The Left tells the truth about itself: the end justifies the means
The title of this op-ed by LA Times columnist Dan Neil caught my eye: “It’s Time to Fight Dirty.”
The piece is an admonition to the Left to take the gloves off (and here I thought it already had!) and win what Neil defines as the “war on words” on health care. Neil is angry and frustrated that:
…liberal progressives cannot seem to get on top of any public policy debate, cannot seem to win any war of words — which is just weird because you have to assume there are many more English majors among liberals.
While opinions on health-care reform break sharply along partisan lines, with most Democrats in favor and most Republicans opposed, independent voters strongly oppose the health-care reform measures pending in Congress by a whopping 70 percent to 27 percent, according to a recent Pew Research poll. How could the left possibly be losing the debate on health-care reform when its opponent is the roundly loathed health insurance industry — an ongoing criminal syndicate, in my view, that demands protection money from sick people?
Earth to Neil: maybe it’s phrases like that one at the end of your quote, comparing the health insurance industry to a criminal syndicate without even attempting to back up such an assertion. Maybe it’s that the health insurance industry isn’t quite so “roundly loathed” as you assume (if you could get out of your liberal echo chamber and pay attention to what the public actually believes rather than what you think it should believe), as polls indicate.
And maybe, just maybe, the whole thing isn’t just about spin or winning a war on words. Maybe facts are important, as well. I know that may be a novel thought, but maybe most Americans are angry at the actual provisions of the health care reform bill and upset about the ways in which it will impact their lives, as well as the obfuscation of the current Congress and adminstration about what those facts might even be, and their generalizations and condescending rhetoric (“just trust us and all will be well”) on the subject.
Maybe the poor track record of the stimulus bill also has a bit to do with the distrust of many Independents and other middle-of-the-roaders, who are not astroturfers after all.
In other words, maybe you need to think less about rhetoric and more about substance.
But the most interesting part of Neil’s piece by far was its ending, which doesn’t try to hide Neil’s conviction that anything is justified in this all-important rhetorical fight. If it’s all about demagoguery, the trick is to be a more effective and more ruthless demagogue than the other guy [emphasis mine]:
There’s some hope on the horizon, though, in the ad from Americans United for Change…The ad, titled GOP Rx, debuted last week. To a kicky bass riff and the occasional cash register ring, the female narrator asks, “Why do the insurance companies and the Republicans want to kill President Obama’s health-insurance reform?”
Note the yoking of insurance companies to Republicans. Note also that it’s Obama’s health insurance reform. Evil insurance.
The ad then lights into Cigna Corp. CEO Ed Hanway, who is retiring with a $73 million golden parachute. The GOP’s prescription for the health-care crisis? “Be as rich as Ed and you’ll be happy, too.”
Of course it’s disingenuous. Executive compensation at insurance companies is at best peripheral to escalating health-care costs. For all we know, Mr. Hanway may be one of the good guys.
The important thing is that the ad hominem ad is pointed, shrewd and manipulative. And yes, it’s class warfare. But then again, this is war.
Thanks for the warning.
I would suggest that this guy let an English major perform a little brain surgery on him.
Sure, more english majors are probably liberal. But I’m pretty sure most math majors are not.
And quite frankly, if I want logic and numbers, I’ll listen to the math guy, whether his words are pretty or not.
I’ve done some web roaming to see what those on the left have to say about the healthcare debate and it’s mostly like Neil’s — shrill indignation that there should be any opposition and little substance.
It reminds me of the great chess grandmaster Aron Nimzovich who once when he was losing a game, scattered the pieces, leapt onto the table and screamed, “How can I lose to this idiot!”
This was going to be foisted on us for our own good by our betters. The plea to the english majors was obviously to give some stirring words rather than to the debate team. But I do understand some of his frustration. Obama is a pretty good speaker, yet he could not come up with a tag line or slogan that captured the public’s imagination on health care.
Perhaps it’s because the left sees a national health care plan as more important in itself than actually providing health insurance. The imagined egalitarianism and communal action on an important part of life consumes the radical mind. They cannot imagine that an ordinary american is only concerned about getting the job done.
This leaves them with Stalinist proclamations of cost-control and competition with evil capitalist insurance companies. Geez, they should know better, after all Obama himself was packaged and sold under an optimistic slogan!
I am interested in how thoroughly Mr. Neil has misunderstood the reasons why the Democrats are having trouble selling health care reform to America. He’s so busy celebrating this dishonest ad hominem attack ad that he has completely failed to realize that it is precisely the Democrat’s “disingenuous” and “manipulative” presentation of health care reform, plus their “ad hominem” attacks on opponents, that have helped to turn off so many Americans who were already skittish about messing with their health care. If he thinks more of the same dishonest, ad hominem, transparently false demagoguery will help, instead of digging the Democrats even more deeply into the hole they’re already in — please don’t clue him in, anybody.
I have to say I wish somebody would come up with some sort of alternative targeted at what I see as the two real problems in our health care system – increasing costs and lack of affordable access for those not covered by employer plans. I’ve written here about my hairdresser before, a moderate Democrat, Obama-voter, and self-employed small business owner. I had a haircut last night. She’s in the midst of a flareup of shoulder tendonitis and was in so much pain that she could barely wield her scissors. I asked if she’d been to the doctor and she answered that unless it actually gets so bad that she starts to miss work, she can’t afford to go — even though she’s insured. She pays $880/month for insurance with a $7000 deductible (I think that might be the total of the individual deductibles for her three family members, though I didn’t ask.) She said the same policy was much less expensive just a few years ago but that the costs have jumped so much so fast that at as of now, the monthly premiums are all she can afford in health care dollars. She’s very worried that the tendonitis will get so bad that she’ll miss a lot of work, stop being able to pay the premiums, and lose the insurance altogether, just when she’s likely to need it most. She doesn’t want a single payer system — she just wants to be able to buy an affordable policy. She shook her head and said, “I hope Obama can fix it somehow.” I wish I thought he could.
I have just one thing to say to Mr. Neil: keep talking, buddy. You’re showing America exactly what they should vote against in 2010 and 2012, and why.
One Dem slogan I have seen being spread: “Why do seniors oppose? They like their Medicare!”
This is my current industry: supplemental insurance for seniors on Medicare. I have much experience with Managed Care also. I can tell you this: seniors do not like their Medicare; Doctors detest Medicare; and Medicare is responsible for rising costs for all of us. Here’s why:
Medicare is overwhelmed by cost, and has been for years. Medicare responds by constantly trimming their pay rates to Docs for various procedures. Docs don’t want to work for that, and therefore mostly refuse to take new patients who are on Medicare. This makes it difficult for seniors to find new family doctors. Family Docs feel responsibility to their long time patients who are on Medicare, and keep those patients, yet raise all their rates on non Medicare patients in order to subsidize their Medicare patients.
Surgeons, especially transfer cost to privately insured patients. If an operation’s true surgeon compensation ought be $10K, and Medicare allows on $7K to the surgeon, and the surgeon is semi-compelled – by hospital policy and medical group policy and various politics – to perform the surgery for $7K, then the surgeon responds by overcharging private patients, and maybe charging $11K to each private patient who has that surgery. A Powerline reader just wrote about this dynamic:
So, when you hear Dems, as I hear lately, making the argument “Seniors like Medicare”: call them on it. The argument is blatantly false.
Medicare is a part of the reason our health care system currently has some glitches. Government interference, w/o question, IS the reason we currently have some glitches. If we could time-machine remove the ludicrous government interference and incompetence and corruption of the last 50 years: our health care would be running along like a good motor.
A few thoughts come to mind after reading this piece.
First, Dan Neil is so caught up in the idea that they just HAVE to win no matter the argument and no matter how ill concieved the plan is, that he’s lost sight of the fact that perhaps this is a battle all of us would be better off with if they lost.
Winning is everything, consequences are of secondary importance to this guy.
The second thought has to do with his appeal to English Majors. Exactly what do they have to do with accounting and insurance?
It actually kind of comes off to me as if he’s talking down to the average Joe, and seeking assistance from fellow “Ivory Tower” inhabitants to persuade the great unwashed.
Then there is his bewilderment that *his* side is losing.
He clearly cannot comprehend that the majority of citizens don’t agree with him, therefore it just HAS to be because the citizenry has not been properly informed – all evidence to the contrary, such as citizens quoting the actual bills and raising questions about those quotes to their congress critters, is ignored.
So, his side keeps talking – and support for his side keeps diminishing. In his world, this clearly means they need more of the same!
Lastly, their ad linking the Republicans and the Health Care Industry strikes me as about as smart as Obama using the USPS as an example of a successful government run program in order to encourage support for that same government to take over health care!
The linkage may give the Republicans a patina of success if this push on health care fails, all the while that average citizens and the knowledgeable people in the health care industry are actually doing the heavy lifting.
The Republicans get a lift by association without having to do much of the heavy work.
Then there is his bewilderment that *his* side is losing.
“Has lost.” FTFY.
Maybe the “English majors” reference meant that the Dems have lots of people to type up their talking points, since typing is virtually the only marketable skill of an English major.
I think of Obama’s plan and I think of this image: http://is.gd/2dYxi
Math is me.
Neil is illogical and a shrew…
Neil,
http://theblogprof.blogspot.com/2009/08/busted-obama-as-hitler-poster-was.html
Is this your war.
You evil warmongering bastard.
Why not actually debate the issues like a real person/man. Not intellectually honest enough?
Good shall prevail… We will win over evil. How’s that?
From my admittedly biased POV : if English majors are for in, I’m agin’ it.
Correction. Guess I need an English major to proofread.
From my admittedly biased POV : if English majors are for it, I’m agin’ it.
Guys, come on! Leave the English Majors alone – after all SOMEBODY has to work at the coffee shops!
“Oh, so you’re an English major? OK, then…take a letter.”
I used to refer to English majors (among others) as pursuing a “pre-secretarial” curriculum. A nasty canard, but just true enough to sting. A lot.
Hey, guys – I’m an English major! And I do have other marketable skills, besides writing riveting prose! Thanks to twenty years in the Air Force and fifteen more at the corporate level, I have forgotten more about people-handling and administrative cat-fighting than most people have ever learned! I have managed a good few offices, done sales, taken incoming calls, and besides that, I have also done media relations! Hey, you want someone on-point, coherent, logical and personable at 6-oh-bloody-thirty for a local talk-radio interview, redesign your literary website, outline a presentation for a historical committee, handle incoming phones and find the file about the client that you forgot about, three years ago? I’m your person – coffee shops indeed, Scottie! That’s where the useless, unintelligent ones finish up – all the others wind up doing much more interesting and remunerative jobs!
(Although I don’t do dictation … sort out your own damn letter, give it to me to put the final polish on, and make it look like it actually came from a literate and thoughtful person.)
Is there a society I can join, to counter all this persiflage about English majors!
Look all the Dems have to do is explain, in logically consistent fashion without appeals to magic, how their plan will slow the growth of healthcare costs while not forcing granny onto rations or sorting her into crumbs from the operating table.
They have lots of English majors but Mr. Nell suffers from a common misperception about those who study the writings of others, being a good reader or even a good commenter on the works of others, doesn’t make you a good writer. Not to mention, when it comes to finding answers about people’s healthcare, you gotta show your work to get credit.
This guy has no more sense of right and wrong than a tree frog.
Sgt. Mom-
you’ll probably have to found one to counter your own worst PR enemy– other English majors!
Fair enough (and no offense intended!), but you didn’t learn those skills as an English major though, did you? I’d say your achievement probably came in spite of — rather than because of – being an English major.
Uh…the CPUSA? Apparently they’ve got lots of ’em. /g
Gcotharn, I have had many of the same suspicions about medicare after hearing many complaints over the years until now, when it is hoisted as the perfect system.
What I wonder about is all the fraud connected to it, aren’t people get busted fairly routinely for false billing etc? I seem to remember quite a few reports of that, they probably only detect a few percent of the actual amount of fraud.
We need informed input like yours to keep the record straight, keep it coming.
Apparently enough of the useless ones, OB … damn, I just may have to found my own English-major’s group, at that.
Y’see – the thing was, once upon a time – that getting a degree in English Lit meant a couple of things: that you had a fair degree of literacy (being able to spell, to use proper grammar and write a coherent sentence/paragraph/disquisition) on about any topic imaginable, be familiar with about 800 years worth of literary output, probably type at a good rate, and be able to boil down complicated subjects into something understandable by the general public. You could also think and analyze, “read” people with a fair degree of accuracy (I used to astound my fellow NCOs and corporate supervisors with my ability to “see” things about people and situations – things that they didn’t also “see” until I had pointed it out to them!) – And no, I don’t think that came from life experience: when I first got into the military, I was absolutely astounded at all the real-life people, and situations that I encountered … which I had first seen in books.
It helped, though – that my tastes in literary fiction ran to things published before 1930…
Having a degree in English used to be the starting point for all sorts of interesting careers: you could use it as a spring-board/starting position in all sorts of fields. It seems, though, that a lot of them have chosen to use that power for ill, and not good… 🙂
Occam’s Beard Says:
August 12th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
typing is virtually the only marketable skill of an English major.
And here I am, an English major who can barely type. Luckily, Mrs. Oblio hasn’t been able to figure out in 27 years that I have no prospects whatsoever.
Yet one more mistake of my youth, I suppose. Maybe everyone has something for which they need to atone.
One of the left’s biggest canards is the issue of insurance company executive compensation. This was highlighted by a monologue by Bill Maher that stated that health care shouldn’t be for profit. I would venture to guess that with a big HBO contract Maher’s net worth isn’t that far off of that Cigna’s CEO Mr. Hanway. The difference being that Mr. Hanway has provided us employment for tens of thousands, stock dividends for hundreds of thousands and health care for millions, whereas Bill Maher has provided us satire and cynicism.
Darrell-
like this fraud from PP?
Sgt Mom-
Ah! You’re from back when English actually covered stuff that might be enjoyable to read and defended proper use of language, rather than focusing on staring up ones *ahem* and re-formating stories for political ends.
Er, maybe I should say “a classic English major” so I don’t get hurt…. ;^p
The leftist criticism for everything is that someone is making a profit. From a government perspective, where most profits are handed out to co-conspirators, I understand how one could see profits as excessive handouts to disagreeable people.
But, it is laughable to think that government administrators are motivated exclusively by altruism. They don’t consider their wages, expense accounts, vacation pay, per diem overages, medical care, and pension as their personal profit. No, that is an honest salary for hard work in a mind-numbing environment.
Most people regard profits as somehow unnecessary and “extra”. Without profit, things would be so much cheaper. Or, maybe not.
They Are Profiting From My Needs
I once met a person who blamed the bakery for selling her a cake. You see, thay made a profit off of her.
The cluelessness of the left on this issue reminds me of the story of the Berkeley political science profesor commenting on Reagan’s election to the presidency. He was reported to have said that he did not see how Reagan was elected because he did not know anybody who voted for him.
This does, of course, illustrate the fundamental difference between the “right” and the “left”. The right views humanity as individuals, the left views the great unwashed as accidental animals that can be manipulated – like training a dog.
“New Soviet man”. “Aryan Volk”, ad nauseum. Their plaint: “They just don’t understand – we have to phrase it differently or maybe saturate the media”. Recently their newest guru was another pointy head who preached the gospel of “framing”. They don’t get it. They are people of shriveled souls.
Foxfier, precisely! its the cock roach theory, you see only one but inside the wall…….
Darrell Says:
“What I wonder about is all the fraud connected to it, aren’t people get busted fairly routinely for false billing etc?”
Seems like they just catch the big fish doing huge amounts. One way medicare keeps admin costs low is by not having people even look for small time fraud… so, we see how much they pay for services but have very little idea how much is fraud.
Darrell,
Medicare barely chases down the fraud. I have heard first hand accounts of persons on Medicare, plus one doctor’s office, having contacted Medicare to report fraud which they had knowledge of. According to these complainants: Medicare is not interested. Medicare seems to be too overwhelmed to care about investigating fraud – or at least, is too overwhelmed to investigate what they consider small potatoes.
Well, then that’s a perfect reason to expand it isn’t it? There seems to be a lot of graft tied to their policies, stimulus etc…..guess they brought that from Chicago.
Darrell Says:
“Well, then that’s a perfect reason to expand it isn’t it? ”
Whats funny (sad?) is some people then say medicare can serve as a money saving example compared to private insurance since their admin overhead is so much lower….
Thomas, I need to find those people and sell them stuff, should be easy eh? Sad aye.
Two points: it may be because of all those English majors that they are losing the battle of words.
Secondly, class warfare does not always turn out the way the people who instigate it imagine. In other words, even if his side wins in a very nasty fashion, this guy may well be disposed of. This has happened many many times.
Sgt. Mom,
I think I have to agree with Occam’s Beard on this one. You seem to be a perceptive individual who just happens to be an English Major. I don’t think you are a perceptive individual because you’re an English Major.
Or you could be the-exception-that-proves-the-rule kind of gal….lol.
So now we need to know if you are truly an English Major.
Have you ever – EVER – served exotic sounding flavors of coffee at exhorbitant prices in a coffee house based in a rundown building that was described as “artsy”?
😉
Scottie, I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Sgt. Mom on behalf of renegade English majors everywhere. Our side needs people who read a lot, think about culture, and can take the fight to the Progressives on their home ground.
I am a little worried, however, about what happens when we all get to Galt’s Gulch. Perhaps Occam’s Beard will give me a job at the diner. I can also recite patriotic verse for your entertainment.
Scottie … about serving exotic coffee in a run-down/artsy coffee house? Never. As G-d is my witness, I have never had a job in a coffee house, or as waitstaff anywhere.
So we’re agreed then, Oblio and Sgt. Mom are gonna run Galt’s Gulch Coffee House for us?
Ah, which one is manager and which one is serving the coffee?
Interesting. Republicans can shoot themselves in the foot with the best of them, so evil capitalists and independents must be in there somewhere. Democrats don’t lose many street fights.
Few politicians from any perspective will even mention tort reform and what its impact could be in all of this.
Thalpy,
Regarding your statement that “Democrats don’t lose many street fights.”, please consider the examples of Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Mike Dukakis, the election cycle of 1994, Al Gore, Republican control of Congress until 2006…..and possibly the coming election cycle of 2010.
You may wanna re-evaluate your statement.
A few weeks ago I read a comment (sorry, I don’t remember where) that Medicare doesn’t have the resources to track down fraud unless the loss exceeds $50,000,000.00. That’s a lot of zeros. That’s a lot of fraud.
The commenter was slinging enough insurance, billing and coding info to persuade me that he/she is in the business.
Re: English majors: I’ll see your English major and raise you a philosophy degree. I’ve always thought the philosophy majors should have the coffeehouses and he English majors, the bookstores. The R/T/F majors should get the video rental stores, of course.
How about my dad’s AA general studies degree? Mainly focused on music appreciation.
He’s a rancher, and was an “electrician” in the Army. (He installed power lines.)