me it just makes Kirchick and, by extenstion, TNR look small.  Whether or not he's right about Kilgore, he'd have done better to find somebody else to antagonize, someone more obviously in error and whose errors were more obviously consequential.

- aeromonas

August 14, 2009 at 8:23am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

Aeromanas, thanks for your response.  

Your post makes me understand better your response. It's not "inane" though like some people with their guns I cling to "reflex".

Fwiiw, it's all small beer,  I think as I mentioned above folks are really loading too much freight on "puzzling." It's low; it's passive aggressive; it's in effect a betrayal of TNR; and so on.

Really: all this just from "puzzling"?

What if he had said " I disagree with Kilgore for the following reasons". He'd be saying "I think Kilgore is wrong" or even, more assertively, "Kilgore is wrong." The latter is not to my ears more civil than "puzzling" . But it all goes to criticizing the thinking of someone else in a particular piece. I can't think of how many times with different people over the years in writing or speaking when discussing something I'll say, equally a plenty, "I disagree";  "I strongly disagree"; "You're dead wrong"; "I have doubts about that"; "I don't follow your argument"; "You are contradicting yourself"; "You're confusing me"; "That can't be right"; and so on,. Surely "Puzzling", a word don't use, but might start, fits within the ambit of this category of expression and is of a piece with how folks disagree with each other civilly.

If I think of all the worse things Kirchik could have said, say consistent with what people around here typically say to, and about, him, I might even be appreciative of the realtive mildness of "puzzling" even with its paper thin, slight connotative insult. It's a kind of verbal correctness gone wild, I'd say, being displayed in the outrage over "puzzling" that I find altogether attenuated and conflated with people's, for their own reasons, visceral reaction to Kirchik as a general matter.

No?

- basman

August 14, 2009 at 10:41am

You must be a subscriber to post comments. Subscribe today.

SHARE HIGHLIGHT

0 CHARACTERS SELECTED

TWEET THIS

POST TO TUMBLR

SHARE ON FACEBOOK

Close