What Goldstein Said.

by Little Miss Attila on December 9, 2009

Patrick tries to get the Charles Johnson-ish charges of racism against Robert Stacy McCain to stick, and fails.

For the record, I do not buy Pat’s argument that anyone who has hangups about interracial dating and marriage is racist. For one thing, if one is going to concede that, then one has to concede that there are a lot of black racists out there. A lot.

Naturally, this has nothing to do with whether I’d rather have a beer with Stacy, Patrick, or Jeff. (I have, in fact, been drinking with all three of ’em. As well as the other bloggers I expect to pile on to the argument in 3, 2, 1 . . .).

The arguments are the arguments, and the principles are distinct from the principals. As with the last time Jeff and Patrick got into it, I’m going to have to say that I have emotional sympathy for Pat’s position, which seems to (often) boil down to the idea that we ought to be as sensitive in what we say as possible. But there is always an element of subjectivity when it comes to the English language (and all others, I suspect). Therefore, the thinking position is Jeff’s: once you’ve made it the job of a particular group (oh, let’s say “conservatives,” whoever they are) to walk on eggshells, you can always find more eggshells to put under their feet.

And you win.

And Pat can dance in the minefield all he wants, but it doesn’t mean that some of the people around him getting blown up weren’t speaking truth at least part of the time, and had nothing to contribute to the discussion.

UPDATE: The definitive Patrick Frey/Charles Johnson – Jeff Goldstein/Robert Stacy McCain roundup.

Me? I’ve changed my mind. I’ve decided that you can prove a negative, and that Stacy must now prove he is free of racism. Can’t they do that with an MRI these days? Okay; that was uncalled for. Furthermore, I’ve been busted for skimming parts of Patrick’s post, so I will go back and try again.

UPDATE II, Thursday morning, 9:30 a.m.: For the record:

1) I think Patrick’s headline really threw me, so at the same time I was warning myself to consider the arguments on their merits (rather than on how much I like both Pat and Jeff—both of whom are really good-looking, by the way&mdash [and if I were a guy writing about women, I’d note it, so because I’m not a sexist, I’m noting it]), I was still reacting to Patrick’s headline, which felt like an indication of a sort of ambush to me—while I was reading his post. So that might have colored my perceptions.

2) I do believe that there is, out there, an altogether different view of language among some—and particularly, some in the legal profession. Because laws can be open to interpretation and must be parsed on the basis of the language that expressions them and the precedents that inform them, there could be a tendancy or desire among some attorneys to see language as more precise than it in fact, is. If language is Magnetic North in navigating the waters of statute, it gives the illusion of more direction than we may actually possess in our subjective existence.

(I was once debating something or other with Ace, and accused him of misinterpreting me. “Don’t tell me you can read my mind,” I said.

“I don’t have to read your mind,” he responded. “I have your words.” Those words, I explained, didn’t exist apart from my thoughts: they were an imperfect medium in which I tried to express those thoughts. The two could not be de-linked with intellectual honesty.)

Patrick may also have a notion that words are slightly more precise than they are, and of course it is his job to use people’s words against them. And he does it well, and I thank God that he does. However, there is the intellectual hazard of tunnel vision among attorneys.

Words are “a clever servant, an insufferable master.”

3) Patrick’s entire definition of racism does not align with mine (nor, I suspect, Goldstein’s, though Jeff can speak for himself—and I suspect he will).

In a note to me last night, Patrick said:

[T]his argument that you have to INTEND racism is silly. Do you have to intend rudeness to be rude? [Can’t it be the case that you are] racially prejudiced, say a racist thing around a minority, and not even REALIZE (thus not INTEND) you are being racist?

Here, Pat postulates racism as being so analogous to etiquette as to be nearly indistinguishable from it. In other words, he philosophically places the responsibility in many transactions on the offending party, and relieves the offended of proportionate blame. Whereas Jeff and I are explicitly taking the stance that the evil of racist language can only be determined by intent, Patrick is saying that it can be determined by its effects.

There’s a slippery slope there.

While I agree that if we want to live in a civilized society we must behave as politely as possible—including to those of our own races, or other races—I have a huge concern about formulating racism that leaves out intent.

If it works like that, then all of society can quickly become like a workplace that has just had a huge series of workshops on sexual harassment—one in which women have been told that if they are offended by pictures of men’s wives on their desks, that they have probably been aggrieved. Society becomes calibrated toward the hyper-sensitive once we accept a definition of racism that leaves out intent. And since “racist” is the equivalent of the “n word” within the world of rhetoric, that initially well-meaning definition of racism—one that set out to simply make us more sensitive—takes us to a place where there is a chilling effect on free speech.

If there is no intent required for there to be racism, then there is no hope: the people with the thinnest skin in any protected group will determine how discourse happens, and we will all fall into silence, for fear of offending each other.

To look at it that way sets, I believe, a dangerous precedent.

4) Yeah, Patrick. I read Stacy’s quote. I’m not offended by it; it’s silly fiddle-faddle that’s 180 degrees removed from my reality. But if he was on an Old South site, and trying to coax his cohorts back onto the straight and narrow—toward the variety of Southern pride that does not define itself in racial terms—he might well have tried to talk to those people where they were at. I dunno.

I’m not interested in defending it, either. But what I don’t want to do is get out the duct tape and stifle the expression of people who are trying to talk about race—particularly in areas where it’s more of a big deal than it is in Southern California. Or has been.

UPDATE III: More here, here, and and here.

Plus, Juliette thinks we’re mourning the illusion we had that Chuck Johnson was somehow “on our side.” Other than during RatherGate, I don’t think I was ever a huge fan of LGF, but YMMV.

Besides, Juliette hasn’t really had to deal with racists in the way that some of us have. I mean, I was walking along the sidewalk the other day and there was a woman pushing a stroller, and I realized that she was a racist, and that her little toddler in the stroller was a miniature racist, and I just felt this incredible sadness. What does Juliette know about that? I went into Ralph’s to buy some extra-sharp cheddar cheese, and there was a guy there, and I could tell he was thinking, “you’re 1/164th Osage Indian, aren’t you?”

I left the market in tears.

{ 10 trackbacks }

Language lessons, revisited
December 9, 2009 at 6:19 pm
The Recent Unpleasantness (and happyfeet)
December 10, 2009 at 7:35 am
More language lessons, revisited
December 10, 2009 at 8:54 am
Meet your site host
December 12, 2009 at 1:58 am
Another 200 Comments | Little Miss Attila
December 12, 2009 at 8:32 am
A Buffet of Really Big Boy Sex Tips
December 12, 2009 at 10:53 am
Is Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Patrick Frey anti-semitic?
December 16, 2009 at 8:19 am
Nation of Cowards » Blog Archive » If You Were under The Impression That Blacks Took A Stand For Civilization With The Prop 8 Vote?
December 16, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Now I hear I’m being accused of altering a Patrick Frey comment
December 20, 2009 at 6:22 pm
cease and desist letter for serial harassment and unhinged rantings, state of receipt (update 5)
March 22, 2011 at 8:00 pm

{ 453 comments… read them below or add one }

Dave C December 9, 2009 at 1:15 pm

While drinking with McCain, did he ever have to leave the room for something when the tab was due?

I’m not saying that was my experience and I’m not saying it wasn’t. Only asking 🙂

Reply

Dustin December 9, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Patterico did not say RSM must prove he’s not a racist. Why would you make something like that up? That’s aggressively dishonest.

He asked RSM to verify if he said a specific quote that justified REVULSION AT HAVING A SISTER IN LAW FROM ANOTHER RACE.

He made a very simple and easy to answer request, and RSM responded with a very confused explanation of the situation, while implying that the quote was wrong. But it’s pretty obvious the quote was accurate.

And you say that revulsion at having a black sister in law is not racist. Do you have any idea how strange this comes across? Revulsion at a race is intolerance. Intolerance of a race is racism. Racism is racist. It’s hard to argue the obvious sometimes, but it’s not hard to understand it.

RSM is a really nice guy, but you need some kind of argument. Why don’t you explain why it’s not racist to be intolerant of people on the basis of race?

I’m grateful we are having this discussion now, so that we can isolate the depraved from the conservative movement of millions of people who simply want small government and to judge their new sisters in law based on the CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER instead of on the color of their skin.

Pajamas Media did the right thing in refusing to use RSM again. There are links to RSM’s usenet posts making jokes like “Have you whipped your slave today!” Patterico makes a mild and polite argument, that gave RSM a very fair chance to defend himself.

Reply

Dustin December 9, 2009 at 2:23 pm

A second point,

I appreciate you helping shine more light on this situation. If you are right, then it will really help Robert Stacey Mccain to be associated with this comment

“As Steffgen predicted, the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sisterinlaw, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.”

I’m glad you are wanting people to look into this quote and decide if that’s reasonable or not. I don’t think reasonable people can disagree on this one, but that’s up to each man and woman to decide for themselves.

While I don’t know that Patterico really wanted this to become a blog-wide sensation, and made repeated notice that he did not want a blog war and wanted to play nice, I think this entire situation makes him look pretty sharp.

Reply

Dustin December 9, 2009 at 2:46 pm

And what does this have to do with Charles Johnson? Chuck’s a nut. No one cares about him anymore.

Last time I checked, old Patterico had a dozen cop killing gang members on his docket. He’s a legitimate badass when it comes to dealing with fictions in the LA Times, or death threatening private investigators. He probably swallows hard when he turns his car on, but I don’t think he gives a crap about whether Jeff Goldstein agrees with him. In case you hadn’t heard, Jeff was banned from Patterico’s blog after making some lame Internet Tough Guy jokes.

So we have an internet tough guy, and some guy who says “have you whipped your slave today” on Usenet (I am not joking: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.war.civil.usa/browse_thread/thread/6364de51dd725e71/060797e7d6c3a4ac?hl=en&lnk=gst&q=RStacy2229#060797e7d6c3a4ac). Jeff’s unstable, though I think he’s brilliant, and Mccain has a problem taking credit for his record of racial remarks, though he’s a hard working and insightful political correspondent.

Versus someone who simply asks RSM if he really said something, and asks his comment section if that quote is racist (which everyone agreed it was before they knew who wrote it).

There’s a reason you point out that you have beers with Mccain and Goldstein. You think the blogosphere should be cliquey now that you have a semi well received blog. You think it matters that you have other prominent bloggers that are cooler in a bar? I think what matters is the truth. First of all, has RSM clearly acknowledged that this is an accurate quote? He’s flipped back and forth on it. Second, is it ok to have revulsion at black people?

If you don’t want to delve into the truth, and think it’s super important that someone bought you a beer, that’s your business, but I think you could do a better job by DEMANDING that Mccain confirm or deny this quote. Yep, he has an obligation to me, his reader, to admit if this is his work or not. I know, how dare I ask him a question.

Reply

Dustin December 9, 2009 at 2:56 pm

In my impatience, I read RSM’s blog, and realized that he is attacking Patterico very harshly. Lying that Patterico has said RSM is a white supremacist, and suggesting that Patterico would use his professional work to somehow harm RSM.

He’s the monster attacking another blogger. All Patterico did was ask if a certain quote was racist, and then ask the person accused of saying it if it was a good quote. The difference between these two men is stark, and you are on the side of the coward.

Reply

Mike LaRoche December 9, 2009 at 4:29 pm

Hey, thanks for the link!

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 9, 2009 at 4:52 pm

Dustin, my point is that I may prefer to have a beer with Patterico over some of the others, but I think he’s being stubborn about this in that . . . lawyerly way he has.

My personal variety of color-blindness is actually closer to your own code, and dictates that a hyperactive awareness of people’s skin color is just–not how I was raised. I have been there for friends whose marriages with those of other races ran afoul of their families’ wishes. My own boyfriends, in fact, have been from a variety of ethnic backgrounds.

I am also on record as personally believing the opposite of what McCain said in that infamous quotation: I believe that most of the images in advertising show a crazy, disproportionate number of same-race couples, because advertisers are cowards, and don’t want to alienate anyone. The couples one sees in ads and commericals are all Raggedy Ann + Raggedy Andy same-color sets–to an insane, unreal, even irritating degree.

But if we are going to accept a theoretical white person’s negative feelings about mixed-race couples as “racist,” we are going to have to likewise condemn widespread disapproval of the same feeling [or, worse, convictions] within the black community, including from Spike Lee. And from those who are upset at Tiger Woods.

Dustin, is Spike Lee a racist? Is Eugene Robinson a racist? Your serve.

Reply

Patterico December 9, 2009 at 5:08 pm

“For the record, I do not buy Pat’s argument that anyone who has hangups about interracial dating and marriage is racist.”

I did not say that. Did you read my post? If not, this will make the second time you have attacked an argument of mine without reading it.

Calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist are not the same thing.

I am comfortable that the statement is racist.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 9, 2009 at 5:38 pm

Well, Pat–last time, I read the first 3-5 posts you wrote on the subject. After that, I knocked off because you and Jeff seemed to be going around in circles and saying the same things over and over in different ways.

This time, I may have skimmed your post. I most certainly skimmed the extended version of the quote from RSM. But I am having trouble understanding how words can simply hang in the air and mean things apart from the attitudes and intentions of those who wrote or uttered them–like thought/dialogue balloons in a comic strip, but without any origination in any conscious mind.

How can language be understood as something other than a means of expression? It is not an abstraction, Patrick. There’s no such thing as a set of phrases that exist as if they were the Periodic Table of the Elements: no human-created language exists on its own that way, as if it were an objective fact. Language isn’t physics.

I will go back and make sure I read both of your posts word for word, but the one I read totally came off to me like a game of “gotcha,” and therefore a bit unsporting. Perhaps I was not careful enough; I’ll try again.

Reply

Jeff G December 9, 2009 at 5:59 pm

In case you hadn’t heard, Jeff was banned from Patterico’s blog after making some lame Internet Tough Guy jokes.

Bullshit. I was banned because Patterico says I made a death threat that nobody ever believed was a death threat, and in which the person being threatened with death was actually me.

In short, I was banned because that was one way Patterico could keep from having to answer me, which he desired to do because he was out of his depth. And everyone who was around at the time knows it.

Calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist are not the same thing.

I am comfortable that the statement is racist.

How can a statement be racist without intent — that is, without some agency to lend it its “racism”? If you believe the statement was inadvertently racist — that is, if you don’t think RSM really meant it as a racist statement — then why call it a racist statement in the first place, particularly if you believe it was not intended in such? Alternately, if you believe the statement is racist but that its utterer is not racist, where, precisely, does the “racism” come from?

And the answer to that is from the person interpreting, who for whatever his reasons decided that the statement is racist, but who doesn’t want to commit to the full-on charge of racism for the statement’s utterer. It’s a cowardly argument; it hasn’t balls; it lacks confidence in its convictions.

Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. If you believe the statement is racist, you believe that it was uttered with racist intent. If you don’t believe it was uttered with racist intent, the statement is not racist, unless the intent to see racism comes from another source, in this case, from some agency who imbues the statement with a meaning that he doesn’t attribute to the original utterer.

That’d be you.

Reply

Kenny December 9, 2009 at 6:50 pm

Bill Whittle’s “Tribes” essay comes to mind as this brew continues to boil. I hope it ends well.
http://pajamasmedia.com/ejectejecteject/?s=tribes

Reply

Darleen Click December 9, 2009 at 6:51 pm

Dustin

You are off-base. WAY off base.

Pat

Calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist are not the same thing

Huh? If the statement IS racist, then how can the speaker NOT be? If the speaker is NOT racist, then the perception of the listener is wrong.

Reply

Patterico December 9, 2009 at 7:45 pm

“This time, I may have skimmed your post. I most certainly skimmed the extended version of the quote from RSM. But I am having trouble understanding how words can simply hang in the air and mean things apart from the attitudes and intentions of those who wrote or uttered them–like thought/dialogue balloons in a comic strip, but without any origination in any conscious mind.”

Joy,

I said in my original post mentioning McCain by name, way at the top in the second sentence so that people (hopefully) wouldn’t miss it: “I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time.”

I’m certain you missed this because I know you and you’re not someone out to deliberately misrepresent people. I don’t address people like that.

Now, you and I can certainly debate whether someone can say a racially prejudiced or racist statement (and my guest blogger DRJ has convinced me that “racially prejudiced” is the better terminology for McCain’s statement) and not be a racist.

But before we do, let’s clear the air.

You really should not misstate and distort what I say. This statement: “For the record, I do not buy Pat’s argument that anyone who has hangups about interracial dating and marriage is racist.” totally misstates my position in at least two ways.

First, I said that one racist or racially prejudiced statement does *not* a racist make. So you misrepresented my position on that ground.

Second, I did not say that “anyone” who has “hangups” about interracial dating and marriage is racist. I just didn’t.

I said that McCain’s quote:

As Steffgen predicted, the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sisterinlaw, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

appears to me to be clearly racially prejudiced.

That’s different from what you said.

Please don’t put words in my mouth.

Reply

The Rude Dog December 9, 2009 at 7:54 pm

This is stupid.
This is the LGFing of the net.

R.S. wrote a statement that some say is racist.
I don’t like that he wrote it, but the idea that this is all liberals have…
a decade old sentence… says it all.

McCain writes thousands of words a day and the same losers who want to put a Klan hat on him have no problem with the country voting for a President who sat in front of a guy who claims white people created AIDS to kill black people.

And McCain’s line about racial “revulsion” flows both ways, Plenty of black people run around with anti-white garbage in the forefront of their minds, they don’t want any whitey relatives. Talk to some cab drivers and barbers.

How about we get a refund on all of the climate change backed regulations we are paying for? Nah… we got to get to the bottom of whether or not McCain wants a black sister-in-law.

Dorks.

Reply

Vlad December 9, 2009 at 8:01 pm

Well…..speaking as someone who’s got no dog in this fight, I’d say Chuckie is definitely winning so far.

Reply

star4 December 9, 2009 at 8:31 pm

““I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time.””

Out of curiosity, how long does it brand you as a racist for, Patterico?

Reply

Patterico December 9, 2009 at 8:37 pm

I will say this, Joy:

“But I am having trouble understanding how words can simply hang in the air and mean things apart from the attitudes and intentions of those who wrote or uttered them–like thought/dialogue balloons in a comic strip, but without any origination in any conscious mind.”

I haven’t said they do.

What I have said is that I do not believe that a single racist sentiment brands one as a racist for all time.

Which is a different argument.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 9, 2009 at 8:47 pm

Okay, Patrick. I’m hearing two diffferent things. Can you walk me through it?

1) Stacy’s statement was racist, but Stacy himself might or might not be. Or:

2) Stacy’s statement was racist, indicative of some racist thought patterns at the time he made the statement. However, he may or may not still have those thought patterns lo these many years later.

Is one of these close to what you mean? I’m trying not to oversimplify, but I’m reading you through a headache. As promised, I’ll look your posts over again in the morning and repost on the subject without the . . . streamlining I might have done here. But maybe you can help me figure this part out if you drop back by here again?

Reply

Patterico December 9, 2009 at 8:50 pm

My off the cuff response is that both seem true. I’m not sure I see the difference.

Reply

Jeff G December 9, 2009 at 8:57 pm

What I have said is that I do not believe that a single racist sentiment brands one as a racist for all time.

Then why keep asking RS McCain to answer for it?

If Patterico believed it a racist statement, but he doesn’t believe RS McCain a racist now, why the fuss? Why the several posts? Why this purported effort to find the “truth,” to “scrutinize” something he no longer believes extant? Why the “direct questions” to RS McCain about a racist past if he believes people can change, that in fact RS McCain HAS changed, and that people shouldn’t be judged on one statement from 1996?

Never mind. Who really cares. Those were all rhetorical questions anyway.

Thanks for not banning me, Joy.

Reply

SteveG December 9, 2009 at 9:24 pm

Dustin

In the context of 1996 era bumperstickers to annoy Yankees, I prefer
“I’d rather be wenching in the quarters”
The idea being to needle people who think everyone who defends the south is pro- slavery… as in the idea of a sticker that says: I’m pro-slavery and I vote.
Northerners owned their slaves by the hour… that kind of stuff.

Interestingly, that same group you linked has McCain giving the southern version of a Lincoln biography which some would find offensive; you have alluded to it before… nothing new there, and southerners do not have to revere Lincoln and if they think he was a hypocrite asshole, so be it…. but of more interest buried in the piece was McCain understanding even back in 1996 that speaking openly, candidly and honestly about race would draw fire. God forbid anyone would also have the nerve to speak provocatively about race

Reply

Gordon December 9, 2009 at 10:06 pm

Frankly, I’d much rather chat about what a chickenshit Rachel Maddow is for her “some say he is a white supremacist; I believe he is,” statement.

But for the record, Jeff isn’t banned from my blog. Nor is Patrick. Stacy can comment anytime he likes. However, of the principals involved, Stacy (via Smitty) has linked me, and only Joy has both linked and commented.

Thus, Joy is most virtuous of all.

Reply

Robert Stacy McCain December 9, 2009 at 10:10 pm

Sigh. Can nobody pay attention to the fact that when I quoted Steffgen’s 1966 book and sought to apply it to the political and cultural trends of 1996, it was in an argument on a Southern culture list-serv that was targeted by a white separatist named Dennis Wheeler?

Wheeler began by subtly suggesting that George Kalas was too “liberal” on race issues. My purpose was to defend Kalas and to discredit Wheeler’s attacks, so that no conservative on the list would react along the lines of, “Hey, maybe Wheeler’s got a point here. Maybe this racialist thing is the way to go.”

In the pursuit of my rhetorical objective, I sought to negate or preempt the most obvious appeals of Wheeler’s argument. IYKWIMAITYD.

Certainly in such a contest, it behooved me to draw the line as far to the right (so to speak) as possible, to stake out the terrain of conflict so that those who sided with Wheeler would be limited to only a small number of “irreconcilables,” with all men of good will siding with Kalas. There deserves to be some appreciation of what was at stake, and who I was dealing with, and the fact that the conflict ended with Wheeler’s exit.

In subsequent experience with mainstream conservatives, I’ve generally seen tactics similar to Wheeler’s employed by so-called centrists (e.g. Kathleen Parker, David Brooks, Chris Buckley) who are always looking to score points by denouncing some “undesireable” (e.g., Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin) on the right side of the coalition. Even though the ideological polarities are reversed, it’s really the same trick, a tactic of undermining one’s rivals by suggesting that they are somehow detrimental to the larger cause.

The accuser always wishes to make the argument about the alleged motives of the accused — why did Limbaugh say that about Obama? — but if you’ve seen this game played often enough, you’ll be more curious about the motives of the accuser.

As I said when I began defending Pamela Geller against Charles Johnson, you can’t build a movement by the process of subtraction. All men of good will, who are working to advance the movement’s aims, should feel welcome to participate. But when you see someone trying to create a schism where none existed, when they start in on the “urge to purge” — deliberated trying to undermine or eject someone you know to be both loyal and helpful — you’ve got to put a stop to it, or it will lead to disaster.

Effective teamwork becomes impossible if everybody’s constantly got to be on guard against attacks from their own teammates.

Reply

Patterico December 9, 2009 at 10:34 pm

Mr. McCain,

There is a passage quoted on the Internet attributed to you that reads:

As Steffgen predicted, the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sisterinlaw, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

You told Alan Colmes you didn’t say that.

You told Founding Bloggers you said it.

You now seem to imply you were merely “quoting” Steffgen. And you implied recently on your blog that I misquoted you.

You have spoken about this a lot — but what you say is contradictory.

If there were a track record of my having said contradictory things all over the Internet concerning whether I said a comment many have called racist, I would want to address it. I might even try evading the question by trying to turn the tables on the people asking the questions.

This appears to be your tactic. You address it continually, but never directly. Always evasively.

Clearly you think this is a winning strategy for you, but several of my commenters who have expressed admiration for your work are starting to wonder about you, not because you choose to remain silent — you don’t — but because you choose to remain very vocal and yet evasive. I’ll quote one of them, my friend Stashiu, who served at Gitmo (no pinko is he):

It would have been easier and simpler to say whether he made the comment and what the context was rather than spend the time and energy he has claiming to be a victim. Or he could even have refused to address it at all if he thought that was best. Evasions and deflections make it seem like there is something to hide. We don’t like it when liberals do it and we shouldn’t like it when conservatives do it either.

I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen of his writing, but now everything he says becomes suspect because I don’t have confidence he’s telling the whole story.

On a post several weeks back where you *did* choose to address Charles Johnson’s accusations, I left a very polite comment asking you to address the above quote. You did not approve my comment.

All I’m asking is whether you wrote the above passage. I’m open to listening to what you meant by it — why, I even afforded a guest-blogging spot to one of your defenders, such is my craving for the Crushing of Dissent — but a lot of people just want to know if you wrote it.

You have chosen to talk about it so many times, and said so many contradictory things about whether you said it, that YOU have made it an issue whether you said it. I’m just pointing it out, and I’m not the first, and I bet I won’t be the last if you continue to evade the question.

Did you write that passage, Mr. McCain?

Reply

Patterico December 9, 2009 at 10:55 pm

While I wait for my previous comment to be approved: there’s no need to play martyr, Mr. McCain. I didn’t call you a racist. I very pointedly did not.

Nor (contrary to the assertions of some who are liars or bad at reading) did I say you are not. I don’t know.

I’m talking about a quote that you said. Nobody held a gun to your head and made you say it. And I’m hardly the first to bring it up. Nor is Charles Johnson the only one who has expressed concerns — as the Founding Bloggers link above shows.

You don’t have to take my advice, but I like to live by the creed that I own my words. I don’t run away from them. This is why I am asking you if these are your words. If they are, it should be simple to acknowledge it.

Reply

Jeff G December 9, 2009 at 11:37 pm

You don’t have to take my advice, but I like to live by the creed that I own my words. I don’t run away from them.

Ha!

Good stuff, that is.

Reply

Darleen Click December 9, 2009 at 11:54 pm

I didn’t call you a racist. I very pointedly did not

but in Pat’s latest update on his blog:

UPDATE: Nor have I said that I believe he is not a racist. I just don’t know

Pat, you didn’t answer my question above and I suspect since you saw fit to ignore where SEK called me a racist in the same series of posts about Capt Ed who you DID defend, you won’t answer me here either. However,

1) you post comments from an article about people complaining about Tiger Woods’ choice in bed partners, including one from a woman who wouldn’t have voted for Obama if he had married a white woman. You solicited comments on the basis of “is this racism”

2) you then post the RSM snippet and say “is THIS racism?” getting the jury primed

3) Ah ha! #2 snipped is from (drum roll) RSM and is “cringe worthy” and “uncomfortable and then you make YOUR judgment: “You can put as much context around that as you like. It still sounds like racism to me”.

Your reasons are your own, but you decided NOT to try to first satisfy your curiousity by contacting RSM via email or interview him, you decided to do a public “gotcha” — the set up, the buy in, the reveal. You can’t now back away with “I’m just a neutral observer here” and also try and claim a statement you deem racist regardless of context was uttered by someone NOT (maybe) racist.

You wish to “own your own words”. But which ones?

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 12:27 am

“You can’t now back away with “I’m just a neutral observer here” and also try and claim a statement you deem racist regardless of context was uttered by someone NOT (maybe) racist.”

Regardless of context? I quoted the whole damn passage right there in the post. And linked the whole site. Right there in the post.

I don’t even remember SEK calling you a racist, but since I have made fun of him for days on end for falsely playing the race card, you can bet that if I had noticed I would have called him on it. I don’t think you’re a racist. I’ll say that plainly here. Darleen is not a racist, and if SEK said that he was being an idiot. Again.

I focused on Ed Morrissey because SEK put him in the title and said Ed was knowingly race-baiting which was stupid. I think SEK knew how stupid it was and sort of wanted to back down.

I left a comment on McCain’s site, on a post where he was talking about this issue, weeks ago. POLITELY asking him to address this and set the record straight. He didn’t approve my comment. His post talked about Charles Johnson’s attacks so it’s not like he wasn’t talking about the topic at all.

I have two people e-mailing me tonight saying they asked similar comments today and their comments didn’t get approved either — though other people’s subsequently were. Funny how cheerleading his comment section seems. Guess it’s not a coincidence.

Meanwhile, I crushed dissent by inviting Dafydd ab Hugh to guest post defending McCain.

Darleen is not a racist. SEK sometimes (often) acts like an idiot. Repeat several times.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 12:31 am

“I didn’t call you a racist. I very pointedly did not

but in Pat’s latest update on his blog:

UPDATE: Nor have I said that I believe he is not a racist. I just don’t know”

This is unfair and beneath you Darleen. You snip that first quote to suggest a contradiction between the two. But here is the unsnipped quote:

” I didn’t call you a racist. I very pointedly did not.

Nor (contrary to the assertions of some who are liars or bad at reading) did I say you are not. I don’t know.”

This is my consistent position so don’t imply I’m backtracking, as some falsely claim. I own *all* my words and I have been consistent on this, as anyone can see if they read my full quotes and not snipped versions.

Reply

ponce December 10, 2009 at 12:42 am

Flashback! Some arguments never die.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 12:46 am

“Your reasons are your own, but you decided NOT to try to first satisfy your curiousity by contacting RSM via email or interview him . . .”

I left a polite comment on his site, on a post talking about Charles Johnson’s attacks. My comment was not approved. DRJ left a similar comment today. It was not approved. PatHMV left two comments along those lines. They were not approved.

Reply

John Doe December 10, 2009 at 1:23 am

As somebody who HAS a black sister-in-law, and a black brother-in-law to boot (long story), please allow me to be the first to say it. The horse is dead. Quit beating it. All of you. Move along.

Reply

chercast December 10, 2009 at 6:21 am

“Funny how cheerleading his comment section seems. Guess it’s not a coincidence.”…

Patterico – and now you’re insulting RSM comment section commenters…smooth move

I haven’t read RSM’s pieces yet nor yours. I think I’ll go read what the cheerleaders have to say. I’ve wandered to this site via Dan Riehl, link to J Goldstein and now yours.

I respected the big story you broke mid-year, that you received all kinds of credit for.

Did you pick a fight you thought you could win in public? You apparently have a bee in your bonnet about something.

More cowbell.

Reply

MikeD December 10, 2009 at 6:26 am

If I may?

rac?ism?/?re?s?z?m/ [rey-siz-uhm]
–noun a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

This word you keep using, I donna think it means what you think it means.

Reply

MikeD December 10, 2009 at 6:26 am

If I may?

rac?ism [rey-siz-uhm]
–noun a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

This word you keep using, I donna think it means what you think it means.

Reply

MikeD December 10, 2009 at 6:26 am

If I may?

rac-ism [rey-siz-uhm]
–noun a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.

This word you keep using, I donna think it means what you think it means.

Reply

Darleen Click December 10, 2009 at 6:31 am

Pat @ 12:27 am

You say: “Regardless of context? I quoted the whole damn passage right there in the post. And linked the whole site. Right there in the post.”

Yes, you did. And I moved through almost all of the list-serv thing to see RSM trying to slap down Wheeler. But even as you provided context to your readers you then say:

“You can put as much context around that as you like. It still sounds like racism to me”.

My interpretation, of course, but that tells me that you have considered the context and are pronouncing the statement “racist” regardless.

If you tried to contact RSM prior to your postings on the issue, then I withdraw my objections based on what I preceived as a Star Chamber move.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 6:46 am

“My interpretation, of course, but that tells me that you have considered the context and are pronouncing the statement ‘racist’ regardless.”

Yeah, I considered the context. I read the whole thing. If that paragraph had been preceded by a sentence that said: “The following paragraph is what I would write if I were a racist like you guys” then obviously it would not be racist. So obviously it’s not impossible to put it in a context that would make it non-racist. What I meant was, just as you said, that I had looked at the context and did not see anything that rendered it anything but what it appears to be on its face when taken on its own: a racist statement. It’s not one isolated part of it but the whole quote — the complaining about interracial images being “forced” on us poor souls by Hollywood and the media (who complains about that?), the phrase “natural revulsion,” and all the rest of it.

Then when you put that together with the links I have above where he admits the quote to one person, denies it to another, suggests in places he was playing a role, suggests in others that he was merely quoting someone else, and implies that I misquoted him . . . it looks like a lot of writing that is contradictory and evasive. The evasions even had me doubting the provenance of the quote to some extent until recently, when I found the link that shows he admitted it to Founding Bloggers.

I still can’t understand why he told Alan Colmes (see link above) “I didn’t say that” when he told Founding Bloggers that he did.

And yeah, I most certainly did leave a comment about this, weeks ago — and it wasn’t off topic either, as it was on a post of his discussing Charles Johnson’s accusations.

I’m no diehard Charles Johnson supporter either, btw. I was recently contacted by someone from the NYT Magazine about Charles and criticized what I perceived to be a double standard between how he used to handle his comment section and how he now demands others handle theirs.

But if McCain can further evade the issue by trying to lump me in with Johnson, even though we’re very different people, then he will do so. As he has already made clear.

Mr. McCain, did you write the quote above?

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 6:48 am

1. Quote a piece attributable to McCain.
2. “You can put as much context around that as you like. It still sounds like racism to me”.
3. “I didn’t call [McCain] a racist. I very pointedly did not… Nor have I said that I believe [McCain] is not a racist. I just don’t know.”

Leaving aside the audacity it takes to do a series of public posts speculating on someone’s “racism” while then claiming you don’t know if he’s racist or not (I mean, who can POSSIBLY be hurt by such a thing, right?), the fact of the matter is, Frey called McCain a racist the moment he said that “it sounds like racism to me.”

It’s narcissistic, naturally, in that it pays no attention to McCain’s intent (which, as he has explained it, clearly changes the context — suggesting that Frey knows less about what context entails than he should), but rather it concerns itself with how it makes Patrick Frey feel (in this case, he found the statement “cringe worthy”). And so we have “racism” being defined as “how it made me feel.”

This is in keeping with Ms. Obama’s stance on racism.

The fact of the matter is, pace the assertion made by Frey earlier in this thread, calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist ARE not the same thing, because a statement can’t be racist if the intent behind it was not, and if there’s no racist intent, there’s no racist statement. Conversely, if a statement is deemed racist, one must commit to the idea that it sprung from racist intent, and having racist intent is the very definition being a racist.

What Frey is doing here now is saying he doesn’t know McCain’s intent, so he’s privileged the fact that HE feels the statement was racist-sounding to him in order to declare the statement racist while leaving the question of McCain’s culpability open.

In other words, Frey himself is supplying the intent — in that he intends to see the statement as racist, regardless of whether it was intended as such by McCain — and it is Frey’s intent to signify the marks in a certain way that gives the statement its racist component.

You can’t have it both ways. Saying “the statement seems racist to me” and then attributing that racism to McCain (Frey says he’s on the fence) is odious. And had Patrick learned anything from our last exchange on the role of intent in meaning making, he might have saved himself the time, and he might further have saved McCain the consternation and the public humiliation.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 6:51 am

The fact of the matter is, pace the assertion made by Frey earlier in this thread, calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist ARE not the same thing,

Should read, ” calling a statement racist and calling the speaker racist ARE the same thing”

Apologies.

Reply

alwaysfiredup December 10, 2009 at 6:53 am

Tribalism, people. Tribalism is “natural” (innate) and not racist per se. Tribalism is no longer necessary for survival or considered a proper response but the instincts are still there. No need to play ostrich.

Pat: it’s awfully disingenuous to say “I never called you a racist. I just don’t know.” You insinuated it. This is how people got to thinking Obama was a Muslim. It’s playing dirty.

RSM: I’ve heard that line of defense from you several times and it isn’t helping. If you want to keep fighting this fight you may need another.

We’re letting the terrorists win here, guys.

Reply

Dave C December 10, 2009 at 6:59 am

Seems to me that Patt has appointed himself as the Judge Roy Bean of the internet.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 7:05 am

“The Judean People’s Front!”

By the way, a cautionary note: I sense that we may be getting into the territory wherein people are going to be tempted to get personal, here. After all, we must all defend our pride, and it’s a sensitive, sensitive intersection–apparent accusations of racism, the nature of language, how people communicate.

Let’s do our breathing and keep the focus on the ideas, to the degree that we can. I’m not going to censor or ban anyone, but let’s stay as calm as possible.

Reply

Smarty December 10, 2009 at 7:11 am

So seriously, If someone says (in effect) “I don’t want to think about some black dude from the black sub-culture humping my sister” then they are guilty of making a racist statement and they owe someone else who is both NOT his sister nor humping his sister an explanation? And better yet, wouldn’t the inquisitor making an issue out of it be doing the world a favor if he went after something that mattered? Why not focus on Obama’s obvious racism, he has a far bigger negative impact on race relations and quality of live than RSM or anyone else.

Reply

chercast December 10, 2009 at 7:15 am

Pat, is a lawyer. RSM is a writer.

My sensibilities are with the writer (perhaps poet). As a RSM reader, the reason I like his blog and read it is that he is a rarity among conservative/libertarian leaning blogs. He’s an amazing writer. If conservatism/libertarianism has to only effect politics without the arts or artistic souls…I’m going to have a tear.

Reply

Dennis D December 10, 2009 at 7:19 am

The belief that one race is superior to another is racist
The desire that your grandkids or nephews have red hair and freckles like you is not racist.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 7:21 am

“Pat: it’s awfully disingenuous to say ‘I never called you a racist. I just don’t know.’ You insinuated it.”

Not at all. Right from the get-go, I said that I consider the *comment* racist. I still do. I said that one racist comment does not a racist make. I still believe that.

I have had some liars claim that I flat-out asserted that I do not believe McCain to be a racist. I cannot say that either. I don’t know.

I can’t be more clear about this. My very first post naming McCain clearly articulated my view of the statement, and the fact that my view of the statement does not establish my view of the man:

That Quote Most of You Called “Racist” Was Written by Robert Stacy McCain

Whom I always liked, to be honest with you, as a funny and seemingly sensible guy. And I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time. But at the same time, he wrote something that would make most of us cringe.

I didn’t insinuate anything. I said I believe the quote to be racist, but it does not establish that he as a man is racist. People can say rude things without being rude people. People can say sexist things once in their lives without being sexists. And so forth. And I made this utterly clear in my first post, in the second sentence of that post.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 7:26 am

Joy,

Does the quote truly not disturb you?

As Steffgen predicted, the media now force interracial images into the public mind and a number of perfectly rational people react to these images with an altogether natural revulsion. The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sisterinlaw, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

Did you ever imagine that you’d be defending a quote like that?

This does not seem like a hard question to me at all. Read that statement to 10 people on the street. Read the whole passage to them if you like. Or the whole debate.

It’s a racially prejudiced quote. It would make me uncomfortable to defend a statement like that. I’m surprised at how many people appear to be willing to defend that quote.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 7:39 am

Many people aren’t defending the quote. They are defending a principle.

If you are going to go around yelling “racist,” be prepared to stick to your guns. Again, it can’t be “racist” if it’s not offered by someone with racist intent. And if it’s not offered with racist intent, it’s not racist.

Patrick has suggested the statement is racist. And yet he wants the out of saying he never called the author of the statement racist.

It doesn’t work that way.

As for the statement itself, I don’t know all the particulars. But I do know that the venue and the purpose of the debate can change the strategy of how one goes about debating. For instance, I may be anti-abortion, but in a debate with a pro-choice person, I might take a half-way position in order to win a rhetorical hill — eg., getting my pro-choice opponent to agree that there needs to be limits on abortion, or that both parents should have some say in what happens to the fetus / child.

Unless you knew my intent, you could take the entire argument, as written, and claim that no context exists in which I can claim I was anti-abortion. After all, right there in front of your eyes I’m saying I’m pro-choice to a degree.

But I did so for a specific rhetorical reason in a specific setting for a specific audience. And all that plays to context.

Once again: if you believe the original statement racist, you believe it was uttered by someone with racism in his heart. Otherwise, you would have no reason — and no grounds, other than how the statement made YOU feel — for calling it racist. And if racism is now defined by how something makes us feel, and irrespective of the intent of the utterer, then we should all throw away our spades and hoes, and turn our gardens over to the language police.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 7:43 am

And yes, I get that Patrick Frey won’t deign to address a liar and a character assassin like me. But read my comments here as though he’d at least try to answer intelligently.

Personal animus has nothing to do with the points I’m making. It didn’t in the last go round either — at least from my end.

But as I wrote and argued at length then, it matters how you believe language to work. And I suspect we wouldn’t be having these leftist-style inquisitions if people on the right would embrace the only coherent formulation for how interpretation works, and refuse to accede to theories of language that allow for these kinds of confused attacks.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 7:48 am

And I’m no stranger to false accusations of racism or prejudice. (Why, I even had a blogger call me anti-Semitic because I mocked one of his continual beg-a-thons for cash — even though I said absolutely nothing about his Jewish heritage!) There is no shortage of dishonest people who casually throw around the accusation, to be sure. That’s why I was careful to limit my language to the one statement that I am confident was indeed racist.

Reply

J. Lawrence Chamberlain December 10, 2009 at 7:59 am

Who can play the victim better? Is is the eternally wronged Goldstein, the eternally mis-quoted McCain or the correct Frey?

Let’s go to the internet! Here’s a link to an Article

http://www.amren.com/ar/2002/03/index.html
“The “success” of such propaganda only accelerates the decline of the white population. If crusaders against teenage motherhood were serious, they would concentrate on the black and Hispanic girls who account for more than half of teenage births. Targeting whites as part of a general campaign is yet another form of racial suicide. We should encourage whites to have children within marriage; instead they are encouraged only to use contraceptives, whether married or single”<blockquote cite=””

“Racial suicide” “Targeting whites as a general campaign” These are clearly the words of a non-racist. Maybe Jeff can ask Stacy the intent he had when he penned (under a pen name) “racial suicide.”

http://www.amren.com/ar/1997/11/index.html#letters
“Sir — My warm congratulations to Victor Craig for his vigorous defense of Christian faith in the September issue. One point, however, that Mr. Craig failed to emphasize was that Christianity gives a firm and inflexible foundation to personal morality. It is no coincidence, I think, that the decline of white America in recent decades has gone hand-in-hand with a decline in moral standards.” RSM

Wow, Mr. Craig’s article probably didn’t praise South Africa and The American South (oh, it did….) and it probably doesn’t contain this passage: “In fact, the literature of race that grew out of both these cultures (often written by clergymen) may still be profitably referred to today. It is stunning how prophetic the Christians of those two societies were in their predictions of the long-term effects of racial mixing. They did not have the scientific evidence for racial differences we have today, but the common-sense observations of these deeply Christian folk arrived at the same truths about race that the Jensens, Rushtons, and Levins would express in technical terms much later.”

And, McCain praised this article!!!! “Vigorous defense,” indeed.

Finally, from Mr. McCain’s usenet postings, we can read him question why people call slavery a violation of human rights:

It doesn’t matter if the situation was as bad as potrayed [sic], it was still involved a basic violation of human rights.

[McCain]Human rights, as defined by whom? I do not think that the Islamic Africans who sold their Kaffir slaves to the European traders considered that the Kaffir had any more human rights than would have Chief Justice Taney. And if the vendor recognizes no rights for this person, nor does the purchase, his Constitution or his Chief Justice, then who is the agent who may justly infer upon such rights upon the slave? We are at the baseline of political theory, you see, and must decide who is the best custodian of the slave’s interest.
The problem, you see, is that slavery as an institution rubs roughly against some basic premises of republican government, contrasting the right of liberty to the right of property. It is only to egalitarian or collectivist social theory, really, that we may turn to find a critique of slavery. It was not subject to criticism by the Constitution of 1860, which recognized it. Nor is slavery condemned, per se, in Judeo-Christian scripture”

So, here we have a man, born in the 20th Century, who asserts some people may be owned by other, solely based upon their skin color, and that their condition is one of chattel and this is NOT a massive historical, vile wrong….it’s just part of a goodhearted jostling between “liberty” and “property”. And, wow, condemnation can’t even be found in the New Teatament….’cause surely one love’s his brother as he loves himself by keeping his brother in bondage and selling his nephews for profit!

Gee, who would ever think that the man who holds those sentiments is a racist.

Joy, care to comment on racial suicide? Maybe Goldstein can tell us how South African clergymen being “right” about how bad “racial mixing” means the person lauding said article just liked it for its prose? Or, maybe Darleen Click can explain how a person can defend Southern slavery and not be a racist?

Anyone? Anyone?

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 8:28 am

I think you should ban that blogger from your site and never address him. He doesn’t sound like a good person, like our President is.

Reply

ConantheCimmerian December 10, 2009 at 8:29 am

Patterico said:
December 10th, 2009 at 7:48 am

There is no shortage of dishonest people who casually throw around the accusation, to be sure. That’s why I was careful to limit my language to the one statement that I am confident was indeed racist.

And you sir are just one person that is casually implying the accusation.
And you sir were not elected or chosen to be the Grand Arbiter to decide what is and what is not racist.

What RSM stated is not racist, whether you believe it to be or not. And the reason he stated it was for a reason that you just can’t seem to wrap your head around, though it has been sufficiently explained to anyone willing to look, listen, and hear.

I am sorry, but this appears to be nothing but a bunch of dissembling on Frey’s part. He gets to take the PC moral high ground and pat himself on the back. Insert joke about lawyer integrity and lawyer self importance here.

I have words for such creatures, but I will honor the blog master and reserve those in my mind as my own thought crimes against this Mr. Frey.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 8:34 am

And for the record, Frey made anti-semitic statements. I don’t know if he’s anti-semitic or not. Perhaps I’ll do several posts on the subject and just, you know, throw the idea out there and see what people think.

In a search for truth!

Oh. Wait —

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 8:48 am

Maybe Goldstein can tell us how South African clergymen being “right” about how bad “racial mixing” means the person lauding said article just liked it for its prose? Or, maybe Darleen Click can explain how a person can defend Southern slavery and not be a racist?

Anyone? Anyone?

Certainly, I’ll take a stab.

First, why in the world would I tell anyone “how South African clergymen being ‘right’ about how bad ‘racial mixing’ means the person lauding said article just liked it for its prose?” Are you suggesting that has something to do with my argument? Do you even know what my argument is?

Perhaps this idea you have that I feel eternally wronged stems from my consternation over having to answer queries from people like you who haven’t bothered to consider what I’ve said before pretending that you have a handle on it.

Just to make things simpler for you, my argument is this: Stacy McCain is irrelevant here. What’s relevant is this: if you are going to call a statement a “racist statement,” you should be prepared (linguistically) to call the author / utterer of the statement racist, as well. Because that’s how it works. That’s how it has to work. It makes no sense to call a statement racist and then pretend it doesn’t proceed from racism. Unless what you are arguing is that a certain text appears racist to you, which changes the locus of responsibility.

I’ve outlined in a comment above an example of a context that is changed drastically once an appeal is made to the intent of the principal under scrutiny. Note that none of the text, as it appears to you, needs be changed to change the context.

My beef here is with Frey’s continued misunderstanding of how language functions; and as I’ve argued repeatedly, it is such a misunderstanding (which is not peculiar to Frey; in fact, it underpins the entirety of progressivism as a structural imperative) that I wish to correct.

We would be having a quite different argument had Frey simply called McCain a racist based on his “racist statement.” As it stands, however, he has committed himself to the idea that McCain was at least at one time a racist, though he may no longer be.

My point is, that commitment wouldn’t be necessary had Frey not made the claim that the statement was racist in the first place, which perhaps he might have done had he considered the intent of its author rather than merely privileging both his own intent and code, and then relied on an incoherent formalist reading to diving the statement’s meaning.

Now, feel free to correct me, Mr. J. Lawrence Chamberlain. But do do so at my place, where the discussion is ongoing, and where I’ll be better able to answer you.

Reply

The Rude dog December 10, 2009 at 8:48 am

Hey there are about one hundred million guys who want to kill all of you…

… and sooner or later, this whole thread will fly up on LGF and they will take it apart, just like we did to them.

You see, you guys started out with R.S. McCain but ended up at the edges of Hitler. It is classic reducto ad Hitlerum.

Reply

ponce December 10, 2009 at 9:04 am

Why is it so easy to understand what Patterico is saying and so hard to understand what JeffG is saying. Shouldn’t having an English degree make you easier to understand?

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 9:10 am

There’s a reason more people have seen Transformers II than The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeois, ponce.

But don’t worry. That just makes you normal.

Reply

Gregory December 10, 2009 at 9:16 am

In case anyone’s still reading this, Jeff’s point can be summarised in three words.

Exegesis versus Eisegesis.

Exegesis literally means ‘reading out of’, and is usually applied to the Bible (regardless of whether it is original language or translated). It denotes the process of trying to understand what the Author (God, through His spokesman at the time) meant by His words. Hence, because Genesis reads like a historical narrative, using standard constructions denoting day-periods, standard exegetical practice would yield a 6-day Creation process.

Eisegesis literally means ‘reading into’, and is also usually applied to the Bible. It denotes the process of seeing whether any reading of the Bible can support a particular thesis. Hence, because elsewhere Peter says a day with the Lord is like a thousand years, time is fluid and Creation could be any length of time.

I leave it up to Patterico to figure out which pattern his posts have been fitting in.

Reply

ponce December 10, 2009 at 9:27 am

I seen them both, JeffG

They both suck.

Reply

ConantheCimmerian December 10, 2009 at 9:31 am

Jeff G is quite easy to understand.

Frey, though, dissembles/backtracks/speaks out of both sides of his mouth/ wants to have it both ways.

Reply

J. Lawrence Chamberlain December 10, 2009 at 9:37 am

Mr. Goldstein, you do have a charming site, full of mouth-breathers, who tend worship your every proclamation. Why should I journey to a place where the chimps throw pooh at the debater when YOU are right here? Could it be that obfuscation is easier with the assistance of sycophancy?

And, how does one argue with such obfuscation of the real problem? I do like the tactic of pretending this is about language and not a months old grudge against Patrick Frey; a grudge which continues to rankle!

Patrick will not say RSM is a racist, because he does not know. I provided context. When I write “Goldstein is a charlatan” do I really mean the words you have written on this subject (defending a racist apologist of treason) represent quackery or do I mean you are a quack? A man whose personal distaste and desire to attack a more significant blogger has resulted in him defending a man who said “While I do not defend slavery, I at least will defend the 1830-1865 *defense* of slavery as being essentially no worse than any number of ordinary human follies”?

That, my friend, is quackery. What vessel will you exploit next to win your battle of rhetoric with Mr. Frey? The mind reels at the possibility.

Language? You wish this squabble was about that.

PS. Oh, and where Mr. Frey will not say it, I will. McCain is a neo-Confederate, a celebrator of treason, and a racist. Anyone want to read his defense of Emmet Till’s murder? Anyone want to see a “journalist” and historian say that Emmet Till’s murder was over-blown and no big deal? Fine ground on which to plant your flag, Mr. Goildstein.

Reply

Gregory December 10, 2009 at 9:46 am

Mr Chamberlain, I can do one better; I can defend the institution of slavery itself.

Not racially-based slavery, but slavery nevertheless.

And yet, I am, in my own country, and will be in the USA, a racial minority that is treated as third-class citizens. Am I now an Uncle Chong, a House Chink? Please.

As for treason, that is an eminently laughable charge. You have a President willing to sell away the country, and you accuse someone who’s trying to preserve at least part of it of treason? Read up your own Constitution, Mr Chamberlain, and see what ‘treason’ is defined as. Hint: it has something to do with ‘Aiding and Abetting the Enemy’ and nothing to do with championing either State rights or secession.

Reply

ConantheCimmerian December 10, 2009 at 9:56 am

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OMG!!!1111!!OMG!!!!111 Neo Confederate!!!111 Neo Confederate!!!111

Reply

J. Lawrence Chamberlain December 10, 2009 at 9:57 am

Secession is not treason!!!! Will the quackery never cease

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 10:19 am

Fine. We’ll do it your way, seeing as how my site and its denizens (many of whom are also regular commenters at Pat’s site) are so unseemly, and here you are plodding around the issues in your good shoes.

Let’s begin:

how does one argue with such obfuscation of the real problem? I do like the tactic of pretending this is about language and not a months old grudge against Patrick Frey; a grudge which continues to rankle!

This is easy: the real problem is precisely what I said it is. The theme of how language functions, and of how we believe language functions influences our thinking necessarily, has been something I’ve been discussing on my site since at least 2002; I’m not sure if Patterico’s site existed back then, but that’s quite beside the point (other than that it tend to suggest that your research skills are as scattershot and amateurish as your skills in debate). What IS the point is that it’s demonstrable that I’ve been interested in this subject for years, so much so that on my site full of mouth breathers, I have entire categories dedicated to exploring the inevitable endgame of a certain kind of linguistic attitude.

Further, I am SO invested in ferreting out this kind of pernicious linguistic incoherence — pernicious because structurally it supports the kernel assumptions of progressivism — that I routinely engage it. That Patterico happens to be a frequent foil suggests nothing more than that he continues to make high profile posts based on the kind of faulty thinking I believe it necessary to eradicate, with the cost of not doing so nothing short of the inevitable destruction of any support system capable of propping up classical liberal ideals of individual freedom.

Of course, I have very publicly taken on a number of other bloggers and thinkers (Stanley Fish, Jonah Goldberg, Ramesh Pannuru, Think Progress, Amanda Marcotte, Feministe, Alas, The Bush White House, Bill Kristol, and on and on), both right and left, over this issue — the evidence for which is readily available in my archives. But don’t let such an inconvenient bit of information dissuade you of your belief that any of this has to do with Patterico, and not some commitment to the principles on my part.

Patrick will not say RSM is a racist, because he does not know. I provided context. When I write “Goldstein is a charlatan” do I really mean the words you have written on this subject (defending a racist apologist of treason) represent quackery or do I mean you are a quack? A man whose personal distaste and desire to attack a more significant blogger has resulted in him defending a man who said “While I do not defend slavery, I at least will defend the 1830-1865 *defense* of slavery as being essentially no worse than any number of ordinary human follies”?

That, my friend, is quackery. What vessel will you exploit next to win your battle of rhetoric with Mr. Frey? The mind reels at the possibility.

Okay, I give up. I have to admit that this comes across as gibberish, and so my only recourse to answering it would be to try speaking in a similar tongue — which in this case seems to be trying to sound more intelligent than I really am.

And you aren’t my friend.

Language? You wish this squabble was about that.

Just as you don’t get to define my intent, you don’t get to tell me what my squabble is about.

There’s a lesson here, but you lack the self awareness — and the irony needle — to suss it out.

PS. Oh, and where Mr. Frey will not say it, I will. McCain is a neo-Confederate, a celebrator of treason, and a racist. Anyone want to read his defense of Emmet Till’s murder? Anyone want to see a “journalist” and historian say that Emmet Till’s murder was over-blown and no big deal? Fine ground on which to plant your flag, Mr. Goildstein.

Ah. So now I’m committed to defending everything that McCain has ever written, is that how it works?

It’s only a matter of time, J Lawrence Chamberlain, before you find yourself agreeing in theory with much of progressivism.

When you find yourself commenting approvingly on Daily Kos, say, think of me.

Reply

McGehee December 10, 2009 at 10:23 am

I have had some liars claim that I flat-out asserted that I do not believe McCain to be a racist. I cannot say that either. I don’t know.

Why did it matter to you in the first place? That’s what I can’t get past. Is there some kind of obligation to identify the precise proximity of each individual to the line of “racist,” along with “homophobe,” “Jew-hater,” and “misogynist”? Did it just happen to be Stacy McCain’s turn?

When my turn comes up, I’ll give you a concise answer. I doubt you’ll like it.

Reply

McGehee December 10, 2009 at 10:24 am

Will the quackery never cease

Not so long as you still have access to the internet.

Reply

J. Lawrence Chamberlain December 10, 2009 at 10:36 am

I see a number of the chimps have been able to follow Mr. Goldstein.

Reply

Dave C December 10, 2009 at 10:38 am

What? Chamberlain said ‘Chimps’?

Racist pig!! Everyone here knows what you really meant by that.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 10:41 am

Wow. Chimps.

RACIST!

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 10:45 am

Chamberlain–

You’re spreading more heat than light. Please cut down on the personal attacks. And I mean–way down.

Reply

Pablo December 10, 2009 at 10:46 am

Anyone want to read his defense of Emmet Till’s murder?

Why yes, I’d like very much to read that, Gen. Chamberlain. Link?

(This is the part where the good General further displays his faulty reading comprehension. Stay tuned.)

Reply

Pablo December 10, 2009 at 10:50 am

Oh, that’s completely racist. And assassination porn!

Someone should blog the outrageous outrageousness so that all good people can rightfully shun Gen. Monkeybrains.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 10:52 am

To answer Frey’s question, which evidently he posed to Joy in an email rather than to me, one can certainly be seen as having done something rude without intending rudeness. Similarly, someone can be seen as having said something racist without intending racism

In both those cases, the receiver’s reaction is being privileged. I’ve explained how that works and what that leads to. We may often apologize for having appeared rude to someone (where the rudeness was unintended) simply to defuse the situation. Whether or not you wish to surrender that ground is a matter of preference; some people like to pick their battles.

But to answer further, no, you cannot say something racist and not intend it, because the racist component of what you said comes from intent. You can say something and not realize that others may view it as racist — and they are free to try to explain to you why what you said sounds racist to THEM — but if you didn’t intend it as such, which is to say, if there was no racist meaning to what you were trying to communicate, then there is no reason to label what you said “racist.”

A failure to adequately verbalize our intentions doesn’t change those intentions, and so doesn’t change what we mean. It merely points to a failure in communication, one highlighted by the feedback loop of reaction and the interpretation of reaction.

Reply

ponce December 10, 2009 at 10:52 am

These debates always get a little weird when Patterico goes off to work protecting us from the bad guys and the rest of the scholars toil away producing incomprehensible tracks of ever increasing length.

Reply

Pablo December 10, 2009 at 10:54 am

Are you following Patterico to work, ponce? Because I can see how that could get weird in a hurry, regardless of your level of comprehension.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 11:05 am

It’s all so incomprehensible.

Quick, somebody give me something easy to believe in, and I’ll ride that bitch until it pukes!

Incidentally, I’ve been able to do quite a bit of work today from right here at my computer terminal. And not once did it involve sending up a teenager for his third pot possession offense!

— Although I did turn my neighbor in to the HOA for leaving her trashcan in plain site.

So, you know, tomato, tomah-to, I guess.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 11:07 am

Incidentally, I tend to think the real bad guys are the progressives who are using our institutions to undermine the founding principles of this country that exist to secure our liberties.

And I fight them daily, even when they’re dressed in suits and wearing American flag lapel pins.

You can thank me later, ponce.

Reply

ponce December 10, 2009 at 11:22 am

Even when you’re curled up in the fetal position wallowing in self-pity for months at a time, JeffG?

Reply

J. Lawrence Chamberlain December 10, 2009 at 11:39 am

Do you have Pablo on a leash, Mr. Goldstein or just he just follow you around on his own free will?

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 11:40 am

Ponce, I’m getting a real high noise-to-signal ratio from your comments. We get that Patrick has a day job, and Jeff is “just a dad,” with other interests in his life beyond the sphere.

I know that you’re just doing what people do, but you’re doing it on my blog. Calm down.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 11:42 am

You too, Chamberlain. I know you guys are feeling feisty because Patrick’s at the office, but he doesn’t really need, I think, the grade-school level of defense.

Reply

Squid December 10, 2009 at 11:43 am

If that’s the best you’ve got, Ponce, I’d say you’ve conceded the argument in record time.

Here’s a question for you: One man goes to work at his day job as a servant of the State. Another man goes to raise his son. What is it that makes one activity praiseworthy, and the other one shameful?

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 11:51 am

Even when you’re curled up in the fetal position wallowing in self-pity for months at a time, JeffG?

No. On those days I’m just fighting the “I wish I was a blog commenter talking shit under a fake name so that everybody will look at me” blues.

And the terrorists win.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 11:54 am

Meh. It’s all they have, Joy.

I don’t mind using my ankle as a an appetizer, if it means giving a couple of commenters on the internet a reason to put down the Star Wars figurines and engage with earthlings, if only for a little while.

Reply

SteveG December 10, 2009 at 1:50 pm

What happened to the “big tent”?
There’s nobody in it except the censors, purity testers, hall monitors…
the depth being plumbed now is “possible racially predjudiced remark made over a decade ago, by a rural, white southerner”

The tent only has such tight asses that even the Church Lady finds it appalling.

I had a racist thought the other day… watching TV and some young black man is caught on tape pistol whipping an old white lady and some female relative of his is defending him and saying that the lady should have let go of her purse, all the relatives nod and affirm this and then one starts going on and on about God being the only one who can judge a black man fairly….

You get the drift.
I was thinking *bleeping* black people and their *bleeping* turning a pistol whipping criminal into a victim… what the *bleep* is wrong with those ignorant black *bleeps*. *Bleep*. Now I know who the word nigger was invented for you dumb mother*bleepers*
ooops. Off to throw away my Chris Rock DVD set…
I think of my outburst (inburst?) as racist because in my anger I wasn’t distinguishing well between this particular black family with head up ass and the rest of the race,and in the moment I thought a racial slur.

Now that I’ve written this out… am I racist hiding under a thin, cheap veneer of civility?
Or am I a normal person articulating an internal dialogue/processing of anger, race, and hopelessness?

Reply

Eric L December 10, 2009 at 2:02 pm

Sheesh. All this back-and-forth is enough to give a man a headache. C’mon ladies and gentlemen – why are we devouring each other? Before we know it, CJ and all of the LGF followers will be having a field day with this.

Like someone above said – the horse is dead. Quit flogging it. Shake hands and move about your merry own ways.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 2:02 pm

Steve:

It starts with an “r,” and it ends with an “acist.”

Reply

ponce December 10, 2009 at 2:06 pm

Sorry Little Miss Attila, I can assure you that wasn’t my intention. As a modern conservative I accord nurturing males the same status as bread winning males.

I was referring to the pattern these debates follow that’s being repeated here:

1. Patterico goes off to work
2. JeffG scrawls out reams of pseudo-intellectual gobbledegoop
3. Patterico gets home and asks JeffG a simple question
4. JeffG refuses to answer the question, stating he’s already answered it in one of his epic posts.

Not very sporting in my book.

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 2:51 pm

Yeah, ponce, That’s happened.

Listen. Not everyone can or wants to understand anything beyond the tediously superficial. That’s fine. But just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make it “gobbledegoop,” nor does the fact that it uses discipline-specific words that frighten you make it “pseudo-intellectual.”

Thus far, you haven’t made a single argument in this thread, ponce. You’ve made snide comments about how my arguments are presented, when they are presented, and my status as a presenter, but in all the time you’ve spent here, what you haven’t managed to do is make an argument that challenges mine, or even engages it.

So. While we’re looking at patterns, let’s look at yours.

1. Patterico makes an argument Jeff believes to be in error. In fact, Jeff believes said argument to be dangerous to classical liberalism / legal conservatism.
2. Jeff G counters Patterico’s argument by taking it on directly, addressing it in detail, and with a willingness to respond to any rebuttals.
3. Patterico pretends the argument hasn’t been made publicly. Instead, he emails others to protest that surely they don’t believe something so silly.
4. ponce…doesn’t add much of anything.
5. ponce assumes an air of superiority based on…nothing.
6. ponce makes lists.
7. ponce still hasn’t added anything to the debate, or made an argument, or even made a point. What he HAS done is try to de-legitimize one voice in a debate without having to do any of the difficult work of addressing arguments.

If there’s a simple question Frey after asked that I didn’t address, prove it. Show me. Put your money where your mouth is, ponce.

Reply

Vlad December 10, 2009 at 3:18 pm

Anyone who eats their cheddar extra sharp deserves all the tears they get…….call me a racist all you want but Colby Longhorn for me dammit. (And don’t get me started on those Monterey Jack types……..)

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 5:40 pm

I have been on trial all day and have not read the comments, only the update. However, Joy used a phrase from an e-mail which I did not realize she would publish and I see it’s ambiguous:

“[T]his argument that you have to INTEND racism is silly. Do you have to intend rudeness to be rude? Can you not be racially prejudiced, say a racist thing around a minority, and not even REALIZE (thus not INTEND) you are being racist?”

In my example the speaker is racially prejudiced. I said “Can you not” as a way of introducing the example, as in: “Can’t it be the case that …”. I meant: “Can’t it be the case that you are racially prejudiced, say a racist thing around a minority, and not even REALIZE (thus not INTEND) you are being racist?”

This is not judging racism by the feelings of the listener, but it also recognizes that people’s statements can be described as any number of things that they did not intend to be, because people don’t usually intend to be something negative such as rude, racist, ignorant, etc. Saying you have to “intend” racism gives an out to racists who claim they’re not. I’m sure any Southern bigot standing in the doorway of a school yelling “niggers go home!” would tell you don’t intend racism. Few will cop to that.

Anyway, just wanted to clear up the ambiguity. I have to pull jury instructions for my trial (gang shooting, not teenaged marijuana possession, despite what the lying martyrs suggest).

When I get done a post on false accusations of anti-Semitism might be just the thing, to show a REAL example of how you deal the victim card from the bottom of the deck.

Reply

Patterico December 10, 2009 at 5:52 pm

And yes, I read some at lunch, just not all the ones since, to clarify.

Reply

star4 December 10, 2009 at 6:02 pm

Since your’e still around and commenting, Patterico, could you please answer the question I posed yesterday? I’ll repeat it here for your convenience:

““I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time.””

Out of curiosity, how long does it brand you as a racist for, Patterico?

Reply

Jeff G December 10, 2009 at 6:14 pm

Asked and answered, Patterico. In this very thread.

Quick summary: Can it not be the case? No. It cannot.

Saying you have to “intend” racism gives an out to racists who claim they’re not. I’m sure any Southern bigot standing in the doorway of a school yelling “niggers go home!” would tell you don’t intend racism. Few will cop to that.

I don’t doubt it. But again, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what is being argued.

Not being willing to articulate your intentions and having intentions are two different things. One need not cop to intent. It is simply necessary as a linguistic entity for language to be language.

Which I’ve explained. Over and over again.

When I get done a post on false accusations of anti-Semitism might be just the thing, to show a REAL example of how you deal the victim card from the bottom of the deck.

Knock yourself out.

Just make sure you mention how I always keep track of my (non-existent) site meter and all the ads I run when you suggest how I’m really only in this all for the money, and that I sneakily manipulate people into reading and defending me so’s I can take their cash.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 6:36 pm

[clears throat, glares around the room; coughs]

Reply

Darleen Click December 10, 2009 at 6:52 pm

If the drawing room guy above who sips his darjeeling tea with pinky extended is still about … I won’t and have never defended slavery

seeing as I am descended from actual New World slaves.

You?

Reply

Pablo December 10, 2009 at 7:15 pm

Heh.

Reply

Lazarus Long December 10, 2009 at 7:36 pm

“I’m sure any Southern Democrat bigot standing in the doorway of a school yelling “niggers go home!””

TFTFY.

Reply

Darleen Click December 10, 2009 at 8:31 pm

I’m sure any Southern bigot standing in the doorway of a school yelling “niggers go home!” would tell you don’t intend racism. Few will cop to that.

Pat, you are putting your thumb on the scales. You already set up the clues to intent by saying “Southern bigot.

I would content that if I put you blindfolded on a plane, flew you around the country so you had no idea where you were, then you heard, sans surroundings “niggers go home”, you could NOT state it was a racist statement.

because, what if the sentence was coming from the mouth of a black gangbanger in the Crenshaw area directed towards other black gangbangers?

Reply

SteveG December 10, 2009 at 9:10 pm

Oh

Well in that case, it was a hypothetical because god only knows how dead I’m gonna be if I tell my wife what really goes on behind my eyes when the University of Oregon cheerleaders show up vs. OSU’s

(sorry to have used the n word on your blog… I was preemptively torpedoing any run for Congress)

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 10, 2009 at 9:29 pm

It’s fine. I usually spell it out, on the theory that the n-euphemism only gives the actual word more power. My lefty trolls love it when I do that, but I felt it would be distracting to the discussion, so this time I took the more conventional road.

Reply

Challeron December 11, 2009 at 1:46 am

I’ve been following this merry-go-round as best I can, and I’m still failing to understand something (although I did read something about “changing the elements of the argument”, or some such): If I don’t want an idiot marrying into my family, what sort of RAAAACIST! does that make me?

It seems to me that RSM’s original comment had to do with the instinctive (i.e., “natural”) Survival Reflex against The Other, and how our Ability To Reason means that we don’t necessarily Act on that Reflex; so how the hell did this end up in a back-alley-gossip “Now, I’m not saying nothin’ about him, BUT …” snipe-fest?

(And please forgive me, Miss Attila, for commenting here; it just seemed like everywhere else, everyone’s minds were so firmly Made Up one way or the other that a tiny voice like mine wasn’t going to be heard….)

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 6:40 am

Pat, you are putting your thumb on the scales. You already set up the clues to intent by saying “Southern bigot.

I would content that if I put you blindfolded on a plane, flew you around the country so you had no idea where you were, then you heard, sans surroundings “niggers go home”, you could NOT state it was a racist statement.

because, what if the sentence was coming from the mouth of a black gangbanger in the Crenshaw area directed towards other black gangbangers?

Darleen, I have already explained that when I said you can put all the context around McCain’s statement that you like, and it’s still racist, that you were right — it was a casual way of saying I had considered HIS context and did not see it as undercutting the racism of the statement that is plain on its face. Again, you already said this yourself.

And I have already explained that, of course, context can make ANY statement different than it appears on its face. To take the most obvious of countless examples: any statement can be preceded, for example, by a disclaimer that “the following represents how I would write if I were a racist” or some such.

So of course I don’t argue that context can never change the meaning of a statement.

That was not my point, however, in providing the example of the Southern bigot. Of course I provided the clues to intent, because my point was to have the reader understand that, yes, the things this guy is saying flow from racist thoughts.

But I bet if you could put an X-ray to the guy’s soul he would have himself convinced he was standing in that doorway for only the purest motives. He does not “intend” racism.

I think you are using a specialized definition of “intent” that is not the way people talk. I have discussed this here.

Anyone on this thread can respond; since March, there is nobody on this thread who is banned — any more than SEK is banned at the blog you write at, Darleen.

Which is to say, the proprietor of the blog you write at once told SEK his comments were all going to get deleted (i.e. SEK was banned) but then secretly did not ban his IP address. Then he told SEK he wasn’t really banned. I.e. SEK had been secretly unbanned.

When I read that, I secretly unbanned the proprietor of your blog. Back in March or April, I forget when — a day or two after I saw that he claimed he hadn’t banned SEK — he had just told SEK that his comments wouldn’t appear.

SEK is an ass about a lot of stuff and tosses around the racism allegation far too freely, as I have bashed him for repeatedly (something for which nobody asked me “WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?? WHY??). But he and I have had a good laugh over the fact that, for all the butthurt whining that the host of your blog has done for months about how he was banned — he wasn’t. (That is, by the dishonest logic he used in order to claim SEK was not banned.)

If I somehow missed an IP address, my moderator has instructions to undo that and approve any comment of his. Which will be roundly ignored by me, because I don’t talk to liars, and that’s what I consider him to be — a liar and a professional martyr. But he can comment all he likes. Could have since March.

Oh, and the link above has the example about a Jewish person making false accusations of anti-Semitism to play the role of victim, by dishonest use of the group identity card. It’s a great example of the kind of nonsense conservatives should not tolerate.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 7:02 am

Pat

I’m short on time here but JeffG never said he banned SEK from PW. He said he would remove SEK’s trackbacks. Huge difference, don’t you think?

and it’s funny, you act as if saying the name “Jeff Goldstein” (or typing it) is going to burn your tongue (fingers).

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 7:16 am

I told SEK I’d delete his trackbacks on a given subject. He was tracking back to the same post 3 or 4 different times. SEK misunderstood. And now I’m being defined by that misunderstanding.

There’s a lesson in there somewhere. But I doubt Patterico could find it were he a hugry bulldog and it had a raw liver tied around its neck.

Oh. And I was banned from Pat’s site. SEK was never banned from mine, and I never said he was. So the two instances don’t compare, no matter how hard Frey tries to conjoin them for his purposes.

And of course, at one point in time, when you called someone a liar, you had to show the lies.

Nowadays, I guess you can just throw the claim out there and hope it sticks. Kinda like calling somebody racist. Or maybe racist.

Again, I’d tie a raw liver to the above, but I’d just be wasting some delicious iron-rich meat. Some dogs were just meant for the lap.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:21 am

I remember when Jeff secretly didn’t ban SEK. You devious bastard!

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 7:21 am

But I bet if you could put an X-ray to the guy’s soul he would have himself convinced he was standing in that doorway for only the purest motives. He does not “intend” racism.

Wrong. He doesn’t believe there’s anything wrong with what he’s doing. Which is hoping to keep segregation enforced. Because he doesn’t want his white kids mixing with black kids. Because he finds them different. And inferior.

Which makes him a racist. And so his intent is racist, whether he acknowledges as such or not.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:27 am

But he and I have had a good laugh over the fact that, for all the butthurt whining that the host of your blog has done for months about how he was banned — he wasn’t. (That is, by the dishonest logic he used in order to claim SEK was not banned.)

Really? Why don’t you unhide the comments on that thread, Patrick? You know, the one where the alleged death threat took place. I’d particularly like to have another look at nk telling you that it wasn’t a death threat and that you shouldn’t ban Jeff. Where did nk get an idea like that? And would you like to renew your argument that a death threat was made? You know, by Jeff saying he’d bring the tree to his hanging?

Which is to say, the proprietor of the blog you write at once told SEK his comments were all going to get deleted…

This being the internet, surely you’ve got a link for that. Right?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 7:30 am

“I’m short on time here but JeffG never said he banned SEK from PW. He said he would remove SEK’s trackbacks. Huge difference, don’t you think?”

He said: “So let him have that last word . . . He just ain’t gonna be having that last word here.”

Communication is a two-way street. The guy who runs your blog, Darleen, doesn’t understand that. Or pretends not to . . . I’m not sure which.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 7:37 am

You betcha, Pablo. Here’s that link.

Had the statement read: “This applies only to trackbacks” then there would be no room for misunderstanding. It did not, and so SEK understood it as a ban — and perhaps that was deliberate on the author’s part, given that he announced that he wasn’t talking to SEK any more.

In any event, communication is a two-way street — something your hero, Pablo, has never learned.

I’m glad I was asked to provide the link, though, because it does have one very insightful observation: “But the truth is, arguing with liars isn’t debate. It’s a recipe for indigestion.”

A certain martyr whines quite a bit that I won’t debate him — but right there, in his own words, is the reason I don’t.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 7:39 am

“Why don’t you unhide the comments on that thread, Patrick? You know, the one where the alleged death threat took place.”

I had them hidden as part of a deal that was broken by the other side long ago. So yeah, I already unhid them yesterday.

The initial reason for the ban was what I thought was a death threat. The reason it remained was because he was outing nk and threatening to do extralegal stuff to him. I’d seen many violent threats from him before and wasn’t opening that can of worms again.

But nk asked me to unban him recently, and since I’d already unbanned the IP long ago, I figured, why not make it official.

Toodles.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:40 am
Patterico December 11, 2009 at 7:44 am

What’s your take on the anti-Semite card being dealt against me, Pablo, you principled fellow you?

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 7:45 am

Pablo, what I said was that I was not afraid of Jeff. Based both on my estimation of Jeff’s character and my personal situation.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 7:47 am

I didn’t even say anything prejudiced, or referencing Jewishness at all, and Jeff Goldstein played the anti-Semite card.

He’s a damn hypocrite who plays the race card to be the victim when it suits him.

You support that, Pablo?

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 7:51 am

As for debating Jeff, even when he still had his sense of humor he could take “Good morning, Mr. Goldstein” as an insult. He is a guy that you need to tiptoe around if you want to stay on good terms with him and some people’s toes get tired after a while.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:52 am

Well, nk, we can see all review that in the comments Patterico has unhidden here.

I had them hidden as part of a deal that was broken by the other side long ago. So yeah, I already unhid them yesterday.

My cache must have one hell of a memory.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:54 am

Link, Pat? Or did I just provide it?

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 7:55 am

It back, guys. Jeff, don’t empty your clip here.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 7:58 am

“My cache must have one hell of a memory.”

I bet my edits will show it if I needed to prove it. I actually think I did it day before yesterday.

I didn’t ask for this, but you know what they say about pushback. Sometimes it’s necessary — against people who dishonestly deal the prejudice card, like Jeff Goldstein did.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 7:59 am

Please go ahead, Pablo. The one thing I regretted over the incident was losing you as a commenter at Patterico’s.

And BTW, Nick the Greek has never referred to Jeff as Jeff the Colorodan.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 8:01 am

Patrick, I know that what Jeff said was intended to goad you, but I had thought there was a point hidden in there–his corollary, as I saw it, to the fact that you had once been accused of bigotry. That is to say, as I read his comment there was an undercurrent of “how would you feel if someone couched the accusations that have been leveled against you as questions, and pretended they were not truly accusations? And, in some way, is that what you’ve done with McCain?”

I obviously am not versed in the background stuff, but I honestly believe the subtext was more about the “just asking questions” element–rather than the fact that Jeff is Jewish.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:08 am

It back, guys. Jeff, don’t empty your clip here.

I don’t know what that means.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:09 am

I had them hidden as part of a deal that was broken by the other side long ago. So yeah, I already unhid them yesterday.

I thought the deal was that I wouldn’t publish a certain post about Frey having no honor.

Which I’d removed.

Until just now.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:13 am

That’s okay, Pablo. I have links.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:15 am

As for the anti-semite thing, bh, who was a live witness, will I’m sure provide the context when he gets around to logging in.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:15 am

Joy,

Intended to goad me? Ya think?

Later when I get time I’ll fully lay out McCain’s comment versus mine to show the lack of parallels.

And let’s turn the question around: if my raising McCain’s own words was such a vicious attack, then how about Jeff Golfstein’s calling me an anti-Semite? Can I get an opinion from the principled folks like you, Joy, on that?

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:21 am

Did I write a post calling you an anti-semite? Several? Did I open it up for discussion?

Because if I did, that post might go something like this: “Patrick Frey: Anti-Semitic?” And then I’d simply point out that something taken out of context might sound anti-semitic to a reasonable person — even though I haven’t yet decided if YOU were anti-semitic.

LET ME THROW IT OPEN TO DISCUSSION!

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 8:24 am

Okay. So you’ve made your point. But here’s my question: Jeff, have you ever seriously–not for purposes of illustration, but seriously–called Patrick an antisemite? I’m curious.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:24 am

Pablo,

Goldstein hid the evidence of his playing the race card. I at first agreed as part of a de-escalation. Then I later asked him to put it back up and he claimed it had been lost.

The quotes (from my site) are in the link I provided above. If that evidence is not enough for you, I can reconstruct it all. But if I go to all that effort I may end up making it a standalone post.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:28 am

The relevant phrase was that he contended I had called him a “money-grubbing Jew opportunist.”. When I had said only that he had manufactured a controversy for money. I never said word one about his Jewish heritage. Yet he played the victim card.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:31 am

Not Rhetorical and Eric Blair witnessed this.

I have other evidence as well.

Reply

sdferr December 11, 2009 at 8:33 am

And everyone well knows, Goldstein never but never speaks or writes ironically. Right? I mean, he’s naught but a turnip freshly fallen from the truck.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:35 am

No, Joy.

Just showing how easy it is to make such accusations without appealing to intent. So that people wouldn’t take it the wrong way, I deleted those comments a few moments after posting them. Which is why I don’t have them. I didn’t lose them. I deleted them. In fairly short order.

Again, bh, who was in the thread live at the time, will happily report. In fact, he already mentioned it yesterday, before Pat posted his attempt to change the debate. Yet again.

At least I’m not being accused of making death threats this time. Baby steps, I guess.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:36 am

You’ll notice, too, that this was during a pointed exchange. I didn’t turn it into a series of posts.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 8:38 am

Yes, Jeff did write ironically, and humorously, and self-deprecatingly. That was long ago.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 8:38 am

Poetically, too.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:40 am

Too, I don’t really care about language, and don’t think how we think of it has any bearing on the substructures of our reasoning.

I’ve just spent 9 years writing about all that online for the Big Blog Bucks!

Hell, it’s not even a real issue! I manufactured it. It’s not like this stuff would ever play out in the real world.

You know me, Joy. No passion. No idealism. I’m all about the traffic.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:43 am

Bh is talking about a JOOOOS comment which would be irony. That’s not what I am talking about and Goldstein knows it. He has hidden all the evidence — or so he thinks — and thinks he can play it off as irony? No, he was in full-blown martyr mode. I have the link above to my latest post, which links the context. Read it why don’t you.

I guess I really will have to prove this. OK. I will, tonight.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:47 am

I have “hidden” nothing. Like I said, I deleted the stuff.

If I believed Frey to be an anti-semite, I wouldn’t have done so.

What’s ironic is that Frey is going to use the same exact maneuvers he used to suggest RS McCain may or may not be racist.

He must get off on this Inquisition business.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 8:47 am

Jeff,

You fall back into passive/aqggressive/victim mode whenever it suits you, your 8:40 a.m. comment being a pretty good example, and that’s not debating or irony or humor or self-deprecation or poetry.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:57 am

Passive/aggressive victim mode?

I was going more for absurdist or surrealist, actually.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 9:10 am

Raise your hand if JeffG hasn’t accused you of being an anti-Semite because you disagreed with him.

Anyone? Anyone?

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:14 am

Have I accused you of such, ponce?

Link?

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 9:30 am

I tried to go to your site to provide you with the link but all I get get is a page that says “You are not permitted to enter this website” JeffG.

You’ll have to open up your protective cocoon if you want a link.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 9:35 am

You can just drop “site:proteinwisdom.com protein wisdom antisemite” into teh google if you want a sample of how often that baseless insult is thrown around on your digitall salon, though.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:48 am

Actually, I don’t give a shit about stuff that happened in the past on Jeff’s site.

If Jeff doesn’t think Patrick is an antisemite, then he doesn’t think it. I’ll go to the link that Patrick provided, but the subject is not Jeff’s colorful rhetorical style–the subject is, on the surface, whether Patrick accused RSM of being a racist–and, if he did, whether it was justified.

Beyond that, the subject is whether intention is required for a person to be a racist.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:50 am

What’s the IP address? What name(s) did you use while on my site?

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:53 am

I dropped that search string into Google, ponce. Now, explain to me what the results are supposed to prove?

Go ahead and find me an example of my making “that baseless insult.” Should be easy now that you have a workable search string.

I’ll wait.

Reply

Gordon December 11, 2009 at 10:07 am

Ahem. LMA, you left off the other subtopic: The chickenshittiness of Rachel Maddow.

While progressive commentators are often of the poultry fecal variety, I think her behavior merits special recognition.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:32 am

Anything yet?

I mean, if this is something I’m supposed to routinely do, and you have 8+ years of archives to pull from, surely you could have come up with something rather quickly, no?

Reply

Dustin December 11, 2009 at 10:49 am

I felt guilty for coming to Attila’s turf and throwing a tantrum. Seeing this thread has made be feel better.

“# Jeff G said:

December 11th, 2009 at 8:47 am

What’s ironic is that Frey is going to use the same exact maneuvers he used to suggest RS McCain may or may not be racist.

He must get off on this Inquisition business.

Well, RS Mccain indeed may or may not be racist. That’s tautological. Writers get judged on the merits of their words, so it’s not all that important whether RSM is racist (and no honest person other than RSM knows or should promise either way). The statement he made was pretty old, but it was a live controversy. RSM hadn’t really explained it (I know some say he did, but I disagree). Even yesterday a lot of people didn’t even think he wrote that revulsion nonsense. Look at how much thought has gone into both sides of this discussion. It was a live controversy. Inquisition? I wish all blog wars were handled this fairly.

“# Darleen Click said:

December 11th, 2009 at 7:02 am

Pat

I’m short on time here but JeffG never said he banned SEK from PW. He said he would remove SEK’s trackbacks. Huge difference, don’t you think?

and it’s funny, you act as if saying the name “Jeff Goldstein” (or typing it) is going to burn your tongue (fingers).

Give me a damn break. Patterico is not an anti-semite. I felt kinda bad for being a dick instead of stating my case politely (at the top of the thread), but at least I’m not playing the race card. I feel a lot better seeing that even when I set out to be rude I am one of the nicer commenters.

“# ConantheCimmerian said:

December 10th, 2009 at 9:31 am

Jeff G is quite easy to understand.

Frey, though, dissembles/backtracks/speaks out of both sides of his mouth/ wants to have it both ways.

Have you ever read Protein Wisdom? I don’t think Jeff tries to lay out his points with clarity (this isn’t a criticism of Jeff, but a lot of his posts have been impossible to interpret… as some kind of joke).

Patterico’s argument was “You tell me if this is racist” “Oh, it is?” “Hey, people say you authored this, and I think it’s racist. Did you?” That is not trying to have it both ways. It was a bad argument, a racist comment, and it would be unfair to judge someone on the basis of an isolated and old incident.

I HATE how the blogosphere is so cliquey.

PW and Stacy are so fun to drink beer with. Patterico is a moderate and probably boring and how dare he suggest someone is racist (he didn’t) when someone says something racist. That’s outrageous. Oh, and I bet he’s a racist! Probably can’t say jew names! HAHAHAHAHA And he wears fancy shoes because he is gainfully employed!

I disagree with Patterico on a lot of stuff, such as the ‘have you whipped your slaves lately’ usenet post being relevant. He kept demanding I do a better job proving this is RSM’s and that it was not satirical. That dirty rotten bastard was so hell bent on proving his point that he refused to rush to judgment or even mention this aspect when I failed to meet his standards.

Jeff, I know you didn’t mean to threaten anyone when you said ‘I’ll bring my own tree to my hanging’, but you were on thin ice at that point, and when you go on and on, some hosts just give up and refuse to take any more of it. I don’t know why you get under Patterico’s skin when so many other trolls are just as vicious, but if you outted someone, you need to apologize for it and admit you were justifiably banned. I’ve taken your side on this death threat interpretation, though I can’t prove that. I’d be pissed at Patterico for banning me too.

“Actually, I don’t give a shit about stuff that happened in the past on Jeff’s site.
[…] the subject is whether intention is required for a person to be a racist.”

Ms. Attila, I think the subject is partly if it’s OK to accuse people of being racists with limited evidence. If people are bashing Patterico on this charge, while making this charge against Patterico, I think that’s hard to ignore. It lends credence to the idea that people are defending RSM because of who he is, what team he’s on, and who he’s friends with, instead of looking at what Patterico actually did. It’s super convenient, and several commenters have taken advantage, to say Patterico is saying ‘this doesn’t prove him racist’ is somehow an attempt to have it both ways because they insist he meant the opposite of that.

But on the topic, intention simply is not necessary to do racist things. I think many acts of omission and ignorance are deeply racist. To be a racist, of course, that requires some thoughtful involvement.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:59 am

Dustin —

Repeating the assertion that intention is not necessary is not the same as making an argument. You do the latter, and I’ll happily answer.

As for this:

Jeff, I know you didn’t mean to threaten anyone when you said ‘I’ll bring my own tree to my hanging’, but you were on thin ice at that point, and when you go on and on, some hosts just give up and refuse to take any more of it. I don’t know why you get under Patterico’s skin when so many other trolls are just as vicious, but if you outted someone, you need to apologize for it and admit you were justifiably banned. I’ve taken your side on this death threat interpretation, though I can’t prove that. I’d be pissed at Patterico for banning me too.

nk — whom I “outed” as Nick the Greek (no last name, no address, etc) — had just suggested he knew where I’d be in Chicago on a given day, to and suggested he might stop by to see me acting all gay with other men.

I’ll let you decide which act constitutes the more serious dangers supposedly associated with “outing.” It’s easy to make cracks about someone’s family and joke about showing up when you’re operating anonymously. It’s more difficult to sneak up on someone when they find out what you look like.

Beyond that, at times I write things that are purposely oblique. But when it comes to these posts on language, I can assure you I am writing with rigor and clarity. Some people conflate the difficulty they have understanding something with the writer’s clarity.

Reply

Dustin December 11, 2009 at 11:07 am

Patterico: What I have said is that I do not believe that a single racist sentiment brands one as a racist for all time.

Jeff G replied:

“Then why keep asking RS McCain to answer for it?

If Patterico believed it a racist statement, but he doesn’t believe RS McCain a racist now, why the fuss? Why the several posts? Why this purported effort to find the “truth,” to “scrutinize” something he no longer believes extant? Why the “direct questions” to RS McCain about a racist past if he believes people can change, that in fact RS McCain HAS changed, and that people shouldn’t be judged on one statement from 1996?

Never mind. Who really cares. Those were all rhetorical questions anyway.”

You draw a great deal of dumb assumptions. You repeatedly conflate saying something racist with being racist. Patterico’s view is that they are not the same thing. You know that. This isn’t about whether RSM is any different now than he was then. You talk about RSM changing, and everyone knowing it. You simply made that up, though. RSM stands behind this revulsion isn’t racist comment, and even tells you why he stands behind it.

By Jeff’s standard of “change”, knowing that RSM stands behind the comment makes it fair game to criticize today. not that this matters beyond pointing out a bad argument.

And really, pointing out a bad argument, no matter from who or when or why, is a good thing. If Patterico was wrong, and this comment was not problematic, that’s OK. RSM explained why he thought it was OK, and we all considered both sides of it. This was never about whether RSM is a bad person. LGF and a couple of others kept saying that this statement was white supremacy, and a lot of people, myself included, didn’t really really know what to make of that charge. LGF’s a nut, on one hand, but on the other, there wasn’t a clear defense of the charge for quite a while. As many have noted, a lot of RSM’s defenders didn’t even agree that this was an accurate quotation. If that wasn’t even settled, it’s ridiculous to say that the matter is closed.

I care about racism on the right. I want to be damn sure that we occasionally point out what’s really wrong with racism. It’s very easy to point to Affirmative Action or black racism, when you’re on the right. How can you be sure people understand the idea that racial bias is wrong if you don’t point out the other side of it? This does really suck for RSM, who I think has been ostracized by PJM and maybe Hot Air (his livelihood affected). If someone wanted some justice for this racist quote, I think they’ve gotten more than enough. But that wasn’t because of anything Patterico did. If RSM’s not this racist, then he’s benefiting from more attention from a critical direction. I don’t see how someone can read his explanation and not come away knowing that he’s no hate preacher and that he has the skill to write about race with great care.

That wasn’t happening with everyone ignoring this issue but Charles Johnson.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 11:14 am

Dustin: Nicely said, though I still disagree with you that there can be such a huge gap between intention and expression.

Jeff: I know it’s a side-topic, but I’m not altogether convinced that your being opaque at times just means others can’t keep up. And I know you’re going to get mad, but Thomas Sowell wrote three books about economics without using any economics jargon at all. So we know that sort of thing can be done.

Dustin: BTW, I updated the Matthew 18 post for you.

Reply

sdferr December 11, 2009 at 11:23 am

“…You talk about RSM changing…”

At least to my knowledge, this idea was introduced into the running dialog by DRJ at Jeff’s site a couple of nights ago and brought forward at PP around the same time. It was also at that time that DRJ introduced the modification from “racist statement” to “racially prejudiced statement” as the draw back from a direct accusation of RSM began and continued.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:29 am

Let’s take Dustin’s last bit by bit.

You draw a great deal of dumb assumptions. You repeatedly conflate saying something racist with being racist. Patterico’s view is that they are not the same thing. You know that.

Yes, I know that. Which is why I’m arguing that Patterico’s view is wrong. Not asserting it, arguing it.

Simply calling the assertion’s dumb — and basing their “dumbness” on the fact that Patrick Frey doesn’t agree with them — isn’t adding much to the conversation. It’s merely restating the premise for the debate.

This isn’t about whether RSM is any different now than he was then. You talk about RSM changing, and everyone knowing it. You simply made that up, though. RSM stands behind this revulsion isn’t racist comment, and even tells you why he stands behind it.

Actually, what I said was for the statement to have been racist at the time of its composition, it needed to proceed from racist intent. Which means that to call the statement racist means to call the agency who produced it racist, at least at the time of its utterance.

If one is going to argue that he doesn’t believe now that RS McCain is racist, but that he believes RS McCain produced a racist statement, he is committed to the argument that RSM was once a racist, and may now not be.

RSM stands behind the statement. And why not? Once the context is expanded to included a better understanding of his intent, what is clear is that he hadn’t made a “racist” statement.

By Jeff’s standard of “change”, knowing that RSM stands behind the comment makes it fair game to criticize today. not that this matters beyond pointing out a bad argument.

This bit confuses me.

And really, pointing out a bad argument, no matter from who or when or why, is a good thing. If Patterico was wrong, and this comment was not problematic, that’s OK. RSM explained why he thought it was OK, and we all considered both sides of it. This was never about whether RSM is a bad person. LGF and a couple of others kept saying that this statement was white supremacy, and a lot of people, myself included, didn’t really really know what to make of that charge. LGF’s a nut, on one hand, but on the other, there wasn’t a clear defense of the charge for quite a while. As many have noted, a lot of RSM’s defenders didn’t even agree that this was an accurate quotation. If that wasn’t even settled, it’s ridiculous to say that the matter is closed.

Good thing Patterico was there to save Stacy’s reputation then, huh? He’s a hero.

Of course, when you write “pointing out a bad argument, no matter from who or when or why, is a good thing,” you don’t seem to understand (or believe) that that’s what I’m doing with the argument Patterico has made. My argument has nothing to do with Stacy McCain. He (and “race”) are merely the raw material around which the argument takes shape.

I care about racism on the right. I want to be damn sure that we occasionally point out what’s really wrong with racism. It’s very easy to point to Affirmative Action or black racism, when you’re on the right. How can you be sure people understand the idea that racial bias is wrong if you don’t point out the other side of it?

I suggest, if this is what you wish to do, you find some actual racism to point to.

This does really suck for RSM, who I think has been ostracized by PJM and maybe Hot Air (his livelihood affected). If someone wanted some justice for this racist quote, I think they’ve gotten more than enough. But that wasn’t because of anything Patterico did. If RSM’s not this racist, then he’s benefiting from more attention from a critical direction.

So you’re did this for his own good, is the argument?

I don’t see how someone can read his explanation and not come away knowing that he’s no hate preacher and that he has the skill to write about race with great care.

Some of us don’t need (or desire) the public trial to prove that we aren’t haters.

In fact, we find that way of operating rather unseemly.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:32 am

Jeff: I know it’s a side-topic, but I’m not altogether convinced that your being opaque at times just means others can’t keep up. And I know you’re going to get mad, but Thomas Sowell wrote three books about economics without using any economics jargon at all. So we know that sort of thing can be done.

I’m not mad. I just don’t find my writing on intentionalism at all opaque.

Lacan. Derrida. Gadamer. Butler. That’s opaque. What I write is accessible to lay people who take the time to go through it carefully.

I’ve no desire to write “semiotics for Dummies.” But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been clear.

Reply

Dustin December 11, 2009 at 11:39 am

“Beyond that, at times I write things that are purposely oblique. But when it comes to these posts on language, I can assure you I am writing with rigor and clarity. Some people conflate the difficulty they have understanding something with the writer’s clarity.”

I’m not trying to insult you or anything. I just don’t understand some of your posts, and realize that there is a meaning there. Patterico doesn’t share that style, so I thought the comparison that you’re the simple to read feller was just poor.

Again, I strongly disagree with you on this matter, but I don’t think you’re a psycho. I’m glad you didn’t out NK’s private information. I don’t really know what to make of the banning. I can barely remember the details and was far from an active commenter at the time. I really just should stay out of that. I don’t know if you called Patrick a jew hater or whatever. I guess I’ll find out. If it’s any comfort (I know it is not), I proudly want Obama to fail. 🙂

—-

About the meaty argument about intention,

this is really difficult to parse. I mean, how can you earnestly intend to be irrational? Racism is prejudice. It’s making a call with insufficient or wrong info. If you intend to do that, you’re contradicting yourself. A brother in law who is revolted at a black sister in law is not intending to be racist. He is intending to have a good sister in law and “knows” that blacks don’t make one.

It’s like in the Phaedrus and Socrates generally, if you know the truth you do the right thing, when it comes to race relations. Obviously this isn’t a law of nature, but it’s generally true.

That’s too basic to satisfy anyone, I guess. But really, we’re arguing about the basic definition of racism.

It could be two things. One, it could be the internal mechanism of irrational behavior. Or Two, it could be the actual lack of toleration or fair treatment. Are we starting at utility or duty? I think racism is very much about the results. Most people are even saying this: it’s not what’s in RSM’s head, it’s the application.

If someone intends to be racist, for example, opposes Affirmative Action on the grounds that it harms whites, because he secretly want blacks to lose their benefit, and leads to a completely color blind system, is that system racist? The intent is irrelevant. It’s not racist to have a color blind system.

In reverse, if I knew about the holocaust and helped germany win WWII because I really wanted trains to always run on time, and the result of my intent (and in this case, somehow, my efforts alone made the difference), would the resulting globalized eradication of all Roma not be racist? It’s the result of my behavior. I didn’t care about race.

Anyway, I’m trying to prove a definition is right. That’s not really possible without simply looking at things and asking if we want the word to apply. I do not want Racism to apply to a color blind school, and I do want it to apply to the holocaust. Furthermore, there is an inherent potential irrationality to being deliberately racist.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:40 am

And with that, I’m out. If I’ve been at all opaque, I have an entire category on my site dedicated to intentionalism. I’m certain that at some time or another over the years I’ve happened on a felicitous phrasing, such that in total, my points are available to those who wish to explore them.

Reply

Makewi December 11, 2009 at 11:52 am

A brother in law who is revolted at a black sister in law is not intending to be racist. He is intending to have a good sister in law and “knows” that blacks don’t make one.

Here you are imprinting motivations on a person without their consent. I will grant that the revulsion may be due to a belief that blacks would make an inferior spouse, but to simply declare that this is the only possible reason it could, and then condemn someone for racism is to set yourself as final arbiter for all. Which sucks for the rest of us.

The CBC has a right to limit it’s memberships to black only, but from this fact you cannot infer that they believe whites to be inferior. It’s a leap, and it isn’t fair to make it.

Reply

Dustin December 11, 2009 at 12:12 pm

“So you’re did this for his own good, is the argument?”

Absolutely. With not a shred of shame I feel this way. I wanted LGF to be proven wrong in their ridiculous assertions (I think they were only because someone bothered to seriously put this to the test). People didn’t know if he was a white supremacist or not, since the charge was about some vague quotes that it wasn’t even clear he had written. If it wasn’t for his own good to have a fair discussion, then *fuck him*. Thankfully, he’s a good enough man that he came out of this looking much better than what many rumored him to be.

“Some of us don’t need (or desire) the public trial to prove that we aren’t haters.

In fact, we find that way of operating rather unseemly.”

Some of us don’t say it’s not racism to be revolted that my mom and dad are differently colored, too. If you think it’s unseemly to be asked if you’;re being quoted accurately, and that this is a public trial where you must prove you aren’t racist, well, you’re wrong. Sorry! The proper caveats that this wasn’t such a witch hunt were probable necessary, and they were made at the correct time.

If you write something on the internet, you are giving the universe permission to scrutinize and quote you… forever. Patterico mainly was just asking if RSM actually wrote this. The scrutiny had already shown the statement was racist.

Here’s an example of what I meant by unclear

“Anomaly

So I’m sitting in my living room, watching live FOXNews coverage of an East LA freeway chase and enjoying my lunch (a low-carb ham and turkey wrap with swiss cheese and sliced jalapeno), when suddenly I hear a very light tapping at my front door. Well, imagine my surprise when I open it and find none other than that Roaming Gnome guy from the Travelocity commercials—only he’s coated in blood and bits of brain, and carrying a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

”May I use your phone, please?” He asks me. His voice is soft, polite.

”Sure,” I say. “Help yourself.”

”Thanks. Kind of an emergency.”

I nod. “I hear you.”

So he makes his call (because the car chase coverage on FOX really is riveting I’m not listening too closely, though I do hear something about the Marriott bar and “this bitch tart”), then he thanks me and asks if he might wait on my porch for his ride.

”Sure. Want a soda or something?”

”Why yes, thank you,” he says. “You are very kind.”

So I give him a can of Diet Dr Pepper, and off he goes. Last time I checked, he was just sitting there, smoking an American Spirit.

Incidentally, am I the only one who finds that faux-Brit accent of his just too adorable?

****

update: Okay, he’s gone. And the LA cops caught the guy in the Cutlass. For what it’s worth, he looked like a fairly well-groomed speeder.
Posted by Jeff G.”

That was picked at random (It’s page 1111 of your blog).

I don’t understand what you were trying to say aside from ‘let’s be ridiculous’. I do not mean that as a criticism at all. I think you’re a wonderful blogger. I am defending myself from the implication that I am too stupid to understand your blogs, and you’d have to write “semiotics for Dummies” to explain it to me, a dummy.

No, you simply write things that have no clear meaning sometimes, and I pointed out that someone can’t really say Patterico is the less to-the-point blogger as a rule. He’s always pretty open about his angle. When he was giving us the ‘is this racist’ questions, it was clear what he was doing: nailing down some agreement on racism. He was obviously going to use that to criticize someone.

Probably don’t need to argue this. I really enjoyed reading over your blog again, btw.

Reply

sdferr December 11, 2009 at 12:13 pm

Dustin, it’s passing strange to me that you’d cite Plato’s Phaedrus (and in particular a paradoxical Socratic holding) all while acknowledging, even if only tacitly, your own lack of understanding of Goldstein’s linguistic argument (repeating, linguistic argument: the topic Goldstein has explicitly stated is not “racism” or “who is a racist” or “RSM” as such, but where the intention of a speech act is to be located, i.e., in the speaker or in the hearer?) and yet not apply Socrates’ charge “know thyself” along with his curious intention in speaking of, as you put it, “knowing the truth and doing the right thing” and putting those two together, apply yourself with even greater vigor, on your own, to seek to understand what it is Goldstein means in his argument, rather than continue to do what you can make his argument to appear to be what you choose, regardless of Goldstein’s intentions. That’s — what Soc himself might term — ironical.

Reply

Squid December 11, 2009 at 12:16 pm

Dustin: Take the statement “I don’t want my sister to marry a black man.”

If the speaker says this because he believes blacks to be inferior, and doesn’t want his family blood mixing with inferior blood, then he’s a racist and the statement is a racist statement. (As an aside: I’ve no trouble believing that people make racist comments in earnest, since I see it all the time. You and I might think it puzzling or incredible, but it doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people hold really irrational beliefs in any number of subjects.)

If the speaker says this because he believes that his family’s standing in the community will be harmed, or because he believes his sister may be harmed, then he’s not a racist, but is expressing a belief that his community is racist enough to harm his family and/or its reputation because of the marriage. Pride and cowardice aren’t virtues, but they’re not as poisonous as racism in most people’s eyes.

If the speaker says this because his sister is mentally or emotionally unfit to marry at all, one might infer an element of racism, because why bring up the color of the potential brother-in-law at all when it’s not necessary to the explanation? Then again, maybe he’s just concerned that an explosively unsuccessful mixed marriage will set back race relations in the community, and he doesn’t want to see his family as the cause of that setback.

Until you know his intent, you can’t know the meaning of the statement beyond its face value (that he doesn’t want his sister to marry a black man).

If the speaker is a friend of yours, you’d likely ask him to clarify the meaning behind his statement. You’d be less likely to start a loud, public show of it, since the question itself is enough to put him on the defensive, and making somebody defend himself publicly against a charge of racism just isn’t cricket. These two things — the connection between intent and meaning, and the public nature of the inquisition — are at the heart of this week’s dispute.

I’ve been a reader of Jeff’s for years, and he’s not exaggerating when he says this is one of his pet causes. His “language and intentionalism” section is full of good essays along exactly these lines, not just on intentionalism per se, but about why it’s important not to cede these arguments in a misguided effort to go-along-and-get-along.

I’m disappointed that the bad blood between Jeff and Patrick has again come to the surface, and I sincerely hope that the personal feelings between the debaters don’t distract or detract too much from the substance of the debate.

Reply

baldilocks December 11, 2009 at 12:49 pm

Joy said: “but I’m not altogether convinced that your [Jeff G.] being opaque at times just means others can’t keep up.”

I am. He doesn’t use ten dollar words. However, a little concentration is necessary.

Reply

baldilocks December 11, 2009 at 12:52 pm

Hey Squid,

What if the speaker is black?

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 12:56 pm

Me, upthread:

“4. JeffG refuses to answer the question, stating he’s already answered it in one of his epic posts.”

JeffG in his parting pout:

“And with that, I’m out. If I’ve been at all opaque, I have an entire category on my site dedicated to intentionalism. I’m certain that at some time or another over the years I’ve happened on a felicitous phrasing, such that in total, my points are available to those who wish to explore them.”

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 1:30 pm

Is there a question I refused to answer?

The formulation, “if I’ve been at all opaque…” etc, speaks to OTHER posts I’ve written on the SAME topic answering the SAME questions, and is a suggestion that you might want to read THOSE should you find the phrasings I’ve used HERE not to your liking, or too difficult to understand. Which is what that whole business about finding more felicitous phrasings is all about.

A tip: maliciousness comes off better when it’s coupled to the illusion that the malicious party actual understands what it is he’s commenting upon.

It also doesn’t come of quite so cowardly when you attach your name to it.

Now, how in the fuck do I unsubscribe from this thread…?

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 1:31 pm

Ah. Found it. Thanks.

Reply

Squid December 11, 2009 at 1:52 pm

What if the speaker is black?

I see what you did there!

But to answer seriously — it might change the explanation you expect to get, but it won’t change the fact that you need to ascertain intent. And the kernel of this argument is that the explanation you expect to get is not nearly as important as the actual intent of the speaker.

None of this changes the arguments made earlier about a speaker who may lie about his intent after the fact. But if you’re not going to accept the speaker’s word, you need to have other evidence to support your interpretation, and you have to be willing to admit that you’re assuming bad faith on his part. In other words, be ready for an argument much like this one.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 1:59 pm

JeffG,

Poorly written is poorly written.

Watch Transformers 2 if you need help with my simple, easy to understand statement.

As for “maliciousness,” I didn’t intend any.

Just pointing out that maybe your inability to convey your ideas clearly and consisely might be what’s keeping you from getting a decent paying job in your chosen profession.

That and your poor attitude, natch.

Reply

Squid December 11, 2009 at 2:07 pm

ponce,

Let it rest. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you think Jeff’s writing is too complicated, while simultaneously making it abundantly clear that you think Jeff is worthy of your sneering condescension. Joy’s readers have long since made up their minds about the two of you, and your continued hammering away isn’t going to change any minds (at least not in the direction you’d prefer).

I admit that I’ve had to re-read some of Jeff’s writings on the subject before I could say I really understood what he was trying to say. But I honestly don’t believe that all of the dozens of arguments he’s made over the past seven years or so are too complicated for an interested reader to comprehend, and I don’t think your assertion otherwise does much to cast you in a positive light.

Reply

Dave C December 11, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Following Jeff’s lead and unsubscribing from this thread.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 2:28 pm

It’s all good, then.

Ponce, you contributed nothing to this discussion–you just came here to throw kerosene on the fire, and I don’t appreciate it in the least.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 2:30 pm

Sorry Little Miss Attila.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 2:52 pm

And, one more thing, Dustin:

PW and Stacy are so fun to drink beer with. Patterico is a moderate and probably boring and how dare he suggest someone is racist (he didn’t) when someone says something racist. That’s outrageous. Oh, and I bet he’s a racist! Probably can’t say jew names! HAHAHAHAHA And he wears fancy shoes because he is gainfully employed!

WTF was that? I have already clarified that my allusion to “beer” was a statement that I was doing the opposite of what you thought I was doing–I was trying very hard to set aside the issue of whom I get along with best in person. (Sure: I do try to maintain diplomatic relations with most other political bloggers, but that doesn’t mean I go to bat on an intellectual basis over personal warm fuzzies.)

Patrick boring? Moderates boring? That still isn’t me, since I’m as moderate as they come. I’ll assume the rest of this caca is an allusion to all of the history the rest of you have together, but it wasn’t fair to squish me in with your other adversaries–nor to put words in my mouth.

I mean, I understand that when I attempted to explain why I was building a wall between my feelings about Patrick and my feelings about his arguments, it hit a button for you and you assumed I was doing the opposite.

But certainly there’s a corollary?-Should Goldstein’s actual ideas be measured according to:

– the euphoniousness (or not) of his sentences? Or
– whether being a stay-at-home dad is worth more or less than being a prosecutor? Or
– how even-tempered he is when he is arguing? Or
– whether he gets depressed, vs. merely distracted by the demands of parenting and martial arts?

If we are going to focus on the ideas, then, dammit–let’s try to do that. Obviously, that’s what I advocate, even as I take literary detours in my blog that are almost as extravagant as Jeff’s.

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 2:55 pm

Can we just accept that Patterico does not like RSM and Jeff Goldstein and that was his motivation to has this “inquiry” on RSM saying raically sensitive things?

Because Patterico would never call someone a racist without good cause.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 3:02 pm

Was that straight, or ironic? Because your chronology is off, of course: Patrick didn’t necessarily know that JG would respond to his posts about RSM.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 3:24 pm

Joe is the peroxide blonde at the truck stop saying “You gonna let him talk to you like that, Bubba?”

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 4:50 pm

What is ironic is that Jeff Goldstein, by playing the anti-Semite card (yet oddly saying he doesn’t believe me anti-Semitic — I thought he said that was inherently impossible) did to me exactly that which he claims I did to McCain. And that which he regularly decries. Loudly.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 5:02 pm

As far as interpretation goes: Goldstein is a phony with a phony philosophy. He lies about my views regularly. Now I am going to tell the truth about his.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 5:34 pm

“Because Patterico would never call someone a racist without good cause.”

Indeed, I wouldn’t, Joe. That’s why I didn’t call McCain one. I didn’t feel I had sufficient evidence, and I don’t like to get ahead of the evidence.

I know you have been misled into thinking I did, because you’re the type who forms his opinions by being told what to think, rather than reading the source material and making up your own mind. (You’re not alone in this respect; not by a longshot. See the post above for evidence.)

nk has you pegged perfectly, Joe. You’re a shit-stirrer. That’s why you’re justly banned at my place.

Jeff Goldstein is unbanned, though, because he doesn’t really want to comment there anyway. He just wants to whine incessantly about how he can’t. I just took that away from him. He’ll have to find something else to cry about.

I have every confidence in him.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 5:48 pm

“Sorry, my friends; but the Beldar/Patterico thesis that one can utter unconscious racism without having any racist thought is a risible humbug.” — Joe

My God, Joe is either really stupid or a huge liar if thinks that’s my thesis.

Maybe both?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 5:55 pm

I wonder why Goldstein implied on his site today that his anti-Semitism allegation was intended as ironic. When he knows full well that the tone of his dishonest accusation was his usual martyr whining.

Why lie like that, I wonder? Did he think I didn’t retain the evidence? That, having deleted it, he could dissemble about it publicly?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 5:57 pm

Dustin, apparently Jeff G. sent his minions over to “correct” your comment. Watch out!

Fly, my pretties. FLY!!

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 6:01 pm

flying monkeys, Pat? RAAAAACIST!!

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 6:03 pm

BTW, I’ve put the intentionalist argument, and why some pretend NOT to understand how language works into a dialogue using no words.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 6:06 pm

“flying monkeys, Pat? RAAAAACIST!!”

Heh.

I still like you, Darleen. I do think that you’ve allowed your view of my arguments to be colored by those who distort them. But I like you.

And I have no idea what SEK is talking about when he calls you a racist. But then, he does that shit a lot.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 6:08 pm

Dustin @ 10:49a

If you look at the comment of Pat’s I was responding to, he uses every euphemism at his disposal to avoid using Jeff’s name.

It is childish and I pointed it out. What has that got to do with a charge of “anti-Semitism”?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 6:11 pm

“which is what committed Patrick Frey to the colossal gaffe of calling a statement by Stacy McCain racist, and then having to backpedal”

See? This is a goddamned lie.  I never backpedaled.  Period.  Goldstein is just a liar.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 6:18 pm

“If you look at the comment of Pat’s I was responding to, he uses every euphemism at his disposal to avoid using Jeff’s name.”

I had a policy of avoiding his existence since March. It was part of an agreement he and I had worked out. But it didn’t work. We had a deal not to refer to each other disparagingly, and he broke it. Many, many times.

“Fuck Patterico” I believe being one of the numerous phrases I have noticed over there, uttered by Goldstein — completely and utterly unprovoked by me — since the time we agreed not to mention each other disparagingly.

OK. You break the deal, you suffer the consequences.

So I’ll talk about him now. I’ll even use his name.

Jeff Goldstein played the anti-Semite card. He is a rank hypocrite who regularly rants against the precise tactic he used on me.

Jeff Goldstein is a dishonest hypocrite.

Hmm.

“Jeff Goldstein is a dishonest hypocrite.” That has a nice ring to it . . . Now that the gloves are off and I have nothing to lose, perhaps that could be the post’s title. Since the proof I will submit will bear out the title . . .

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 6:21 pm

James Wolcott found some pretty nasty racial words from Darleen:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2009/11/such-a-touchy-bunch-the.html

Never did hear Darleen’s defense.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 6:21 pm

His “Fuck Patterico” comment was in some post about some guy named Cashill, about whom I have never said a word.

It was utterly unprovoked. And there have been many others like it.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 6:29 pm

ponce

how was I using those words? My intention was quite clear, can you see it?

thought so

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 6:52 pm

Dustin, apparently Jeff G. sent his minions over to “correct” your comment. Watch out!

And I’d have been hear earlier, too, but I have to use IE 6 at work, which screws up most sites beyond reason.

Dustin, evabody:

This is what you need to do to understand Jeff’s arguments — distinguish between a “racist-sounding” statement and a “racist” statement.

That is all.

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 7:02 pm

Patterico is not anti Semetic, he just does not like it when someone out argues him.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 7:06 pm

And I’d have been hear earlier,

Oh, for the sake of Pete!

“here”

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 7:13 pm

“My intention was quite clear, can you see it? ”

Darleen, in a single thread you called our nation’s leader an “Uncle Tom,” a “Stepin Fetchit” and “a toilet cleaner.”

I agree your intention was quite clear.

I don’t know if three racist insults in a single thread meets Patterico’s definition, but it sure meets most people’s.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:29 pm

Somebody’s been reading too much Little Green Firedoglake.

Reply

Pablo December 11, 2009 at 7:32 pm

Hey, ponce! Grab a mop! Let’s get to work! Don’t tell me I’m not holding the mop right. Racist.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 7:44 pm

Darleen, in a single thread you called our nation’s leader an “Uncle Tom,” a “Stepin Fetchit” and “a toilet cleaner.”

No, I didn’t.

you FAIL, and I’m not surprised.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 7:47 pm

“Sorry, my friends; but the Beldar/Patterico thesis that one can utter unconscious racism without having any racist thought is a risible humbug.” — Joe

My God, Joe is either really stupid or a huge liar if thinks that’s my thesis.

Maybe both?

Heh. That’s not Joe. That’s Daffyd.

For the record: I said Frey called McCain racist the moment he called the statement made by McCain racist. Then I went on to explain why that is, and how that works, from the point of view of linguistics.

That’s not a “lie.” That’s the assertion that leads to the nut of the linguistic point I am trying to make.

Again, Pat thinks this is all about him. It’s not. Just as it’s not about Stacy. It’s about an idea of language that is dangerous. And I believe all my posts on the subject have made those points.

Meantime, all this talk about evidence and whatnot for my supposed transgressions…whatever. I just hope you don’t fuck up on the context so badly as you did with McCain’s.

As I remember it, you’d noted something like couldn’t conceive of a context in which that statement wasn’t racist. And when people started questioning you on context, you indignantly replied that you’d linked the whole thing — a move that showed me you don’t understand the idea of context as it pertains to interpretation any more than you understand the idea of intent.

Here are the facts: in the midst of our disagreements over Rush, the boy and his dog, etc., you several times mentioned how my motive for writing my posts was to stir controversy and sucker people in to giving me money.

I responded by saying, oh, some now I’m an opportunistic Jew?

The gag was to get you to say “that’s not what I meant / intended.” People who know my site will recognize that. The rest you can gull into believing how evil and manipulative I am — out to stir controversy, grab that crazy blog money, and to hell with principle.

After all, I’m a phony with a phony philosophy. Whatever that means.

Although I suspect it has something of the BECAUSE OF THE HYPOCRISY larded in to it.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 8:08 pm

“No, I didn’t.”

Yes, you did, Darleen.

What goes through your head when you jot down hateful things like that?

Well, the dumb libruls will call me a racist, but my insightful right-wing pals will look into my heart and see it’s still pure?

The more I hear it, the more yours and JeffG’s wacky theory of intentionalism sounds just like George Costanza’s immortal advice, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 8:14 pm

It’s WACKY! Just ask Knapp and Michaels!

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 8:26 pm

The more I hear it, the more yours and JeffG’s wacky theory of intentionalism sounds just like George Costanza’s immortal advice, “It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

Too much Seinfeld, not enough Wisdom of the Protein.

Let’s try this again:

There is a difference between racist-sounding comments and actual racist comments.

The difference is in the intent of the speaker. Behold:

You’re learning English. You say to a young black man, “Boy, what time is it?” because in your language it’s acceptable to use the term “muchacho” to refer to a young man.

What you said SOUNDS racist, but it isn’t because there was absolutely no racist INTENT in the utterance.

Get it?

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 8:41 pm

Ponce

standing there like a toddler crying “yes you did! yes you did!” isn’t very impressive. And citing Wolcott, an effete male who barely got out of high school and married his way into a column as some sort of authoritative source doesn’t cut it.

You made the assertion, then you need to argue it.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:46 pm

“The gag was to get you to say “that’s not what I meant / intended.””

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Wasn’t any gag.

But I’ll put up the screenshot and let people judge for themselves.

Is it always a GAG when you blubber about how you’ve been mistreated?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 8:51 pm

When it LOOKS like Jeff Goldstein is crying in his beer about how hard his life is, what with the people with the REAL NAMES getting slandered on Google, assaulted by anonymous trolls, etc. — all while other people develop better traffic for their damn linkwhoring and bloggish cliqueishness — why, it’s all a “GAG.”

You can probably get 10-20 dupes to buy that; I don’t know.

The vast majority of the people who see the screenshot will think different.

When I passed it around to a coupla people back in the day, it opened some people’s eyes.

But I let it go publicly. Until you started in with the uncalled-for “Fuck Patterico” shit and resumed the campaign of distortion and lies.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 8:54 pm

Yes Darleen,

Nothing says mature like trying to get away with using naughty words, then coughing up laughable rationalizations when called on them.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:07 pm

Ponce

You need to see a doctor about that wax in your ears; I am not “rationalizing” any thing. I did not say what you assert. Period.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:08 pm

“offered in a context that was ripe for the kind of performative I like to use here from time to time.”

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Hey, you know where you can comment on all this?

My blog!

You’ve been screeching for months about your inability to comment there. Go nuts! Don’t forget the cross!

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:09 pm

A screen shot! No! For the love of God, spare me! I beg of you. I appeal to your HONOR!

I’ve written about a billion words since I began my site. You can make me look however you want.

In fact, I believe Sadly, No! laid the blueprint. Maybe they’ll give you a hand if you ask nicely.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:11 pm

Hey, you know where you can comment on all this?

My blog!

You’ve been screeching for months about your inability to comment there. Go nuts!

Or you can comment on my blog. Where you were never banned.

Don’t forget the cross!

As long as I don’t threaten to bring a tree, I guess…

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:15 pm

When it LOOKS like Jeff Goldstein is crying in his beer about how hard his life is, what with the people with the REAL NAMES getting slandered on Google, assaulted by anonymous trolls, etc. — all while other people develop better traffic for their damn linkwhoring and bloggish cliqueishness — why, it’s all a “GAG.”

What does that have to do with anti-semitism?

All that other stuff is true. The right side of the blogosphere now, compared to what it was about 5 years ago, is ridiculous. And many of its major lights are both ridiculous and ineffective.

Or haven’t you noticed how well the “pragmatism” and third-waying of a John McCain worked out for us?

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:18 pm

Pat

have a beer or something…

Let me put this in DDA speak … Person A dies at the hands of Person B. You can only call it “1st degree murder” if B intends to murder A.

If B kills A via self defense, it is not murder. You cannot say “I find the act murder, but B? could be a murderer, could not be a murderer, I cannot say”

When you call a statement “racist” then whoever said the statement said it with racist intent. Period. Otherwise it wasn’t racist. Now the person may not be a racist before or after, but at the time the statement was made (the murder was committed) that person was acting from racist intent (murderous intent).

YOU are a lawyer. You see everything through that prism. I know how this works, as I spent 10 years in the DA office and know that most DDA’s have a hard time (as in almost always) separating out their training from how other people are trained to look at the world. It was one of the reasons most of my DDA’s ran a lot of their arguments by me, to see if they worked in the real world.

STEP out of your box and your knee-jerk assumptions. In regards to language you are wrong in this debate. As Joy said above, you CANNOT separate the words from the author/utterer as if the words were contained in a cartoon balloon above the persons head and you can just snag the tail, empty the balloon and substitute your own words. I understand as a lawyer you put your own meaning infront of a jury in order to convince them of your interpretation of the case. Don’t carry that out of the courtroom.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 9:19 pm

Jeff,

You have yet to prove that intentionalism is anything more than singing in the shower. Ok, you have thoughts. And for most people those thoughts are words. So you make words. And you tell them. Because you want them to turn to thoughts in other people’s heads. And if those are not the thoughts in other people’s head you intended whose failure is it?

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:24 pm

I dunno, NK–the fault of the complete lack of precision of the English language, or any other language, for crying out loud? Once you’ve decided that communication is solely the responsibility of the speaker, rather than the hearer, the hearer can make up any damned interpretation he or she wants.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:24 pm

if those are not the thoughts in other people’s head you intended whose failure is it?

hmmmm

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:26 pm

Once you’ve decided that communication is solely the responsibility of the speaker, rather than the hearer, the hearer can make up any damned interpretation he or she wants.

geez, LMA, sounds like an ex-husband of mine. 😉

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:28 pm

Okay, folks. Let’s try this: before hitting “submit comment,” look through the comment you’re about to make, and remove one of the gross personal attacks contained therein.

I was going to ask people not to interact like junior high school students, but not only has that ship sailed–it’s docked somewhere in Australia by now.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:30 pm

“If B kills A via self defense, it is not murder. You cannot say “I find the act murder, but B? could be a murderer, could not be a murderer, I cannot say””

By this logic, everyone in the world is a criminal, because everyone in the world has committed some kind of crime . . . once. And so you rob the word of any real meaning.

Nope, doesn’t work.

“YOU are a lawyer. You see everything through that prism.”

I know this is a pet little thing you like to say, Darleen, but it’s ad hominem and doesn’t advance the argument. Why not just stick to the argument?

“In regards to language you are wrong in this debate. As Joy said above, you CANNOT separate the words from the author/utterer as if the words were contained in a cartoon balloon above the persons head and you can just snag the tail, empty the balloon and substitute your own words.”

Nor did I ever say that. The cartoon here is the caricature that your blogboss creates about my beliefs. The blogboss who cares about INTENT so much except that he never listens to my intent about my words.

Darleen. I AM TELLING YOU RIGHT HERE THAT I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT. If your devotion to “intentionalism” means ANYTHING then you will stop telling me that I have said things that I never said and never intended to say.

And before the little martyr sack of shit says that ironic, understand that it’s only irony if I ever denied that interpreters should try to divine the speaker’s true intent. Which I have not. In fact, I have said exactly that, very clearly: “Interpreters should try to divine the speaker’s true intent.”

STOP SEIZING MY INTENT FROM ME! I WILL NOT CEDE THE MEANING OF MY WORDS TO YOU!

Seriously, stop cartooning me and try LISTENING for once.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 9:33 pm

“The gag was to get you to say “that’s not what I meant / intended.””

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

Wasn’t any gag.

But I’ll put up the screenshot and let people judge for themselves.

I got the joke at the time; you didn’t.

Failure to properly assess Jeff’s intent on your part does not constitute playing the race card on his.

See how that works?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:34 pm

“Once you’ve decided that communication is solely the responsibility of the speaker, rather than the hearer, the hearer can make up any damned interpretation he or she wants.”

Conversely, once you decide — as Jeff Goldstein has — that it doesn’t matter whether the listener understands you, then you have decided communcation is solely the responsibility of the listener.

I have always said communication is a two-way street.

Race-card playing Goldstein thinks it’s a one-way street: you get to be KING OF YOUR OWN WORDS and you don’t have to worry the slightest bit if people understand you.

That’s why he writes about this shit in ten-dollar words that 90% of people don’t understand: because he doesn’t really care about being understood. It’s part of his philosophy: “I say whatever the fuck I want and I don’t worry about whether it’s understood properly.”

It’s a great philosophy for a megalomaniac. Not so good for people who are trying to understand one another.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:35 pm

It could be a failure on either end, nk.

A failure to effectively signal your intent is not a failure to intend. And so long as the person receiving the message appeals to your intent in the process of decoding the speech act, s/he is interpreting.

On the other hand, if the person receiving the message doesn’t concern himself with the intent that [got the message moving] to begin with — that is, the process that turned marks into language — then the receiver is not engaging signs, and so is not engaging language.

Just marks.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:38 pm

Then, Patrick, what was your intent when you attached an inflammatory word like “racist” to a quotation by Stacy McCain?

I’m not trying to be obnoxious, here–your post truly struck me as a “gotcha” moment. It felt to me like a cheap trick. I’m trying to talk myself into the idea that you were simply trying to make sure we aired some of these matters out, and don’t harbor true racists in the GOP (not that Stacy’s much of a Republican, but whatev). I’m telling myself that you were doing it in a spirit of intellectual hygeine, rather than to hurt someone.

But the post left a bad taste in my mouth.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:38 pm

“Then call him a liar.

Oh, and Patterico, too. Fuck all of them.”

— Jeff Goldstein, 9-24-09
(Totally unprovoked)

There’s much more like it.

I’m told that the best strategy for stopping people pulling bullshit on you is to give it right back to them.

That’s my new philosophy.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

We havin’ fun yet?

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 9:39 pm

Replace “animated” in my response to nk with “got the message moving” and send me $7 back, would you please, Joy?

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 9:41 pm

You know, I understand that the sine quo non of an argument is a receptive audience. But my driving instructor, whenI was sixteen, told me that the only thing I could control was how far I was from the car in front of me.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:42 pm

“Then, Patrick, what was your intent when you attached an inflammatory word like “racist” to a quotation by Stacy McCain?”

What was my intent when I attached an inflammatory word like “racist” to a quotation by Ebonie Johnson Cooper.

Answer: someone said something stupid in public and I criticized them.

Nobody asked me why I criticized Ebonie. I guess it’s OK to call the black woman’s statement racist. Just not the statement of the conservative white blogger. Because we’re ALL ON THE SAME TEAM.

Well, McCain’s comment was racist — or better put, as DRJ pointed out to me, racially prejudiced. I stand by that. (No walkbacks, lying martyr Goldstein.) So was Ebonie’s. I ain’t on McCain’s team.

Goldstein has defended a racist comment and that is his stand. I have called it racist and that is mine. I don’t defend racist comments. Jeff Goldstein does.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:43 pm

But see, Patrick, that’s why your insights are a complement to Jeff’s, even if you each have decided that the other is going to lead to ruin.

Because there are slippery slopes in both directions.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:45 pm

q.e.d., Patrick. You’re getting a bit silly.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:46 pm

nk,

That shit Goldstein says actually makes sense if you learn his specialized vocabulary.

Of course, it could also be said in plain English and be much clearer.

But he doesn’t give a shit about talking in plain language. This is part of the PHILOSOPHY. The speaker is king.

Goldstein, have you commented on my site? You were so butthurt for so many months at the inability to do so, I would have assumed you would have left DOZENS of comments!

Or did you just want something else to whine about?

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:46 pm

I don’t defend racist comments. Jeff Goldstein does

Liar.

(see what I did there? go get a beer, Pat)

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:46 pm

if you learn his specialized vocabulary

It’s called “English”

Google it.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:47 pm

“q.e.d., Patrick. You’re getting a bit silly.”

I’m worse than that. I’m an anti-Semite. Just ask Jeff Goldstein, the race-card playing martyr!

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:48 pm

“It’s called “English””

Signs and marks? It’s specialized vocabulary. I read his shit and I understand it, but it means NOTHING to the average person. It’s Greek — and not even Nick the Greek is going to understand it!

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 9:49 pm

I know this is a pet little thing you like to say, Darleen, but it’s ad hominem and doesn’t advance the argument.

It would be ad hominem if she said that your arguments were crap because you’re a lawyer and lawyers are crap.

Instead she’s making the observation that your method of reasoning is the method of a trained lawyer in a courtroom, and that such a line of reasoning is inadequate to the task at hand.

I did notice that in your latest post on the topic, you said, “However, for a statement to be racist, it does have to be the product of racist thought. We can all agree that it is unacceptable to judge someone a racist for comments that are not the product of racist thought in any way.”

The stumbling block is the word “is.” Can you intend to utter a racist phrase without being a despicable racist the rest of the time?

Yes. But that’s beside the point.

that is why I was careful to say that I was not calling R.S. McCain a racist. Some across the Internet Jeff Goldstein at Protein Wisdom made the claim that I had — simply by saying he had made one racist comment! — but I did not. The people who made that claim either did not read me carefully or are liars.

Or they are making a different argument entirely. Such as the one where you can’t say that a statement is racist without imputing racist intent to the speaker.

Which is different from saying that someone IS a racist if you’re using the word “is” to mean “at one’s core.”

Zeus, this would be easier in Spanish. We’d just use “ser” (to be: an inherent condition) or “estar” (to be: a temporary condition) as needed and all these pixels could be used to feed children in Zimbabwe.

To use the word “intend” in that fashion is just not how normal people talk — and if you insist on talking about “intending” racism, you’re going to lose a lot of people who think just like Beldar and I do.

What word would you use instead of intend?

Further, if the use of a term has been defined in the context of a well-delimited conceptual space, is it unreasonable to expect those who join in the debate to understand how terms are being used—how their usage is intended?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:52 pm

“(see what I did there? go get a beer, Pat)”

How about some two-buck Chuck?

You and me, Darleen, we could sit around over a beer or glass of wine and get this all figured out in about 20 minutes and understand each other. The Internet is a really shitty way to communicate for people who are strongly disagreeing. The potential for misunderstandings is so monstrously high it outweighs anything else.

I’ve given up trying to convince people who won’t be convinced, at least over the Internet. The lovely thing is, you can toss this stuff out there and 1 in 300 might get something out of it.

I’ve been in disagreements with GOOD FRIENDS over the Internet where we just can’t resolve stuff over a computer. Has to be the phone or in person.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:53 pm

but it means NOTHING to the average person

Wow, Pat. And here I was not that long ago, just one of those little average people who had been a SAHM and a pedestrian college degree, no fancy JD, that nk, et al, could sneer and snicker at because you all are Important People(tm) with Important Careers(tm) and guess what

I UNDERSTAND IT!!

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:53 pm

Man, it’s like old times. Can we get Jeff to insinuate that he’s going to beat up nk again?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:55 pm

“I UNDERSTAND IT!!”

Of course you do. Anyone who reads Jeff and bothers to learn the specialized vocabulary would.

Darleen, I really think you’re very smart, so you don’t have to do the whole affectation thing. I’m not one of those assholes who thinks people have to have a certain profession or whatever to be smart, so don’t treat me like I am, OK? I mean that in a friendly way, whether it comes across that way or not. I can tell some dickheads have been jerks to you and you have a chip on your shoulder about it, but please don’t pigeonhole me.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 9:57 pm

“What word would you use instead of intend?”

You could read my post and find out. But since you asked nicely here, I’ll answer you here even though I already wrote about this.

It’s not an easy concept to articulate, but I’d call it “being the product of racist thought.” That’s how Beldar put it in his original comment and I liked the phrasing.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 9:58 pm

Darleen, don’t patronize Patrick as an attorney–patronize him as a guy.

[running and ducking]

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 9:58 pm

btw Pat

when I was talking above about the POV of lawyers that was NOT ad homenim but just reality as I see it. A LOT of people have a tough time separating from their careers when it is something they are highly trained at…NOT just lawyers.

I have to remind my daughter (RN) about it, just like I did my dad (corporate management).

Since I’ve gone into management, I too have to be careful to leave that hat at work when I leave.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 9:58 pm

B.S. is B.S. in any language.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 9:58 pm

That shit Goldstein says actually makes sense if you learn his specialized vocabulary.

Of course, it could also be said in plain English and be much clearer.

But he doesn’t give a shit about talking in plain language. This is part of the PHILOSOPHY. The speaker is king.

A specialized vocabulary is employed for the purpose of precision, because ordinary English usage doesn’t provide the necessary distinctions.

If you use plain English, you could end up muddying the waters because your terminology does a poor job pointing at your subject matter.

And the vocabulary isn’t Jeff’s; it’s common usage in the Humanities.

It sounds to me like you’re hacked off at having misunderstood Jeff’s arguments at first, and now that you have ended up having to concede the argument (“for a statement to be racist, it does have to be the product of racist thought”) it stings a bit.

I’m with Darleen: go have a beer. Hell, have two.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 10:00 pm

Whadda, Darleen? If I have ever bragged about anything it’s being about being a teenage tough guy. And I have never spoken anything but complimentary about tou.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:01 pm

I’ve been saying since back during the argument that arose out of certain attitudes toward Rush Limbaugh’s 4 words that Frey simply doesn’t get what I’m saying. That could be a failure on my part — and yet, a whole host of people seem to have been able to understand what it is I’m arguing.

I bring that up because this once again shows me that Frey hasn’t a clue about what’s going on here:

“Once you’ve decided that communication is solely the responsibility of the speaker, rather than the hearer, the hearer can make up any damned interpretation he or she wants.”

Conversely, once you decide — as Jeff Goldstein has — that it doesn’t matter whether the listener understands you, then you have decided communcation is solely the responsibility of the listener.

When and where did I ever argue that it doesn’t matter if listener understands you? Matter in what way? It matters, naturally, if you want to get your message across. It matters if it’s your goal to be as clear as possible about your intentions…

Where it doesn’t “matter,” linguistically speaking, is in the realm of signification. You meant what you meant, whether the speaker accurately decodes it or not. As I just noted in my response to nk, failure to signal your intent doesn’t mean you haven’t intended. It just means you signaled it poorly, and in so doing, you’ve made the job of decoding it tougher on the receiver.

I have always said communication is a two-way street.

Race-card playing Goldstein thinks it’s a one-way street: you get to be KING OF YOUR OWN WORDS and you don’t have to worry the slightest bit if people understand you.

Again. This shows a fundamental — and very serious — misunderstanding of everything I’ve ever argued on the subject. Yes, you get to be king of your own signs. For instance, I can say “cat” and mean something completely unconventional by that (say, for instance, when I write “cat” I mean “Boston”). I have attached the signified Boston to the signifier “cat,” and so when my reader see’s “cat,” what I will have meant by that is “Boston.”

Of course, in making that move, I am almost certainly going to be misunderstood. Which is why I generally try to keep my signs conventional when I’m looking to make communication easy.

Then again, without such a maneuver, the language would remain fixed and stagnant. One conventional meaning of “cat” is a hip jazz musician. And that couldn’t have become a conventional meaning had someone not first attached the signifier “cat” the signified “jazz musician.” As others repeated the formulation, and usage became more widely accepted and understood, that particular iteration of “cat” made its way into convention.

That’s why he writes about this shit in ten-dollar words that 90% of people don’t understand: because he doesn’t really care about being understood. It’s part of his philosophy: “I say whatever the fuck I want and I don’t worry about whether it’s understood properly.”

I’m not sure what the ten dollar words are (signifier? signified? formulation? “cat”?), but I do know that when I write about this I try to be extremely precise. And I’ve made the argument on a wide variety of occasions, each time trying out new ways to make it, in order that I can get the point across to lay people.

Many people who have read my arguments seem to get them. I don’t know whether or not the figure for those who don’t is 90% or not; but I can assure you that I am trying to reach whatever percentage still doesn’t get it. With Frey being a prime example, and this reply being yet another instance of my having made that attempt.

It’s a great philosophy for a megalomaniac. Not so good for people who are trying to understand one another.

Actually, it’s not a philosophy. It just is. It’s the way language functions.

If anything, the only megalomania evident comes from those who continue to insist that intent is either unimportant or unnecessary, because that allows them to dismiss or marginalize the author in favor of themselves.

I’m sorry I don’t have the ability to translate all this into cute little hypotheticals about dogs and racist southerners, but that’s my failure, not the weakness of what I’m trying to describe.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:02 pm

Can we get Jeff to insinuate that he’s going to beat up nk again?

nk is an ass and I will be happy to slap his face if I ever meet him. Jeff never threatened to beat him up, but I happily will.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:03 pm

“Further, if the use of a term has been defined in the context of a well-delimited conceptual space, is it unreasonable to expect those who join in the debate to understand how terms are being used—how their usage is intended?”

I dunno. First, Jeff is speaking to nk on another’s blog. Why does he assume nk has learned his specialized definition of mark and sign. Answer: he doesn’t.

Second, if you want to reach a wider audience — which he clearly does — you need to learn to speak clearly. Jeff has a Greenwaldesque tendency to write sentences that run into triple-digit word counts. He doesn’t define terms for people. He simply doesn’t seem to care whether he’s understood.

I tried to explain this to him once, but he didn’t want to learn. I’m done engaging him, other than to mock his martyr act and his rank hypocrisy, because I don’t trust him anymore. He has lied and deceived too many times. So I give up.

Sucks. He used to be brilliantly funny. He’s still brilliant, but he thinks he’s more so than he is — look at the pretentious way he talks about giving “lessons” at a “university” of his own making, and all that noise. And the evident morose self-pity has overcome all his former good traits, as far as the outside world can see.

I’m still willing to talk to folks like you, here. Never setting foot in his cesspool again, but I like a lot of the folks there.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:03 pm

“Jeff never threatened to beat him up, but I happily will.”

Nice.

You’re right, he just insinuated it. I never let it get to the point of an actual threat, as he has made to so many other people.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:04 pm

A LOT of people have a tough time separating from their careers when it is something they are highly trained at…NOT just lawyers.

You should see me bite my tongue to not correct someone else’s bad grammar. It doesn’t always work.

Especially when talking with my editor brother. I zing him all the time. 😀

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:05 pm

ponce

I’m surprised you’re up so late. Doesn’t the home have bed-checks?

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 10:05 pm

I guess I hit a nerve with this one:

Patterico said:
December 11th, 2009 at 5:48 pm

“Sorry, my friends; but the Beldar/Patterico thesis that one can utter unconscious racism without having any racist thought is a risible humbug.” — Joe

My God, Joe is either really stupid or a huge liar if thinks that’s my thesis.

Maybe both?

So I am either stupid, or a liar, or both? Hey Pat, it was Dafydd, your former blogbuddy, who said that quote. He posted it today at Patterico Pontifications (via a link). I recopied it and linked it. Come on, are too stupid to figure that out? Jesus, how many beers did you have before you started posting this evening? You Irishmen can’t hold your liquor.

I denounce myself for disparaging the Irish (especially since I am part Irish).

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 10:06 pm

And Pat, being disparaged by nk means I am on the right side of things.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:06 pm

dicentra

My grammar-fu is no where to be found tonight. Don’t bite too hard!

(where’s my glass o’wine?)

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:07 pm

“It sounds to me like you’re hacked off at having misunderstood Jeff’s arguments at first, and now that you have ended up having to concede the argument (”for a statement to be racist, it does have to be the product of racist thought”) it stings a bit.”

It sounds to me like you’re engaging in the Goldstein tactic of calling it a “concession” when you finally understand what I was saying all along.

You’re welcome to prove me different with quotes of mine, but until you do, stop telling me that I am “now” agreeing with you, or the kind of shit that Goldstein used to pull when I tried to debate him.

I have conceded absolutely nothing.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 10:07 pm

You should see me bite my tongue to not correct someone else’s bad grammar. It doesn’t always work.

Especially when talking with my editor brother. I zing him all the time.

Oh, my . . .

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:08 pm

Jeff has a Greenwaldesque tendency to write sentences that run into triple-digit word counts… He simply doesn’t seem to care whether he’s understood.

He cares.

He just sucks at it sometimes.

But come on: Greenwald? That’s below the belt.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 10:10 pm

My grammar-fu is no where to be found tonight. Don’t bite too hard!

“Nowhere.”

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:11 pm

“Sorry, my friends; but the Beldar/Patterico thesis that one can utter unconscious racism without having any racist thought is a risible humbug.”

Joe says that this is Dafydd’s quote and not his. Since it’s Dafydd saying it, and I know him to be honorable, rather than Joe, whom I know as a shit-stirrer, then I will simply say that Dafydd wasn’t paying attention to what I was saying.

Whether that’s Beldar’s view, I dunno. It ain’t mine.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:11 pm

It sounds to me like

A description of my interpretation, not a prescription of your mindset. If I wanted to tell you what you were thinking, I’d have used more direct language.

I’m kinda tactless that way.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 10:11 pm

“I’m surprised you’re up so late. Doesn’t the home have bed-checks?”

It does, Darleen, but I got a special pass to see your confidence man get treed by Patterico.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:12 pm

“Nowhere.”

toldja!!

I shoulda been drinking gin

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:13 pm

“But come on: Greenwald? That’s below the belt.”

Snap, no tap, baby. I’ve taken plenty below the belt from this asshole over the past few months, and I’m done taking it. I’m telling it like it is — and the way it is, is this: Goldstein can be a really boring and shitty writer, just like Greenwald. Jesus, go to Goldstein’s Hot Air piece and look in the first few sentences for a sentence that exceeds 100 words. I’m guessing you’ll find one right away. If memory serves, there’s one that’s close to 200 fucking words.

No wonder so many people reacted to that piece by saying: jeez, that was long.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 10:15 pm

Can we get Jeff to insinuate that he’s going to beat up nk again?

nk is an ass and I will be happy to slap his face if I ever meet him. Jeff never threatened to beat him up, but I happily will.

You cannot. In the absolute sense that there is no way in the world you will. That’s half the reason I was not afraid of Jeff. The other half was that Jeff would not.

And you are one stupid bitch. Are you as ugly in your face as you are in your mind?

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:16 pm

“unconscious racism” is a Leftist tactic that enables what Ayn Rand called the sanction of the victim.

It gives rise to such atrocities as “the knapsack of white privilege”.

in other words, “unconscious racism” is a mendacious scam.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:17 pm

I like this. I like many PW commenters, but when I go there the signal-to-noise ratio is out of control. Plus, people get pissy if I ignore Goldstein because he’s the “host” and all. Here, I can ignore the asshole and talk to people I like.

That is, until y’all get the lecture that you’re being disloyal for talking to me. You DO know that lecture is coming, right?

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:18 pm

Don’t bite too hard!

On the Internet, I only pick apart your grammar/usage/spelling if you’re being an insufferable know-it-all from the Left who operates under the assumption that all conservatives are gnoramuses.

And then I have to be doubly careful when proofing that critique, because Dicentra’s Law states that a post that corrects someone else’s grammar/spelling/usage is bound to have at least one embarrassing mistake in it.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:19 pm
nk December 11, 2009 at 10:20 pm

Patterico and Miss Attila,

I thank you both but I believe that any further conversations will be noncupatory.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:20 pm

And you are one stupid bitch. Are you as ugly in your face as you are in your mind?

character, as they say, will out.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:21 pm

“And you are one stupid bitch. Are you as ugly in your face as you are in your mind?”

nk, I can’t really blame you for saying that, because you were just on the receiving end of a very ugly comment from Darleen. That said, I have met Darleen and really like her. I have not met you but I know that when (not if) I do, I will really like you.

I would like you two to get along. The reason you don’t is that Darleen feels this loyalty to someone who (you and I understand) is a dishonorable person. But take it from me: Darleen is good people. Be nice to her even if she is rude to you, OK? Do me that favor.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:22 pm

That is, until y’all get the lecture that you’re being disloyal for talking to me. You DO know that lecture is coming, right?

Never heard it; never will.

I’d have to badmouth Jeff on your blog or someone else’s — then be all nicey nice on his — for him to give a rip.

IOW, I’d have to be a blatantly two-faced little creep. And then he’d blast me for being two-faced, not “disloyal.”

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:22 pm

Also, this might help

:

Signifier

The signifier is the pointing finger, the word, the sound-image.

A word is simply a jumble of letters. The pointing finger is not the star. It is in the interpretation of the signifier that meaning is created.

Signified

The signified is the concept, the meaning, the thing indicated by the signifier. It need not be a ‘real object’ but is some referent to which the signifier refers.

The thing signified is created in the perceiver and is internal to them. Whilst we share concepts, we do so via signifiers.

Whilst the signifier is more stable, the signified varies between people and contexts.

The signified does stabilize with habit, as the signifier cues thoughts and images.

Found that bit of arcane mysticism by typing “signifier” into this super secret thing I use called “Google.”

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:23 pm

Just in case it got lost in the shuffle:

“Then call him a liar.

Oh, and Patterico, too. Fuck all of them.”

Unprovoked. From that Paragon of Honor.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:23 pm

I try to write so that people don’t have to Google shit to understand me.

I’m funny that way.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:24 pm

“all conservatives are gnoramuses.”

See what I mean? Even when I’m talking about correcting other people’s grammar, Dicentra’s Law reigns supreme.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:25 pm

“Never heard it; never will.”

I can easily find you quotes from the martyr saying that it does him a disservice for his readers to engage me.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:25 pm

Pat

I said I’d slap nk’s face not out of loyality but out of his sexist insulting of me last March.

And he proved it again. He has no respect for those he thinks are beneath him in “class”.

What is “ugly” about a woman of my age slapping a pissant male who insulted me?

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:25 pm

I was just going to say, “Jeff, you’re being pointedly ignored over here,” and then I saw that he wasn’t.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:26 pm

nk,

What does “noncupatory” mean?

What are you, Goldstein?

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 10:27 pm

I was considering tackling the “gnoramuses” thing, but it seemed too easy . . .

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:28 pm

“I was just going to say, “Jeff, you’re being pointedly ignored over here,” and then I saw that he wasn’t.”

I’m not ignoring him any more, no.

I will point out all his hypocrisy and other bullshit.

It will take a while.

Tit for tat is the best strategy, I’m told.

Nobody has seemingly noticed that comment he wrote where he said “Fuck Patterico.” How do you feel about that, dicentra?

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:28 pm

I can easily find you quotes from the martyr saying that it does him a disservice for his readers to engage me.

Do it, then. I’d like to see them.

I try to write so that people don’t have to Google shit to understand me.

I’m funny that way.

That’s one way to go.

I like being provoked to learn new words, but then I’m funny that way (she said, caressing her WF Buckley Lexicon).

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:30 pm

I try to write so that people don’t have to Google shit to understand me.

Even when you are writing about law and need to use a Latin term specific to what you’re writing on?

More power to you, then.

Of course, in my defense, it’s hard talking about the components of a sign without using “signifier” and “signified,” and breaking down linguistics doesn’t much work without a discussion of the sign and how it functions.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 10:31 pm

I like it when people write in impenetrable pseudo-intellectual riddles.

Then you know they’re just bullshit artists.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:31 pm

“I said I’d slap nk’s face not out of loyality but out of his sexist insulting of me last March.”

Are you quite sure he was “sexist” Darleen? Can we get the link and the quote? And then analyze it to death and analyze your motives for making the accusation?

Seriously, as an intentionalist, you’ll want to join me in analyzing his intent.

Can you share his words? That should be the starting point — for any serious intentionalist.

For phony ones like Goldstein, you just say that you haven’t read the other guy’s words, but here is your response.

God, I have SO MANY examples of him saying that. the fucking hypocrite. How in the hell do you try to divine my intent when you pointedly say that you didn’t read what I said???

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 10:32 pm

What are you, Goldstein?

Semiotics!

Sometimes when I say something normal–like calling rain “precipitation”–my husband gives me THAT look, like “I’m just a simple country husband, and I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

(Speaking of liars!)

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Get it all out, Patrick.

Air that dirty laundry of mine!

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:32 pm

Nobody has seemingly noticed that comment he wrote where he said “Fuck Patterico.” How do you feel about that, dicentra?

I don’t care, frankly. That’s between you and Jeff. Men get into pissing matches all the time, and the trash talk is just part of the game.

Once Ace told me to eff off, but after I recovered from the mild shock of being directly addressed by the Proprietor, I shrugged it off.

If you say “F*ck Goldstein,” I will be equally indifferent.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:33 pm

And use “fuck” more. Makes you sound very butch.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:34 pm

Joe, you’ve got your work cut out for you. There’s a LOT of comments here that you need to copy and paste onto PW and other sites.

Better get crackin’.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:36 pm

What are you wearing, Patrick?

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:37 pm

Are your lips that rosy red color I like from sipping a nice robust Pinot?

Mmmm.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:38 pm

I like it when people write in impenetrable pseudo-intellectual riddles.

You can’t rephrase actual pseudo-intellectual tripe into your own words, but I can reformulate Jeff’s arguments ad infinitum and provide all kinds of examples.

That’s the difference between the Emperor’s New Clothes and actual garb: real cloth can be redraped at will — the fake stuff doesn’t exist apart from the words on the page.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:38 pm

Good thing you’re not much into reading intentions, Patrick. Because mine are naughty.

Say fuck again. Please?

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 10:38 pm

You people are keeping me up late.

Darleen …. ok, what Patterico said.

Noncupatory means “we’re not going nowhere”. It’s from Jack Vance, a great writer.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:39 pm

Speaking of pissing matches…

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:40 pm

“Do it, then. I’d like to see them.”

I will do it — if I know IN ADVANCE that you’re not just going to shrug it off.

Here’s the premise. I’m not talking to him here. I am ignoring him. But you are talking to me.

He considers that an affront to him. He has said so before.

I can find you a quote that says exactly that.

If I find something that says exactly that, tell me precisely how you will react. Otherwise, it’s not worth the effort. I find the quote, you say it’s no big deal, etc.

The fucking hypocrite once said that other people should go to my site and make the arguments because it was about the ideas and not personalities. (Not even Joy buys that. She said upthread that he was trying to goad me.) Then later he said that people who did exactly that were undermining him. When I talked about debating Dan, he sulked about the fact that this had somehow become Dan’s argument and not his. Blah blah blah.

Your move. If you affirm that you will be disappointed if I find such a quote, I will find it you. Pronto.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 10:41 pm

dicentra,

As a conservative, I find it very hard to take any modern liberal arts “thinking” seriously.

JeffG may as well be spouting the latest theories from Wymyn’s Studies.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 10:41 pm

I just googled that, nk…

BTW, here’s a further word for you:
noncupatory

There is a big controversy over whether that word actually exists, or if it was only invented by the author Jack Vance; apparently it does exist, having being found in one specialised legal dictionary. It means more or less “irrelevant”.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:42 pm

For phony ones like Goldstein

He’s as phony a linguist as you are a trial lawyer, Pat.

Just because you do NOT want to understand something outside of your area of expertise doesn’t make it phony. You have stated more than once that Jeff only considers the author/speaker/utterer of the word/phrase. BUT he has said, over and over again, belies your claim.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:42 pm

Anyway, let’s see. Did I try to answer Patterico’s arguments, such as they were? Check.
Nk’s? Check.
Dustin’s? Check.

Good on me. I engaged and showed a willingness to argue my position.

It’s not the same as digging out screencaps, but hey, not everyone can do serious work.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 10:43 pm

Goodnight, Dearhearts. I’m going to go watch TV. It looks like everyone’s comments are getting approved all right, but I’ll check the hopper before I go to bed to make sure nothing’s in moderation.

Nice to see everyone behaving . . . well, almost everyone, anyway . . .

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:44 pm

Oh. You want to argue a position instead of being a dick? I’ll do that.

Except . . . wait. Whenever you argue a position, you lie about mine.

No, won’t do that.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:45 pm

“Did I try to answer Patterico’s arguments, such as they were? Check.”

Declaring it to be so, while having lied about my position, does not make it so, Martyr-Boy.

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 11, 2009 at 10:46 pm

. . . and almost behaving; good enough. Darleen, please call me if they try to burn the blog down.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:47 pm

I know IN ADVANCE that you’re not just going to shrug it off.

Which consists of what, exactly? Renouncing Jeff in public?

If he said that he takes it as an affront if, for example, I converse with you over here while you ignore him, then that’s what he said.

I don’t care if he takes it as an affront. If he does, that’s his problem.

If he writes me a nastygram for talking to you here, then I’ll deal with it directly. If he bans me from PW for disloyalty, I’ll be cheesed.

But just as Charles Johnson banned me from LGF, and I’ve not spent my strength calling him nasty things, I won’t make it my mission to discredit Jeff if we have a falling out, no matter how that might sting.

That’s just how I roll.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:48 pm

“You have stated more than once that Jeff only considers the author/speaker/utterer of the word/phrase. BUT he has said, over and over again, belies your claim.”

A link to his entire archives proves nothing. Goldstein has lied about my position, which I have made clear, again and again, here. Check and mate. I have answered Goldstein’s every argument, while he merely lies about my position and makes bizarre comments that reveal him to be insane and a liar.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:48 pm

You people are keeping me up late

Poor, nk, you might miss getting to the mall in time to haraunge women with children to go out and get real jobs.

Reply

nk December 11, 2009 at 10:48 pm

Liittle Miss Atttila,

You are a gracious and kind hostess. Thank you for the forum.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:49 pm

Declaring it to be so, while having lied about my position, does not make it so, Martyr-Boy.

Do you even know where your position is, at this point?

Did you or did you not say that the “statement” was “racist,” and that you couldn’t conceive of a context in which it wouldn’t be? Did you or did you not say that you don’t know if McCain is racist?

My argument is that you cannot affirm one without committing to the other. Which is to say, you MUST call McCain racist if you are going to call his statement racist.

That’s not a “lie” about your position, so far as I can tell. It’s the thesis of mine.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 10:50 pm

Jaysus H Keerist, Pat, I did NOT link his “entire archives”.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 10:51 pm

I don’t think anybody will be accusing anybody of shrugging anything off. It’s like if you poured water over a duck’s back and not a drop hit the ground.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 10:51 pm

JeffG may as well be spouting the latest theories from Wymyn’s Studies.

But you can’t tell, can you?

As a conservative, I believe it’s important to understand the difference between the wheat and the chaff in every field.

Especially the ones where the Left has wreaked unspeakable havoc.

BTW, Jeff’s theories are anathema to what passes for thought in academia. Intentionalism utterly destroys their craft. Utterly. Lays complete waste to it.

Which is why it’s worth the time to comprehend it.

Dur.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:52 pm

But do keep the good vibes coming, Pat.

You are covering yourself with that honor you so transparently crave.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:52 pm

“Those of you who continue to engage Patterico, even as he hasn’t shown me the same courtesy, do me a disservice.”

By the way, what he appears to insist on there, is that his commenters press me on his arguments.

I would love to do that with you, dicentra, because I don’t start with the premise that you are going to lie about what my position is. You may misunderstand my arguments, but I don’t think you would lie about them. I no longer think that about Goldstein.

If you would like to do that, I will do it anywhere but at his cesspool. Here, my blog, wherever.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 10:53 pm

poor soggy duck

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 10:54 pm

And please, more about my being “insane.”

But do it in your butch voice.

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 10:54 pm

It is funny how Patterico just lights up when he is getting his argument trashed. A bad tell for a lawyer or a poker player.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:55 pm

“Jaysus H Keerist, Pat, I did NOT link his “entire archives”.”

Did you not link his entire “language/intentionalism” category???

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:57 pm

“And please, more about my being “insane.”

But do it in your butch voice.”

You’re the one who first called me that. Because your precious comment got put in moderation by my WordPress software. I’m just ironically referring to it. And you’re just too dense to see that.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 10:58 pm

As a conservative, I believe it’s important to understand why America’s rapidly growing minorities all consider the Republican party a party of racists.

This thread illuminates they’re thinking nicely…they’re right.

Playing childish logic games dreamed up by the pud puling practitioners of valueless fields of study isn’t going to change anything, isn’t going to fool anybody except those who want to be fooled.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 10:58 pm

It’s happyfeet!!!!

I was worried I would never see him on the Internet again!

I saw people on PW mocking you for your position on some Kevin Jennings controversy? I know nothing about it; I’ve been in trial and don’t even have time to read my own blog. Did Jeff G. defend you? I hope so.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:01 pm

No, Patrick. I see it. And I just love how pointed it all is!

Delicious.

Do you have a list, or are you going from memory.

Incidentally, the context of your link above? Is that I was trying to engage you in the comment thread on my site and you were pretending not to hear. Much like you acted here earlier.

My thought was, if you wanted to engage my arguments, you should engage the person making them, not those who were trying second hand to explain them.

The disservice was in enabling you to continue acting like a 5-year old.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:01 pm

Hey Jeff Goldstein,

You do seem to be offended by my use of the f-word here.

But you also do seem to be the guy who said “Fuck Patterico” for no reason.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 11:02 pm

If Jeff in any instance is insane, so is Dennis Prager

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:03 pm

“My thought was, if you wanted to engage my arguments, you should engage the person making them, not those who were trying second hand to explain them.”

I don’t engage liars. You are a liar. Simple, really.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:04 pm

I saw people on PW mocking you for your position on some Kevin Jennings controversy? I know nothing about it; I’ve been in trial and don’t even have time to read my own blog. Did Jeff G. defend you? I hope so.

Well, I wasn’t around for that, but when I found out about it, I emailed happyfeet and offered to let him write a post outlining his position.

Does that count?

You do seem to be offended by my use of the f-word here.

Offended? Hardly. I think it makes you look ten years younger.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 11:04 pm

hey now… Mr. G offered to post whatever I wanted to say but I’m slammed and I think it’s simple enough to just say that the hateyness of the Gateway/Malkin campaign is so blatant …

But there is an awful lot of intent being imputed to the Mr. Jennings I think and by people who should know better.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:06 pm

Oh, Patrick. Now you’re just being glib.

Tease.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 11:07 pm

also it’s very uncomfortable to be the guy defending the object of a hatey campaign especially given how irresponsible people are being… there was a very sensible commenter at Hot Air on the subject today … The UnrepentantGeek if I remember right… I think I’ve seen him at PW…

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 11:08 pm

Pat

No one mocked happyfeet for his position. There were some disagreements and Jennings himself was mocked.

DRJ has posted several Jennings posts on your site. I posted exactly one at PW.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:10 pm

But sure, I’ll engage you.

1) When I said you manufactured a single controversy for money, why did you spend months pretending that I said EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU HAD EVER WRITTEN was written for blog money? Was it because you wanted to create a strawman?

2) Why did you invoke your Jewish heritage when I made that comment, when I had not referred to it? Because you wanted to play the victim? Or for some other reason?

3) Why did you call me “Patty” when you so violently objected to a commenter of mine calling you “Jeffy”? Saying that’s “how the leftists do it.”

4) Why did you claim that I had called McCain a racist without bothering to tell your readers that I had said that I was not saying that?

5) Why did you claim that I had claimed that I knew McCain was not a racist, when I never said any such thing?

6) Why did you agree to a program of de-escalation, and then write an unprovoked comment where you said “Fuck Patterico”?

That’s six off the top of my head. Because I’m all about engaging people!

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:10 pm

I don’t engage liars. You are a liar. Simple, really.

Still waiting. Come on, Patrick. Don’t be a-skeered. I won’t bite.

Hell, you can even call me insane and a liar, and pepper me with some of those gorgeous “fucks.”

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:11 pm

“Well, I wasn’t around for that, but when I found out about it, I emailed happyfeet and offered to let him write a post outlining his position.”

Did you tell people to lay off him?

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 11:11 pm

“Delicious.”

“Offended? Hardly. I think it makes you look ten years younger.”

“Tease.”

That you, Paul Lynde?

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 11:13 pm

Did you tell people to lay off him?

What in “no one mocked hf” do you not understand, Pat?

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:14 pm

“Still waiting. Come on, Patrick. Don’t be a-skeered. I won’t bite.”

Someone once said that debating with liars is just a recipe for indigestion.

I will debate any of these issues with anyone who is honest. You can even feed them the questions! But a debate with you is a constant exercise in: “I never said that.” “That misstates my position.” “That’s not what I said.” And so on.

Life is too short to correct your lies ad infinitum. And so, you are not worth debating.

I don’t debate liars. You are a liar. Simple, really.

Reply

baldilocks December 11, 2009 at 11:15 pm

“As somebody who HAS a black sister-in-law, and a black brother-in-law to boot (long story), please allow me to be the first to say it. The horse is dead. Quit beating it. All of you. Move along.”

As someone who has a black backside, does that fact make my opinion more valid?

You see the point.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:15 pm

“What in “no one mocked hf” do you not understand, Pat?”

Jeez, what happened to happyfeet?

I didn’t just mock him. Really!

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:18 pm

1) When I said you manufactured a single controversy for money, why did you spend months pretending that I said EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU HAD EVER WRITTEN was written for blog money? Was it because you wanted to create a strawman?

2) Why did you invoke your Jewish heritage when I made that comment, when I had not referred to it? Because you wanted to play the victim? Or for some other reason?

3) Why did you call me “Patty” when you so violently objected to a commenter of mine calling you “Jeffy”? Saying that’s “how the leftists do it.”

4) Why did you claim that I had called McCain a racist without bothering to tell your readers that I had said that I was not saying that?

5) Why did you claim that I had claimed that I knew McCain was not a racist, when I never said any such thing?

6) Why did you agree to a program of de-escalation, and then write an unprovoked comment where you said “Fuck Patterico”?

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 11:19 pm

Nobody mocked me whatsoever and I owe Darleen an apology for jumping down her throat. Darleen, I am sorry. I remain of the conviction that there is a great similarity between the dishonest hate campaign targeting Sarah Palin and the one targeting Mr. Jennings.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:20 pm

1) because you said that “this is what Goldstein does.” That suggests a pattern.

2) You kept making the comment that I was in it for money, and that I duped people into giving me cash after ginning up controversy. Sneaky and money have often been attached to anti-Jewish writings as kind of code words. Given that we were arguing over the place of intent in the communication chain, I thought it’d be a gas to show just how easy it is to turn what you said into anti-semitism. The irony was lost on you.

3) When did I call you “Patty”? I remember getting shit for calling you “Pat.” If I called you “Patty” and that’s an objectionable rendering of your name, I apologize.

4) Asked and answered at least 3 times on this thread: My argument is that to call a statement racist is to commit yourself to calling its utterer racist. And then I set out to show why that is, from the perspective of linguistics. Therefore, you were calling McCain a racist whether you wanted to or not. That was the argument.

5) Because DRJ came over to the site and suggested to everyone there that that’s what you said. And so I updated my post to take that into account, and incorporated it into my argument accordingly.

6) Because fuck you.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:20 pm

That is, until y’all get the lecture that you’re being disloyal for talking to me. You DO know that lecture is coming, right?…

Here’s the premise. I’m not talking to him here. I am ignoring him. But you are talking to me.

He considers that an affront to him. He has said so before.

Those of you who continue to engage Patterico, even as he hasn’t shown me the same courtesy, do me a disservice.

He has effectively changed the terms of debate, and he has led you miles away from where he started.

Some of you clearly recognize this. Others are looking to make nice. But as I say, as I’m the one being frozen out here — again — you are doing me a disservice if you don’t insist that Patterico respond to the kinds of rebuttals I’ve offered, because those are in response to the terms he set up to begin with.

By the way, what he appears to insist on there, is that his commenters press me on his arguments.

*sigh*

Are we talking about my disloyalty or his being affronted? Or are they one and the same?

IIRC, the number of posts and comments generated in last March’s kerfuffle were legion, so I won’t even attempt to trace the rhetorical trajectory of the discussion from beginning to the above-cited comment.

I did skim up and down the comment section, and I’m relying on my own memory of the incident, plus my familiarity with Jeff’s rhetorical style.

This is my unpacking of the remark:

“Do me a disservice” does not equal “are disloyal to me.” It means “you’re not helping advance my arguments.” His specific arguments. The ones that Pat was sure he had addressed but Jeff inisisted he had not.

(I will NOT go into whether arguments were or were not addressed. That way lies madness.)

He observes that the discussion between Pat and the PW commenters has drifted away from the central points of Jeff’s original argument. And given that Pat is no longer addressing Jeff directly, the points are going unaddressed.

The efforts of the PW commenters would not be a disservice if they insisted that Pat respond to Jeff’s actual points, not tangential ones.

You can argue that Jeff is over-identifying with his own thesis. You can argue that Jeff is being too dogged in insisting that his exact points be the topic of discussion. You can even argue that Jeff is whining about being frozen out.

But the text does not support the accusation that he’s distressed by “disloyalty.” Which is what you implied that you were going to show me evidence of.

Does that constitute a “shrugging off” in your book?

If so, then I shrugged it off as you feared, and I am a dishonest broker; Jeff and I deserve each other.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 11:21 pm

happyfeet

No worries, mate. I do miss you. And I didn’t understand your passion on this subject even as I may disagree with you to some degree.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:22 pm

Did you tell people to lay off him?

No. Why would I? I wasn’t familiar with the arguments being made, nor was I terribly familiar with the subject matter.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 11:23 pm

Me personally I think it’s unfathomably weird to have a discussion where you argue that being inclusive of black people is actually the appropriate stance for your organization to take. That’s simply not up for debate anymores, and if you find yourself arguing for this sort of inclusion I think it’s only fair to warn the black people you are trying to be inclusive of that you are trying to include them with some major assholes.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:24 pm

I will debate any of these issues with anyone who is honest. You can even feed them the questions! But a debate with you is a constant exercise in: “I never said that.” “That misstates my position.” “That’s not what I said.” And so on.

Life is too short to correct your lies ad infinitum. And so, you are not worth debating.

I don’t debate liars. You are a liar. Simple, really.

Yeah, you keep saying that. But where are these lies?

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:25 pm

This is where it comes in handy:

This thread illuminates they’re their thinking nicely…they’re right.

Though in the case of Ponce, instead of being an insufferable know-it-all, he boasted of his inability to think clearly in the realm of the humanities.

Eh. Insufferable will do.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:27 pm

And to spell it out even further,

My argument is that to call a statement racist is to commit yourself to calling its utterer racist. And then I set out to show why that is, from the perspective of linguistics. Therefore, you were calling McCain a racist whether you wanted to or not. That was the argument

…And one of the important components of that argument is that YOU DON’T NEED TO THINK YOU ARE CALLING McCAIN A RACIST. Just that you have to be, for the reasons I then tried to outline.

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 11:29 pm

I don’t want to hijack the thread any further – GLSEN and Jennings? Dirty socialist to the core. Criticism is warranted – it’s very specifically the Malkin/Holt campaign that I think people should take a closer look at. It’s very hatey and dishonest in many many ways.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 11:32 pm

I apologize if I’m just an old fashioned conservative who values a field of study based on what the free market pays its practitioners, dice.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:34 pm

Okay, upon further review, my number 6 was too easy and too glib.

Confession time. Why? Because it rankled me that I was not allowed to comment on sites where timb was welcome.

Because you falsely accused me of making death threats.

Because you consistently believe every argument that uses one of your arguments as a stepping stone to debate larger points of language that I find important are somehow about you.

I’m sure there were others. But I don’t remember what I was thinking on that day.

My best guess though is that you allowed someone as superficial and banal as timb to exist peaceably in your comment section, and yet I’d been banned.

There has always been bitterness on my part about that.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:35 pm

And now they are addressing each other directly, after a fashion.

By repeating the same assertions they made last March.

Give it up already. There’s no place for you two to find common ground. Call it a profound personality mismatch consisting of irreconcilable differences and just plain annoying the hell out of each other.

There’s people I can’t stand to be in the same room with either; not because there’s something wrong with either of us but because there’s just that … auuuuugggghhh … factor.

Nails on a chalkboard.

But then, given that I’m the one being “ignored,” perhaps it’s time to pop in some Netflix and cozy in with a back of popcorn.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:36 pm

I apologize if I’m just an old fashioned conservative who values a field of study based on what the free market pays its practitioners, dice

I hear porn does pretty well.

You GO, “The Empire Gets Wet!”

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 11:37 pm

“My best guess though is that you allowed someone as superficial and banal as timb to exist peaceably in your comment section, and yet I’d been banned.”

Haha, says the guy who bans anyone who disagrees with him from his own little Semiotics Shrine.

Irony.

It is to laff.

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 11:37 pm

Patterico, you and nk call me a shit-stirrer? Okay. So was nk shit stirring with his past interaction with Jeff? You know, the alleged “death threat.” Were you shit stirring by declaring Stacy McCain to be a racist…oh excuse me, dragging up a comment more than 10 years ago, taking it out of context, and then demanding McCain explain the “racist” comment because you sensed inconsistency when he was discussing the issue with Allan Combs?

Seriously, you are not position to accuse me of that.

But ultimately you are not as smart as you would like to think you are, and that bothers you. A lot.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:40 pm

I apologize if I’m just an old fashioned conservative who values a field of study based on what the free market pays its practitioners, dice.

The realm of ideas doesn’t have free-market value, and yet those very ideas will make or break the country.

You don’t have to join in this particular battle if it’s not your forte; just don’t disparage those of us who do what needs to be done on this front.

And BTW, I make a decent salary as a technical writer. The ability to be precise with language is a definite asset in this field.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Haha, says the guy who bans anyone who disagrees with him from his own little Semiotics Shrine.

Thor, is that you?

Because Jeff has banned few people outright, and thor is one of them.

But your insults aren’t clever enough to be thor’s, so never mind.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 11:44 pm

Haha, says the guy who bans anyone who disagrees with him from his own little Semiotics Shrine

Is that why SEK had guest posting privileges?

Fancy that, nancyboy. You a “conservative”? I doubt you even know what the word means…it has more than 2 syllables. You might have to Google it.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:45 pm

who values a field of study based on what the free market pays its practitioners

These days, the big money is in the Very Valuable Field of climate studies.

Which is churning out value like a Ford assembly line.

Reply

bh December 11, 2009 at 11:45 pm

6) Why did you agree to a program of de-escalation, and then write an unprovoked comment where you said “Fuck Patterico”?

This thread has depressed me but maybe I need to jump in here.

To the degree that I was the go between (and I don’t know that, maybe other conversations were happening), I conveyed my understanding that taking down the most heated post from each side might lead to an extended cool down period. Pat and Jeff both did so.

Separately, I tried to institute a commenter truce based on not talking shit about the principal on the other blog.

Jeff never told me he’d do anything other than kill that post, though.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:45 pm

Haha, says the guy who bans anyone who disagrees with him from his own little Semiotics Shrine.

Yeah. You’d be hard pressed to find any dissenting on my site.

Bracketing out the guest posts by SEK, nishi, and Jeralyn Merritt, of course, or the blog debates I opened up with the feminist sites.

I have no idea how long you’ve been around, Ponce, nor do I much care. But when I talk about the problem with modern conservatism, I’m talking about you.

If you didn’t exist, I’d have to invent you.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:48 pm

Goldstein the Hypocrite #1:

Ooh. Lookit Patty playing fun fun with intentionalism as he understands it!

Isn’t it clever?

Goldstein the Hypocrite #2, referring to my commenter Scott Jacobs, who called him “Jeffy”:

“Jeffy”.

Doesn’t take much for these “conservative pragmatists” to begin acting like leftists, does it?

Reply

happyfeet December 11, 2009 at 11:50 pm

modern conservatism

I want to believe, but the whole idea seems highly theoretical.

Reply

baldilocks December 11, 2009 at 11:50 pm

Patrick, you said: “I read his shit and I understand it, but it means NOTHING to the average person. It’s Greek — and not even Nick the Greek is going to understand it!”

I am a b-girl from South Central. I have a two year degree from LACC and spent 21 years in the USAF, all of which you know. I had no trouble understanding intentionalism. I didn’t have to look up any words or learn new ones. This average person got it immediately.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:51 pm

I haven’t looked at Pat’s post from today on “Must One “Intend” To Be Racist to Say Something That Is Racist?” I did get some of that line of thinking from Beldar in my comments today, and I addressed his points.

However, because the post begins with something like, “the short answer is no,” I realize that I don’t have to read much more to figure out what it posits..

I haven’t responded over there because up until recently I didn’t know I’d had my commenting privileges reinstated.

Maybe I will. Because if anyone over there thinks they’ve found some way around what I’ve been arguing, they’re wrong.

Reply

dicentra December 11, 2009 at 11:53 pm

OK, I gotta go. It’s been fun!

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:53 pm

“You kept making the comment that I was in it for money, and that I duped people into giving me cash after ginning up controversy. Sneaky and money have often been attached to anti-Jewish writings as kind of code words. Given that we were arguing over the place of intent in the communication chain, I thought it’d be a gas to show just how easy it is to turn what you said into anti-semitism. The irony was lost on you.”

Well gee, why delete such a rich piece of irony? Why start screaming “Fuck you!” when Not Rhetorical noted on your post that you were playing the race card? Why explain later that you deleted the post because we were just shouting at each other — when in fact what was going on was that you were having such a grand old time mocking me? Why pretend that the post got lost in some blog transition? You are a true liar and you are caught.

Reply

Joe December 11, 2009 at 11:54 pm

Dafydd said: “Sorry, my friends; but the Beldar/Patterico thesis that one can utter unconscious racism without having any racist thought is a risible humbug.”

After thinking I said it and calling me stupid (not realizing it is from his co-blogger from his own site, Patterico finally stumbled home to respond

I don’t think you understand my position, Dafydd.

Try again.

Comment by Patterico — 12/11/2009 @ 11:00 pm

Patterico finally found his target, at his own site. Jeez, it took him long enough to do so.

What a maroon.

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:55 pm

“However, because the post begins with something like, ‘the short answer is no,’ I realize that I don’t have to read much more to figure out what it posits.”

Classic Goldstein. You don’t have to actually read my words to know my intent. What a fraud. What an utter fucking fraud.

And I have a collection of posts where you say the same thing. “Well, I didn’t read the post, but if I were to respond, I would say . . .”

Fraud.

Reply

ponce December 11, 2009 at 11:56 pm

“Fancy that, nancyboy.”

Geez, Darleen. Your blog husband puts on tights and grapples with other sweaty boys for kicks and I’m the nacnyboy?

You sure can pick ’em.

Reply

Jeff G December 11, 2009 at 11:57 pm

Ooh. Lookit Patty playing fun fun

Uh, that whole construction is mimicking baby talk.

That’s not the same as calling me “Jeffy” as a direct address.

Or is it, in your world?

And really, is this something I did to suit that particular sentence? Or something I did all the time?

Finally, did you skip over this:

3) When did I call you “Patty”? I remember getting shit for calling you “Pat.” If I called you “Patty” and that’s an objectionable rendering of your name, I apologize.

Reply

Darleen Click December 11, 2009 at 11:59 pm

Classic Goldstein. You don’t have to actually read my words to know my intent. What a fraud. What an utter fucking fraud.

Wow. Carnac’s got nothin’ on you!

Reply

Patterico December 11, 2009 at 11:59 pm

“Therefore, you were calling McCain a racist whether you wanted to or not.”

I.e. I was calling McCain a racist whether I intended to or not.

You have seized my intent from me like the fraud you are. Intentionalism nose off.

Reply

happyfeet December 12, 2009 at 12:01 am

Things what are actual frauds include Climate Change, buzz that Avatar is best picture-worthy, Health Care Reform, and the Nobel Peace Prize.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:01 am

“However, because the post begins with something like, ‘the short answer is no,’ I realize that I don’t have to read much more to figure out what it posits.”

Classic Goldstein. You don’t have to actually read my words to know my intent. What a fraud. What an utter fucking fraud.

Uh, the reason I haven’t commented on it is that I yet read it.

But I don’t have to read it to know what it posits because you can only reach what it posits by holding a particular linguistic position.

Sorry if it upsets you that I can oftentimes suss an argument merely by knowing its product, but that’s because this is my field, and I’ve been doing this a long time.

There’s nothing “fraudulent” about that, and if this is indicative of your other proofs, I suggest you keep your powder dry there, pa’dner.

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:02 am

ponce

when you claim you know the price of everything but know the value of nothing, you are no conservative.

Reply

happyfeet December 12, 2009 at 12:02 am

those italics are all stupid

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:03 am

“Because DRJ came over to the site and suggested to everyone there that that’s what you said.”

Link, liar?

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:05 am

Here’s the “gag”:

Wow.

I guess Pat’s done hit rock bottom.

No matter. It’s not like a lot of the lefty blogs haven’t accused me of being a money-grubbing Jew opportunist with no real ideological core. Hearing it come from a true conservative like Mr Frey makes me aware that I best know my place.

It’s the typical martyr bullshit. The computer screen is wet from Goldstein’s tears of self-pity. And that’s a “gag”?

It is to laugh.

Heartily.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:06 am

I.e. I was calling McCain a racist whether I intended to or not.

You have seized my intent from me like the fraud you are. Intentionalism nose off.

This is not even in the same WORLD with what I’m talking about.

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:06 am

“That man committed murder! But I don’t know he’s a murderer. Could be. Could be not. The act was still murder, I KNOW that!”

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:07 am

“Sorry if it upsets you that I can oftentimes suss an argument merely by knowing its product . . .”

That’s pure ad hominem. It’s the classic definition of ad hominem. You’re claiming that you can know someone’s intent without even reading their words.

You are a fraud.

This is awesome. For the ages, this is.

Reply

ponce December 12, 2009 at 12:07 am

Darleen,

I think deep in his heart, even Jeff admits that the years he wasted “studying” semiotics was a waste of his time and a burden on his family. Why do you guys egg him on in threads like this, it’s just embarrassing.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:08 am

Well gee, why delete such a rich piece of irony? Why start screaming “Fuck you!” when Not Rhetorical noted on your post that you were playing the race card? Why explain later that you deleted the post because we were just shouting at each other — when in fact what was going on was that you were having such a grand old time mocking me? Why pretend that the post got lost in some blog transition? You are a true liar and you are caught.

I believe it’s because I thought we were getting to the point of no return, and I emailed you and told you I’d take them down.

The target was too big and easy. I felt bad. Now I’m wishing I’d turned the thing in to a series.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:09 am

““That man committed murder! But I don’t know he’s a murderer. Could be. Could be not. The act was still murder, I KNOW that!””

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t even see Patterico’s direct response to this argument!”

Here it is, since you missed it. You’re robbing words of their meaning.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:10 am

“Sorry if it upsets you that I can oftentimes suss an argument merely by knowing its product . . .”

That’s pure ad hominem. It’s the classic definition of ad hominem. You’re claiming that you can know someone’s intent without even reading their words.

You are a fraud.

This is awesome. For the ages, this is.

And to think, I accused you of not understanding intentionalism.

What was I thinking?

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:11 am

“I believe it’s because I thought we were getting to the point of no return, and I emailed you and told you I’d take them down.”

Then I challenged you to put it back up and you pretended that it all got lost.

“Now I’m wishing I’d turned the thing in to a series.”

Hey, that’s OK. I can do it for you.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:11 am

It’s the typical martyr bullshit. The computer screen is wet from Goldstein’s tears of self-pity. And that’s a “gag”?

It is to laugh.

Heartily.

We’re weren’t laughing with you, Patrick.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:15 am

“6) Because fuck you.”

Jeff Goldstein: not about the anger, but rather: about the ideas!

Well, I’ve responded to (read: demolished) each of your responses. Thus engaging you. And you do rather look the fool, don’t you?

(I see you have supplemented your answer to this one with more blubbering, but I’m not in a comforting mood. Sack up, bitch. You thought you didn’t get to comment at my site for a few months and oh! how it hurt your feewings! Now you can. So go do it.)

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:21 am

Then I challenged you to put it back up and you pretended that it all got lost.

Because I deleted them.

I don’t know what blog software you use, but when I hit delete comment, the comment is gone.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:22 am

Well, I’ve responded to (read: demolished) each of your responses. Thus engaging you. And you do rather look the fool, don’t you?

Not so much, no.

I missed much of this demolishing. Probably because I was looking at your pretty lips.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:23 am

“I don’t know what blog software you use, but when I hit delete comment, the comment is gone.”

You did a whole post on this. “Late Night Patterico.”

Reply

happyfeet December 12, 2009 at 12:24 am

germans are more easier on the ear than acrimony I think and did you for reals just say sack up, bitch?

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:25 am

Hey, if I left a comment in which I did exactly that which I criticize in others, I’d delete that too.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:25 am

Same thing when you delete posts.

I didn’t “unpublish”. I deleted.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:27 am

“germans are more easier on the ear than acrimony I think and did you for reals just say sack up, bitch?”

Hahaha. I did indeed. I like that phrase. It’s very appropriate for the morose little whiner known as Goldstein.

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:31 am

One person I get to listen to every day, someone I’ve listened to about 1992, is Dennis Prager. One of the clearest things I’ve come away with is that any singular action is morally neutral. It is context that makes an act or behavior good or bad. I.E. sexual intercourse… morally neutral. However, context can make it good (love making) or bad (rape). The death of a human being at the hands of another … morally neutral. Range from good (self-defense or defense of others) to bad (murder).

The intentionalism that Jeff and dicentra speak on was already familiar to me because I could both separate out the instance from the context and now had the tools by which I could identify and oppose when a person substituted their own meaning on someone else’s words.

Like a lot of things I’ve learned…like analyzing workflow, or dataflows … I have this mental image of how this intent thing works with language (I made an initial stab with it with my wordless dialogue on PW).

It’s not that hard to grasp, when one person makes a JUDGEMENT call on another person’s words, they are also making that judgement of the person who said them at the time they were saying them. A mere recitation of the words is not a judgment. Labeling them (racist/sexist/etc) IS a judgement.

The insidiousness of “zero tolerance” and abominations such as “sexual harassment/hostile work place” policies is that the whole act of judgement is tossed aside and the listener (either direct or indirect) is fully privileged to judge the words with no regard of context or reality. This kind of “thinking” is perverse and has perverted normal speech/language patterns.

How pathetic that the lesson of the poor schlub fired for using the word “niggardly” is still lost on so many.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:33 am

Hey, if I left a comment in which I did exactly that which I criticize in others, I’d delete that too.

Well, even if it were the case that I made a comment that could find its way in to that category — which mine were not, as the context and the timing (and the dearth of any other instances of this in all the time I’ve blogging and commenting would suggest to someone committed to figuring out what was going on) — wouldn’t my having almost immediately deleted said comments speak to my knowing they were wrong and insupportable?

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:35 am

And you do rather look the fool, don’t you?

hmmmm…. smells like projection.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:35 am

I’ve cut you quite a bit of slack here tonight, Patrick. I’m taking all the personal insults in stride because it’s clear to me you need this way more than I do.

But that can change on a dime.

Just so you know.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:40 am

Hahahahahaha. Just caught you contradicting an old, blatant lie you told.

Same thing when you delete posts.

I didn’t “unpublish”. I deleted.

Yes, Jeff. I know you did. But you lied about it at the time, and claimed that you hadn’t deleted it:

Me:

Put back up “Late night Patterico.” The post, with the comments. The one you said you’d put back up if I said the word.

Go ahead. Show people how you behaved in the comments to that post. So honorable.

You:

Just went to put the post back up. It ain’t there. Lost in the transition, I guess. Sorry.

I know at the time this was a lie, and you just admitted it. The post wasn’t lost in some server transition. You deleted it.

Whoops! You just got caught telling the truth!

Also, you admitted that your comment was not a gag, but was a part of you and me shouting at each other:

The point is, you keep talking about how I’ve been running you down, trying to make you look bad. All you have is my immediate reaction to your unprovoked and nasty attack as to the entirety of my political worldview being nothing but a sneaky way to turn a buck off people like you.

So of course you want me to put it back up.

No need. You just put up the entirety of the post. Had it in your comments, too, if I remember correctly.

The comments were just you and I shouting . . .

Revisionist history: Goldstein was playing a “gag” on Patterico.

You’re a shitty liar.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:41 am

Just for the record, that last wasn’t a death threat.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:42 am

Jeff:

“But that can change on a dime.

Just so you know.”

Great. It’s on, pal.

I’ve racked up proof of even more lies tonight. You want a war, you got it. I tried being nice before. I tried ignoring you. Now I’m going to try aggressively pointing out every instance of your lies and hypocrisy. I’m off to a good start already.

Now, to publicize it all.

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:43 am

I’m done for the night. I have gifts to wrap, a tree to decorate and those cookies will NOT bake themselves tomorrow.

But I am, by golly, figure out how to get that diagram in my head on paper.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:43 am

Oh. I just published a link-filled post documenting a number of your lies. Guess we have to wait for it to be approved.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:46 am

“wouldn’t my having almost immediately deleted said comments speak to my knowing they were wrong and insupportable?”

Yes. It would show that you realized you were being a hypocrite.

Which is at odds with your lie tonight that it was a “gag.”

Which I just disproved in the link-filled post, with links to your past comments saying otherwise. And pretending that you had not deleted them, and that you could return them if I asked. Which I did, and then you pretended to try to put them up, only to claim that the post you now admit was deleted had been “lost” in a server “transition.”

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:46 am

Pat

Sorry, but “lies and hypocrisy?” Please, you’re sounding like SEK.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:47 am

Do a nice, photoshopped picture of me. I find that adds a lot to those types of posts.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:48 am

“It was a gag. Also, I realized my comments were insupportable, which is why I deleted them. Also, I claimed at the time that I had not deliberately deleted them.”

“Also, I am a huge liar and a fraud.”

— Jeff Goldstein, 12-12-09

Most awesome thread ever.

Reply

ponce December 12, 2009 at 12:49 am

Darleen,

Could you provide us with a link to someone actually losing their job for using the word niggardly?

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 12:50 am

“Do a nice, photoshopped picture of me. I find that adds a lot to those types of posts.”

I’ll take it under advisement. Toodles, liar!

Reply

Darleen Click December 12, 2009 at 12:51 am

btw Pat

Jeff has moved hosts and servers more than once. He’s not a computer guy. So you can can the scare quotes.

and you might like to dial down Super DDA mode from eleven, too. Thanks for proving my point about not ever turning off your prism.

now, I’m really done for the night.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:51 am

So your proof is that I don’t that I was undergoing server propagation? Or the details of our email exchange on the matter (which, I believe, I began)?

This may come as a shock to you, Patrick. But I don’t have any ready proofs or screen shots or lists of lies and hypocrisies with links at the ready that pretend to support them.

Because, well, I’m not you.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 12:56 am

“It was a gag. Also, I realized my comments were insupportable, which is why I deleted them. Also, I claimed at the time that I had not deliberately deleted them.”

Well, again, I don’t screen cap all these things, but if I said at the time comments were lost in propagation, that’s likely what happened.

The deletion must have been the post, then.

Your definition of what a lie is is different than mine, I guess. To me, this was shit that happened late at night 7 months ago, so the particulars aren’t really fresh in my mind. I’m sure the threads from that evening would reference what was going on, though.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:00 am

Correction: I didn’t get the bit about you saying McCain wasn’t a racist from DRJ. I got it from Joe, quoting you:

I have read on the Internet today that I called Robert Stacy McCain a racist. I did not. I said that he said something that is in my opinion racist. That is not the same thing.

Some of the people saying these things did not read what I wrote. Some read it but did not pay attention. And some are just liars.

I said: “I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time.” I have seen many people speak well of him and that certainly speaks well of him.

I added that to an update in my post.

To me, when you come out denying that you called someone a racist, it’s likely you are telling people that you are NOT calling them a racist. And so they are not a racist.

Later, when you clarified that you didn’t know either way, I noted that, too.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:02 am

Could you provide us with a link to someone actually losing their job for using the word niggardly?

link

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:13 am

Proves that you suck at understanding language.

Or, more likely, you are an intellectual fraud who propounds a one-sided theory of language, which privileges the intent of conservatives whom you like, and questions the stated intent of anyone you don’t like.

Intentionalism nose on, for your friends. Intentionalism nose off, for your enemies and their friends.

First I said I wasn’t calling him a racist and you said I was. You ignored not only my intent but my plain words. Intentionalism nose off.

Then I pointed out that I wasn’t calling him a racist. You then claimed I positively asserted he wasn’t a racist. Which is not the same thing at all. You again ignored not only my intent but my plain words. Intentionalism nose off.

DRJ never came over and suggested that I had said McCain is not a racist, as you claimed in your answer to 5) above. You ignored not only her intent but her plain words. Intentionalism nose off.

This is a microcosm of how you continually misstated my position on various matters in March, which is why I know it is not productive to discuss anything with you.

And I have to wonder: how can someone — who seems smart — misread clear language so many times in a row? After a while, it looks deliberate.

Which it is. Because you are a fraud.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:17 am

“The deletion must have been the post, then.”

That wasn’t what you said at the time.

Now all of a sudden you’re fuzzy on what happened. Couple of hours ago you remembered it clearly as a gag.

Starting to get the idea that I don’t talk out my ass, like you do?

I’m into backing up my assertions with evidence. Good practice for a blogger. You should try it sometime, fraud and race-card player Jeff Goldstein.

Reply

ponce December 12, 2009 at 1:20 am

JeffG,

Your link shows a guy who quit his job. Who was then offered a better job working for the same guy.

Provide a link showing someone getting fired for using the niggardly, please.

Reply

Joe December 12, 2009 at 1:30 am

I’m into backing up my assertions with evidence.

Okay, so did you call RSM a racist Patterico or just say his comment was racist (kind of like what Charles Johnson did)? Because frankly, the line between you and Johnson is not so much. You guys could go biking together.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:32 am

Oh — I almost forget.

Jeff was getting HIS ass handed to him on the Rush Limbaugh thing. He started to fly off the handle right about the time that Rush came out and confirmed an interpretation of his words that Jeff had ridiculed as implausible. Jeff said it was stupid to say Rush could mean that he wanted the plan once passed to fail. Then Rush came out and said precisely that.

Jeff knew he was going to look bad, and he manufactured some distraction or other. I was too worried about confrontation to press it.

But he was getting his ass kicked in that debate. It’s all there in the record.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:32 am

Your link shows a guy who quit his job.

The links shows a guy who was prompted to resign.

McWhorter wrote on this, I believe. Do your own research now that I’ve gotten you started.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:33 am

“Okay, so did you call RSM a racist Patterico or just say his comment was racist?”

Read much, Joe?

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:39 am

The deletion must have been the post, then.”

That wasn’t what you said at the time.

Now all of a sudden you’re fuzzy on what happened. Couple of hours ago you remembered it clearly as a gag.

Remembering what I was thinking at the time of composition is easy. Remembering the particulars of what happened to affect the removal is not so easy. I sent you emails at the time. If you have them, like you have everything else, that’ll give you the best indication. I don’t have them. Because I don’t document every comment I make on a blog.

Starting to get the idea that I don’t talk out my ass, like you do?

Quite the contrary. I’m starting to get the idea that everything you do or say — and that everything that is done or said about you — finds its way into some file, so that it can be used later as opp research.

I think it’s kinda creepy, actually.

I’m into backing up my assertions with evidence. Good practice for a blogger. You should try it sometime, fraud and race-card player Jeff Goldstein.

No, what you’re into is playing gotcha when you think you can get away with it. Me, I don’t remember all the specifics of blog interactions that happened 7 months ago.

Fortunately, I should be able to reconstruct the specifics from the context. Whereas, good formalist you are, you will cite bits of dialogue and pretend that it stands on its own.

That worked out well for you with Stacy, didn’t it?

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:40 am

I mean I was winning on the logic. If you look at the howls of the crowd, they said he was winning. But that means nothing. The crowd supports the most conservative person in any debate. Jeff fought his entire commentariat on some issue or another where he was supporting Obama on a principled ground, and “got his ass handed to him” because his commenters failed to se

Reply

ponce December 12, 2009 at 1:42 am

JeffG,

Here’s some research for you:

“D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams said yesterday that he will rehire a former top aide who resigned last month because some city employees were offended that the aide used the word “niggardly” in describing how he would have to manage a fund’s tight budget”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/williams/williams020499.htm

Please provide a link showing someone who was fired for using the word niggardly.

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:43 am

I mean I was winning on the logic. If you look at the howls of the crowd, they said he was winning. But that means nothing. The crowd supports the most conservative person in any debate. Period. Jeff fought his entire commentariat on some issue or another where he was supporting Obama on a principled ground, and “got his ass handed to him” because his commenters failed to see the principle and just unloaded on him for taking the lefty position. So you can’t look to the crowd for how you’re doing in these debates.

I’ll have to go find that post again. He likes to remind people of “good man” again and again. Now that the gloves are off, I’ll make that unpopular position of his something to remind the world about again and again — every time he brings up the good man stuff.

You gotta suffer for principle, baby.

Post should be easy to find. The guy writes about a post every trimester nowadays — whenever the money runs out and it’s time to beg again.

You escalate, I escalate. Tit for tat.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:43 am

Oh — I almost forget.

Jeff was getting HIS ass handed to him on the Rush Limbaugh thing. He started to fly off the handle right about the time that Rush came out and confirmed an interpretation of his words that Jeff had ridiculed as implausible. Jeff said it was stupid to say Rush could mean that he wanted the plan once passed to fail. Then Rush came out and said precisely that.

Jeff knew he was going to look bad, and he manufactured some distraction or other. I was too worried about confrontation to press it.

But he was getting his ass kicked in that debate. It’s all there in the record.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Come on, man. Seriously?

Well, all those posts and comments are available. I guess people can judge for themselves.

But, well…wow.

Reply

Joe December 12, 2009 at 1:44 am

Patterico, yeah, I do.

What was it about RSM that made you pick him as your pet project of the week? Of all the issues out there, why did you have to explore some 10+ year old comemnt that Charles Johnson was railing on and decide to determine whether or not the statement was racist? And then once you determined that, you raised the issue of whether or not RSM was racist. What did RSM do to warrant that kind of attack by you?

And I get you did not explicitly state RSM was racist, you just stated his comments were. You took a comment out of context, asked your fair and balanced readers like nk if it was racist, and then left RSM hang out to dry. Did that make you feel like a man?

And your actions are confusing, especially for a self described conservative. Which is why even your buddies like Dafydd are confused by what you are saying.

All I know is I read RSM’s site and just do not see racism. I see Charles Johnson and his group of flying monkeys trying to dog pile McCain. And then I see you joining in with them.

With conservatives like you watching our backs, I know we are fucked.

It is what it is.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:47 am

I mean I was winning on the logic.

Again. Are you fucking delusional?

Reply

Patterico December 12, 2009 at 1:49 am

“Me, I don’t remember all the specifics of blog interactions that happened 7 months ago.”

You, you pretended to a couple of hours ago. It was a “gag” — remember?

“That worked out well for you with Stacy, didn’t it?”

Sure. I’m pleased with how that worked out. He finally answered the charge, I backtracked on absolutely NOTHING, you lied as is your wont, and conservatives applauded the most conservative fellow like they always do. The specifics don’t matter. The crowd goes with the most extreme position possible. Every time.

You think that makes you a big winner — but you sure were butthurt when you supported Obama on principle.

“I’m starting to get the idea that everything you do or say — and that everything that is done or said about you — finds its way into some file, so that it can be used later as opp research.”

Not at all. It’s just that you like to make personal attacks but you don’t care about having evidence. I don’t like to make personal attacks — but if I do, I will have evidence because that is my habit.

The things I say about you, I can prove. You’re a whiny, overly verbose, hypocritical, thin-skinned, dishonest, nasty, money-grubbing sorry excuse for a man. The evidence is out there.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:51 am

Post should be easy to find. The guy writes about a post every trimester nowadays — whenever the money runs out and it’s time to beg again.

I’ve never seen a conservative so hung up on somebody else making money the market will bear.

No one is forced to contribute. I don’t run ads. I don’t keep a site meter. Which means I don’t have to pimp my posts for links.

You keep suggesting there’s something untoward about what I do. Maybe if I took a job where I was paid by the state, that would be more to your liking?

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 1:54 am

You, you pretended to a couple of hours ago. It was a “gag” — remember?

That’s not “all” the particulars. Surprisingly, I remember my intent in writing. What I don’t remember is the back and forth about the comments. But like I said, I sent along emails to you at the time. Do you have them or don’t you?

The things I say about you, I can prove. You’re a whiny, overly verbose, hypocritical, thin-skinned, dishonest, nasty, money-grubbing sorry excuse for a man. The evidence is out there.

Yes. But I still have my HONOR!

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 2:05 am

He finally answered the charge

You mean the false charge that you helped drive?

How proud you must be.

Christ, what a sanctimonious douche.

Reply

Pablo December 12, 2009 at 3:50 am

That is, until y’all get the lecture that you’re being disloyal for talking to me. You DO know that lecture is coming, right?

No, Patrick. That’s YOUR game. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

Reply

Nom des Voyages à L'Étranger December 12, 2009 at 4:10 am

“For the record, I do not buy Pat’s argument that anyone who has hangups about interracial dating and marriage is racist.”

I don’t think anyone who chooses for themselves what they find attractive and what they want in a romantic and sexual relationship is necessarily (or even likely to be) racist.

If I like oriental girls (and I did… right after I really liked blondes, before I liked east indians, and then light skinned brunettes, then black girls, and redheads… and natives… I noticed… my tastes changing and expanding the more experience I had with women to the point where I conceded I just really like women) that’s my business.

But if my friend or family member says, I can’t accept you being with an oriental girl, or an east indian, or a black girl… then that IS racist.

My tastes in appearance are my business. Other people not accepting my friends based on their various pigmentation and ethnic facial features is racism.

“For one thing, if one is going to concede that, then one has to concede that there are a lot of black racists out there. A lot.”

Yeah, I’m sure there are.

It’s a milder form of racism compared to some of historical note, but it’s still one of them.

The main defense of McCain is not that that isn’t racism (it is), it’s that he was trying to pacify a big section of his audience in his debate against a white supremacist. I have no reason to think McCain can’t accept people of each and every race… he’s just tolerant of those who can’t on behalf of their loved ones.

I’m not tolerant in that case. I consider it to be mildly, and distastefully, racist. And personally offensive insofar as I’m mixed race as are many people I’ve known and loved.

Reply

Pablo December 12, 2009 at 4:19 am

“Those of you who continue to engage Patterico, even as he hasn’t shown me the same courtesy, do me a disservice.”

Swing and a miss, Patrick. I find it hard to believe that you believe that quote supports your contention. But there you are laying it out as evidence anyway.

There’s a conclusion to be drawn from that…

Reply

Pablo December 12, 2009 at 4:23 am

I saw people on PW mocking you for your position on some Kevin Jennings controversy?

Bullshit.

I know nothing about it; I’ve been in trial and don’t even have time to read my own blog.

But you have time to read all the evil crazy people at PW?

Did Jeff G. defend you? I hope so.

If not, you know where to find me, happyfeet!

Hey, remember when you banned happyfeet, Patrick? That was awesome.

Reply

Andrew Sullivan (not really) December 12, 2009 at 4:59 am

“You and me, Darleen, we could … get this all figured out in about 20 minutes … The Internet is a really shitty way to communicate for people who are strongly disagreeing. The potential for misunderstandings is so monstrously high it outweighs anything else.

“I’ve given up trying to convince people who won’t be convinced, at least over the Internet. The lovely thing is, you can toss this stuff out there and 1 in 300 might get something out of it.

“I’ve been in disagreements with GOOD FRIENDS over the Internet where we just can’t resolve stuff over a computer. Has to be … in person.”

Jesus Christ, Pat! You’re challenging Darleen to a duel?

Reply

Ann R Kissed thor December 12, 2009 at 5:10 am

The crowd supports the most conservative person in any debate. Period. Jeff fought his entire commentariat on some issue or another where he was supporting Obama on a principled ground, and “got his ass handed to him” because his commenters failed to see the principle and just unloaded on him for taking the lefty position. So you can’t look to the crowd for how you’re doing in these debates.

Oh wee, another chance to drop the racist dime on that Slingblade idiot, Stacy McCain.

Hey, Patterico, are you referring to the time Jeff stood tall and defended Letterman? That was a hoot, the day the PW swarm decided in unison that Letterman was never ever funny. I agreed with Ghoster Goldstein on Letterman, for the record. It was little more than a poorly worded joke.

How Ghoster G keeps on defending RSM’s intent or how he pimps that Jonah Goldberg garbage I haven’t the foggiest. If I was to go psychoanalytical, I’d say he gets lost in the kindred spirit of victimization brotherhood, but I dunno, who can really say outside of the classically trained Freudians.

Eff RSM, racist or not – and there’s only one honest conclusion, IMHO – he’s still the bitterest of panty stains.

Hi Darleen! Spin, old girl, spin and sputter!

O!

Reply

harkin December 12, 2009 at 6:28 am

“Sure. I’m pleased with how that worked out. He finally answered the charge, I backtracked on absolutely NOTHING, you lied as is your wont, and conservatives applauded the most conservative fellow like they always do. The specifics don’t matter. The crowd goes with the most extreme position possible. Every time.”

wth?????

Was that Patterico or Olbermann?

Does this extend to the tea parties?

Reply

Little Miss Attila December 12, 2009 at 7:52 am

I’m starting to notice that when an issue really needs to get discussed, the best thing to do is get a few wounded egos involved, and then spray the situation liberally with testosterone.

Because bruised egos + testosterone will lead us to the truth.

Reply

Jeff G December 12, 2009 at 8:10 am

Have those emails I sent at the time, Pat?

What happened is what I said happened at the time. It was, what, 2-3 in the morning? And my host was moving my site to another server. I don’t know how any of this works, but when the site reappeared on the new server, comments from a particular time frame that had been posted to the old server disappeared.

I’m sure it’s mentioned in the appropriate thread, or at least alluded to. It’s also probably in the emails that I sent. If I couldn’t recover them for whatever reason, I couldn’t recover them.

But if you have screen shots, put them up. And put up the emails, too. Because anyone who saves screen shots saves emails as well, I’m sure.

You can pretend this is some grand conspiracy. To you, it probably is. To me, it was a few blog comments and a post that linked them, all of which you say you have saved. So what’s the problem?

Again, I don’t remember why I wasn’t able to retrieve them. I know that once something is deleted in WP it’s gone. About server migration, I don’t know much, other than what I’ve already said.

The only person who would think this a grand set of lies is a guy looking for them.

Reply

dicentra December 12, 2009 at 9:16 am

Pat:

I’ve noticed that your usage of the word “liar” and “hypocrite” are different from mine.

But then, maybe not. A liar must not just state an untruth, he has to intend to deceive. And a hypocrite is someone who affects a piety in public that he doesn’t actually believe for a second.

And it really looks like you believe Jeff is a slippery character who regularly uses words to deceive and who doesn’t believe in intentionalism in the least.

Not my reading of the situation, sorry. And not out of some distorting “loyalty,” either, but out of an understanding that imprecise memory and differing interpretation of what happened don’t constitute deceit, and that saying “I’ve seen this all before” doesn’t constitute not believing in intentionalism.

Reply

guinsPen December 12, 2009 at 9:26 am

Nobody mocked me whatsoever…

I was thinking about it, but not for that.

Reply

timb December 14, 2009 at 11:45 am

Bracketing out the guest posts by SEK, nishi, and Jeralyn Merritt, of course, or the blog debates I opened up with the feminist sites.

Goldstein, you trifle of a man. Could you whine anymore about Patterico letting me comment at his site? He and I have disagreements on politics, but he’s a man. He doesn’t ban people “because you make me angry.” I haven’t, for instance, called him a liar, impugned his character, intelligence, or motivations or claimed to be a practitioner of a long-dead litcrit theory on author’s intent” and then spent a week telling the author of words WHAT he meant. Thus, amazingly, by respecting him I retain privileges you do not. Perhaps, you can console yourself on Pablo simpering breast. Him, you’ll always have! WOLVERINES

Pablo and Jeff in happier times
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:BibFortuna_Jabba_Ep6.jpg

Reply

Previous post:

Next post: