Affirmative Inaction: But what if Kinsley's point made in the excerpted language is not to prove whether affirmative action should or should not exist, but rather to show that the overall effect of affirmative action is much less than its critics espouse? I agree, you're either "fer it or agin it," but I'm not sure Kinsley is necessarily offering us a thesis on the efficiency of affirmative action. I think he's doing what he did with taxes: giving us some meat to chew on, offering a different angle, and letting us reach our own conclusions.