Over at The League, I respond to some criticisms of my State of the Unions post that I linked to here yesterday. In case you’re interested.
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by E.D. Kain| 39 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
Over at The League, I respond to some criticisms of my State of the Unions post that I linked to here yesterday. In case you’re interested.
Comments are closed.
Yutsano
I think your Cavuto marks are missing around the word “crisis” ED.
E.D. Kain
@Yutsano: oh damn, you’re right.
Stillwater
This. Good stuff in that Union post.
By the way (not that you’re a libertarian, but many at LOOG are), one very compelling argument in favor of social welfare programs is derived from libertarian principles: if the best society is the one which permits citizens to act on the largest consistent set of basic rights (or alternatively, the largest consistent set of liberties), and if citizens cannot act on the full set of liberties due to severe economic disadvantage, then the state ought to support welfare programs in order to maximize total actionable liberties (just so long as implementing those programs isn’t inconsistent with others basic rights or liberty, and assuming the harm principle as a constraint on what constitutes a liberty). Clearly, increasing the marginal tax rate doesn’t deny anyone the right to make a living, nor does it infringe on any particular liberty – tho it does make buying that third vacation home a little more difficult.
Now, off to read the comments to your Union post at LOOG.
Yutsano
@Stillwater:
I’m expecting torches and pitchforks. Apparently ED can’t get lurve no matter where he blogs.
E.D. Kain
@Stillwater: good points.
@Yutsano:
Actually it’s a very mixed bag.
Pooh
E.D.
You’re growing on me. Maybe the monopolies thing was your “Jane Hamseher’s of the left (not including any actual Jane Hamshers)” moment!
Alan
E.D. Kain, do you read ladypoverty? Not yet? Alright, here you go, he just recently wrote a post on this very topic:
http://ladypoverty.blogspot.com/2011/01/taxpayers-revolt.html
But really, if you want your world rocked, you need to read these two posts in order:
http://ladypoverty.blogspot.com/2010/08/social-networks.html
http://ladypoverty.blogspot.com/2010/08/commodities-come-between-us.html
Stillwater
@Yutsano: No, pretty balanced. There are some really smart people there: both intellectually intelligent but also sorta emotionally intelligent, if you know what I mean (I don’t mean that to sound as condescending as it sounds!). They see the bigger picture, and argue pretty carefully about the topic at hand.
Yutsano
@Stillwater: I actually am acquainted with emotional intelligence, I didn’t think it translated to the Interwebs well though. Can I just trust your judgment and assume ED will live long enough for his kids to get out of diapers?
nancydarling
Kevin Phillips has been chronicling the demise of the middle class since 1990. The Politics of Rich and Poor, Boiling Point, Arrogant Capital, Wealth and Democracy, American Theocracy, are the books I have read. His latest is Bad Money which I may skip. I am sure there are other Cassandras out there who are just as prolific. Talk about prophets without honor, etc. Only the fabulously wealthy can afford 50,000 acres in Argentina to run away to when everything turns to shit. The rest of us and the ordinarily wealthy will be stuck. They still have to breath the air and drink the water that the rest of us do, but their “unenlightened self-interest” requires fealty to the religion of money—foul the rivers and oceans, cut off mountain tops, all in the name of their religion.We are turning into a Philip Dick dystopia.
This is my moment of gloom. Now back to leaning toward the light as Barry Lopez advises.
morzer
@Stillwater:
The LOOG? They have a strong glibertarian tendency, and feel about evidence the way that a hydrophobic cat feels about water. I read them for months, and it was one ideological assertion, unbacked by evidence, after another. ED Kain is much improved, since he came to a blog where people really do debate, and where facts are required.
Stillwater
@Yutsano: I didn’t think it translated to the Interwebs well though
Hah. It’s an uphill battle, but progress is being made one comment at a time!
Stillwater
@morzer: Don’t go assumin I was talking about LOOGies in general! Just the commenters to EDK’s recent Unions post. And there was still plenty of evidence free assertion going on. But there was also some pushback with evidence and facts, and even links to graphs! Maybe I was a bit too generous upthread. Some of the commenters seemed pretty hip on the facts, as well as patient enough to not blast their less informed co-LOOGies.
E.D. Kain
@Alan: thanks, I’ll check those links out for sure.
morzer
@Stillwater:
Well, hey, you weren’t wildly specific in that post, you know. Sure, the commentators on that thread (many of whom seem strangely familiar) are much better than usual, but the front-page LOOGatics are generally depressing to read in the extreme.
Honorable exception for the now fiery young radical Erik the Red Kain.
E.D. Kain
@Stillwater: I think the League is much too heterodox to be labeled as glibertarian, but it’s my website and I’ve worked hard at it, so I’m biased obviously. I do agree it’s become tilted too far toward libertarianism though. I want to add more perspectives to keep thing diverse.
Svensker
Please explain how the private sector will catch up to the unions. “We’re going to lift the bottom boats rather than lower the top boats” or something like that, you all are talking about. Great! But how?
If you’re going for a massive tax redistribution plan, I’m all for it but it doesn’t seem to me that the US has gone solidly soshulest yet. Or did I miss something?
Stillwater
@E.D. Kain: My experiences there are limited, pretty much to reading the comments to your posts, but I’d agree. I was surprised that so many of the commenters adopted pretty liberal views about some very ideological policy issues. There was certainly some pushback against reflexive libertarian solutions. Even pushback against reflexive libertarian framing.
ETA: I thought the threads on repealing ACA and the lack of a GOP alternative were pretty good.
morzer
@E.D. Kain:
Why don’t you add Asiangrrl to the mix? She’d certainly shake up some of your stodgier commentators, and she’s hardly a glibertarian. Writes well for a chick, too.
*waits for Asiangrrl to growl at the chick remark*
E.D. Kain
@morzer: I’d certainly like to have more female contributors…
morzer
@E.D. Kain:
Well, ask her .. up? Out? In? Drop her a line. You can find her via her blog, or ABL’s place.
I am sure you would be eloquent, courteous.. even, dare I say it, gentlemanly, and she would definitely add something to the LOOG. Blow away the cigar smoke, EDK. Tear down this gender wall, Mr Blogpresident!
matoko_chan
@morzer: tee hee.
good thing i pried the safe up offa EDK’s head for a peek.
LoOG would be an excellent place for asiangrrl and you too morzer.
A blog that is collectively too stupid to see its getting pranked by the TrollMaster.
AMG, you guyz are DUMB.
matoko_chan
gotta admire his execution.
sheer perfection.
DougJ the Master Troll
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@matoko_chan: If you suspect, as I do sometimes, that matoko_chan is possibly another DougJ troll then that particular exchange is post-modern beyond Pynchon’s dreams.
morzer
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
I think the poor child was born redacted. She can’t help it.
She’s a bit too rabid to be a DougJ special. His provocations tend to rise up briefly and then go limp after a thread or two.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@morzer: I will defer to your greater knowledge. That is unless you are still another tr…no, no, no. I’m not going down that rabbit hole.
But Morzer, you’re probably the best pitcher in double A. Why not step up and go big league/front pager yourself?
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: ::bounds in and slaps you across the face with a velvet glove::
Oh lord. You are a rake, aren’t you? I would fit in over at LOOG about as well as I would at Red State or Jezebel (which is, not well at all). Stop trying to twit poor E.D., you cad, you.
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): ‘Coz morzer is a boy, and he’s trying to stir up trouble.
morzer
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
What is double A? I must be getting old, but I missed the reference. I blame Levenson, whose inferior Latinity caused me grave distress.
I have thought about blogging, and even had some ideas about what I would like to say and the format that would interest me, so maybe I should give it a whirl. I did consider offering guest posts to some blogs, but does the world really need another embittered, over-educated Dolphins fan opening his yap?
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Oooh spankie spank time by nursie! More, more!
Seriously, if he asks, you should accept. Challenge them, make them think about their assumptions. You are as good a writer as any. Give it a go. I really think you would add something that they badly need, and you’d raise the quality considerably.
And yes, xin nian kuai le, please!
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@morzer: Major League pitcher’s last stop (before going big league) is usually in double A baseball. Not triple A for reasons that I once knew but now elude me.
@asiangrrlMN: 2nded. You should write @LOOG. Why the hell not? Fireworks! Arguments! Counter-arguments!
Page veiws! Everybody wins.
morzer
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
Indeed. Clearly persons of good sense and standing in the community think alike. Now, do you think Sheriff Arpaio is going to pay us a “special” visit tonight? I want my shiv at the ready.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: You crack me the fuck up. You really do. And, thanks for the endorsement.
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): You, too. But, in case you both haven’t noticed, I have bewbies and a foul mouth. Both, I fear, are disqualifying factors.
ETA: And I’m a raging, flaming liberal (though, not ragy-flamey enough for the lefty-lefts, I fear). That alone would be enough to disqualify me.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
ED Kain wants more diversity. You would be perfect, and you write well. Anyway, if he asks, you really should accept.
ED Kain, stop skulking in the shadows. Put up your dukes, boy!
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@asiangrrlMN: But it would be such good practice for the chaps over at LOOG to interact with a real, honest-to-jah girl in a safe and controlled enviornment.
SomethingEverything about that site tells me the fellas over there would benefit from the attention of a woman.And you would get as many sub-rosa marriage proposals as sneering comments, I suspect.
matoko_chan
@morzer:
euwwwww
am i the only one that found the visuals that phrase conjured to be….well….. incredibly creepy?
break out the emergency brain bleach, plz.
/drops safe back on EDK
E.D. Kain
@morzer: I’ll have to familiarize myself with her writing.
@asiangrrlMN: I’ll check out your blog. Morzer’s given you high props. Try to be gentle with him.
Chuck Butcher
I am an occasional visitor to LOOG, these comments are better than the others I’ve read.
BTW, re: the “free” words, once you agree that what you want to talk about is the level of management those words are nothing more than buzz words to inaccurately describe your process. Those buzz words are peculiar to a certain (IMO) assholish POV. If they don’t reflect your POV then your writing descends into gibberish.
morzer
@E.D. Kain:
But I like being spanked by her. It makes my long, cold winter nights so much more.. rewarding.
And her writing is good. It’s funny, incisive, sometimes bawdy, always intelligent. Believe me, she’ll challenge your boys, and the LOOG will be vastly the better for it.
Put on your fighting trousers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iRTB-FTMdk
matoko_chan
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): well no…since EDK banned me b4 i evah met the Master.
do you know what is hilarious tho? watching EDK try to pretend that DougJ didnt just totally ream him. is EDK too stupid to unnerstand what just happened or too humiliated to acknowlege what just went down?
DougJ utterly pranked those pompous assclowns that EDK is sooooo proud of.
the whole question thing was a setup, a trap that those morons fell right into.
i think ill leave the safe off a while.
this is all too delicious.
the whole thing is like a show proof for Salam-Douthat stratification.