E.D. Kain

I’ve set up a Twitter account that should tweet out every post across the League as they’re published, including all sub-blogs. You can follow it here.

Same goes for our Facebook page which you can “like” here. I’ll get some follow icons up in the sidebar shortly.

 

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What are women for?

by E.D. Kain on February 17, 2012

I keep trying to better understand James Poulos. I like James a great deal, though we disagree pretty fundamentally on many things. I’ve been fascinated by his discussions of the Pink Police State (a conservative argument against panem et circenses.)

And yet postmodern conservatism has always been somewhat vague. It’s unorthodox in terms of American debate – not quite paleoconservatism, not quite neoconservatism. I’m not sure exactly. Like I said, I keep trying to understand Poulos, and I don’t always succeed.

So I walk with caution into his latest piece at The Daily Caller - a piece which was at once designed for controversy (and certainly titled for clicks) but which James has taken plenty of flack on already. I hate to merely pile on.

I almost hate excerpting, but I will anyways. After mucking through the contraception debate a bit, James veers into a discussion of left orthodoxy and particularly what he sees as an inchoate take on “what women are for:”

Lip service is often paid to the impression that the point of empowering women is to empower them to do whatever they want, but much of the left stops well short of the more radical implications of that easy answer. The left’s culture of celebration is hamstrung by the very assertions of should and shouldn’t that contemporary women have inevitably come to make — as the ongoing debate over the advisability of marriage reveals. Reihan Salam has hinted that typically left-wing implications of academic theories like “erotic capital,” including mainstreaming prostitution, point in directions quite at odds with the dominant but failing framework of liberal sexual politics.

To the growing discomfort of many, that framework hasn’t come anywhere close to answering even the most basic questions about what women are for — despite pretty much universal recognition across the political spectrum that a civilization of men, for men, and by men is no civilization at all, a monstrously barbaric, bloody, and brutal enterprise. A few inherently meaningful implications about what women are for flow naturally from this wise and enduring consensus, but no faction of conservatives or liberals has figured out how to fully grasp, translate, and reconcile them in the context of our political life.

Ironically, one of the best places to look for a way out of the impasse is the strain of left feminism that insists an inherently unique female “voice” actually exists. That’s a claim about nature. Much good would come from a broader recognition that women have a privileged relationship with the natural world. That’s a relationship which must receive its social due — if masculinity in its inherent and imitative varieties (including imitation by quasi-feminized males of quasi-masculinized females!) is not to conquer the world.

I read this as an extension of James’s broader critique of libertarianism or perhaps libertinism. But I find the framing of the issue distracting at best, and unnecessarily inflammatory at worst. What are women for?

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A poll for the times

by E.D. Kain on February 16, 2012

Jack Gillis has a poll on religion, which seems appropriate for the current debate, over at his Newsvine blog. Check it out if you have a minute.

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Forbes Update

by E.D. Kain on February 16, 2012

So, some good news on the commenting front at Forbes. Today marks the first day that the site will allow social logins. That means if you’d like to comment on any Forbes blog including mine or Alex’s, you can login with your Twitter, Facebook, or Google accounts (and a few more, too.)

Also, Aziz Poonawalla has a guest post up at my digs on the strategy Amazon ought to be taking now that it’s entered the tablet market. Check it out here.

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So our healthcare system is all screwed up for innumerable reasons like the fact that we have to get insurance from our employers. We have the whole thing rigged with middle-men and price controls and protectionism. On top of that it’s an unfair system that leaves too many people out in the cold. Maybe part of the problem here is the government getting involved in utterly ridiculous ways over the years – an ad hoc approach that has left a terrible tangle in its wake.

The other problem is that too many people think that we can get healthcare to people without government assistance, which I just don’t think is true. I’m fine with using markets to get the pricing mechanism working again, but I want the state to help people get basic access to care and to make sure nobody is without life-saving coverage and that nobody goes bankrupt.

It seems painfully obvious to me that a fundamental piece of a woman’s basic healthcare needs is her ability to have some modicum of control over her own body. Contraception is extremely important to many women (and their families) and having the ability to have access to contraception is a basic individual right in today’s world.

What about before there even was contraception? Well, women were much worse off in general back then, and the lack of an ability to have control over their own bodies was a big part of it (not long ago it was perfectly legal to rape your wife, for instance.) Women were also worse off before they had a right to vote – even when nobody had a right to vote. Rights are not always eternal. Sometimes they emerge with new systems of government, new notions about our humanity, new technologies. Sometimes people want to take them away.

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I’m so tired of buzz-phrases repeated endlessly on cable news so that people who are angry and don’t quite know why can repeat them without really thinking about what they mean.

Well that’s not entirely true. I’m also sort of fascinated by them, but that’s just because I’m a blogger and we’re designed to be fascinated by things that should annoy the hell out of us instead.

Here’s a pretty decent ad that Clint Eastwood did for the Obama administration Chrysler:


A clear reference to “It’s morning in America” with an almost pun-like tie-in to the Superbowl. I liked the ad – partly because I’m a Clint Eastwood fanboy – but not everybody agreed.

“I was, frankly, offended by it,” said Karl Rove on Fox News Monday. “I’m a huge fan of Clint Eastwood, I thought it was an extremely well-done ad, but it is a sign of what happens when you have Chicago-style politics, and the president of the United States and his political minions are, in essence, using our tax dollars to buy corporate advertising.”

I’m irritated by essentially every word that comes out of Karl Rove’s mouth (and from now on he will be Ham Rove as far as I’m concerned) but it’s that phrase – Chicago-style politics – that irks me the most. I’m almost 100% sure that I’ve heard that before.

No I’ve definitely heard that phrase before….

John Boehner has used it to describe the Obama White House. So has Mitt Romney. And Sarah Palin.

Even this guy has been tossing the term around:

No seriously.

Basically Google “Chicago-Style Politics” plus “Insert Republican Name Here” and you’ll find some reference to the horrible Capone-like politics of the Obama administration.

It’s kind of cute how they can all get on the bandwagon one moment, and then use their unlimited Super PAC money to tear one another from limb to limb the next.

Now Karl Rove is using it to attack Clint Eastwood. And American car manufacturing.

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In Defense Of Newt Gingrich

by E.D. Kain on January 27, 2012

Or, well, at least in defense of a moon colony.

That’s the ground I stake out in my latest piece in The Atlantic.

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I’m live-blogging the debate here.

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Citizens United Vs. The GOP

by E.D. Kain on January 26, 2012

I have yet another defense of Citizens United up, this time at my new politics-only blog. Please let me know if I’m full of it. And yes, I continue to shamelessly promote that blog here and elsewhere. I just can’t help myself.    

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New Blogs!

by E.D. Kain on January 23, 2012

I’d like to draw your attention to the latest TWO sub-blogs to go live at The League.

Jonathan McLeod is writing “The 49th” – a Canadian politics blog with an eye toward American audiences. His intro post is here.

Kyle Cupp hasn’t written an intro post yet, but keep checking back in for one. His blog, Journeys in Alterity, is live here.

Also, keep your eyes peeled for the return of an old friend.

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Stop Censorship, Stop ACTA

by E.D. Kain January 23, 2012

I have a primer up at Forbes on a little known trade agreement, ACTA, which does all the bad stuff that SOPA threatened to do, only worse. Masked as an anti-counterfeiting treaty, ACTA threatens freedom of speech online and sets up elaborate and invasive means of clamping down on file sharing, generic drugs, and reinforcing [...]

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Newt’s Secret Ingredient

by E.D. Kain January 22, 2012

Just a reminder to all you fine ladies and gentlemen, I will be covering the 2012 election circus with a reasonable amount of snark over at my new American Times politics blog. I have a brief meditation on the conservative movement, Newt’s South Carolina victory, and the state of the union here. What leads voters to [...]

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Gandalf Stops SOPA

by E.D. Kain January 19, 2012

This has been making the social media rounds. And it made me laugh. Thankfully we have Ron Wyden playing the role of Gandalf here in the real world (of course, he’s directly opposed to PIPA since SOPA is a House bill.) A few other good men and women in congress have been steadfastly opposing the [...]

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Comment Deletion, Comment Policy, etc.

by E.D. Kain January 18, 2012

A few quick points. Front page authors: it is absolutely against our comment policy to delete any comments unless they are abject trolling, way out-of-bounds attacks on the author or other commenters, or seriously profane. We don’t delete comments we disagree with or just because we find them annoying. If you have a sub-blog you [...]

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Rep. Jared Polis on his opposition to SOPA

by E.D. Kain January 18, 2012

The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive My interview with Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado is not as funny as Stephen Colbert’s Better Know A District bit with him from back in the day, but it is important because it touches on Rep. Polis’s opposition to the anti-piracy bill, [...]

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Batman and Civil Society

by E.D. Kain January 17, 2012

I have a long-ish post up at Forbes that the comic-book lovers among you, and those of you who enjoy Nolan’s Dark Knight films, might enjoy. I know the commenting is still sort of dark age at Forbes so let’s have the thread right here. Personally, the Dark Knight trilogy so far has been one of the [...]

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Forget Citizens United, the real corporate money is Big Media and the revolving door

by E.D. Kain January 17, 2012

That’s the basic premise of my latest piece in The Atlantic: In a 5-4 decision in January of 2010, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional campaign finance regulations which restricted corporations and unions from using funds from their general treasuries in elections, striking down previous court decisions on the matter. This was met with a huge [...]

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A Wrinkle in Time

by E.D. Kain January 15, 2012

Austin Allen has a lovely post on Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time up at Big Think: L’Engle insisted that her novel be published as a children’s book, but she nearly gave up on finding anyone willing to do so. More than two dozen houses turned it down before Farrar, Straus & Giroux took a [...]

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A New Politics Blog

by E.D. Kain January 12, 2012

So I’m expanding the American Times Empire. My blog at Forbes has gradually morphed into a tech blog. I write about all sorts of tech stuff there now – from social media to video games to the politics of SOPA and, of course, my craft beer reviews. But politics, in the “Mitt Romney is secretly [...]

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Resurrection of a book club – The Darkness that Comes Before

by E.D. Kain January 5, 2012

My sincere apologies to everyone who was, er, participating in this bookclub. With recent job changes and the holidays and some other things it sort of fell off the face of the earth. I’m not sure how far everyone read – for all I know you all gave up, or finished the book and are [...]

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Libertarianism and Liberalism and Labels

by E.D. Kain January 2, 2012

I’ve spilled far too much ink trying to map out my politics on to the available political labels, and I fear I will keep spilling it. Over at Bleeding-Heart Libertarians, Will Wilkinson disavows the libertarian label altogether, and basically shuts the door on the ill-named liberaltarian label as well. There are simply too many ways [...]

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Not Ron Paul or Huntsman – Maybe Johnson, Maybe Obama

by E.D. Kain December 27, 2011

I’m conflicted. Like Andrew Sullivan, after the barrage of news and pushback on Ron Paul and the racist newsletters published under his name for so many years, I think it would be almost impossible to pull the lever for the man. How can a man with this sort of baggage sit in the White House? [...]

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Jon Huntsman is the Perfect Republican Candidate

by E.D. Kain December 26, 2011

“New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters who want to field a candidate with broad appeal and the capability and credibility to have a shot at beating President Obama have three choices: putative frontrunner Mitt Romney, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, and diplomat and two-term Utah governor Jon Huntsman. The choice of Huntsman should be clear,” [...]

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Here Comes Iowa

by E.D. Kain December 22, 2011

I’m left with more than a little despair these days. Ron Paul’s newsletters and the implications of those pamphlets, including the enormous amount of money Paul made publishing them, are more damning than I at first believed. The revelations presented not just by Paul’s political opponents, but by his natural allies in the libertarian camp, [...]

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League Feed

by E.D. Kain December 21, 2011

The only fix I could come up with for our broken RSS feed was to change the Feedburner feed to an atom feed rather than the regular rss feed we were using. I have no idea if this will mean anything to anyone, but it does look like we’re back in business.

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Ron Paul, Racism, and War

by E.D. Kain December 21, 2011

First things first, I’d like to apologize to mistermix for the rudeness of my last piece on the matter. Mainly I was feeling jaded over various Twitter exchanges that occurred prior to my reading his post, and it simply opened whatever petty wound I’d been smarting over. It was an uncharitable response, and not really [...]

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Ron Paul and the racist newsletter

by E.D. Kain December 18, 2011

Mistermix asks: Both ED Kain and he-who-shall-not-be-named have endorsed Paul for President as a protest vote. Since I’m not a serious thinker, I’m free of the weighty obligation to endorse someone in the GOP primary. But for those serious folks, I have a simple question: how could you endorse a guy who published and profited from a newsletter that included AIDS conspiracy theories and [...]

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Why I Will Be Voting for Ron Paul in 2012

by E.D. Kain December 15, 2011

Ron Paul is often described as a crank. Even folks like Ross Douthat who write basically sympathetic columns about the congressman from Texas say things like, “Paul, for all his crankishness, is the kind of conservative that Tea Partiers want to believe themselves to be: Deeply principled, impressively consistent, a foe of big government in [...]

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Going Down to St. Francisville

by E.D. Kain December 13, 2011

Rod Dreher is going home, back to the South, back to St. Francisville – a town he left at sixteen. His musings on that departure and eventual return are worth the read: When you are young, you think you can do anything. Living with the limits imposed by a small town can be hard. It [...]

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Portrait of the blogger as a young man

by E.D. Kain December 12, 2011

So I am now officially unemployed. Well, I am officially blogging full time actually – so not quite unemployed so much as not traditionally employed. I am a contributor at Forbes so that makes me basically a contractor. I left my job of the past few years today and will focus entirely on my writing going [...]

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Democracy and Occupy Wall Street

by E.D. Kain December 8, 2011

Shawn writes: After facilitating at a general assembly several weeks back, one of my best friends received a message from a participant thanking him for the empowering experience. Even in the “world’s greatest democracy,” she had never felt as engaged in the democratic process. At a recent Occupy DSM statement of principles working group meeting, one member [...]

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Okay so I’m indecisive

by E.D. Kain December 4, 2011

I changed my mind yesterday and am planning on returning the Xbox 360 when it arrives. I was just going over a long list of exclusives for the PS3 vs those for the Xbox and, honestly, titles like Uncharted and God of War are just more appealing to me simply because the big Xbox exclusives [...]

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And the winner is…

by E.D. Kain December 1, 2011

Xbox 360 won out in the end. PS3 has the Blu-Ray, but I’m just not that concerned with Blu-Ray right now. Maybe in the future I’ll get a PS3 or a Blu-Ray player, but right now from what I could tell people were leaning toward Xbox as the better unit for gaming, and especially first-person-shooters. [...]

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Sad News

by E.D. Kain November 27, 2011

I wanted to offer my condolences to James Joyner for the sudden loss of his wife, Kimberly. James has long been a friend of this blog. To me personally, James has always been a good blogging role-model – a generous and fair-minded presence online. In many ways he was a big help in getting both [...]

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Cyber Monday Wars: PS3 vs. Xbox 360

by E.D. Kain November 27, 2011

So I’ve been a PC gamer for a long time. I haven’t owned a console in years and this Cyber Monday I’m thinking about buying one. Already there are some good deals out there. The question is, which is the better machine: Sony’s Playstation 3 or Microsoft’s Xbox 360? Right now you can get a [...]

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‘The Darkness that Comes Before’ Book Club Part One: The Monk and the Sorcerer

by E.D. Kain November 18, 2011

My apologies out the gate: I meant to post this on Monday, but the conference I attended over the weekend through everything into a tailspin. With that said, let’s begin… The first book in our series opens, appropriately, with a quote from Nietzsche: I shall never tire of underlining a concise little fact which these [...]

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A song for Thursday

by E.D. Kain November 17, 2011

I’ve probably posted this before but it’s just such a great song. The Once and Future Carpenter, by the Avett Brothers I’m such a dork, I asked Lyle Lovett what he thought of the Avett Brothers because something about how really sincere and friendly those guys are really reminded me of Lovett. He told me he [...]

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You say you want a revolution, well…

by E.D. Kain November 17, 2011

Michael Drew, in the comments: First the knock was that they’d never last.  Now the problem seems to be that they hung on too long and things got a little ripe.  I would counsel patience, Erik (if you are inclined – if you once thought there was potential here).  I think you simply do not [...]

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The Limits of Democracy and Populism

by E.D. Kain November 16, 2011

I have to admit, Occupy Wall Street has been irking me lately. Whatever legitimate gripe sparked the movement, the occupations began devolving into a frothy mixture of crime and partying within the last few weeks and along with them whatever hopes the movement had of netting a broader portion of the public. Whether this means [...]

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An observation

by E.D. Kain November 15, 2011

I am at an airport and the internet is very slow. So far the only site that is not slow, not refusing to load, is The League. I cannot follow any of the many links to the Batman post below. I can’t even load my email. It’s as though the entire internet was frozen save [...]

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The League, Here and There and Back Again

by E.D. Kain November 11, 2011

I know Mark is working on a history of the League, and Patrick and Tod and others have been doing various posts about where readers and commenters and writers and so forth all hail from and top posts and other grand delvings into the site’s whirligigs. I thought I’d say a few words. Once upon a [...]

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Fantasy and High Fantasy

by E.D. Kain November 8, 2011

Alyssa Rosenberg and Adam Serwer both have responses up to my post on fantasy and the Anglosphere. Adam correctly notes that what I’m writing about in particular is “high fantasy” – a sub-genre of fantasy more broadly. I admit to not making my argument as clearly as I should have. So let me point out [...]

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The dangers and the promise of a strong central state

by E.D. Kain November 8, 2011

I have a long(ish) piece up at Forbes asking liberals to take the civil liberties record of Barack Obama more seriously – I’m basically riffing off of this excellent piece by Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic - and I come to the conclusion that there’s something inherent in our political system which leaves us with these terrible [...]

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A League App for iPhone and Android?

by E.D. Kain November 7, 2011

Any ideas on how the League should go about developing (or contracting out the development of) an app for iPhone/iPad/Android, etc.?

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Fantasy and the Anglosphere

by E.D. Kain November 7, 2011

When I published my fantasy piece in the Atlantic it was linked (reproduced?) by Richard Dawkins’ site and a number of the atheists in the commentariat had scathing things to say about fantasy literature. Apparently it is not enough that readers of fantasy do not, in fact, believe in their make-believe. Apparently the fact that dragons [...]

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