TheAgitator.com
Jeffrey Lord Defends Himself
Tuesday, July 27th, 2010Jeffrey 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.
You should be sorry for causing this man to think, which he obviously doesn’t.
It seems that the comments on Mr. Lord’s thread do a good enough job of picking apart his new story.
Amazingly, he seems to double down even further on the stupidity in the comments.
Also, someone called you a liberal blogger in those comments. Think we’re off pace, weren’t you due to be called a conservative next?
“Which means they had legal authority.”
Well! There you go! That wasn’t what I thought it meant at all! I guess I’ve been schooled, huh?
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 lying hack Lord is!
Gambling nit pick: he’s really not “doubling down.” He’s increasing his bet to cover his losses. The idea that after losing you then increase your bet is not “doubling down” as used in blackjack. You double down when your expected payoff is HIGH (you have 10 or 11 against a weak card for the dealer) not when you’ve just lost and want to win back your losses.
But yes, he’s an idiot. Carry on. :)
the commenters are lynching Mr. Lord…
At a passing glance, he’s at least far more tolerable than Patterico during the Jack Dunphy fiasco was a year ago. He was a complete douche, along with all of the idiots reading his blog.
When you’re pwned by the comments on your own blog, it’s time to stop blogging.
You are correct, Steve. While I’m not sure there’s a proper verb for it, I would guess “martingaling” is as close as it gets.
Lord is using a cheap rhetorical trick, resorting to hyper-literal interpretation to attack an argument… and he still can’t pull it off. It’s just wrong from every perspective. It’s like he’s trying to argue that 2+2=5, and to sell it he’s trying to shout “Two plus two equals five!”, then getting confused and shouting “Two plus two equals five factorial.”.
I think it’s pretty fucking strange that someone would actually argue that the use of the word “lynching” is an attempt to sensationalize merely being beaten to death.
There’s an expression: “Don’t feed the troll.” If you go around throwing stones, it may not matter if your house is made of glass — do you really want people to throw stones back? This was a fight that did not need to be picked. A person who was a parent would understand that you can’t fight every battle, you have to pick the ones you can win, and there’s no winning against someone you cannot reason with.
That being said, Lord conveniently ignores the structure of the denotation of “lynch,” which is “to put to death,” a phrase that is subsequently modified by the words “especially” and “mob action,” “hanging,” and “unlawfulness.” I interpret this to mean that “lynch” is satisfied by any of the three criteria, given the use of the word “especially.”
Also, I believe that “color of law” refers to actions that are unlawful but carried out by a State agent ostensibly in the line of duty. Otherwise, the term “color of law” would be superfluous, and would be better phrased “legal.”
But then, these are rational arguments and would fall on Mr. Lord’s deaf ears. Never should have picked this fight, makes Lord feel important, like someone notices him, which I never did before.
It’s funny that the one guy there who keeps defending Lord also keeps posting videos in order to demonstrate that Sherrod’s husband (and by association Sherrod, herself) is a racist (and maybe he is, but…?).
It’s a fascinating reflexive diversion from one topic, one man’s continuing juvenile blunder (and his cowardly inability to admit to a mistake), to another topic altogether.
Where have I seen this diversion before…?
Wait. This whole thing is about the definition of a word?
What a stupid thing to argue about. Jeez.
Lynching comes from Lynch’s Law, which comes from Charles Lynch.
Jeffrey Lord’s articles on this are chock full of bad arguments, like all the rambling about Byrd and Democrats, etc.. About the only good thing to come out of his rebuttal was a cool nickname: “Boo”. Quite appropriate, given the role of Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird—protecting Scout and Jem from the racist daughter rapist and would-be lyncher. But WTF does Lord think he’s doing calling himself Atticus? No logic there.
If I had heard the original statement about the relative being “lynched” in the South, I would have assumed that meant death by hanging, or death at the hands of three people. I admit ignorance about the strict definition, but I’d be interested to know how many people who heard the original remark came away with the wrong idea. Not that it necessarily matters in this case, as the fact that the man was horribly murdered was the salient point. There are good reasons to disapprove of Ms. Sherrod and it’s a shame that the recent attacks have come in the form of deceptive editing and specious arguments.
[...] Balko and his ilk forget that in the year of our Lord, there is one supreme authority on the meaning of [...]
I wrote, “…I would have assumed that meant death by hanging, or death at the hands of three people.”
Should be, “…I would have assumed that meant death by hanging, and murder at the hands of more than three people.”
Again, the fact that Bobby Hall was brutally murdered by cowards is more important than the specific word used to describe that act.
You have an unusual name and Lord made fun of it. That’s some A+ rhetoric if I do say so myself.
He loves the attention. There’s a recession going on, you know.
He actually resorted to name calling. What a douche…..oh wait!
@5 The term Double Down is used all the time anymore and all most always incorrectly. As you say, someone would double down in a situation of strength. In black jack having a 9,10,11 after the deal. If you are betting from a position of weakness trying to cover losses, you are chasing. Chasing good money after bad.
Does Mr. Lord’s supposed mistake change the fact that Mrs. Sherrod and her husband are grade A race-hustlers? Is the KKK still storming the south? Mr. Balko I’ve noticed that lately you have been really going to the mat for liberal causes lately.
“Grade A race-hustlers?” That’s mind bogglingly offensive, particularly given their service to the Civil Rights movement.
http://www.pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/witnesses/charles_sherrod.html
What exactly do you mean to convey by using such an ugly, loaded term?
Why do people who have a terrible argument always resort to name calling? Do they think it makes their case stronger? Who the fuck calls Radley, Boo?
@Val
Actually, its perfectly correct. It’s doubling your bet from a position of a supposed strength that happens to be sophistry. As most ‘advantages’ in blackjack are illusory. As a leftie i can say that I find plenty of topics to disagree with radley about. Perhaps you are turning into a reactionary.
That’s not a lynching. It’s just the kind of local street justice we libertarians need to support if we ever want to get anywhere. We must embrace conservative social order and give our lawmen the authority to deal with fleet footed thugs.
“There is, I’m sorry to say, a direct connection between Southern racists of yore and, say, the Obama Administration policy in Arizona.. The Black Panther case. And what Ms. Sherrod was doing in her speech when she ever so casually linked criticism of health care to racism, which is to say not supporting a (her words) “black President.”
This is all of a piece. Intimately connected by philosophy, party, time, heritage and party culture. ”
So Southern racism is a direct…ummm “connection” to Obama opposing Arizona’s attempt to racially profile its possible noncitizens and Black panthers standing outside of a polling station in Philly making racial comments because all of these are “intimately connected by” among other things “heritage and party culture.”
I sure hope Mr. Lord supports legalizing the drugs he takes.
@23 “It’s doubling your bet from a supposed position of strength”. No it’s not, it’s amazing how the truth can get distorted even with something as simple as this. If you have a 6 and a 4, and the dealer shows a 5, YOU ARE IN A POSITION OF STRENGTH! There is nothing supposed or sophmoric about it. If you have a 6 and 3 and the dealer has an 10 showing, you are not in a position of strength. Now some idiot will argue that well you can still double-down with bad cards, and that is true, but you can also go for it on 4th and 29 form your own 10. That is called desparation.
Balko saying this guy is doubling-down in this context is wrong, because Balko is insinuating the guy is wrong and desparate.
Mr. and Mrs. Sherrod are the poster children for what’s wrong with this country. Neither appear particually bright and have not accomplished much outside of bringing frivolous lawsuits against the government.
Charles Sherrod: “We must stop the white man and his Uncle Tom from stealing our elections.” What the fuck is that?
My lesson learned: breitbart is not a journalist.
I surf a lot of sites both left and right. I look for insightful and factual, and funny items to read. I know when someone has jumped the shark. I’ve also know which boggers or sites tend to stretch the truth and which do not. When a story breaks that seems out of line, I disregard it or wait to see if a creditable site picks up.
One of my mother’s favorite sayings was “consider the source”.
I’m glad the folks at The American Spectator and Breitbart’s site are clinging so tenaciously to their principles, especially given that the stakes – the office of Georgia State Director! For Rural Development! – have never been higher. Those are the front lines in the battle for liberty right there.
Haha, oh man he called you “Boo”. I bet nobody ever thought of that one. I mean, it works on so many levels — like, Radley is named Radley, but then that guy in that book every single person in America read is called Boo Radley. How do these guys come up with this stuff?
I swear, I read his reply like 4 times and still don’t know what he even said.
Val & Mark:
You guys are funny. Obviously Mr. Balko was using ‘double-down’ in the neo-political sense, like Obama ‘doubling-down’ on failed military or economic policy.
The use of that term for Mr. Lord and Mr. Obama is for a situation when one *thinks* they’re winning, and add more resources to gain even further ‘success’ when in fact, they had already failed. A condition that obviously doesn’t exist in blackjack.
So if you want to turn a hyper-anal conversation of the term ‘lynching’ into a hyper-anal conversation of the term ‘double-down’ I think there are other threads waiting for you.
Sure, he continued to insist that nobody thinks that 3 people could be a “mob” for the purposes of lynching despite cites from actual proposed statutes saying otherwise, but “Boo Radley” hahaha he showed you! pwned!
Moar like Jeff Lord “of the douchebags”, amirite? No one makes fun of my “Boo” and gets away with it. ;)
That being said, Lord conveniently ignores the structure of the denotation of “lynch,” which is “to put to death,” a phrase that is subsequently modified by the words “especially” and “mob action,” “hanging,” and “unlawfulness.” I interpret this to mean that “lynch” is satisfied by any of the three criteria, given the use of the word “especially.”