Race and Health Reform
My sense is that politically speaking it’s counterproductive to talk about the role views about race play in shaping the health care debate. Still, these appear to be the facts:
As evidence of the link between health care and racial attitudes, we analyzed survey data gathered in late 2008. The survey asked people whether they favored a government run health insurance plan, a system like we have now, or something in between. It also asked four questions about how people feel about blacks.
Taken together the four items form a measure of what scholars call racial resentment. We find an extraordinarily strong correlation between racial resentment of blacks and opposition to health care reform.
Among whites with above average racial resentment, only 19 percent favored fundamental health care reforms and 57 percent favored the present system. Among those who have below average racial resentment, more than twice as many (45 percent) favored government run health care and less than half as many (25 percent) favored the status quo.
Something that I find interesting about this is that if you put the argument a certain way—”racism has a lot to do with opposition to social insurance programs in the United States” people get very upset. But if you say something like “European social democracy works because post-WWII European countries were so homogeneous, but mass immigration is causing consensus around the welfare state to break down” then you come to expressing something approaching conventional wisdom among the center and right in the United States. These strike me, however, as nearly identical points of view just being expressed slightly differently.
86 Responses to “Race and Health Reform”
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September 21st, 2009 at 7:32 pm
The authors of this book present some laughable statements, but I thought I’d point out what I thought was the most laughable – the idea that the authoritarians are the people against government takeover of healthcare, and that the non-authoritarians are the people interested in the government mandating that everybody purchase health insurance .
After all, let’s face it, the idea that the government will mandate that every person in the United States purchase health insurance is the most authoritarian idea that has been proposed in the US since conscription. Likewise, Barack Obama is the most authoritarian President since, what, Lyndon Johnson.
The modern left-wing loves the idea of authoritarianism – that the government can tell each individual exactly what to do in every aspect of their lives. The modern right-wing, for the most part, is essentially anti-authoritarian.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Ok then Al, lets just go to Single Payer.
No Mandate!
September 21st, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I, too, feel justified in ignoring the substance of this post because I don’t understand what the word “authoritarian” means.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:39 pm
Something that I find interesting about this is that if you put the argument a certain way—”racism has a lot to do with opposition to social insurance programs in the United States” people get very upset. But if you say something like “European social democracy works because post-WWII European countries were so homogeneous, but mass immigration is causing consensus around the welfare state to break down” then you come to expressing something approaching conventional wisdom among the center and right in the United States.
Heh. Why not use a quote from your own comment section? Superdestroyer is a longtime crypto-racist troll obsessed with fear of a one-party state because only Democrats can get minority votes. Here’s how he put it:
The difference between the phrasing that upsets people and the phrasing that’s conventional wisdom among conservatives is that the latter leaves open all kinds of possibilities. With the right spin, it could be an argument for segregation. With the right tone, it blames the minority for the problem – “Streets aren’t walkable because of crime, don’t you know” – but even if you give conservatives the benefit of the doubt on that, it certainly assigns no blame to the majority. And racism can be solved or at least mitigated in the long run (education, anti-discrimination policies, shaming), but the conservative formulation admits to no solution, other than the already-mentioned blaming the minority.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
They might be similar points of view, but the emphasis is very different, both in that the latter makes it sound inevitable and a reason to give up entirely in the face of racism, and that the latter is very depersonalised – it’s all passive voice and doesn’t require engaging with the despicable nature of opposing social services because black people or mexicans might use them.
It’s also different in that it makes generally false claims about how things are turning out in Europe, on two counts: Firstly, European states like Britain and France have had extensive social programs without homogeneity for decades upon decades. Secondly, the idea that support for the welfare state is breaking down is not really supported – there has been some action on the margins, but the constituency for, say, scaling back uhc is nearly non-existent.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Al’s wrong again
I love to tell Al exactly what to do. In most cases this is “fuck off” but occasionally it is “go back to your troll cave and fuck off” or “fuck off and die you syphilitic twit.”
On no occasion do I wan the government to be involved in telling Al to “fuck off.”
September 21st, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I resent affluent white hipsters carrying water for corporate america be in the realm of healthcare, finance, unions or taxes.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:55 pm
This post missed an interesting aspect of the research: that this correlation between race and healthcare views did not exist in the 90s. See Martin Gilens’s book “Why Americans Hate Welfare” for a good analysis of how this worked with welfare. There too, the association was not originally there: the right managed to yoke existing racism to welfare in order to piggyback on existing resentment among whites. The result was that, as more people came to associate welfare with blacks, antipathy to the program rose. So too here: just yoke healthcare to providing services to blacks (or the pro-black policies of a black president) and voila, instant white opposition. The reason Acorn works so well for them is that it is largely (in appearance and in the videos, anyway) a black-run organization. The more they can tighten the black-president/pro-poor/pro-black linkages, the better they can mobilize the large (but thankfully shrinking) pool of racist whites against Obama’s policies.
September 21st, 2009 at 7:59 pm
These strike me, however, as nearly identical points of view just being expressed slightly differently.
This is probably because you think that anytime there is a racial conflict, blacks are in the right and whites are in the wrong.
The difference is that while both formulations say, in essence, that whites do not like a system that, on net, will take from whites and give to blacks, the first formulation basically says that this is entirely the fault of whites whereas the second formulation does not lay blame at all.
Maybe you would understand better if we put three formulations up:
(1) racism has a lot to do with opposition to social insurance programs in the United States
(2) European social democracy works because post-WWII European countries were so homogeneous,
(3) the opposition to social insurance programs in the U.S. has a lot to do with the fact that black women tend to respond by having lots of babies out of wedlock, while the men tend to respond by losing the stabilizing influence of the family and commiting crime at astronomical rates
Do these three points of view still strike you as identical?
September 21st, 2009 at 8:02 pm
John (#5):
They might be similar points of view, but the emphasis is very different, both in that the latter makes it sound inevitable and a reason to give up entirely in the face of racism,
Hmmm… once again suggesting that any racial component of why people might be wary of increased social insurance in the U.S. must be based on irrational feelings by whites, and cannot possibly be justified in any way.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:04 pm
The fundamental question in politics is “Whose side are you on?” Who are you going to take money from and to whom are you going to give it?
Although Barack Obama spent most of 2007 and 2008 running for President as a “postracial” candidate, he was never seriously challenged by the press pack on questions like why he donated $26,270 in 2007 (!) to the church of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., why he chose the title of his 2006 bestseller from Rev. Wright’s sermon about a world “where white folks’ greed runs a world in need,” or why, if Obama was so postracial, he subtitled his first memoir “A Story of Race and Inheritance.”
People wouldn’t be worrying so much about whose side Obama is on now if the media had done its duty back in late 2007 and challenged Obama _before_ the primaries. Either Obama would have successfully quelled these reasonable doubts or Hillary Clinton would have gotten the nomination and been elected.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:08 pm
but mass immigration is causing consensus around the welfare state to break down
I should point out that this does not necessarily imply racism. When you have large numbers of people who are poor immigrating into a country, that is going to expand the demand for more welfare, without increasing the supply of taxes sufficiently to cover it.
We cannot afford to provide “social insurance” to the whole world, and so it makes sense that we don’t want to provide the same welfare benefits to people who have not been paying into the system.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Proving, once again, that noting the existence of racism is worse than the actual problem of racism.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Did the authors account for region? If not, doesn’t this just say that southerners oppose healthcare reform?
I remember a post showing that belief that Obama wasn’t a natural born U.S. citizen was disproportionately concentrated in the South. If you’d taken the poll and run cross-tabs with those who oppose health care reform you would probably have been able to show that healthcare reform strongly correlates with birtherism. However, the birther conspiracies weren’t particularly popular in highly-Repbulican great plains states like Kansas and Utah whereas opposition to healthcare reform likely is common in these heavily Republican states.
Of course, my entire comment is premissed on the fact that Southern whites harbor more resentments against Blacks than non-Southern whites do. I could be wrong about that, in which case, ignore my entire post.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Al, Steve Sailer and Glaviester!
Tonight may be even more awesome than last night was!
September 21st, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Barack Obama’s original goal in politics was to be elected Mayor of Chicago, which is the most powerful position in America that a black leader can be elected to qua a black leader. In that way, he would fulfill “The Dreams from My Father” to be a black leader raising up his people.
Obama’s attempt to follow the career path of his hero Harold Washington (state legislature, House of Representatives, mayor’s office) was terminated in 2000, however, by his humiliating rejection by black voters in his primary run against ex-Black Panther Rep. Bobby Rush for not being black enough.
When he emerged from his depression in 2001, Obama charted a new career path for himself as the black politician that whites like, gerrymandering his state senate district to be whiter and setting his eyes on statewide office.
What we don’t know about Obama, because nobody has asked him, is whether he also rejected his original “Dreams from My Father” when he rejected his original career path. As Matt found out, having read “Dreams from My Father” and then spending several months trying to think about what to say about it (finally coming up only with that it was well-written), there’s a big gap between Obama’s 1995 memoir and his 2008 campaign. And nobody asked him about it.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Personally, my guess is that Obama figures that the current health finance system is so ridiculous (which is certainly true) that just about any reform would be good for the whole country and especially good for blacks, so there’s no need to resolve within himself, much less in public, the obvious tension between the two personae expressed in his two books.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
UTOPIA VS REALITY!
Now, liberals have a stange idea that Demographics have nothing to do about anything. In a perfect world a Utopian Paradise, some far off Never, Never land, Demographics would mean nothing, but this is the real world, and even a major part of Mathematics Staticial Analysis, used Demographics. In the real world Race, Color, Creed, Religion, Sexual Preference, and how much your worth has everything to do with a society. And, to deny (White Flight), or that for all practical purposes the population of cities are Apartide, is looking thru rose colored glasses.
Are, there unique difference between Blacks and Whites, try Cyclecell, Blacks have a higher average of High Blood Pressure, and Oh it is Racist to talk about the book the Bell Curve. And if we go into the Hispanic Population they have the same human problems with special unique medical problems, the Jewish Community is no different.
In the real world were not going to have a Coke and sing in three part haromony, the Turks and Greeks aren’t going to get along on Cyprus, the Jew’s and Arab Muslims aren’t going to come to term on the Dome of the Rock, as one want’s to put a Diety in a Box, Behind a Curtain, in an ugly Temple Mount, after taking down a pretty good looking Mosque.
And Dames, are always looking for more than just the big wad between the two pockets of a guys pants but the wods of cash in the bank.
Not, only in the Healthcare Program is Race and issue but in World Affairs, and Bill Clinton has said that there is going to be a major Demographic Shift in the Empires population, and this is being noted in governments around the globe, by (2050) North America may have a Third World Country Demography along with a Third World Economy, the Dollar is dropping value daily and Race as in Demography is playing a role.
And, when Empires Fall, the Empire is Divided in all cases, the map of North America will change along with its Demography, it’s just a historical fact.
HERCULE TRIATHLON SAVINIEN
September 21st, 2009 at 8:37 pm
The irony of Al’s statement is that he and his ilk have no problem genuflecting to the corporations that monopolize the health insurance market. But when you threaten to include a plan created and maintained by We, The People, then you’ve apparently gone all authoritarian on him.
Last I checked, progressives saw the mandate as a necessary evil to help control costs. Nobody likes it. But the benefits outweigh the costs.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Are, there unique difference between Blacks and Whites, try Cyclecell
Did this moron mean sickle cell anemia? But he thinks its something called “cyclecell”? Fascinating!
September 21st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
Al,
I agree, conservatives are more likely to support authoritarians. Hence the right supporting W, who consolidated power into the imperial presidency. It also explains why they are historucally the party of centralized authority and censorship. See Joseph McCarthy.
To put it another way, who do you support in the Spanish Civil War?
September 21st, 2009 at 8:52 pm
There’s a correlation between declining stork populations and declining birth rates but that doesn’t mean there’s a causal link. The correlation between racial attitudes and health care reform probably has way more to do with racists tending to be broadly anti-Obama and pro-Republican than any coherent world-view.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:55 pm
UberMitch Says:Are, there unique difference between Blacks and Whites, try Cyclecell
Did this moron mean sickle cell anemia? But he thinks its something called “cyclecell”? Fascinating!
TRIATHLON: Was in a hurry, have other things to take care of sorry about the spelling error and your need to once again use personal attacks, but that means of course you have to be a Democratic, reasoned arguments are always met with name calling and personal attacks by your side of the political spectrum, the other side is out making money, at your expense, while Independents are just trying to make sense of it all. Sorry about your need of name calling and personal attacks bad form old boy!
Hercule Triathlon Savinien
September 21st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I’m glad that this has been explicitly brought up. I can’t speak for other opponents of Health Care reform but for my own part, my opposition to it is based strictly on that fact that it will result in taking white tax money and redistibuting it to blacks and hispanics.
I have a hard time telling how much other opponents are basing their opposition on racial grounds. Most white people are racist, but even in private I don’t hear Obamacare criticized for being a handout to blacks/hispanics. I think that insofar as race is an issue for those against universal healthcare, it is subconcious.
September 21st, 2009 at 8:58 pm
The real question that is being raised by all this is whether America’s media elites are mature enough for a black Democrat to be President. I think if Colin Powell had run and been elected President in 1996, it would have been an important step forward in elite maturation. Whenever anybody criticized Pres. Powell, elites would have two thoughts instantaneously:
A) Denouncing a black President is racist!
B) Denouncing a Republican President is good!
And, I strongly suspect from the Clarence Thomas precedent, that B would have overruled A, which is healthy for our democracy.
With a black Democratic President, however, we are seeing trends that our unhealthy for a functioning democracy of demonizing with the R world criticism of the President. We’ve already seen the media hush up the abundant evidence that Obama has strong racial motivations — heck, he wrote a 460 page book that is about nothing much else besides his racial motivations and his struggle to be black enough — but who bothered to mention that while he was running for President.
A truly mature elite culture would recognize that everybody has identity politics motivations and we should lay our cards on the table and discuss our varying interests calmly and how we can make deals. But, we are a long, long way from that!
September 21st, 2009 at 9:01 pm
I’d have to see the specific questions that were asked before I made much of this. In the racial resentment indices I’ve seen, being against affirmative action and of the view that the welfare state reward bad behavior are enough to get you to the high end of average. Both views are pretty mainstream on the center-right and you’d expect people who held them to be more skeptical of government health care initiatives than average.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Something that I find interesting about this is that if you put the argument a certain way—”racism has a lot to do with opposition to social insurance programs in the United States” people get very upset.
They get upset because you’re onto them.
This is an old trick. Not long ago I saw a great documentary about Lee Atwater. Fascinating stuff. If it worked once, why not try it again?
September 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Cyrus,
When all of the progressives say that the good, walkable, livable small cities in the U.S. are either in Vermont or virtually all white college towns, then maybe it is progressives who have the racial issues. Matt is consist is using virutally all white countries or cities as examples of the right way to do things. Until he can find a place that is less than half white that fits his ideals, he should probably just stop using examples. Given that the U.S. will be less than half white in about 25 years, the idea that Finnish or German programs will work in the U.S. is laughable.
I also love how the progressives keep pushing for thought crime laws and then call conservatives authoritarians.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:18 pm
Matt, thank you for posting the picture of the poster — on the slim chance that my request that you do so had anything to do with it.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:22 pm
he wrote a 460 page book that is about nothing much else besides his racial motivations and his struggle to be black enough
Since you’re a professional New Model Racist, Popeye– you would say that, wouldn’t you?
September 21st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
So, Sailer, what’s with the obsession with Obama’s book? I read it, and I thought to myself (as a white man) that we were blessed to have someone as thoughtful and self-aware as Obama running for president. Didn’t freak me out in the slightest.
The tenor of many of your posts is this business of “who’s side is he REALLY on???” I think I’ll just go with the obvious evidence before me. His mother and grandparents, all of whom he dearly loved, are white. Many of his closest friends and advisors are white. The major initiatives he’s undertaken since becoming president don’t appear to me to have the slightest racial slant to them, and I would contend one would have to be deeply paranoid to suggest they did. The health reform package he’s throwing his weight behind looks like it will be less progressive than many whites to Obama’s left would like it to be.
So what’s with all the hand-wringing about some kind of crypto-racist agenda that may be lurking beneath the surface? You think he’s just biding his time, and one of these days he’s going to pounce and announce massive transfers of wealth from white people to black people in the name of reparations or something? How many other potentialities out there for which there is scant or non-existent evidence do you lie awake at night worrying about?
September 21st, 2009 at 9:24 pm
pooperdestroyer’s here too? It’s Carnival of the Racist Fucks tonight.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Matt, how is this comment thread looking to you in Europe? How did your eminently sensible blog get so contaminated by white supremacists? It never ceases to amaze me. Just goes to prove the observation discussed in this post. I guess your restraint shows that you really do believe in free speech.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:28 pm
We still need Indentured Servant Girl for the full corral.
And we can add abb1 just for general stupidity
September 21st, 2009 at 9:30 pm
“Re: We cannot afford to provide “social insurance” to the whole world, and so it makes sense that we don’t want to provide the same welfare benefits to people who have not been paying into the system.
When it comes to healthcare this is a non-issue: the poor are already covered by Medicaid. It’s the working class and to an extent even the middle class that is getting screwed: the very people who ARE paying into the system but who are not getting help when they need it. We are not talking about “welfare” here; we are talking about rewarding working people.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:32 pm
he donated $26,270 in 2007 (!) to the church of Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.,
Given the household incomes of the Obamas in 2007, this clocks in at well under the 10% tithe you find from Mormons of similar incomes. No one has, to my knowledge, called out Mitt Romney for the millions of dollars he has no doubt given to the Mormon church over the years.
When all of the progressives say that the good, walkable, livable small cities in the U.S. are either in Vermont or virtually all white college towns
As right-wingers seem to be completely unfamiliar with cities other than ones like Cambridge, Berkeley, and SF which are dangled in front of them like talismans to exploit their fears, we figured we’d choose cities that were both interesting and unfamiliar to conservatives in the hopes they would keep an open mind and might learn something.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I should have said you really really believe in free speech. If I wanted to read World Nut Daily or VDare, I’d go there. I acknowledge my white privilege; guess some kids don’t.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:42 pm
I should have said you really really believe in free speech. If I wanted to read World Nut Daily or VDare, I’d go there. I acknowledge my white privilege; guess some kids don’t.
On another thread, Indentured Servant Girl denied that her linking to VDare implied any positive feelings toward those racists. Then she claimed that they were neutral on all issues except immigration.
i really hope she and abb1 show up. We really need to get our stupid on tonight–and those two are stupid in very very different and fascinating ways. What time is it in Switzerland, anyway? Is abb1 still awake?
September 21st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
The fundamental question in politics is “Whose side are you on?”
‘Whose side are you on?’ is hardly the ‘fundamental question’ in politics. The fundamental question is, ‘Who pays and for what?’. The way things are now, vis a vis health care (among other things) we all pay. We also all pay (and I mean financially) in myriad ways for prettified mouth-breathing bigotry like Sailer’s, over and over.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Superdestroyer laughs:
“Matt is consistent in using virtually all white countries or cities as examples of the right way to do things.”
Heck, Matt has such an infatuation with the more blue-eyed parts of Europe that he almost never cites positive examples from European countries where the population is heavily brown-eyed! His motto is: They do it better in Spitzbergen.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:00 pm
The fundamental question in politics is “Whose side are you on?” Who are you going to take money from and to whom are you going to give it?
Steve, the problem is that under rational circumstances, the response would be “our own.” We give money/aid to our own people using our own money. You, however, see things like expanded health care or aid to the poor as taking the side of “them” rather than “you.” Why? Because you think Americans with a different skin tone are not on your “side.”
September 21st, 2009 at 10:04 pm
he almost never cites positive examples from European countries where the population is heavily brown-eyed!
France and Germany both qualify. Both even suffer from the double-whammy of being both not particularly blonde as well as being heavily Catholic!
He did have a frequent fixation on Denmark and Sweden, though, I’ll give you that.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:14 pm
I don’t know, I’m much more likely to mistrust the racial sentiment of someone who talks about “whose side are you on?” than someone who thinks Sweden has some good social programs.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Al forgets, like me, that (R) Nixon proposed health reform back in 1974 but I was asleep then and just read about it yesterday.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Why? Because you think Americans with a different skin tone are not on your “side.”
Because they are not. Blacks are for blacks and hispanics are for hispanics.
September 21st, 2009 at 10:43 pm
And GWB was on the side of freeing those brown people from an evil brown dictator in EyeRack
September 21st, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Tyro: Now that you mention it, San Francisco is apparently a minority-majority city. (Census data here, which I got from the footnotes of San Francisco’s Wikipedia page in case that link doesn’t work.) At least, if by white superdestroyer means non-Hispanic white, anyway. And even if you do count Hispanic Whites, it’s a pretty narrow majority.
September 21st, 2009 at 11:38 pm
As far as rebutting Matt’s continual, incessant accusations racism goes, everyone here has so far refrained from bringing up the fact that Democrats by far show a much deeper and broader racism than any other party in American history, from the Greens to the American Nazi Party. Its image just takes different guises each time. In 1960 it was Robert Byrd lynching a black man for voting Republican. In 2009 it’s wise Latina women, prayers of God Damn America from the black supremacist race warriors, and selling Mexicans into child prostitution via ACORN crime rings.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:11 am
Anonytroll, once more, tries way way too hard, and earns a Racist Troll Bingo in one comment.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
Al, Steve Sailer and Glaviester!
Tonight may be even more awesome than last night was!
Aw, man, this is the fiftieth comment, and still no abb1 or ISG.
If they could show up (heh, maybe with Myles in tow), this thread would be up there with the all-time greats!
Sadly, last night left me too exhausted for another foray into the wee hours combating concern trolls, racists, and the certifiably insane. Hopefully others will take up the standard and press on!
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:49 am
Wow, I just went and checked out some of ISG’s greatest hits from last night. What a bag of shite. That stuff about ‘homo = human; therefore homophobia = fear of humans’ is priceless.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 am
I don’t think it’s racist to point out that a health insurance mandate of 13% would mean that greater than 28% of an individuals income will be directly withheld by the government for social insurance. If we include the employer mandate for health insurance the figure nears 40%. Add in Federal and State taxes for middle income families and we near 60%. It’s no wonder Americans can’t save any money. Of course people are going to feel resentment toward those who receive a disproportionate share of that money. Be they smokers or the obese or illegal immigrants.
Obama’s sanctimonious reasoning that every American has a moral obligation to pay for their own healthcare rings hollow when one realizes that the purpose of forcing young and healthy people to buy insurance is to pay for the old and unhealthy people who can’t afford to buy it for themselves. The reason young people must be forced to pay health insurance premiums is precisely because they aren’t likely to need care. His moralizing seems much more suited to a plan that involves health savings accounts or some other mechanism from which society can be assured that individuals have the resources from which to meet their obligations.
There are now 3 certainties in life: death, taxes, and health care premiums.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 am
It’s different in Europe. The dark-skinned immigrants are much more homogeneous with respect to religion (Islam, and primarily a certain strain of Islam). Worrying about the complications of integrating these people is not racism although it may be religious bigotry.
It’s totally different in USA. I’m interested in religion but I can’t name the religion which includes the greatest number of American negroes–Southern Baptist? Evangelical Christian, maybe?
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:53 am
MY “These strike me, however, as nearly identical points of view just being expressed slightly differently.”
Yeah, you have your racists who speak openly and you have your racists that speak in code. The former you run into in white bars and saloons all over the country. That latter are predominately, at this point in time, southern politicians.
These code talking Confederate wannabes realize we broke their less than complex cipher 35 years ago. We know exactly what they are saying. Of course, the code talkers not only don’t give a shit but use this knowledge to their advantage.
The fact of the matter is the code was designed to be easily broken. That is the true genius behind it.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 am
It seems that the data presented doesn’t actually demonstrate that opposition to healthcare reform is at all driven by racism. (which is not to say that it necessarily isn’t) After all, opposing healthcare reform and racism are both things which correlate with right-wing political ideology, so we should expect them to be correlated even in the absence of a direct causal link between the two.
September 22nd, 2009 at 2:52 am
Did Geraldine Ferraro ever get back to us on what “racial resentment” means vis-a-vis racism?
September 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 am
[...] Yglesias, even if he thinks it’s “counterproductive” to talk about [...]
September 22nd, 2009 at 6:29 am
Re: The reason young people must be forced to pay health insurance premiums is precisely because they aren’t likely to need care.
This is BS. “Young” and “Old” are not fixed categories of oermanent membership the way “Black”, “White”, “male” and “female” are. Except for those few who die young, every young person will become an old person who will have expensive health problems.
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:29 am
Are you suggesting that african-american women will choose to be laden with children out of wedlock at an increased rate as a result of social insurance programs?
September 22nd, 2009 at 7:57 am
This is BS. “Young” and “Old” are not fixed categories of oermanent membership the way “Black”, “White”, “male” and “female” are. Except for those few who die young, every young person will become an old person who will have expensive health problems.
And this is why we are already paying for Medicare.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:25 am
Boy, this post was like honey for flies. If I had any doubts about the centrality of racism to right-wing social thought — well, the commenters have certainly taken care of that.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 am
I don’t think it’s racist to point out that a health insurance mandate of 13% would mean that greater than 28% of an individuals income will be directly withheld by the government for social insurance. If we include the employer mandate for health insurance the figure nears 40%.
You’re double counting the employer mandate and the individual cap on insurance premiums. I realize this is mostly for rhetorical effect, but it serves no purpose.
You also make the mistaken assumption that health insurance premiums are all about getting the young covered or that the young actively do not want coverage. I guess it is a plausible strategy to attempt to turn this into a generational war issue, but that’s not really playing to the right-wing base very well.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Are you suggesting that african-american women will choose to be laden with children out of wedlock at an increased rate as a result of social insurance programs
Yes. The explosion of black illegitimacy after the advent of the great Society strongly suggests this.
Not everyone has the bourgeois values of “wait to have children until you can afford to give them the best,” but most liberal bourgeois cannot fathom this fact; they think everyone thinks exactly like they think. This is why they cannot comprehend this.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:05 am
maybe we should just start using the word xenophobia more often…
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:09 am
Thank God you’re so dialed into how black people think.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:11 am
Are, there unique difference between Blacks and Whites, try Cyclecell
If you believe that, I would like to introduce you to my white great uncle with sickle-cell anemia.
First of all, anyone can get sickle-cell. It’s a genetic condition with no necessary connection to race. Since an individual heterozygous for sickle-cell shows no symptoms of the condition while being better adapted to survive malaria, natural selection means it’s going to be more common among people whose origins lie in areas where malaria is common, but it’s a general rule, not a guarantee. Since malarial marshes are most common in Africa, people of African origin are most often associated with sickle-cell, but malaria has been epidemic elsewhere (the Mediterranean and South Asia in particular) and people from those areas are also relatively likely to inherit the condition.
(Or do you not consider Greeks and Italians white? If you do, I don’t mind, since that way I don’t have to risk being classed with you.)
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:16 am
I’d expect that “race resentment” correlates with disliking health reform not because of any relationship between the two, but because both are driven by age… Seniors have the least to gain from health care reform, and they also tend to have the least progressive racial views. Doesn’t mean racism causes anti-health reform feelings.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:24 am
IT is downright hilarious the things some of you idiots manage to convince yourself aren’t racist.
Yes, black bitches will start raining little black babies from the heavens if they get free health care.
If you would all do us a favor, go drink a bottle of clorox. The world doesn’t deserve minds such as yours.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 am
John, except the correlations isn’t even 1/10th as strong in most countries. In those countries, the conservative elite still hate social spending because the elite always hates poor and middle class people. However, poor and middle-class whites don’t really oppose social spending the way they do here.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:33 am
@66: cminus, you said “heterozygous.” If the guy can’t spell “cyclecell,” or place a comma, you think he’s going to get “heterozygous”?
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Well, yes. Similarly, not many would want a job labelled “janitor”. However, a position labelled santitation specialist could be inundated with applicants…
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 am
CYCLECELL LMAO
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
If the guy can’t spell “cyclecell,” or place a comma, you think he’s going to get “heterozygous”?
Probably not, but you never know. Some people know things they can’t spell. My brother frequently misspells “oenologist”, but that doesn’t stop him from being one. Besides, Triathlon got all whiny when his spelling errors were pointed out, so it’s only polite to point out that even if he were to spell every word correctly he’d still be wrong.
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:01 am
You are a bond that pays an investor to gamble with your money and the share those winnings with his cronies.
When your value [get sick] plummets you can expect to be sold [risk] to the biggest sucker ever. The goobermint.
Period.
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:11 am
Re: Yes. The explosion of black illegitimacy after the advent of the great Society strongly suggests this.
Not everyone has the bourgeois values of “wait to have children until you can afford to give them the best,” but most liberal bourgeois cannot fathom this fact; they think everyone thinks exactly like they think. This is why they cannot comprehend this.
Glaivester,
Wrongo. The explosion of ought of wedlock births (among black AND white Americans, it’s not a black thing) has nothing to do with welfare, and everything to do with Roe v. Wade, as Akerlof points out.
We should stop blaming Lyndon Johnson and start blaming Hugh Hefner instead.
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:44 am
Everybody is missing the worst part of Glaivester’s comment. It’s where he claimed that social insurance will lead to increasing crime among the black community! No wonder conservatives oppose wellfare. But how anyone imagined to convince themselves that keeping people desperately poor is an effective crime reduction tactic is beyond me. That is some impressive wingnut mental gymnastics.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:25 pm
@Steve Sailer #11,
Yep, and you’d be frothing about Hillary Clinton being a sexist bitch by favoring women.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:42 pm
@MPowell at #76,
You’re spot on. But I think we all know the real reason that such mental gymnastics continue is that racists are proud of it. They really hate the inclusion of all in the New Testament, notwithstanding many of them claim to be “Christians”. To Jesus the only thing that mattered was person’s willingness to care for his fellow man and that he or she be “teachable” by God.
Racists are essentially the same people as the Pharisees who Jesus despised so completely: venal tribalists obsessed with economic betterment for themselves and their identifiable clan.
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
You’re spot on. But I think we all know the real reason that such mental gymnastics continue is that racists are proud of it. They really hate the inclusion of all in the New Testament, notwithstanding many of them claim to be “Christians”. To Jesus the only thing that mattered was person’s willingness to care for his fellow man and that he or she be “teachable” by God.
They also tend to believe Jesus was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white guy who spoke American and drove a truck.
Whereas they’d think an Assyrian/Chaldean Christian priest (arguably the oldest sect of trinitarian Christianity remaining) speaking Aramaic is a sandn—-r speaking Muslim.
And, of course by extension, they completely fail to understand that the invasion of Iraq has done something that no Muslim empire was ever able to do: obliterate Christianity in the Middle East.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Everybody is missing the worst part of Glaivester’s comment. It’s where he claimed that social insurance will lead to increasing crime among the black community!
No, I am claiming that in a particular case, it did increase crime, by increasing illegitimacy.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Looking back at my comment on #63, I think I misinterpreted the question.
I did not intend to say that universal health coverage will increase black illegitimacy, as much as to say that previous instances of social insurance were a large factor in the increase in black illegitimacy.
The point being, white people are skeptical of increasing welfare spending on blacks because of past experience, not from some irrational prejudice.
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Actually Sailer et al are very perceptive. After we become the majority the plan is to enslave all the whites. We are working on paying off the Mormons since they are the only whiteys with a high fertility rate. We have offered them the Kingdom of Moroni which would include all of Utah and Idaho but they want Nevada as well and all temples to be treated like embassies.
Unfortunately some of you white liberals we also be caught up in the Great Reckoning. Just remember to give your captor the secret handshake so you get to work in the big house.
September 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 am
40 crackers and a mulatto
What is the secret handshake? I hope it is not too complex. I’m not really good at those multiple shake-shake elbow-elbow shake-shake type thingies. But I’ll learn it. I want to work the big house.
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