Jeffrey Lord Defends Himself
Jeffrey Lord has responded to my criticism of him for his ignorance of what the word lynching means.
In the face of overwhelming ridicule and criticism, including from his own colleagues and commenters . . . he's doubling down. Honestly, his response is so weak that picking it apart almost seems cruel. I think it speaks for itself.
He has asked me to post a retraction. That isn't going to happen.
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He asked for a retraction? Hilarious.
I say we lynch his dog.
I like the way you think, Citizen.
My favorite ignorance is the phrase “Uncle Tom.” If you read the book, Uncle Tom is actually a heroic, Christ-like figure who through his sacrifice helps others see past their prejudices and become good Christians.
It was actually the most popular book of the 19th Century. While some dislike the book because of “stereotypes” I suspect the book’s overt Christianity is mostly to blame for modern ignorance of the book and thus the term’s original import.
True. I always wondered how “Uncle Tom” came to be a slur.
Parodies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were a popular vaudeville act. Uncle Tom in the parodies was the obedient shuffling old slave that converted Uncle Tom’s Cabin from a expos? of slavery into a defense of slavery and the “Lost Cause” myth.
It’s the “magical negro” thing.
Persecution complexes take a lot of work to support.
Especially phony ones.
He doesn’t appear to know what the term “under color of law” means either.
It most certainly does not mean they had legal authority.
UNDER COLOR OF LAW
Color of law?
Racist!
Yeah, this is what really jumped out of that response. Citing “under color of law” as meaning the person acted in a legally authorized way is utterly and absurdly wrong. In fact, an agent of the government acting in an illegal manner “under color of law” is a classic case of a civil rights violation. Not understanding the difference between “under color of law” and legally authorized makes it hard to take seriously anything else one says about a civil rights case.
Ohh Ohh Ohh! Our old friend –
joe from Lowell| 7.27.10 @ 1:19PM
Look, I’d love to think for myself, but 75 years ago, a racist Supreme Court said different. So I’m stuck here. I can’t describe something as a lynching if somebody else said it wasn’t, no matter how much I agree it was!
You, sir, are a disingenuous fool.
You have to admit, joe is an expert on disingenuous foolery.
He wrote the fucking book.
Amazingly, he’s actually correct here.
Nothing makes me want to stomp someone to death like when they say, “you, sir…” Fucking joe.
That’s why I always call Warty “bitch”.
Bich is Latin for generosity.
And since you’re generous with your links, here’s Entombed doing a cover of Roky Erickson’s (former guitarist of psychedelic pioneers 13th Floor Elevators) Night of the Vampire.
I always wondered if this song was a cover. Thanks.
Wow, what a complete asshole. We all say or write things we shouldn’t now and then. Just back away from the keyboard, dude. You’re not helping.
On a related note, I sincerely don’t understand the people who think simply admitting “Oops, I made a mistake, sorry” is somehow shameful, and the way to avoid this shame is to insist despite all evidence that you were RIGHT, because black is white and up is down and whatever.
Thing is, I’ve been called on mistakes before — though nothing as egregious as this “lynching” idiocy — and when I said “You’re right; I made a mistake,” I actually gained credibility. Which should not surprise anyone with even the most basic understanding of human psychology. Everyone makes mistakes; if you admit it, make amends and move on you’ll get far more respect than if you throw a temper tantrum about it.
“I have read the Court’s decision. Three people are not a “mob.” A mob is defined as a “large crowd.” So there was no “mob action” because there was no mob.”
Well, according the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill passed in 1922 Lord is wrong on the definition of “mob” as well (at least as far as lynching is concerned):
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the phrase “mob or riotous assemblage,” when used in this act, shall mean an assemblage composed of three or more persons acting in concert for the purpose of depriving any person of his life without authority of law as a punishment for or to prevent the commission of some actual or supposed public offense.”
LOL, that dude is such a tool!
http://www.anonymous-surfing.es.tc
Another tempest in a teapot.
Actually, in Lord’s case, I think it’s more a “teapot in a tempest.”
The AmSpec guy started out somewhere near a legit point, then went stupid.
The word “lynching,” as rhetoric, drags a near-universal audience misunderstanding behind it, and its users take advantage of that. It’s a piece of handy and deniable extreme hyperbole. In everyday language, it’s only an image of a gang-hanged black dude, but in legal (and most dictionary-delimited) language, it’s not just that.
You might remember that when Clarence Thomas dropped the metaphorical L-bomb back in the day?and did it, presumably, with the legal definition in mind, since it fit pretty well, and he’s kind of lawyery?the “Oh yeah it’s totally like a MOB is KIDNAPPING and HANGING you! TOOOOOTALLY!” eyerolls were universal over on what’s now the TEAM BLUE! side.
Not this time, of course.
(But yeah.)
You’re reaching…there are far better examples of hypocrisy than this. Surely you agree that using “lynching” when describing the murder of a black man by several white cops is more legitimate than using it to describe a campaign to discredit a public figure.
The comment thread is a beautiful exercise in willful ignorance. The ignorance of one Jeffrey Lord. The commenters are deservedly brutal. It’s quite a treat.
Have you read the comments section to Lord’s post? In it, Lord say’s that the court decision he cites IN HIS OWN POST (!!!) is “racist” and wrong. Yet he uses same said court decision as evidence of Balko’s “wrongness” and as a mechanism to label Sherrod a “liar”. Can you follow his logic???
It’s like he’s saying (and he literally is saying this, I might add; he actually typed most of these words): “The court decision was racist and wrong, but the decision nevertheless proves that Balko and Sherrod are hacks.”
What a what a lying hack Lord is!
France declares war against al-Qaida…
PARIS (AP) – France has declared war on al-Qaida, and matched its fighting words with a first attack on a base camp of the terror network’s North African branch, after the terror network killed a French aid worker it took hostage in April.
The declaration and attack marked a shift in strategy for France, usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes battle against terrorism.
“We are at war with al-Qaida,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death of 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau.
The humanitarian worker had been abducted April 20 or 22 in Niger by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and was later taken to Mali, officials said.
The killers will “not go unpunished,” Sarkozy said in unusually strong language, given France’s habit of employing quiet cooperation with its regional allies?Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Algeria?in which the al-Qaida franchise was spawned amid an Islamist insurgency.
http://www.breitbart.com/artic….._article=1
PARIS (AFP) Hours after declaring war on al-Qaida, amid threats of retaliation by the terrorist organisation, Prime Minister Francois Fillon announced France’s surrender.
+1
“usually discrete about its behind-the-scenes battle against terrorism.”
What, like they take care to ensure that each battle is a wholly self-contained entity or something?
Jeffrey Lord is incoherent.
I agree. I couldn’t decide if he was actually trying to say something or if it was some weird, free association poetry.
I think he’d be taken a bit more seriously if he called himself Lord Jeffrey.
I think Lord Jeffery just wants a juice box.
Wasn’t Jeffrey the kid on the plane that Bill Cosby used to talk about? You know, the one who says “I’m four years old”?
I… I.. I wuz free, but now I’m four!
Especially in Amherst.
This Sherrod thing is so fucking idiotic. Who the fuck is this woman? Who cares what she said? Who reads the American Spectator? Why do birds suddenly appear….?
American Spectator is the new Newsmax. Why do some righties feel the need to make this woman into Van Jones? She is not Van Jones. If Van Jones had his dad murdered by anti-Communists, he would still be employed.
“Why do some righties feel the need to make this woman into Van Jones?”
Because in right or left wing media you never concede, ignore or forgive you attack, attack, attack.
She is still an idiot and a true believer in the racialist bullshit our wonderful government agencies perpetuate, however unjust her firing.
So are lots of people.
Oh, And Boo Radley over there Reasoning away.
Drink!
Any man that called me “boo” would get a kick in the gunt. That’s some out-of-bounds shit.
Anyway, I’m glad he took a beat-down in his own comment thread.
Boo Radley was the tragic hero of TKAMB, so he should take it as a compliment.
I gave him the benefit of the doubt in figuring he was showing his solidarity with the brown people with some street slang. If he did read tkamb, he really is an ignorant douche – I’ve never seen stupidity confirmed so overtly.
Lord was wrong about his definition of lynching, but Sherrod was also wrong to call it a lynching.
Mr. Balko, do you you think Sherrod?s relative?s death qualifies as a lynching?
Reason criticizes Am. Spectator?s take on the Sherrod/NAACP story but is silent on the story itself. Open minds, my arse. Political correctness at its worst.
Blubi, why do you think Mr. Halls murder was not a lynching?
It?s not lynching when the police kill you when trying to arrest you, it?s not a mob administering “justice” on their own.
To my understanding, he was not killed incident to lawful arrest. He was killed after he was already handcuffed & in custody. Murdered under color of law (lynching), not under authority of law (resisting arrest).
They had not the authority to execute him so they were acting as a mob (3 people or more) and thus WERE lynching him.
But it’s all hair splitting. She says her relative was lynched, Lord says he wasn’t. Being beaten to death for stealing a tire is still outragous and the 3 cops should all burn in hell.
Even the most racist mob in the Deep South would be hard to get riled up over stealing a friggin tire. I’m sure there was some other reason why her relative was hated.
You’re kidding, right? Blacks were killed in the south for whistling at white women, or for having white girlfriends. Blacks were killed for no other reason than being black. You didn’t know this?
Stealing a tire would not be considered as bad as whistling at a white woman to these guys. I’m just saying there is probably more to it than just some sheriff getting “tough on crime”.
It’s comments like these that make me think the racialist movement is really onto something.
Of course. I mean obviously the people back then, cops or otherwise, wouldn’t kill a man just for stealing a tire.*
*Unless that man was black.
Balko pretty clearly thinks Hall’s death was a lynching.
Of course, it indisputably was, so it’ understandable he’d hold that opinion.
It was absolutely a lynching. The guy was handcuffed and beaten to death by 3 cops – which makes it organized extra-judicial punishment, also known as a lynching.
I hope that gives you what you were trolling for.
If their intent was to kill him, and to administer some kind of self-proclaimed “justice” then yes.
If a relative of mine were killed, would you qualify it as a lynching depending on whether they intented to kill him, the reasons for doing so, or any other factors?
Do you really think it’s so far out of the realm of possibility to believe that the police intended to kill the man, and that Lord is thus justified in calling Sherrod a liar? Why is it that only you and Lord are qualified to make judgements on the officers’ intent?
Personally, taking the time and place and everything that entails into account, I don’t think it’s impossible or even unlikely that the police intended to kill the man.
Lynching requires intent to kill and motive. People dying in police custody is not that uncommon and I doubt any of them are lynchings.
I make no judgement on the officers? intent, I just see no evidence that might point to it being a lynching.
Lynching requires intent to kill and motive.
Coincidentally, the cops had both.
People dying in Police custody is not uncommon
Typically the cops have a large part in making this happen. People just don’t decide to die once they’re arrested.
…I doubt any of them are lynchings…I make no judgement on the officers? intent, I just see no evidence that might point to it being a lynching.
You are definitely the most obtuse commenter on this thread. Maybe you can look that up, too.
Unless your relative was in the military and killed in battle or executed by the state or another legitimate reason exists that your relative were killed by multiple people on purpose, then yes.
You don’t “accidentally” beat someone to death (even in the line of duty), especially if that person was handcuffed, if you’re trying to make the same retarded argument J Lo did.
For the record, I really don’t give a shit about the correct/incorrect usage of the word “lynch.” First, one isn’t “deader” having died at the hands of a lynch mob than having died of any other cause, and secondly, if one’s argument rests solely upon etymological rather than idealogical superiority, it’s a guaranteed fail.
If you don?t care why argue?
Words do have meanings, you?re the one twisting them to what you think they should mean.
Yeah, I’m just making shit up. I don’t know who Charles Lynch was and how the term lynching came to be.
Keep pretending the cops didn’t intend to kill the guy, moron.
If I?m a moron for not believing that you cannot cannot accidentally kill a man during a fight or a beating, or that lynching is any premedidated killing except “in the military..or executed by the state..” then I?ll take it as a compliment.
Now I’m confused.
Were Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearings a “high-tech lynching” or not?
Based on subsidize me’s definition, I believe you could clearly say that what Justice Thomas experienced was “organized extra-judicial punishment”.
Based on J. Lo(rd)’s definition, it can’t be a lynching, since the Senate was acting under “color of the law.” And since the Senate Judiciary Committee was involved at some point, it was, like, judicial. Or maybe because Thomas is colored, there’s some law in there somewhere.
Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between the literary and the literal… Kind of like liberty and liberals, don’t you think?
Did it result in death or severe injury? Or was it just a metaphorical lynching?
I was taught what a metaphor was early in high school but it took me a long time to actually learn to recognize one.
Not everything that everyone says needs to be taken absolutely literally.
Indeed. It could be argued that a much larger portion of the meaning in language is carried by metaphoric or analogical meaning than by literal lexical semantics.
What about me? They made a new word out of my “lynching.”
Thank God they did. You’re a fucking douche.
What a tool.
I love it when Radley ruffles feathers. It makes me tingly.
A certain “joe from Lowell” is ripping on Lord in the comments.
You should apologize for criticizing a retard. It’s not nice.
You know, I spend a lot of time on political discussion forums. There are always like 20% having reasoned, substantive arguments. And then the rest are partisan hacks who never back down, no matter how stupid they have made themselves look.
I think that Lord belongs more with that group than as a paid writer. This guy makes money, and I can’t catch a break?
This world sucks.
And then the rest are partisan hacks who never back down, no matter how stupid they have made themselves look.
Otherwise known as Tony, Chad or MNG
“This is what lynched means…” “No, no this is what lynched means…” “Wrong, the dictionary says lynched means …”
This may be the most boring argument of all time. Literally, look it up.
“Boo Radley”?
Also, it is fucking priceless this dude, who is a PROFESSIONAL WRITER, doesn’t understand what under color of law means.
Last, it is entirely possible that the guy has a valid point about the fraudulent race-hustlers, but it’s impossible to tell because it’s buried under an avalanche of unfounded smugness. You need to make better enemies, Radley.
You might have noticed this “PROFESSIONAL WRITER” wrote “there” in place of “their” in the comments.
Meanwhile, Mel Gibson is running around free.
HE asked YOU for a retraction!?
Unfortunately, he’s already taken it down- glad I got to read that ridiculous piece of garbage this morning. It would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. As well as his pathetic attampts to defend himself in the comments.