Jeffrey Lord, the American Spectator genius who argued yesterday that Shirley Sherrod was lying because her relative who was beaten to death on the courthouse steps while handcuffed in 1945 wasn’t really lynched, sets us all straight today:
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. Second, the Supreme Court specifically said the Sheriff and his deputy and a local policeman acted “under color of law.” Which means they had legal authority.
If that’s not dumb enough, try this on for size:
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.”
It’s one big black conspiracy!
(via)
NobodySpecial
Is he any relation to Jack Lord? ’cause I’m betting if so that all that hair stuff caused gene damage in his kids.
David in NY
Lawyers call this version of stupid “distinction without a difference.”
Lord is really, really stupid.
Omnes Omnibus
Oh my Lord.
PurpleGirl
Bad mood continues… guillotines. Lots of guillotines.
fourlegsgood
what a bunch of jack asses. Do they even stop to think that they’re basically defending cops who beat to death a man who was handcuffed and basically defenseless?
Good god. Have they no shame? (rhetorical question)
Li
This writer is just digging himself deeper and deeper. . .
Woodrowfan
remind me again why the repukes can’t get more of the non-white vote??
Omnes Omnibus
@fourlegsgood:
I assume that was rhetorical as well.
maya
fxd
bago
The color of law seems to involve white people beating black people, with some blood in the middle for that artistic touch. Thus sayeth the Lord.
dj spellchecka
as someone who lived thru the 60’s, the last thing i thought i’d ever see again was white folks formenting a race-war…i’m beyond speechless over this stuff
KCinDC
Not sure which is my favorite part: that absolutely anything a law enforcement officer does counts as acting under “legal authority”, or that the people *fighting* the racist Arizona law are following in the tradition of supporters of Jim Crow.
Emma
Amazing. Evil? Stupid? Me, I’m betting the exacta on this one…
danimal
We need to whatever it takes to keep Lord in the spotlight. The 27%ers will back him no matter what and the 73% of the population that has A) a brain, B) a heart, or C) both a brain and heart, will be repulsed by this pig fisking a lynching.
My apologies to pigs.
Mike Schilling
Being beaten to death? Not lynching.
Being asked about past misdeeds in front of the Senate? Lynching.
See how simple it is?
sstarr
I’m not entirely sure that “under the color of law” = “legal.”
FormerSwingVoter
Ah yes, the global black conspiracy to… call white people racist? I guess?
What terrible times we live in.
licensed to kill time
Lord demonstrates that there is no twist too crooked for Extreme Pretzel Logic.
Chad N Freude
This guy is really stupid. “Color of law” applies to DEPRIVATION OF RIGHTS UNDER COLOR OF LAW. I’m amazed that he has sufficient intellect to remember to breathe.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
Can someone de-wingnut that second quote for me? It’s inpenetrable to my mind.
Omnes Omnibus
OK, let’s assume Lord is correct and lynching was not technically the correct term, how is beaten to death in police custody better? It starts to sound like Biko.
flounder
This nomoremistermiceblog post culling numerous examples of the usage of the term “lynching” by writers at AmSpec is pretty illuminating of the problems faced by Lord in pursuing this argument:
jl
I think that the Oxford English Dictionary has the best definition of ‘lynch’
“To condemn and punish by lynch law. In early use, implying chiefly the infliction of punishment such as whipping, tarring and feathering, or the like; now only, to inflict sentence of death by lynch law.”
OED on lynch law:
“The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence.”
Maybe this business about it having to be a large crowd stringing up some person comes from pics of late nineteenth and early twentieth century lynchings by large mobs in town squares.
OED goes on to say that the term may have originated with illegal actions by one judge named Lynch against Tories during the Revolution.
The OED says that the term lynch can be misused to mean ‘to render infamous.’ As in ‘Lord will lynch himself in eyes of public opinion.’
Chad N Freude
If it’s any consolation, he’s getting a lot of flak from commenters, and he’s responding like a smug know-it-all third-grader.
Zifnab
Why didn’t this guy ever make it as a trial attorney, anyway?
“Your honor, the prosecutor argues that my client attacked the woman with a hammer. However, a hammer has not only a round head for pounding but a clawed head for extracting nails. But as exhibit A shows, the implement taking from the crime seen did not have a clawed head for extracting nails. This weapon that my client is shown on multiple videos beating the client with – THIS sir, is no hammer. This is a mallet.
The defense rests.”
Chad N Freude
@Zifnab: Excellent!
kay
He got it all wrong again.
It’s actually worse than the first try, because not only does he not understand “lynching”, he doesn’t understand “color of law”, either.
I think he should apologize and get on with his life. This isn’t going to get better.
arguingwithsignposts
head/desk.
Tokyokie
U.S. Code Title 18, Sec. 242
Whoever, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, willfully subjects any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or to different punishments, pains, or penalties, on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color, or race, than are prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if bodily injury results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include the use, attempted use, or threatened use of a dangerous weapon, explosives, or fire, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
Someone should inform Jeffrey of this arcane portion of federal law and that the phrase “under color of law” generally implies that the action was, in fact, illegal. Unless, of course, he believes that death-penalty offense = legal.
Keith
Jeez, this guy doesn’t even know the definition of “direct” now? It’s like one of those people who throws around the word “literally” as if it just means “very” rather than…”literally”.
On the plus side, Lord is getting ripped a new one in the comments…by a mob of people.
Will
I love this from the comments to Lord’s “update”:
KG
@sstarr: there’s a good reason for that, because they are not the same thing. When someone acts “under the color of law” that means they are using their legal authority; it does not necessarily follow that they are using their legal authority in a legal or constitutional way. The color of law is nothing more than the semblance of legal authority. As an example, Sheriff Joe in Maricopa County is constantly acting under color of law, and routinely found to be acting in an illegal or unconstitutional manner.
wengler
And the mystery as to why the vast majority of black people don’t vote Republican continues…
malraux
What a cromulent refudiation!
Tracy
This could very well be the stupidest person on the face of the earth. Perhaps we should shoot him.
gene108
This is highly predictable, to quote poster gene108 from Sunday:
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
Don’t you get it? This is his life.
How can he apologize away his existence?
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
@Will:
Nothing more satisfying than a well placed fact bomb.
b-psycho
If the Right keeps this up, there won’t be reason to fear fallout from just screaming the N-word — because everyone remotely sane will just be glad they finally dragged it from their craw after all this crap that’s actually even worse.
Zifnab
Makes me long for the heady days when one could sip a snifter of brandy, smoke a fine cigar, and contemplate what the definition of “is” is.
Course, that was when the economy wasn’t in the shitter.
KG
@Keith: in his defense, there is a direct connection between the “Southern racists of yore” and the Obama administration the second one directly pisses off the first one by reminding them constantly that they lost. Though I don’t think that’s the direct connection he meant.
kay
@Tokyokie:
That’s why I love it so much. It’s worse than what she said.
He’s going backward. By the time this is over, he’s going to be an honorary member of the NAACP, standing up there with Shirley.
SadOldVet
It is one big black conspiracy…
and us unfortunate, discrimated against, rich old white men are having to take drastic steps to fight back!
mclaren
So instead you say “black President.”
gene108
@Li: I bet his readers love him for not backing down from the hi-tech liberal lynch mob that’s attacking him for his article.
I know for sure AS isn’t writing to impress the likes of us.
Joe
@fourlegsgood:
Technically, no one is defending the actions of the cops. Even Lord has the obligatory “this story is “is gut-wrenchingly horrendous already [without falsely calling it “lynching”].”
The argument is basically that while what the Sheriff did was bad, Sherrod is a liar because she said it was a lynching, but it wasn’t. In order for it to be a lynching, you need these two missing elements: 1) a rope, and 2) the Supreme Court’s upholding of a conviction under a statute criminalizing the violation of someone’s 14th Amendment rights.
The Supreme Court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial because the trial jury was not instructed that the defendant must have intended to “wilfully” deprive the victim of his civil rights.
I’m not saying that Lord isn’t completely repugnant, he is. But there is plenty of stupidity to choose from without misstating his meandering and confused position.
zhak
Sorry kay, being Republican means never saying you’re sorry.
gbear
@Chad N Freude:
Is it enlightening enough to be worth the read, or can we just take your word on it? I hate giving traffic to redneck sites.
TuiMel
@Mike Schilling:
That would be HIGH TECH lynching…
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
This is his Shirley-white farmer conversion/teachable moment. Seize it, Mr. Lord! :)
She should call him, now, while it’s dawning on him that he’s wrong about everything.
But I want to see the next installment, so maybe not just yet.
Bulworth
I think I get it now. The Obama Administration is like the Southern racists of yore because, like the Southern racists of yore, they are lynching the White authorities who passed the immigration law by trying to have the law declared unConstitutional, which is just like the Southern racists of yore who tried to have the anti-lynching law declared unConstitutional. Or something.
jl
@SadOldVet:
“rich old white men are having to take drastic steps to fight back!”
Like making complete fools of themselves in public.
I am a white man, but not rich. I will go over to the other side, maybe I can make some money and get rich writing screeds for conservative rags. You can make up any old thing, know absolutely nothing, and have instant credibility because…. because… Well, I won’t care about any because of it, since it looks like a good racket.
Uloborus
@FormerSwingVoter:
Yes, that’s the conspiracy. They believe that blacks are systematically accusing whites of racism to maintain and expand (they think it already exists) a system where blacks have Special Privileges such as affirmative action. They sincerely believe that white christian males are now both subtly and obviously disadvantaged in every aspect of life, and that *all* political correctness is an attempt to justify that oppression. Therefor, accusations of racism, even discussions of racism, are themselves displays of the *real* racism which is against white christian males.
I’m not making this up. I don’t think I’m even exaggerating it. That’s what they’re pushing. Projection is the bumper crop of the modern conservative movement.
gnomedad
@David in NY:
Not stupid, vile. Stupid is just a smoke screen.
Ed Marshall
I know in Illinois, Mob Action is two or more people. I know people who did time for it to.
gene108
@Chad N Freude: I’m just pointing out the next logical step in ridiculing Sherrod’s speech about the lynching and / or lynch mob, would be to pick at what constitutes a mob.
The fact Lord’s next statement was about what constitutes a mob, should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Do you really think someone, who writes for AS is going to apologize because liberals aren’t happy with what he writes? I don’t. I think he gets paid to piss off liberals and the more offensive his work is the more he gets paid.
Chad N Freude
@gbear: You have no idea the agony I endured in clicking to that site. You could review my comments for the past few years to decide if I’m a reliable source :-).
Svensker
@Tracy:
Still one of the funniest movies ever.
Midnight Marauder
@gene108:
This isn’t just a disagreement about semantics and it was never even about that to begin with, regardless of Jeffrey Lord’s protestations otherwise.
This is about his effort to discredit someone who is actually telling the truth, and moreover, to impugn the reputation of an actual civil rights hero. Who cares what mode of attack the slander comes in? What Jeffrey Lord, Andrew Breitbart, and the other race baiters are trying to do is stir up white resentment and create an environment where legitimate civil rights activists who are recounting factual events can be tarred and feathered as lying racist provocateurs.
It is more than worth it to keep exposing assholes like this.
Chad N Freude
@gene108: Apology. I misinterpreted your comment. I asked to have @Chad N Freude deleted but the gods of BJ obviously wanted to embarrass me.
Anya
So is he saying Obama Adminstration’s policy = Jim Crow?
Chad N Freude
@Anya: Actually, it’s Worc Mij.
phantomist
Can’t for tomorrow, when this beating magically becomes “enhanced punching”.
Kryptik
I mean…seriously, did we manage to go from a time period of ‘over-PCness’ regarding race, to all of a sudden blatant naked racism being celebrated, because it’s ‘populist’? And only justified by ‘Blacks are more racist than we are now, so it’s ok!’? Seriously?
What the fuck, what the fuck, what the goddamn fuck, how the fuck is this goddamn country regressing so goddamn badly?
kay
@Ed Marshall:
His commentors are going crazy with glee, because “mob” in the statute is “three or more”.
He’s specifically and perfectly wrong, there. There were three! Of course there were. He couldn’t be lucky enough for two.
He has to keep going from general themes to specific definitions and then back again, because he can’t make it hold together.
SpotWeld
I … I..
How in the world does an person in this day and age become an adult and be capable of writing such things
gene108
If Lord wants to respond again to critics, I’m guessing he’ll do it in the form of character assassination of Bobby Hall.
Why was he arrested in the first place? Why didn’t he cooperate with the cops, when getting out of the car? What did he say to set off the cops, when he should’ve known better and kept his mouth shut? And other points along these lines to show the fatal lynching / beating wasn’t about Mr. Hall being black, but about Mr. Hall resisting arrest.
Lord’s deflectors are running at 1000%, don’t expect anything that’s done, other than American Spectator firing him, to get through.
Unfortunately most right-wing rags aren’t expected to make a profit and are tax right-offs for wealthy loons, like Mellon-Scaiffe, Moon and Murdoch, so the whole supply-demand, free-market forces thing doesn’t work at all in terms of boycotts and declining circulation.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
All you libtards are going to be crying in your lattes when Barack Hussein Obama imposes apartheid in America and makes whites second-class citizens.
gene108
@Midnight Marauder: I agree with your comments, which is why I think arguing about the definition of a lynching is a pointless counter argument.
Lord is trying to create a narrative about Sherrod, so the way to counter it is to show how he’s full of shit and use the truth to succinctly define how Sherrod overcame animosity to help people, she felt would as soon spit on her as look at her.
Rock
I imagine there will be a lot of black people who will be surprised to learn of the reach and power of the black global conspiracy they are a part of…..
arguingwithsignposts
This headline is full of win. Shorter: “I know you are, but what am I?”
kay
@gene108:
Sherrod is an individual ordinary person with a name and a complicated history and, as if turns out, loyal friends. She’s different than the ACORN workers, who were lumped together in this amorphous “disreputable poor people” category.
They couldn’t make the smear stick because she became real, instead of a scary cartoon.
Uloborus
@gene108:
Yes, that sounds about right. Blame The Victim is always a good game. You can’t back down on projection. When someone corrects you, you make a thin excuse and pretend it justifies everything so you can stop listening. Extra points if you can scapegoat someone else for your mistake while still claiming you’re right.
Everything the Republicans do these days is straight out of Psych textbooks. It’s breathtaking. They’ve become the Party Of Freud. The party ITSELF has become Axis II and I’ve never seen so many blatantly, shamelessly displayed defensive behaviors, neuroses, and occasionally psychoses.
QDC
@mclaren:
I’m not even sure Atwater’s premise holds anymore. At this rate the GOP will be printing up `GOP: Nigger, Nigger, Nigger!’ bumper stickers by November.
Uloborus
@QDC:
No, it’s hurting them. Their teabag candidates are turning easy seats into stiff competitions some of which will go to Democrats. They just don’t seem to grasp this concept. They sincerely believe that they are normal and everyone is like them and thus they will inevitably win any fair election. That’s ANOTHER basic psychological principle. I need to start looking up the names again. It’s been awhile.
daveNYC
I’m holding out for ‘roughhousing that got out of hand’.
Warren Terra
Old Lord: Mobs don’t lynch people; ropes lynch people.
New Lord: Mobs don’t lynch people; really, really big mobs lynch people.
Progress of a sort, I guess.
Legalize
@sstarr:
It’s not. It’s usually used to illustrate that a state-based actor abused his power to the detriment of someone else’s rights.
licensed to kill time
@QDC:
I was just at Media Matters where I saw this on the side bar:
I’m sure his choice of the word denigrate was deliberate; sounds like…..doncha know.
PTirebiter
@Kryptik:
This was my first reaction, now I just want to cry.
kay
@arguingwithsignposts:
It is. I was horribly depressed over Breitbart. I could not believe it was happening again.
If Mr. Lord keeps digging this hole, I could really rally.
I need three more installments. Next I want him to define “handcuffed”.
Sydney_Dave
Adds new meaning to the phrase, “Lord, what a moron.”
jibeaux
@Zifnab:
Oh, that’s good.
Late to the game, but no, color of law doesn’t mean legal authority. That’s why there’s this whole legal term of art to describe the concept instead of just using “with legal authority”. Also, “color of title” doesn’t mean you have title because the word for that is “good title”. It’s not really all that hard to find a lawyer to ask before you put something like that in print on the internets, is it?
I look forward to tomorrow’s column, where Mr. Ford says that a lot of his friends are black. And his second cousin married a Latina.
jibeaux
I wonder if someone could pin down Mr. Lord on what a “large” crowd is? Would five people be a large crowd? Twelve? Seventy-five? What is the magic number? Does size matter, is it maybe like a total weight type calculation?
Chad N Freude
@jibeaux: You don’t have to ask a lawyer (and pay a fee :-). I knew what it meant, but I googled to get the DoJ definition.
Professor
@Ed Marshall: NO.
one person is an individual. Two persons are termed a couple and more than two persons are termed several or mob. Have you heard the expression ‘three is a crowd’?
dj spellchecka
benen was a piece about republican joel pollak who cites freedom of speech to equate being asked to quit blogging at andrew b.’s bigbullshit.com with steven biko’s being killed by police
washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_07/024908.php
Mnemosyne
Someone needs to clue Lord in that when, say, a cop is accused of “rape under color of law,” that doesn’t mean the law gave him the right to rape someone while performing his duties as a police officer. In fact, it means the exact opposite: the cop misused his authority to commit a crime.
Shit, I went to film school, not law school, and I know this stuff. Whatever school gave Lord a law degree needs to revoke it before he embarrasses himself any further.
Bubblegum Tate
@daveNYC:
I’m holding out for “frat inititiation-style hi-jinks.”
r€nato
@Mnemosyne:
I expect that by the end of the week, Bill Kristol will re-define “color of law” to mean what Lord seems to think it means.
r€nato
According to Lord, a lynching must involve the actual use of rope and a mob must include some indeterminate number of people which exceeds three.
Therefore, Sherrod’s father lived to a ripe old age and he’s the real racist here. The End.
PTirebiter
@Uloborus:
Sincerely. Depressingly true.
Mnemosyne
@r€nato:
Actually, they’re two different cases (though I’ve seen some people get confused and conflate the two). Sherrod’s father was killed by a white farmer and her cousin was beaten to death by three policemen.
(I don’t think you’re actually conflating the two, but I’ve seen a few people do so in the last few days, so I thought a little clarification wouldn’t be amiss.)
El Cid
All them blacks that think several white people beating a black person to death is a ‘lynch mob’ is an insult to our Confederate heritage.
Fleas correct the era
When people repeat this type of defense over and over — albeit with tiny permutations (“there was no rope!” “three people aren’t a mob!” and so on) — at some point we’re entitled to start ignoring the self-serving protestations “of course it’s awful but …” and just say they’re defending it.
I can’t help but think that for the sort of person who defends this, all the defenses are pure handwaving. Cops beating a handcuffed defenseless stranger to death is a feature for them, not a cause for concern.
David in NY
@Chad N Freude:
Too dumb to breathe. Yes.
@gnomedad:
Also, too vile to think.
r€nato
@Mnemosyne:
thank you for straightening me out on that.
It’s a two-fer! Sherrod’s father *and* cousin are the real racists here. The End.
Bulworth
In all seriousness, I hadn’t realized The American Spectator was still publishing. I assumed they went into mothball status after W was elected.
Brachiator
@Joe:
Lord is most definitely defending the actions of the cops by pointing out that the Supreme Court decision let the cops get away with murder. Then, Lord pulls a double reverse whammy by slamming the justices who wrote the majority opinion as racist Democrats even as he declares that the Supreme Court ruling was valid, good and correct, and to be respected. Rule of law uber alles.
He appeals to the authoritarian impulse in his readers who always want to give the cops the benefit of the doubt, even when they kill a person in custody.
Sorry, this is total bullshit. Aside from drifting into asinine debates over semantics, the notion that it ain’t a lynching until the Supreme Court calls it a lynching is absurd.
Lord misstates his position pretty well all by himself. Trying to explain what he means is a waste of time.
xian
next they’ll argue the etymologically a mob must be mobile.
Jeff Fecke
@Fleas correct the era: Exactly. Lord’s entire premise basically boils down to, “Well, sure, he was beaten to death by cops, but who could be so despicable as to call such a thing lynching?” It is at the very least saying that this behavior is not as bad as lynching.
Midnight Marauder
I think this exchange between Lord and some of his commenters sums up this entire farce quite nicely:
That was for you, kay.
RobNYNY1957
Things have fallen pretty silent over there. Is Lord off somewhere writing a sequel called “Inventing New Ways to Be Wrong”?
r€nato
@Midnight Marauder:
When you accept wingnut welfare, you’re required to abandon the use of ‘logic’, ‘consistent beliefs’, and ‘reason’. They all have a well-known liberal bias and therefore they must be abandoned.
The Dangerman
American Specious Tater (it’s a Ron White thing). I’d volunteer to beat the living shit out of this asswipe with two other people and have him decide whether or not that constitutes a mob.
RobNYNY1957
Ed Marshall:
And in Georgia, where this non-lynching would have taken place if it had taken place instead of not taking place, two people can commit the crime of “riot.”
lawskills.com/code/ga/16/11/30/index.html
TooManyJens
And he’s still trying to defend himself here:
spectator.org/blog/2010/07/27/defining-lynching-down
Upon being told that there was no federal crime of lynching in 1945 (and thus that his Supreme Court reference was spurious):
twiffer
@Zifnab: bastard, you made me laugh.
redoubt
@TooManyJens: I think Ida B. Wells-Barnett had a useful definition. In 1892.
r€nato
@The Dangerman: I’d be willing to help not-lynch him.
Joe
@Brachiator: I agree that the position Lord took is “absurd,” “total bullshit,” etc., and said as much. I don’t know why, but I’m still always surprised when, if someone dares suggest that someone on “our” side is mischaracterizing the argument of “their” side, this is treated as a general defense of “their” side and anyone who does so is a troll that should go fuck off. Your hyperbole is great for our little echo chamber here, and your perspective was interesting, but if you ever have occasion to talk to someone who doesn’t already share your view but might be persuadable, it doesn’t help to start exaggerating the positions that other people take.
If you think that Lord does think the beating was okay, it would be more helpful to point out the places in his writings (here, or elsewhere) that suggests that he is appealing to readers’ authoritarian impulses, as opposed to attacking me for wasting everyone’s time by discussing it, which is pretty much what everyone here is doing.
But I appreciate your reminding me why I decided I needed to waste less time reading the goddam blogs.
Ruckus
@Chad N Freude:
..he’s responding like a smug know-it-all third-grader.
What do you mean responding like. If the way he writes is any indication his maturity level is third grade.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Depends on the color of the people. One black guy is a crowd, two = a mob (or a gang). Three is a riot.
@danimal: This. Maybe Faux will invite him over.
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
Thank you. They’re at Emmett Till. He’ll be down for the count here shortly.
He never saw it coming.
RobNYNY1957
Lord’s premise is that it is “lying” or “inflammatory” to refer to the Hall case as a “lynching.” I think that must mean that the Hall case is different in some way from a lynching, so different that calling it that is a serious misstatement of the seriousness of the act.
Now, it couldn’t be infammatory if he thought the Hall case was worse than a lynching. His argument would have to be something like this: The Hall case was not technically a lynching, but it was just as bad, or even worse because police officers, who are supposed to protect people, carried it out. That doesn’t seem to be his argument, since he claims that the cops were acting under his definition of “color of law.” In any case, calling something that is worse than lynching a “lynching” is the opposite of inflammatory. It’s downplaying it, just as it would be to call it “manslaughter” or “an unfortunate incident” instead of “murder.” And he never claims that calling the Hall case a lynching is a lie because it’s so much worse.
Lord clearly doesn’t think that the Hall case is the same as a lynching, and goes on at some length about that. In any case, if lynching and the Hall case were the same thing, or the same degree of bad, it wouldn’t be both untrue and inflammatory to call it a lynching.
I think the only conclusion left is that Lord’s premise is that that the Hall case was somehow not as bad as a lynching.
ruemara
@RobNYNY1957:
When
the presidenta cop kills you, it is legal.Ipso facto, lorem ipsum, gnocchi & pancetta, hi karate. It’s perfectly clear under color of de lawd. And just like Lord, I got my degree from the university of crackerjack box.
David in NY
Oh criminy, one of Lord’s colleagues disagrees with him, and Lord continues to defend himself in comments. spectator.org/blog/2010/07/27/defining-lynching-down#comment_354722 I respond as follows:
Brachiator
@Joe:
Yawn.
It’s not about “our” side vs “their” side. When an argument is absurd, which Lord’s is, there is not much point in trying to explain it or disentangle it.
But even here, Lord does something which I have observed a number of conservatives do and which some of his defenders in his post also do. They simply cannot admit that the killing was racist or unjustified.
They just can’t do it, because it would undermine their premise that today only black people can be racist.
Lord never says that either the actions of the cops were unjustified or that the Supreme Court decision was incorrect. There is no reason to assume that he believes such a thing. It’s really quite simple.
David in NY
“the Supreme Court decision was incorrect”
Well, Lord couldn’t say that, because it wasn’t incorrect. What he does say is illogical beyond belief — that because the Supreme Court didn’t characterize what happened as a lynching (even though whether it was or wasn’t a lynching had nothing to do with the case), a person would be a liar to call it a lynching.
My comment just above illustrates the absurdity of this position.
MJ
I’ve got a few words for this coward: Emmett Till.
I double dare him to look at these before and after photos and then try this tired, pseudo-intellectual, bullshit again.
noncarborundum
@daveNYC:
Blowing off steam.
BC
Gotta give those guys some leeway, peeps – after all, Bobby Hall was arrested because he was fighting for his 2nd Amendment rights (to own a gun; sheriff had confiscated, Hall went to court and won, then was arrested and beaten by sheriff), so their heads have exploded and this is the remnants. They don’t have the brains to make logical arguments anymore.
Darkrose
@Ruckus:
How dare you insult third-graders like that!
Ecks
Boys will be boys, y’know. It’s just nature taking its due course. Really an every day sort of thing. I mean, I got hit a few times when I was growing up too, you don’t see me complaining about that. I’m sure the cops just wanted him to learn to be a respectful and law-abiding citizen. Which is a noble motive. You are all so shrill. Racists.
weaselswords
@TooManyJens:
Thanks for the link. I followed you over to the AS piece, which was hilariously bad. Then I ended up over at the really good Student Activism article after you. My brain feels better after that one.
Mustang Bobby
Mr. Lord reminds me of Captain Renault in Casablanca: “I am making out the report now. We haven’t quite decided yet whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape.”