Patterico's Pontifications

12/9/2009

Please Do Not Put Words in My Mouth

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 4:59 pm



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 think if people are going to address what I said then they should address what I said. Not some fictional account that somebody made up and tried to put in my mouth.

Yes, I stand by my belief that McCain’s quote was racially prejudiced:

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 am happy to discuss that with anyone. I will not defend myself against accusations that misstate what I said.

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

Some people need to learn to read better.

166 Responses to “Please Do Not Put Words in My Mouth”

  1. If you change the white person to Jewish mother and the black banker to Catholic banker, does the phrase still carry racial prejudice or even just prejudice?

    Makewi (0864f9)

  2. “I said that he said something that is in my opinion racist.”

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

    Patterico – What type of conclusion are you expecting to reach when this exercise is all over? What is the ultimate purpose? Will a final judgement be rendered?

    Just askin’.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  3. “Kum ba yah, my lord, kum ba yah…”

    smitty (c643ea)

  4. I know what you wrote and I know what you meant to say but most people (me included) are going to see “he stole from me” and “he’s a thief” or “Tiger Woods cheated on his wife” and “Tiger Woods is a cheat” as pretty much one and the same thing.

    As people are what they do and they do what they are, you’re making a distinction without much of a difference and shouldn’t be surprised when people make the conclusions they have.

    steve sturm (3811cf)

  5. First rule of holes, all around.

    Kevin Murphy (805c5b)

  6. So now you want your nuance sliced fat?

    SteveG (da0c5a)

  7. I’m gonna back off because I think you are a good man.
    One side of yourself is overdeveloped though, and as a prosecutor is understandable.
    Go to the dark side and let me see how you would disabuse yourself of your opinion… how would you defend McCain?

    My guess is you can’t.
    First thing I’d do is suggest you broaden your definition of “context” outside of phraseology and into setting, topic, personal experience.
    Your definition of context seems stubbornly narrow.

    SteveG (da0c5a)

  8. Oh yeah,

    How about grasping when someone is speaking in the *context* of the second person point of view…

    SteveG (da0c5a)

  9. I don’t have a dog in any of these fights. But, last time I checked, we are about to kick ass and take names in 2010. Is this diviseness productive? Blatant racism (and sexism, IMO) should mean swift deletion from blogrolls, but, overanalyzing singular comments seems tiresome. Just my 2 cents.

    sybilll (8f4a62)

  10. I have seen many people speak well of him and that certainly speaks well of him

    Maybe those people are racists too. I guess it’s a matter of definitions. Everyone is a racist in somebody’s eyes.

    j curtis (5126e4)

  11. This is a waste of space Patterico! You are too smart for this. Saying something is racist is a politically charged act. You may be technically correct but your scale is horribly wrong. It is like everything else in America, something complicated, presented as simple to make political gain. Why do it to your own?

    I would like to ask Mr. McCain if his aversion was skin color or culture? It is a wider discussion that your pronouncement only makes more difficult. I have a dear friend, a black man, married to a white girl. I believe them to be an ideal couple. I don’t think everyone who is uncomfortable with that in their own family is a racist. In America to be caught saying something racist or inferred as racist earns you the label of a racist. You know this.

    Brian in Idaho (01c919)

  12. Steve sturm,

    I am responsible for what I say. If you misread it that is your problem, not mine. I was very clear and it is not a distinction without a difference.

    Patterico (a007a6)

  13. I will say only one comment about all this. I didn’t comment on the threads, however many there were, because I can’t get worked up about semantic arguments. Maybe it’s a lawyer thing.

    Mike K (2cf494)

  14. sybilll,

    That’s a valid point — squabbling can definitely be counterproductive — but these are blog discussions, not Party platforms. In addition, I think we win elections by deciding what we stand for as conservatives and building a consensus. To do that we need to talk about the issues.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  15. Now Patterico’s just standing outside the internet’s window throwing rocks at the glass trying to get the internet to come and show some attention. Who cares if “some people” said you called him racist. Welcome to the internet? This has become a crusade and an inexplicable one at that. How many times are you going to be asked what the point of this RS McCain saga is before you answer? You don’t make almost half a dozen posts about asking some guy if he wrote something or not. The internet has had more than its fill of RS McCain drama. At least I have. I don’t give a damn whether he wrote that, whether he answered your question or not, or anything else about this other than the part where reading this blog is becoming annoying because I checked out McCain’s blog a while ago, didn’t decide it was worth checking more than once a month, and now here we are at RS McCain Soap Opera Time brought to you by Patterico. Judging by the comment numbers it’s fine ratings but it’s just reality TV on the intarweb. Lame.

    chaos (7c068a)

  16. Let’s leave thought crimes out too… what McCain describes is at worst a thought crime.

    I’ve thought about other women; I’ve thought about mayhem.

    Somehow racism is one of those crimes where if you process strong racial feelings, you are guilty.
    God forbid you ever write about people processing racial feelings… and then have the temerity (or balls) to say that this kind of racial thought should not be elevated to the level of racism.

    if a giant racial tree falls in my internal forest am I a racist?
    Or maybe I am just a simple person processing things internally that are difficult in the time, place and culture in which I live?

    By the way, I read someone who found an article where the past practice of segregation of schools is defended as having been safer for blacks…. well, yeah, in that space and in that time and on that budget.
    Prisons are segregated right now for the above reasons.
    Less supervision equals less costs. Racists hang with their own.
    I am certain there are good people out there who wanted to integrate schools or who were amenable to it on a philosophical level who nonetheless refused to integrate on the level of practical concerns— people who are branded as racists even today

    SteveG (da0c5a)

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

    So, he’s a part time racist?

    Dr Carlo Lombardi (02aa30)

  18. I think a person can make a racially prejudiced or racist statement without being a racist. To me, you need to show a pattern to say someone is a racist.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  19. OK, I’m going to wade back in here after I dissed Patterico’s even pursuing the topic.

    I know exactly what Patterico is talking about in this post.

    Someone I know to be reasonable (if of strong opinion) said something and acted based on assumptions that seemed to me to be based on differences among people attributable only to their race. In my mind, that is essence of racism.

    That’s what we are talking about here. Perhaps talking too much, but it is a worthwhile topic.

    People need to be honest about their what they have said and self-reflective enough to understand it can expose assumptions about people based solely upon their race. It is in that self-reflection that we learn. We don’t learn from the cry of “Raaaaacist.” But that cry is clearly not heard here.

    So, Patterico, I retract my comment of the other night, and I didn’t stop reading. And now I think I get it.

    P.S., If I get annoyed with a topic another time, I’ll go away quietly.

    Clavius (b00448)

  20. P.P.S., to clarify my post #19.

    I truly believe the person who made comments clearly attributable to assumptions based on race not to be racist.

    Clavius (b00448)

  21. “I am responsible for what I say. If you misread it that is your problem, not mine. I was very clear and it is not a distinction without a difference.”

    Wait. I thought you were subject to the reader’s interpretation? Color me confused.

    Molon Labe (640aad)

  22. I will not defend myself against accusations that misstate what I said…. If you misread it that is your problem, not mine.

    I did not misread what you wrote, in fact, I said I understood your point.

    Since you apparently missed my point, let me put it another way: when writing to an audience, it is incumbent upon the author to write in a way so the audience is capable of understanding the point the author is trying to make. There isn’t much value in writing something that flies over the head of the audience. If your audience was full of Kerry supporters, I am sure they would have both gotten and appreciated your nuance. But they aren’t, they didn’t and you get upset when people who are incapable of understanding your nuance fail to understand your nuance?

    steve sturm (3811cf)

  23. The reader’s interpretation matters until it’s inconvenient. The circle is complete! Don’t be cute. Patterico’s so much smarter than SEK. He’s not going to write sloppily while there’s an internet pissing contest to win.

    chaos (7c068a)

  24. Wait. I thought you were subject to the reader’s interpretation? Color me confused.

    OK. You’re confused.

    Apparently you never understood what I was saying.

    But you’re the guy who said I accused SEK of race-baiting, correct? That’s what I’m told.

    You got that pretty badly wrong too.

    Patterico (64318f)

  25. Clavius,

    I’m sorry I snapped at you. The person who wrote me to praise you was right.

    However, I followed you until your clarification and then I lost you again. Can you unclarify, or re-clarify, or something?

    Patterico (64318f)

  26. I think a person can make a racially prejudiced or racist statement without being a racist. To me, you need to show a pattern to say someone is a racist.

    So a statement that is racist,i.e., indicating racist thinking, can be made by a non-racist ( as long as he doesn’t ‘repeat ‘n’ rinse ?)

    Dr Carlo Lombardi (02aa30)

  27. I did not misread what you wrote, in fact, I said I understood your point.

    Since you apparently missed my point, let me put it another way: when writing to an audience, it is incumbent upon the author to write in a way so the audience is capable of understanding the point the author is trying to make. There isn’t much value in writing something that flies over the head of the audience. If your audience was full of Kerry supporters, I am sure they would have both gotten and appreciated your nuance. But they aren’t, they didn’t and you get upset when people who are incapable of understanding your nuance fail to understand your nuance?

    If I write that a racist comment does not brand its utterer as a racist for all time, and a reader reads that as me saying the opposite, then the fault lies with the reader who is unable to read plain language.

    If you are that reader, then the fault lies with you.

    Sometimes lack of clarity is responsible for miscommunication. Not here, not on this issue. I was clear.

    If you didn’t understand it, that’s your problem.

    Patterico (64318f)

  28. Patterico, here’s my final take, fwiw.

    You wrote something which a whole lot of people took to mean for something else. You are expending an incredible amount of energy defending what you wrote, and noting that you did not, in fact say what other people are now saying that you did. You are even challenging people to read what you wrote and to distill ONLY that which YOU meant, not what we got out of it.

    Hmm… doesn’t that whole sequence of events sound awfully familiar?

    Will you now be able to top RSM and essentially say, “Yes, I wrote it, I didn’t mean what you got out of it, maybe I should have worded it differently”? Will you, in effect, own your words?

    Okay, you say you own your words. Very good. Now, why the heck are you making a damned huge fuss over it? No, seriously. You said you were satisfied – to a limited extent – with RSM’s response. So why haven’t you dropped it? Why are you pursuing something he wrote *13* years ago? Why are you defending yourself with two and three different postings?

    When there is a substantial minority of people out there who managed to ‘misinterpret’ what you wrote, it is entirely plausible to say that you wrote it in such a way as to generate that uncertainty. I do not hear you saying that Robert Stacy McCain is NOT A RACIST. Hell, I don’t even hear you saying Robert Stacy McCain is NOT PRESUMED TO BE A RACIST. All I hear is “One racist statement does not make someone a racist”, which is true, but the corollary people hear is “… but a whole bunch of them do.”

    You read that 3200+ comment post at Ace’s. You notice that he walked his statement back. Maybe you should consider doing the same. Or at least consider that some people have personal connections that colour what they read in such a way that what they understood from it is not necessarily what you wanted them to get out from it.

    Gregory (f7735e)

  29. “I stand by my belief that McCain’s quote was racially prejudiced…”

    Quotes are not racially prejudiced (nor are they tolerant.) People are racially prejudiced (or tolerant.) That’s why some people somewhat reasonably took your statement to mean that Mr. McCain is a racist.

    You also say: “I’m not saying that one racist/prejudiced quote brands you as a racist for all time.” OK, but that still implies that when McCain said/wrote the statements in question, his mind was configured as that of a racist. So all that remains is to determine how strong or permanent McCain’s racist tendencies are.

    Right or wrong, and accurate or not in its judgment, your post on McCain was damaging. There should be no problem owning up to it.

    Brian (952f3a)

  30. I’m more annoyed at the way Mccain handled the criticism than the comment itself. Implying he was misquoted while attacking Patterico’s professional honor while *lying* about what patterico is saying and doing is a lot worse than exploring race relations and exposing some internal dumbass view about interracial marriage.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  31. Somebody respected on the right needed to call out RSM’s racist (my opinion) comment and his vacillating on whether or not to even admit that he made it.

    Why? Because it’s right to call out bad arguments, regardless of who is making them.

    oneisnotprime (e25cc0)

  32. Good grief. The only person winning here is Chuckle’s Little Green Johnson with his own smear campaign.

    zaugg (2d20d1)

  33. oneisnot, you’re right.

    i feel like sharmuta for agreeing so much with Patterico, but someone needed to do this.

    This is the best time to get this shit out and talk it over. Do you really want RSM to get a big story on Obama that is diminished by that “Have you whipped your slaves today” Usenet post? (comment #90 in the last thread on the topic has a link).

    RSM is a GREAT blogger. He actually goes out to the story and gets some news. It’s tough to be a fan and also condemn someone’s work, but he’s got, at best, severe irresponsibility when it comes to this topic. Now everyone is comparing Patterico to Charles Johnson, when really, the comparison makes clear that there’s a fair and proper way to criticize someone, and there’s a psycho way to overblow your criticism like a maniac.

    Everyone bashing this for the timing, or because it’s friendly fire that will somehow hurt us in the ballot box, or because they don’t think this should even be discuss, you folks are mad a someone for verifying a quote. It’s not that harsh of an attack. The way RSM responded was much harsher. I am no man’s judge, but you do not want this guy to be a leader of the right. RSM keeps blaming others for his career problems. It’s time for personal responsibility. Pajamas Media would still be using him, and I think he’s be very successful, if he didn’t have these several examples of racially jackassed comments. Professional writers who do this have only one place to point the finger when it burns their ass.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  34. Why? Because it’s right to call out bad arguments, regardless of who is making them.

    How many people here agree with oneisnotprime?

    I do. It seems few others do.

    I’m my own person, so whether you like it or not I won’t refrain from calling out bad arguments from any “side.”

    The people who can deal with that, will deal with it. Those who can’t, don’t have to.

    Patterico (64318f)

  35. zaugg, nope.

    Charles is looking even more like a cretin. Look at how professionally Patterico conducted his criticism. He asked us to look at a couple of quotes, with opposite racial problems, and exposed a problematic quote that he then verified belonged to a blogger you like. Patterico let RSM come here and say whatever he wanted, linked RSM’s posts, and even allowed a guest blogger to come here and make a case for RSM.

    Charles just went psycho and tried to link this to Palin and the entire right. Just because LGF makes a point, doesn’t mean it has to be wrong, though. No need to do the opposite of whatever he does. He’s insane, but has been right a couple of famous times.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  36. I agree that calling out bad arguments should not depend on whose side you’re supposed to be on. This has become complicated because RSM made it so. 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.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  37. Dr Carlo Lombardi:

    So a statement that is racist,i.e., indicating racist thinking, can be made by a non-racist ( as long as he doesn’t ‘repeat ‘n’ rinse ?)

    I think we’ve all said something cruel, racist, sexist, etc., at some point in our lives but doing it once or twice in a year, decade or lifetime simply doesn’t make you cruel, racist, sexist, etc., in my book. But doing it repeatedly — as a pattern — is an entirely different matter. Is that the case here?

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  38. But doing it repeatedly — as a pattern — is an entirely different matter. Is that the case here?

    I don’t know.

    Patterico (64318f)

  39. Patterico, have you read the links in comment 90 in your last thread on this?

    “have you whipped your slaves today” and all that? I guess you’re not trying to prove something, since you would have used this ammo on that, but still… this isn’t an isolated incident of racially bizarre comments.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  40. Everyone has patterns… I mean it isn’t like there are no patterns in this mirror.
    deja vu, and all that.

    SteveG (da0c5a)

  41. Patterico,

    Re: #25

    Thanks for the response, I still accept the slap down for being snarky.

    So to clarify, I hope.

    Someone personally close to me articulated a position that was clearly based on assumptions about a group of people based on their race. That action was what I would call racist. This individual is not someone I would call racist, based on many years of seeing their actions and comments in a wide variety of situations.

    That does not make their comment acceptable. I did call them to task and I may yet get them to realize the error of that position.

    It’s not about “Raaaaacism,” it’s about honest self reflection.

    HTH

    Clavius (b00448)

  42. Dustin,

    I am aware there are other allegations out there but I am busy with work and don’t have time to look at them.

    Whatever it is, do we know he said it? I wasn’t totally ready to believe he wrote the quote we’re talking about now until I saw his admission at Founding Bloggers. I had heard his denial to Colmes and wasn’t sure what to believe.

    Whatever we’re talking about here, do we know he said it?

    Patterico (64318f)

  43. Clavius,

    Well said. I get it now.

    Patterico (64318f)

  44. OK, Dustin, I just looked at that stuff. (carlitos posted it.)

    It’s either him or someone pretending to be him.

    Whoever it is, is suggesting as a bumper sticker: “Have you whipped your slaves today?”

    After a comment that reads:

    By the way, are y’all carpetbaggers through with us yet? Might we convince
    you to go pave some other previously-livable community now? Madison,
    Wisc., perhaps?
    Robert Stacy McCain
    Rome GA — Please don’t send Sherman back here!

    What do you figure are the odds that this would be defended as well, if it proved to be his statement?

    Patterico (64318f)

  45. Dustin

    you are an idiot

    the context of the “have you whipped your slaves today” was bumperstickers to annoy Yankees who think all white southerners are pro slavery racists.
    My favorite for offending Yankees was: “I’d rather be wenching in the quarters” but I’m not sure if they’d get it enough to be offended.

    I also liked: Northerners kept their slaves by the hour

    You’ve already expressed revulsion at McCains negative take on Lincoln… Lincoln executed a brutal war and some people of the south whose families were destroyed still resent that. Big deal. Every Lincoln article doesn’t have to be a hagiography.

    McCain has a pattern of speaking, unrepentantly, and provocatively about race. He also wrote back in 1996 about understanding that if he spoke honestly, candidly about race… particularly in defense of the average southern rural white male, that he’d face harsh criticism.
    MCCain also references, with some venom, the so called racist church burnings that turned out to be regular old fires (one was started by black carpenters), so to me his biggest ax to grind is about the honor of small town southerners and if you want to set him off, call them racist names.

    SteveG (da0c5a)

  46. RSM subscribes to racist beliefs and publicly repeats them.

    His actions and beliefs are those of a racist.

    Wail trolls, wail.

    I A T (4fd3eb)

  47. Patterico, that’s what I asked in that thread.

    The whipping comment was associated with “rstacy2229@aol.com”. He was prolific on usenet. There’s very little associated with that address. LGF did a post on it, but as usual, they didn’t really bother verifying anything. I think RSM actually mocked white supremacists on here, and really, it’s not like he’s preaching hate. He isn’t. He just made an additional comment here and there that is cringe-worthy. The author repeatedly signs his comments as “Robert Stacy Mccain”. These were posted 13 years ago, and he notes that he’s in Rome, Georgia. Either someone spent months impersonating RSM 13 years ago, or this is him. Can’t prove it beyond that. Personally, I am satisfied that he signed his full name to many of the comments.

    That said, someone noted I was on a witch hunt, and I do feel like that when I go into this kind of ‘research’. RSM’s a smart guy who doesn’t seem to be hateful so much as ridiculously defensive and slippery when criticized. He said something dumb, as DRJ noted we all have done. Would I have a chance in hell of getting him to admit he wrote “Have you whipped your slaves today?”

    This is a serious and direct charge, and RSM responded to it. He did not deny these comments.

    What’s interesting is that because of the vitriol of Mccain’s attackers then, it wasn’t all that hard for him to point to their style of criticism and ignore the merits of the criticism. It’s harder for him to do that now, obviously, but I think a lot of people simply see him as the victim of jerks, and don’t like him being targeted for ground that was covered already… though never really defended on the merits.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  48. you are an idiot

    SteveG,

    Uncalled for.

    Tone it down.

    Plus, what is so obvious to you is not obvious to everyone.

    Another reason to . . . tone it down.

    Patterico (64318f)

  49. This is a serious and direct charge, and RSM responded to it. He did not deny these comments.

    What do you mean? You link to a martyr e-mail McCain wrote to Barrett Brown. Does it reference the slave-whipping comment?

    Anyway, you’ve just heard what the spin would be. Why, you’re an “idiot” for not already knowing that would be the spin.

    He does have his evasion speech down pat: I’m not a racist, I’m too busy to talk about this, I won’t address the specifics, you’re a jerk, and finally . . . you’re a jerk.

    Patterico (64318f)

  50. Yes, Barret Brown did reference the whipping slaves remark and the usenet posting generally. As well here. Sorry for having left that out. Mccain was replying to these criticisms. He did not affirm or deny that he wrote this stuff.

    In other words, someone, 13 years ago, used Mccain’s unique fully written out name and hometown and authored a lot of things about the civil war. Mccain is criticized for saying them, and does not dispute or admit saying them, but does offer a defense that his employment required him to not defend the comments.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  51. Steve G,

    I actually speculated that your meaning was potentially what was being said, but it’s by no means clear in that thread. It just isn’t.

    And I don’t really mind you disagreeing with me on this. I might be an idiot about this subtle code thing (and I don’t mean that sarcastically). But I have not said a thing about Abraham Lincoln on this blog… or any other… ever. You have me confused with someone else. I proudly mean what I say and will own my mistakes when I make them. That is the real difference between my and RSM, and why you cannot trust Mccain’s blog to tell you the truth free of spin and diversions.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  52. Like Patterico, I say what I mean and I mean what I say. If you misunderstand, the chances are high that it’s your fault and not mine. If you “read between the lines” you’re reading something I definitely did not say because I don’t “write between the lines”. And neither, I believe, does Patterico.

    Of course Patterico is diplomatic and reasoned while I am usually in attack-overdrive mode, so we don’t necessarily square up there. But anyone who regularly reads Patterico and goes off to nuance him into not-him is either an idiot or a liar. Anyone who does not regularly read Patterico but still nuances him into not-him could get a nominal pass of “ignorant” (look it up).

    Patterico owns his words; you own the nuances you make of his words.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  53. This seems to have the taste and flavor of the way “sexual harassment” has gone from being a sustained pattern of behavior which creates a hostile and demeaning work environment, to being defined as making even one slightly, potentially off-color remark which could/might/maybe be misconstrued or interpreted as being seuxally suggestive, and so BOOM, you’re hammered.

    It’s guilty until proven innoncent, and even then you’re probably still guilty, we just couldn’t prove it. This time.

    Racism has slowly been redefined down from white hoods, burning crosses, and separate water fountains, to mean any comment or allusion which could/might/maybe by construed or interpreted an suggestive of a racially motivated “thought”, and BOOM, you’re hammered.

    There is only such thing as a “thought crime” if we are no longer free to think. And when that happens, as a nation, we are freakin’ DONE!

    And it’s an unfortunate trend for the whole “free exchange of ideas in the marketplace” kind of thing.

    Steve B (5eacf6)

  54. “I didn’t attack him as a person.

    I didn’t criticize him as a person or writer. I criticized a thing he said.

    Now I am criticizing his evasive and personalizing tactics.

    I said that he said something that is in my opinion racist.

    I have read on the Internet today that I called Robert Stacy McCain a racist. I did not.

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

    I am responsible for what I say. If you misread it that is your problem, not mine.”

    Patterico – Quite a collection of snippets from your posts and comments on this – any misunderstandings are slearly those of your readers, almost like one of those John Kerry apologies – I apologize if you were too dumb to understand what I said.

    Like I said above, I am wondering how this will all turn out since you haven’t answered. Maybe everyone will have to wait for the movie version.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  55. Daley, you’re wrong on your correlation. If I say 2 + 2 = 4 and you decide that means I said I hate the number 3, then you’re too dumb to understand what I said. But if I say 2 + 2 = 3 and you point out I said that, and that it’s wrong, and I then say that I said something different… claiming you’re too dumb to understand, that’s Kerry and not Patterico.

    Again, your correlation does not fit.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  56. John – I said it was kind of like Kerry and I think it does fit. I disagree.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  57. 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.

    A bit lawerly, don’t you think?

    “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.”

    Hmm. So what is your case for saying that this IS racism?

    Subotai (499809)

  58. Subotai, you didn’t quote the part of about feeling REVULSION. Why is that?

    Oh, and the case for feeling revulsion at a black sister in law, for her blackness, is that it meets the obvious ‘intolerance of a race’ definition. A=A. Just because some think it’s natural or universal or helpful or justified doesn’t change that intolerance of a race is racism.

    what’s your argument that red is a color?

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  59. Subotai, you didn’t quote the part of about feeling REVULSION. Why is that?

    I see you feel revolted by it. All right, put it it. Then answer the question.

    “the case for feeling revulsion at a black sister in law, for her blackness, is that it meets the obvious ‘intolerance of a race’ definition.”

    I don’t know. I don’t know what definiton of “racism” you are working from.

    I do know that a great many (non black) people in America, probably a majority, would not want a black sister-in-law.

    “what’s your argument that red is a color?”

    I asusme that was supposed to be clever, but I’m not in the mood tonight. Sorry.

    Subotai (499809)

  60. I proudly mean what I say and will own my mistakes when I make them. That is the real difference between my and RSM, and why you cannot trust Mccain’s blog to tell you the truth free of spin and diversions.

    Hmm, sounds like a one man Anti-McCain squad. Are you “HnR” or whatever the name is?

    Subotai (499809)

  61. Subotai, no, I have never commented under that particular name. In fact, I have never criticized RSM in any comment, aside from these last few on this specific blog. You have my word.

    You say you don’t know what definition of racism I am working from… I just checked three dictionaries, and you can take your pick. ANY DEFINITION. Intolerance of a race is racism, buckaroo.

    You fisked me, but simply said ‘I don’t have an answer’ after each quote. That’s not the best way to tell me that. Just ignore me. The red metaphor was meant to show you that I think racism is racism, just as red is a color, and stubbornly asking me to explain why racism is racism is kinda ridiculous. Obviously is you are revolted at someone, and the only thing you k now about them is their race, you are racist. This isn’t complicated.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  62. I meant to type: “Obviously if you are revolted at someone, and the only thing you know about them is their race, you are racist.”

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  63. daleyrocks,

    I’m really unsure where you’re coming from because all of the statements you quoted are both true and consistent. I don’t think it’s unfair, or an attack on RSM except insofar as he has evaded and deflected the original question. I would really like to understand your position here.

    Subotai,

    The original post asked if that quote appeared racist. Many people thought that it did. I think the quote as written describes racism and, by denying it, appears to be racist in nature. Taking that feedback and asking for comment by the author does not mean that anyone is calling the author a racist. The case for saying the quote is racist is simple… you quoted it… “in my opinion”. If RSM wants to dispute or change that opinion he has had every opportunity. Instead, he has evaded and deflected, playing the victim.

    I find it interesting that so many people have defended him, with many (often conflicting) explanations of what was “truly meant”. Yet McCain hasn’t even bothered to say if any of them are correct, much less offer his own clear explanation of the content and context of that quote. That would be much easier than repeatedly claiming that he has been unfairly targeted and his livelihood threatened. It smells worse and worse as time goes on. The number of people named McCain that I know of and have any trust of now equals zero.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  64. Just ignore me.

    If I wish to, I will. You have a rather obnoxious personality you know.

    Subotai (499809)

  65. I’m obnoxious? You accuse me of sockpuppetting, and I answer you with candor and politeness. You say I’m in some squad of anti mccain oppressors, and that you have no ability to understand some extremely simple criticisms (so you conveniently can dismiss them). And I’m obnoxious?

    Do you think I want you to like me? You think revulsion at mixed race marriage isn’t racism. You are dumb. Your parents were terrible at their job of giving you moral clarity and values. I am fixing you, not submitting myself for your evaluation. At the very least, you are obviously now aware that you’re wrong. That helps a bit.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  66. “The original post asked if that quote appeared racist.”

    I noticed.

    “Many people thought that it did.”

    I noticed that too.

    “I think the quote as written describes racism and, by denying it, appears to be racist in nature.”

    I don’t understand the second part of that, but in any case, fine, you can think whatever you like.

    “Taking that feedback and asking for comment by the author does not mean that anyone is calling the author a racist.”

    Never said that it did.

    “If RSM wants to dispute or change that opinion he has had every opportunity. Instead, he has evaded and deflected, playing the victim.”

    I’ll take your word for it that this is so.

    “I find it interesting that so many people have defended him”

    I’m not so much defending him as wonderng about the collection of idiots who sem obsessed with the possibility that he may once have said something they don’t like. Don’t you people have lives?

    “Yet McCain hasn’t even bothered to say if any of them are correct, much less offer his own clear explanation of the content and context of that quote.”

    I’ll take your word for that also.

    “The number of people named McCain that I know of and have any trust of now equals zero.”

    Oh, dear. or Hooray, whichever you like. Why is this of any interest to anyone?

    Subotai (499809)

  67. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really even mean that gloating with super great confidence. I just know, as a mixed race person (as you know for reading these threads), that you can’t really ignore me any more than I can ignore physical illness. I truly wish you could.

    You fisked Stashiu, but you didn’t actually dispute anything he said. You quote him, and say “uh huh… that’s what you say!” And you’re calling people obnoxious?

    You ask why it’s of any interest to anyone: but you came here because Mccain is complaining that his credibility as a journalist is being damaged. You know damn well who it’s of interest to. RSM can blame Patterico for this, or RSM can accept personal responsibility for his own words, and either manage to explain them or accept that he’s lost his credibility. That’s how it works. He is right to care as much as he does about this, but now people don’t even trust him.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  68. You accuse me of sockpuppetting

    Excuse me?

    Oh! The DnR thing. No, that’s not sockpuppeting. It’s sockpuppeting if you post under several names on one site. I wondered if you were somebody I’d seen on anotther site. Many people, including me, use different names at different sites.

    “Do you think I want you to like me?”

    I’m not really pushed about it one way or another, to be honest.

    “Your parents were terrible at their job of giving you moral clarity and values. I am fixing you, not submitting myself for your evaluation.”

    I’m glad you assured me that you are NOT obnoxious, because otherwise, I admit, I’m be inclinded to think you are a smug, self righteous prissy little twerp. But luckly, you already “fixed” me on that score.

    Enjoy your miserable life, whatever it is you do.

    Subotai (499809)

  69. ““I think the quote as written describes racism and, by denying it, appears to be racist in nature.”

    I don’t understand the second part of that, but in any case, fine, you can think whatever you like.”

    Racism is BAD. When you say something lacks a bad trait that it obviously has, you are helping that something. Obama is not really a heavy deficit spender. War is not a cause of suffering. Coke won’t make you fat. Guns don’t kill people. etc etc etc.

    OK, your shtick is to be deliberately dense. Unlike you, I actually can ignore people.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  70. Subotai,

    You asked what the case was for saying it was racist. I answered as completely as I could because you put it in terms of making a case. I wasn’t attacking you or accusing you of anything, just answering your question. I didn’t claim you were defending him, but if I gave that impression I was wrong and apologize.

    Is there any particular reason you felt the need to fisk each line and finish off with a rather hostile remark? You’ve been around for quite a while and always seemed reasonable. I don’t recall us having any problems in the past, so I’ll just leave it at that and wish you goodnight.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  71. All you know about me is that I’m up late. You think I’m miserable, a sissy, etc etc etc.

    I really am. I am so miserable, and I am very ugly, smelly, and sad. All the time. People laugh at me, when they aren’t shrieking.

    Does that help your argument a whole lot? Since your argument is ‘I don’t like you’, I suppose it does.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  72. I just know, as a mixed race person (as you know for reading these threads), that you can’t really ignore me any more than I can ignore physical illness

    Maybe it’s because I lack your colossal intellect, but I’m not seeing what my ignoring you or not has to do with your race.

    “You fisked Stashiu, but you didn’t actually dispute anything he said.”

    i did not fisk him. I merely quoted him and responded to what he said. I hope that’s alright with you, Your Highness.

    “you came here because Mccain is complaining that his credibility as a journalist is being damaged.”

    Your mind-reading skills are on the blink. I’m sure they are normally highly impressive. I came here because I was bored and wondered “What’s going on at Patterico’s place?” Not a great deal from what I can see. If you had not started flaming me I’d have gone by now.

    “You know damn well who it’s of interest to.”

    Dustin, it seems to be of exceptional and remarkable interest to YOU.

    Feel free to mastrubate to your hearts content over this “story’. I’m done with you.

    Subotai (a3de3d)

  73. I don’t understand the second part of that, but in any case, fine, you can think whatever you like.
    Comment by Subotai — 12/10/2009 @ 1:03 am

    Sorry, that was much clearer in my head I guess. What I mean by that is the first part describes a racist attitude, then there is the all-caps “THIS IS NOT RACISM”, which denies it. That denial means (obviously) that the author does not believe the first part is a racist attitude. I disagree and would contend that the denial makes that racist statement directly attributable to the author.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  74. “Is there any particular reason you felt the need to fisk each line and finish off with a rather hostile remark?”

    No hostility was intended. I can be pretty laconic at times, sometimes people take this as hostile. Plus, I was already in a spat with Dustin here. No offence meant.

    And I think I use “fisking” a bit differently than you guys. I accepted just about every comment you made, after all. Not much of a fisking.

    Night.

    Subotai (a3de3d)

  75. No worries and no offense taken. Anyone who disliked both Hax and Oiram is someone I’ll talk with anytime. 😉

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  76. Dustin and Stashiu: Let’s break up the statements, shall we? We know that sentences break flow of thought. I can have five or ten sentences one after another, each of which may have nothing to do with the previous one, and each perfectly true. Granted, generally speaking most people want to make points when they write, so each sentence usually does have continuity with the preceding and the succeeding sentences.

    The quote reads, firstly,

    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.

    This is a paraphrase, or indeed it could even be a direct quote, from Steffgen. Having not read that bit of writing in question, I don’t know which. But it is by itself a statement of fact. Whether it is true or false, that is all there is to be said about it. But Dustin, apparently you’re not really interested in debating it, but construct strawmen instead. Yeah, like RSM is revolted at his in-laws, or at the thought of a mongrel human. I mean, jeez, misread much, buddy? It’s not RSM saying it, but supposing it were, he’s saying something very specific… namely, that that people are naturally revolted at the interracial images being forced on them by the media.

    Well, you know what? I’m naturally revolted at the images of President BHOmbastic as Messiah being forced on me by the media, as well as the pictures and videos of all kinds of people singing paeans to him. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you’re ramming it down my throat instead of letting me associate with it freely, eh?

    The second bit of the quote reads thusly;

    The white person who does not mind transacting business with a black bank clerk may yet be averse to accepting the clerk as his sister-in-law, and THIS IS NOT RACISM, no matter what Madison Avenue, Hollywood and Washington tell us.

    Again, this is a statement of fact, and again, its truth value can be debated.

    Let’s assume that you disagree with RSM in both cases. Why should either of these statements be racist in the least? Does RSM say “I am not racist if I feel revulsion…” or “I am not racist if I am averse…”? No, and so you have no call saying that the statement itself is a racist one. It’s not.

    Let’s say I make a statement to the effect that in marriage, the spouses’ bodies belong to each other, and hence marital rape cannot happen. Regardless of whether you find that statement true or not, saying and holding that opinion neither makes me a marital rapist nor [gasp!] does it mean I condone violence in the marital relationship.

    Gregory (f7735e)

  77. Gregory,

    I don’t know if I disagree with RSM in either case because AFAIK he hasn’t advanced your argument. Would I agree with your comment if you had made the statement? Possibly, but I’d probably want to discuss it further. We might end up agreeing on some of it and agreeing to disagree on the remainder. You weren’t the one who made the statement though and I would need RSM to make that argument for himself. I believe it is a racist statement, which is my call because it’s my opinion. I’m willing to be convinced otherwise once I hear RSM’s explanation, and I don’t think a single statement 13-14 years ago makes someone a racist anyway.

    Multiple, often conflicting explanations from others are not going to convince me though. If RSM advances your argument as his own, that’s another story. Now, why should he care enough to bother trying to convince me? Because I don’t think I’m think I’m the only one who thinks like this. The standard that would convince me will probably convince most of them as well. So far, he hasn’t done it.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  78. Stashiu3: Okay, and so what argument did you think he advanced when he wrote the stuff from which these quotes were excerpted?

    Because from a plain reading of what he was saying, that’s exactly the argument he advanced. Or rather, my argument is precisely that he meant specifically what he wrote.

    And given that he’s probably been given grief for it over 13 years, I don’t blame him one bit for being tetchy over the whole affair. It seemed pretty damned obvious to me, at any rate.

    It would be as if until 2020, Patterico was given grief by all the right-wong blogs on a monthly basis claiming he was miffed at RSM because of a little tiff he and Jeff G had and RSM stepped into it.

    I’d bet Patterico won’t want to discuss it after that length of time either.

    You know, about 8 years ago I applied for a passport. Imagine my surprise when the passport identified me as a woman. And I had to carry it around for 5 years.

    I tell you, if I had been given grief over this at Immigration, you bet I’d be mouthing off whenever the subject of incompetent government came up. And about everything under the sun *except* the fact that I was identified as a woman. Primarily because I’d die of apoplexy if I thought about it too much.

    Gregory (f7735e)

  79. Who gets to define what racism is?

    steve miller (882687)

  80. Okay, and so what argument did you think he advanced when he wrote the stuff from which these quotes were excerpted?
    Comment by Gregory — 12/10/2009 @ 3:04 am

    I get it, you’re convinced. I respect that. I don’t read it the same way and would like more information from the source. Without it, I’ll remain skeptical. I’m not ranting and raving. I’m not calling him a racist. I’m not saying he’s a bad person or a liar. I’m saying I don’t trust someone who spends far more time evading and deflecting than he would making a clear statement like you did.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  81. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

    FrankM (2352be)

  82. One thing is for sure…folks sure do like to talk about racism.

    Dave Surls (3139ad)

  83. I went and read through McCain’s blog for the first time, ever. He is fact challenged. I left a comment. I wonder if it will pass moderation.

    nk (df76d4)

  84. I have read on the Internet today that I called Robert Stacy McCain a racist. I did not

    Then what was the purpose of this whole exercise?

    Lazarus Long (a4f63e)

  85. I’m saying I don’t trust someone who spends far more time evading and deflecting than he would making a clear statement like you did.

    Stashiu3,

    First, great posts both on this thread and in your previous postings on Patterico. I’m hugely appreciative of both your service in the military and your efforts to clear the air in regards to the events in GTMO. As a fellow JTF-160/170/GTMO veteran, I’ve often pointed those curious about my time there, and the accusations made, to your posts on the subject. Especially when the individuals conducting the inquiry are overtly hostile to the detention mission. In that context, would you refuse to trust me because I don’t feel bothered to describe my experiences in an attempt to convince a skeptical malcontent of the professionalism displayed for the entirety of the time I spent there?

    It’s a rough parallel to be drawn here, I know, but I believe that Patterico approached this topic in an ungainly (and maybe even ugly) way. I’d have much more sympathy for Patterico’s position if he began this dialog with an open and honest post questioning Mr. McCain’s position on the subject of race in light of his posts on the topic. As it is (and as I’ve previously stated) I can’t blame Mr. McCain for being wary of an open discussion when by all appearances Patterico had his opinion set in stone prior to the first post.

    I absolutely agree that Mr. McCain is in part responsible for the crossfire. A single, clear post on the topic would most likely end further speculation– although no doubt those with an ax to grind would undoubtedly dissect the post to the smallest of detail in an effort to discredit him.

    RWL (4400c6)

  86. I went and read through McCain’s blog for the first time, ever. He is fact challenged. I left a comment. I wonder if it will pass moderation.

    Mine didn’t. DRJ’s didn’t. PatHMV’s didn’t.

    I doubt yours will, nk. Did you save it? If not, everyone will assume you were rude and cursed etc. and that’s why it was not approved.

    Patterico (64318f)

  87. I would like to ask Mr. McCain if his aversion was skin color or culture?

    Race is far more than skin color. That’s why forensic anthropologists can tell if a set of bones belonged to someone whose ancestors came from sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, or are indigenous to the Americas. Race is also evident at the molecular level.

    a concerned conservative (4ace62)

  88. If you change the white person to Jewish mother and the black banker to Catholic banker, does the phrase still carry racial prejudice or even just prejudice?

    Did you guys know that Elliot Abrams — Iran contra figure and neocon warmonger (i.e. no doubt a great hero here) strongly opposes Jewish intermarriage , even in the case where the gentile converts. Given that 99.9999% of the worlds Jews are white, that is a de facto racial position, is it not?

    a concerned conservative (4ace62)

  89. Comment by a concerned conservative

    You’re an anti-Semite and full of shit. That you’re probably a racist as well wouldn’t surpise me.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  90. I’m trying to find any common sense in these multiple postings on a subject to which Patterico admits “I just don’t know”. I think everyone here realizes you just don’t know. What we wonder about is why this has turned into a crusade approaching more worthy targets like the cultural bias of the LATimes or the mental state of Sully, where you’ve never had to utter the IJDK qualifier.

    Datatech guy (or whatever his name was) posted the best response of all and yet everyone ignores it as Capt Ahab continues to search for the whale.

    Remember these threads in 2010 when the conservative juggernaut hits the rocks.

    harkin (f92f52)

  91. Ah, such classic commentary by CC. I particularly enjoyed the breezy explication of “forensic anthropologists.”

    Um. Not so much.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennewick_Man

    And let’s face it: the Nazis had some boss cool divisions among human beings based on skull shape, and so forth.

    I would be very, very careful about such certitude.

    But I am guessing that CC has a bit of an agenda.

    Eric Blair (91356a)

  92. Now Patrick is complaining about his comments not getting published at McCain’s site. This is the same guy who banned Jeff Goldstein based on BS “death threat” charges, and now he’s complaining about another blogger not publishing his comments. Give me a break.

    Paul Zummo (31b9a8)

  93. Patterico

    Let me defend in a limited sort of way those who said you called RSM a racist.

    Let’s take the offending quote to start with. He talks about a racist attitude and then turns around and declares it is not racism. And you and I both say, “you may not call it racism, but by our definition, that is racist.”

    Now here you are saying, RSM said something racist, but I am agnostic about whether he is a racist. Reasonable minds can disagree on that. I would say he probably is a racist. He certainly was one back when he wrote the original comment. And while I recognize the possibility of personal growth, he hasn’t availed himself of that defense. So I presume he believes now what he believed then, and thus is a racist.

    So basically we have a set of facts that to me says that RSM is probably a racist. So if anyone asked me what that post was about I would say, “pretty much patterico is saying RSM is a racist.” I would frankly be making the mistake of attributing my conclusion to you.

    And of course part of the problem is people are not in agreement on a number of points, such as what counts as racism, and what the burden of proof should be.

    So I am not sure who all said you called him a racist, but you might consider that as an alternate explanation for why it happened. I mean as I said above, I could easily picture myself making that mistake.

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  94. “I am happy to discuss that with anyone. I will not defend myself against accusations that misstate what I said.”

    Patterico, Now we see the irony inherent in this system!

    SarahW (692fc6)

  95. Gregory – Great posts!

    harkin (f92f52)

  96. No, Patterico, I did not save my comment. It was polite, strightforward, and factual, and carefully written to leave no room for misunderstanding — I avoided pronouns where nouns would do, and adverbs and adjectives altogether.

    nk (df76d4)

  97. And if Mr. McCain wants to rumble, I was in a gang, when I was a teenager, that was not the Jets or the Sharks or any other bunch of dancing sissyboys. (But that’s not what I said there.)

    nk (df76d4)

  98. […] I think the only dog he has in this hunt is to satisfy his answer. In my reading of his posts he has not called Robert Stacy a Racist (and I disagree with his take on the statement in context) or anything […]

    My (hopefully) last post on the McCain Patterico business « DaTechguy's Blog (725c82)

  99. We did have our hair cut like Elvis’s, though. 😉

    nk (df76d4)

  100. nk

    were they as tough as the gang in Michael Jackson’s video for “Beat it?”

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  101. #

    If you change the white person to Jewish mother and the black banker to Catholic banker, does the phrase still carry racial prejudice or even just prejudice?

    Did you guys know that Elliot Abrams — Iran contra figure and neocon warmonger (i.e. no doubt a great hero here) strongly opposes Jewish intermarriage , even in the case where the gentile converts. Given that 99.9999% of the worlds Jews are white, that is a de facto racial position, is it not?

    Comment by a concerned conservative — 12/10/2009 @ 7:04 am

    Actually, this is not quite correct.

    First, it depends on what is meant by “conversion”. If (as in many modern, “liberal” situations in the United States), the “conversion” is solely for the purpose of marriage and not for belief, then it is really an invalid conversion and is treated (by religious Jews) as null and void.

    Second, any person who is Jewish according to Jewish law, whether by birth or by conversion is completely Jewish and is treated as such.

    Third, the definition of a Jew in Jewish law is the first example of a completely recursive definition as based in modern computer programming.

    a. A person is Jewish if his (or her) mother is Jewish according to this definition (this is the recursive part).
    b. A person is Jewish if he (or she) converted according to Jewish law.

    All Jews are regarded as descended from a convert at some time in history, with the first conversion being the acceptance by the Children of Israel of the Revelation at Mount Sinai. Before that, they were a tribal family. After that, they were a nation with a common religion.

    Fourth You appear to be thinking about the Jews whose ancestry is from Eastern Europe. There are significant number of Jews from other areas in the world which may or may not make a difference in race, but are not treated any differently. Differences among Jews are treated based on religious affiliation (by religious Jews). I do admit that there are Jews whose “religion” is political liberalism, but that is a totally different matter.

    Finally, an intermarriage between people of different religions would be invalid according to both religions because both of the people would be swearing a false oath. For example, in Judaism, the groom declares (and the bride accepts)

    “You are sanctified to me according to the laws of Moses and Israel”.

    Such a declaration cannot be made by a nonJewish groom, nor can it be accepted by a nonJewish bride because the laws being invoked forbid it.

    I hope that this explains why changing race to religion in the original statement removes it from the area of racism.

    Sabba Hillel (153338)

  102. 98.nk

    were they as tough as the gang in Michael Jackson’s video for “Beat it?”

    Comment by A.W. — 12/10/2009 @ 9:10 am

    No. Everybody knows that black guys are tougher than white guys if only because their bones are denser. (McCain actually defended an asshole who said that, BTW, I can’t remember his name but he said black people do not make good swimmers because their bones are too dense for buoyancy.)

    nk (df76d4)

  103. Stashiu3: Roger that.

    Now, here’s a question. I’ve sen a shitload of negative statements here. RSM’s second statement (X is not racism) is the mildest of the lot.

    I get that this is a lawblog, and Patterico, you’re a DA, so yeah, you probably write like you speak, fair enough. And no doubt a fair number of your audience and commenters are the same. I’m not, but I’m weird that way.

    Cool, but can anybody make a single concrete stand anywhere? I mean, what is the purpose? Is it whether RSM said it, is that it? Why is that so important? What exactly was the positive stance you wanted to take here? (I use positive to denote the opposite of negative in the sense “I don’t mean X; I’m not saying Y and I’m not saying not Y either) Because all the double and triple negations are giving me a headache.

    About the closest I could distill from the whole discussion was along the lines of “I think RSM, if he said this, made a couple of ‘racist’ statements way back when. I want to hear from him whether he did say it, or otherwise. I think he’s weaseling around the issue and I want to pin him down on it, and I will not rest until I do.”

    You know, Ace did a couple of posts on something similar. You notice what happened to his blog? Lucky for him, Pixy has a dedicated host all for AoSHQ, otherwise there would have been a meltdown. I won’t want to see his bandwidth bill for this month.

    All that just goes to show that racial issues is still a minefield in the US, and you just stepped on one. Me, I live in a country that is full of racists, every single one of us. Even our political parties are 100% racially segregated. It’s so much easier to deal that way, because we all know where we stand.

    I’m off to bed.

    [note: found in moderation filter. It’s touchy about the word “shit” even when followed by “load”. –Stashiu]

    Gregory (d715b2)

  104. “Patterico, Now we see the irony inherent in this system!

    Comment by SarahW”

    While that gets a chuckle out of me, I bet Patterico would answer someone if they asked him, point blank in clear terms, if he was quoted correctly.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  105. My mistake, McCain defended a separatist, Kalas, not Campanis, a racist. Those Greek names all sound the same to me. (And the idiot mud people don’t realize that they are third in line for the oven?) (Although … are the Irish Aryans?)

    nk (df76d4)

  106. My comment was published:

    nk said…
    Patterico’s March attack on Goldstein? You mean Goldstein’s March attack on Patterico, don’t you? Patterico did not attack Jeff for Jeff’s take of Rush’s comments. Jeff went on an all out attack against Patterico for Patterico’s take of Rush’s comments and it looked like Jeff would not stop until he had driven the deviator-from-the party-line from the blogosphere. It did not work out that way, though.

    nk (df76d4)

  107. This entire series of threads is just more proof that an open discussion about racism will never be allowed in this country.

    Now for the news; Promotion day arrives…

    TC (0b9ca4)

  108. Not if it’s left up to McCain and his kapo, for certain, TC.

    nk (df76d4)

  109. A few people got their feelings hurt, one called me a sissy, and one called me an idiot, and all that sort of thing, but I think we had a fairly robust discussion of racism. What is racism, what causes racism, if we can cope with inner feelings and tolerate an occasional lapse of judgment.

    TC, Eric Holder’s right that most folks lack the courage to have this discussion, but so what? It was a great diversion on a slow news week.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  110. Some diversion. It was a witch hunt in which a mob decided a quote was racist and the utterer should be examined for further signs of racism and forced to defend himself and/or face excommunication by the new arbiters of what is right and proper.

    All hail the new priests!

    BTW – Here is a pretty good list of the definitions of racism, and only one even mentions the word intolerance, and then only to say that a racist is based on racial intolerance. The rest lay out the definitions which I gave you before and you politely ignored.

    Makewi (0864f9)

  111. As a fellow JTF-160/170/GTMO veteran, I’ve often pointed those curious about my time there, and the accusations made, to your posts on the subject. Especially when the individuals conducting the inquiry are overtly hostile to the detention mission. In that context, would you refuse to trust me because I don’t feel bothered to describe my experiences in an attempt to convince a skeptical malcontent of the professionalism displayed for the entirety of the time I spent there?
    Comment by RWL — 12/10/2009 @ 5:46 am

    Firstly, thanks and thank you for your service. 🙂

    I would suggest the context is different and I’ll try to explain why. If you had already described your experiences and were met with a request to clarify part of it, repeated refusals to answer (even if it’s an “I’m done talking about this for now”) would make me wonder. I’ve had to do that occasionally here with not just skeptical, but overtly hostile questioners. If you were to spend the time and energy necessary to repeatedly write about the questioner, their motives, and how you were being attacked, without ever addressing the original question I would have similar troubles. Just ignoring it completely would have been better.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  112. RSM has a response to this kerfuffle. I respectfully ask Mr. Patterico to read it.

    http://rsmccain.blogspot.com/2009/12/lets-parse-that-sentence-again-dan.html

    zaugg (6b8b3b)

  113. Makewim, as far as this being a witchhunt, that’s up to anyone.

    I have no idea what kind of definition of racism wouldn’t consider racial prejudice or racism intolerance or racial discrimination to be racism. All of these are quite obviously covered by someone who thinks someone is not a good, even a revolting sister in law, in virtue of her race, prejudging her on that factor, discriminating against her on that factor, and not having the tolerance for her they would have if she shared the bigot’s race.

    It’s a pathetic thing, in my view, to attempt to switch a word for another word and then explain ‘AHA!’ it’s not racism. No matter how strictly or deliberately obtuse you attempt to define this racism word, it is clearly racist to prefer one race over another.

    I’m sorry, but there’s just nothing to your argument that it’s not racist to prefer one race for a sister in law over another race. All caveats about how racism might be natural, or someone can be forgiven for an occasional lapse aside, what in the world led you to believe that seeing races different isn’t racist?

    I have not ignored your view on this. I have in fact responded to it at least ten times.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  114. jacked up your name on accident, Makewi

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  115. NYT Holiday Gift Guide For People Of Color

    The gifts just keep pouring in! 🙂

    TC (0b9ca4)

  116. Comment by zaugg — 12/10/2009 @ 12:08 pm

    Thank you zaugg. I would recommend that link to anyone following this.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  117. I guess, since I’m dealing with pedantic arguments, that I need to note that racial discrimination includes racial prejudice, which includes racial intolerance. Tasty includes delicious, smart includes brilliant and genius, and prejudice includes revulsion at someone you know nothing relevant about.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  118. Makewi

    > Here is a pretty good list of the definitions of racism,

    I would say that to the extent any of those definitions do not include as racism “judging a person by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character,” they are wrong. And even if we agree to disagree on the definition of racism, the fact is what i just described is STILL MORALLY WRONG. even if it is not racism, it is wrong. and the only defense is “I can’t help it.” But then don’t excuse it, either.

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  119. @ Eric Blair

    Uh, the Kennewick man proves my point — the reason the Indians/Native Americans wanted him buried is that the structure of his bones says to anthropologists “this guy is from a whole other people”. Which means that there were other waves of migration into the Americas before the people we call ‘Indians’ came. Which kinda shoots down their claim to fame, or attenuates it a bit, at least.

    Here is a person of subsaharan African origin who is also an albino — the skin color is lighter than mine, but

    @EW1(SG)

    Saying I am ‘full of shit’ implies that I am lying. Well here is the link to Elliott Abrams ‘dissing’ intermarriage for Jews

    And okay, maybe no 99.9999% of Jews are white, only 99.9% are, the point still holds.

    Here is another interesting article “Orthodox Paradox” by Noah Feldman. His Yeshiva School actually airbrushed his Korean girlfriend out of a reunion photo! He called a friend (classmate) about it — she was completely okay with it (the airbrushing). He sent them a notice when the two had a child — after they were wed — and they refused to print it in the alumni news.

    I’m a philosemite. If opposition to intermarriage (without getting the law involved) is good enough for the Jews, it is good enough for me. Like them, I do indeed have an agenda — seeing my people survive in recognizable form.

    a concerned conservative (731f61)

  120. I would say that to the extent any of those definitions do not include as racism “judging a person by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character,” they are wrong

    I’m not sure how to help you with that one AW. Considering that those are all actual working definitions of the word, and seeing as in order to have a hope in hell of actual communication we need such things as shared common definitions of words, I am forced to take your comment as a sign that you have elevated yourself above the rest of the common masses and determined that YOU shall be the arbiter of what words mean.

    Good luck with that.

    Makewi (0864f9)

  121. @101 — Abrams doesn’t want to hear from conversion.

    And yes I know Jews are in different parts of the world, and except for the Falashas — and maybe some other small and obscure groups out there, they are white all around the world. Iranian Jews look white to me, north African Jews look white to me.

    BTW the Falasha apparently have faced discrimination in Israel — and the country has said ‘No more!”

    a concerned conservative (731f61)

  122. Patrick, I admire the way you’ve approached this.

    Tim McGarry (d9d44b)

  123. ..includes revulsion at someone you know nothing relevant about.

    So long as you remain the decider of what is relevant to everyone else, then this works just fine for you. Once you let other people start making their own decisions it gets a little trickier.

    For me, no natural revulsion would occur because my simple desire would be for my offspring to merely be happy and content in their choices of mate. For others, OTOH, they may see Tigers choosing of strictly white girlfriends as a devaluation of those of a darker hue, take it as a personal snub, and speak on it. For right or wrong, are they not entitled to their feelings on that, or their preferences that he might choose someone who looks more like them?

    Makewi (0864f9)

  124. Makewi

    > you have elevated yourself above the rest of the common masses and determined that YOU shall be the arbiter of what words mean.

    On the contrary, you are the one who keeps citing to various authorities. I mean my god you actually cited an unsourced Princeton definition of discrimination. Yeah, because you know, when I think about the egalitarian ideal, I think of the ivy league. /sarcasm

    Not to beat up on Princeton too much. I mean some of my best friends went there, but let’s acknowledge that it is not a font of commonality.

    By comparison, what I am talking about is how most common people in my experience see it. What you would say is that Martin Luther King’s dream is wrong somehow, that his hope of colorblindness is wrong. But I would guess at least 90% of the people say that MLK is right and you and your elite sources are wrong, if they excuse that kind of behavior. I would guess if you asked 10 people on the street they would all say that my definition is correct.

    But like I said, we can agree to disagree about words. But not on morality. It is immoral to judge a person solely by race.

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  125. AW

    I cited more than just Princeton, and once again by stating that in “my experience” you are refusing the definitions of words as coded by our society in favor of a what yours is. A bit convenient, if you ask me.

    Why not just say racism is whatever the hell I want it to be, and to back up my claim I will pretend that 90% of the population agrees with me. Oh wait, that is what you are saying. My bad.

    I get it, you think it’s racist. You aren’t likely to change your mind.

    Makewi (0864f9)

  126. The conversation around my question of substituting the Jewish mother, while interesting, I feel is going a bit past the point. That point being that personal preference, even if raised to the level of revulsion, should not assumed to be racist.

    Makewi (0864f9)

  127. What you would say is that Martin Luther King’s dream is wrong somehow, that his hope of colorblindness is wrong.

    King had no dream of colorblindness, his one famous line to the contrary.

    For instance, these are his words.

    “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”

    I’m not going to argue whether he was right or wrong to so argue, just that he was never as into this colorblind business as much as people like to think.

    “It is immoral to judge a person solely by race.”

    Then the world is populated by immoral people. Not news to anyone, I hope.

    Subotai (4a65f3)

  128. it is clearly racist to prefer one race over another.

    There’s the problem. There are a million different definitions of racism out there. Some are very narrowly defined. Some sweep in 99% of the human race, like Dustins characteristically lame effort. And people don’t agree on which is the “real” one.

    Subotai (4a65f3)

  129. There is racist* sitting in the Oval office, and this is the sort of thing which preoccupies people?

    *Racist by some definitions. He associated with and gave money to another person normally described as racist.

    Subotai (4a65f3)

  130. In Dreams From My Father Obama cites Malcom X claiming that he’d like to get rid of all his “white blood” if he could. And Obama says they he is often sympathetic to that sentiment.

    Compare and contrast to the McCain comment.

    Subotai (4a65f3)

  131. Subotai

    Oh give me a break. A little affirmative action is actually quite fair if done right. The problem is execution.

    For instance, take the extreme example of the end of slavery. The result was, “okay you are free. You got nothing. now succeed.” Thad Stevens, who was the father of the 14th A had a better plan. He suggested instead that the plantation be divided up and each former slave be given 40 acres and a homestead. Is that in some sense a race-based action. Sure, I guess. But its also fair. Because of the oppression they endured they had nothing. surely it would be right to take from those who directly oppressed them and make those people give them something, not even to make up for what they did to them, but just to give them SOMETHING to start with.

    And way back in 1960, it wasn’t much different. You had black people getting substandard educations, and constantly being deprived of opportunity. A little affirmative action is justified.

    Or take my life. Most colleges hold it against you when you drop out. But when I applied to college, I explained that the reason why I dropped out was due to the disability based discrimination I felt. They apparently agreed with me. Is that affirmative action in some sense of the word? Did I get a break that a non-handicapped person might not have? Yes to both. But was that unfair? No.

    In my mind there are two things that mark the difference between good affirmative action and bad affirmative action. The first is that it should be confined to opportunities and not outcomes. The second is that it must be about correcting the injustice that the person receiving it faced, not something his great grand daddy faced. For instance, it would be hard to imagine any argument for giving the Obama daughters affirmative action.

    > And people don’t agree on which is the “real” one.

    Fine, then rather than quibbling over a world, lets talk morality. Do you agree that the behavior we are talking about is immoral?

    A.W. (e7d72e)

  132. The link at post 112 says it all.

    RSM has explained himself once again and those who still can’t admit this not only much ado about nothing but the aiding and abetting of a smear should check themselves.

    How many people even know that the 1996 statement was in refernce to a mixed-race woman who considers herself black citing revulsion of mixed-race couples in the black community? Or that RSM quite clearly explains and justifies his use of “natural revulsion” and “It’s not racism” statements?

    Other clear thinking at

    South Texian

    and

    Little Miss Atilla

    There’s a great line in the post at South Texian that every conservative should consider before starting up a useless and unprovoked flame war:

    “Any outspoken conservative will, at some point, be called a racist.”

    There is evidence of this daily from such brilliant minds as Jeanine Garafalo to Harry Reid.

    Why would we wish to act anything like these tools?

    harkin (f92f52)

  133. Well said, AW. Reverse racism, as AA is called by many (including me) is racism. Might be better than the alternative sometimes, at least theoretically. That’s depends on a lot of factors.

    But it’s racism. Can’t really avoid that it’s judging folks by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character, can we? Is racism the worst thing in the world? No. Therefore, it’s at least possible to justify its use. However, calling it something other than racism is Orwellian (and popular).

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  134. “A little affirmative action is actually quite fair if done right.”

    Not a very conservative thing to say. But not my point in any case. I’m simply pointing out that MLK was not a believer in colorlindness. I even made this point above.

    “I’m not going to argue whether he was right or wrong to so argue, just that he was never as into this colorblind business as much as people like to think.”

    Subotai (1730a6)

  135. “lets talk morality. Do you agree that the behavior we are talking about is immoral?”

    Define morality and what which is immoral.

    It’s a notoriously difficult thing to do. In practice that which is “moral” in a given time and place is simply whatever most people in that time and place believe it to be. It was moral to own slaves in the Roman Empire.

    Subotai (1730a6)

  136. Nobody wants to talk about Obama and racism? I thought you guys were hardcore equal opportunity anti-racists?

    Subotai (1730a6)

  137. Why is everybody afraid of an honest discussion. Everybody knows that southerners are just a bunch of ignorant, redneck, sister screwin’, gap tooth, tobacco chewin’, banjo playin’, moon pie eatin’, Jack Daniels swillin’, racist, NASCAR fans. JD, I’m lookin’ at you.

    If you disagree with me, you’re a racist.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  138. I forgot homophobic, sorry.

    daleyrocks (718861)

  139. Now you’re just parsing words, Pat. What’s next, the meaning of “is”?

    You started a fight you didn’t need to fight. What did you think you were trying to prove?

    You’ve cost yourself respect and credibility. I hope you feel the trip was worth it.

    DaveP. (ccf981)

  140. Horseshit, Dave P. Mr. McCain started the fight with (according to Dafydd) his 19th century phrasing, and 19th century bow to racial prejudices.

    nk (df76d4)

  141. Nobody wants to talk about Obama and racism? I thought you guys were hardcore equal opportunity anti-racists?

    Comment by Subotai

    Oh wow,. Patterico has associated Obama with racism several times, and I even linked a great example, Rev Wright, in this thread. You have nothing but personal attacks. Obama is indeed racist, in my opinion, based on his books. But you don’t care as much about that as you do about changing the subject of this thread. RSM just explained his POV, and it’s a good time to discuss it. I think he acquits himself well, albeit it was like pulling teeth to get here. I disagree with him, but he’s no kleagle and he’s better off if we focus on the topic.

    DaveP is right: credibility has been lost (he’s wrong about from whom). Integrity matters. If someone really has a problem with Obama’s tolerance of intolerance, then that person needs to be consistent about it, and call out examples that exist even when it’s politically inconvenient.

    This whole gang mentality of some bloggers being cooler than others, and republicans who criticize both sides for the same things we get pissed at the left for as “sissy idiots”… that’s pathetic. No one seriously believes that. RSM can take this heat. It’s not the end of the world if he can’t, though. If he can’t withstand this level of scrutiny, then he’s not going to be of any use anyway.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  142. It’s funny hearing someone use terms like credibility and integrity when they would rather throw away the actual definitions of words in favor of their own personal ones. OTOH, it’s super easy to be “correct” that way and you never have to concede a point.

    Makewi (0864f9)

  143. “Mr. McCain started the fight with (according to Dafydd) his 19th century phrasing, and 19th century bow to racial prejudices.”

    nk – 13 years ago on a Listserv? Get serious.

    Now Patterico is just the man to end the fight because rgar’s the fucking way ir is, whether McCain likes it oe not!

    Complete Horseshit!

    daleyrocks (718861)

  144. because that’s the fucking way it is

    daleyrocks (718861)

  145. It’s a pathetic thing, in my view, to attempt to switch a word for another word and then explain ‘AHA!’ it’s not racism. No matter how strictly or deliberately obtuse you attempt to define this racism word, it is clearly racist to prefer one race over another.

    Bullshit, and then more bullshit on top of that. Not only did I not do this, a group or individual that clearly prefers one race over another is not racist. The Congressional Black Caucus – not racist. The NAACP – not racist.

    People may prefer any group to any other group for whatever reason they wish, and the fact of that preference alone is just not proof of racism.

    You so suck at this witch hunting thing.

    Makewi (0864f9)

  146. “You have nothing but personal attacks.”

    Remind me again what it was you said about my parents last night?

    “you don’t care as much about that as you do about changing the subject of this thread.”

    I’m not inclined to allow people like you to tell me what the topic of thread is.

    And be “people like you” I’m referring to the category “obnoxious clowns”, not your precious race which you in your “nonracist” fashion are so hung up about.

    I’m raising a perfectly valid point. What is racism?

    You offered your usual buffoonish definition above: “it is clearly racist to prefer one race over another”.

    Then most people are clearly racist.

    Subotai (568133)

  147. “If someone really has a problem with Obama’s tolerance of intolerance, then that person needs to be consistent about it, and call out examples that exist even when it’s politically inconvenient.”

    Only a moral idiot treats unlike things alike. Obama is the President of the United States. McCain is a b-list blogger.

    And I’m sorry, but I have not seen you or Pat spend this same time and energy on Obama.

    Subotai (568133)

  148. I talk like I’m from the 18th century half the time.
    Cheezit Crackers, Nk; that doesn’t mean I’m for coverture laws or want a hoe-cake for dinner.

    SarahW (692fc6)

  149. SarahW

    Or Yellow Fever.

    RACIST!

    Makewi (0864f9)

  150. Dustin, Stashiu3, Patterico: RSM has now posted a full explanation for his words, as noted above.

    Ahem. Not to blow my own trumpet, but… to blow my own trumpet, did I or did I not say that would be the explanation?

    Stashiu3 at least: Admit I was right; that was his precise argument 🙂

    Gregory (f7735e)

  151. That was his precise argument. You nailed it. 🙂
    I am still reading it (real life interfering a bit), but it is very persuasive so far. It’s not horribly long, but he references material that I’m not familiar with and I’m getting more information on what I don’t understand completely.

    Stashiu3 (44da70)

  152. That “League of the South Great Race Debate” makes creepy, but fascinating, reading.

    It’s reminiscent of an old Onion piece – what was the title – “Liberal Splinter Faction of KKK Proclaims Blacks, Jews May Be Partially Human.”

    Except it’s even weirder than that – even the “more racist” side of that debate is well this side of a Klansman (in that the Klan is, one would have to think, all about doing or at least urging the doing of violent things to people, and, while even the “less racist” side of the debate is definitely *secessionist* (maybe the moderates are envisioning more of a Scotland-style “devolution?) – no one on the thread says word one about violence, unless i missed it?).

    I’ve been arguing with a (staunchly liberal) friend about RSM for months now. I find him fascinating as a test case: he’s near the border of “acceptability,” whichever side he’s on.

    A legal postulate for the crowd: we can distinguish first- and second-degree, or aggravated and non-, racism. Superiority v. separatism. [I assumed this is what he was hinting at in that Alan Colmes interview LGF posted, which Patterico mentioned in the original post.]

    Neither of them make this non-League-of-the-South guy (me) feel very comfortable, but there still is a distinction. (Yes, yes, not if we’re talking *Brown.* Separatism enshrined in law may be inseparable from supremacism. Weak-form separatism as evidenced by both the quotes in your original post – a black woman and a white man saying, basically, that there’s something natural a/o desirable about “sticking with your own kind” – is certainly icky, but it’s apparently (a) very widespread (b) not the province of any one group.

    Outright supremacists are purely radioactive. “Separatism” exists on a broad spectrum, the lesser end of which (third-degree racism?) is the sort of apparently ambient reaction revealed by the Implicit Association Test. To be truly free from racism, “racialism,” race-consciousness, etc., etc., one has to adopt the Stephen Colbert version of “colorblindness” [“People tell me I’m white – I gotta take their word for it.”]

    Knemon (0298d6)

  153. thank you for expressing about the creepy weirdness… that was definitely the takeaway I think.

    happyfeet (2c63dd)

  154. gregory, I agree, he’s posted a much better explanation now. I’m really glad he did, and I hope all RSM’s critics read it and take it seriously.

    Dustin (44f8cb)

  155. “Then most people are clearly racist.”

    Subotai – most people are clearly prideful. Most people are clearly given to wrath. Most people are gluttonous. What’s the point of saying this?

    Most people may be “clearly racist,” but RSM made it a considerable deal *clearer* with that quote.

    Ambient third degree-racism:that quote viewed uncharitably::boy wanting an X-box::Gordon Gekko. No?

    Knemon (0298d6)

  156. Gregory,

    It sounds to me as if R.S. McCain’s explanation is that in 1995-96 when he wrote his emails, he was resisting PC attitudes being pushed on him by a liberal media and/or society. As a result, he responded (at the time) by saying that it isn’t racism to react negatively to being told what to think by the media. Do you agree or did you understand his response to say something different?

    If my understanding is correct, then I’m troubled by his explanation. I could understand wanting to resist media influence trying to get me to vote for Michael Dukakis, or believe in abortion, or buy a particular brand of soap. But the PC attitude McCain claims he was resisting is that the color of someone’s skin doesn’t matter.

    Do I understand it’s hard to reject notions like this if you grew up with them? Absolutely. I’m 55 so I came of age during the 1960s and 1970s. But I don’t accept that resistance to a color-blind society was a normal response as recently as 1995-96. In fact, I find it hard to understand why an adult in the mid-1990s wouldn’t accept that skin color doesn’t matter.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  157. McCain’s response also says some people — including some who comment on conservative blogs — are “unconscious Marxists” who have been:

    “Baptized by immersion in such beliefs (which are nowadays widely promulgated in our educational institutions) these people are incapable of thinking outside the schematic system of categories that has been instilled in their minds.”

    I would describe this more briefly as people who McCain thinks have drunk the PC Kool-aid. I’m curious who he includes in that group and whether that’s his way of denigrating people who disagree with him.

    DRJ (84a0c3)

  158. “Please, Don’t put words in my mouth.” Patterico

    Interesting, Patterico had no such consideration of others in whose mouth’s he put words.

    This from Patterico, who I read daily, and had accepted without worry of being misled. Well, that faith is no more.

    Patterico, who holds the LA Times to task for many inaccuracies, might want to correct himself before perfecting others.

    Patterico states that he has not called Mr. McCain a racist, and he is correct, you WILL NOT find the direct statement “Stacy McCain is a RACIST”, yet as the consumate wordsmith, Patterico leaves no one any doubt where Mr. McCain is on the Racist scale. Also, anyone who does not read the offending quote as “racist” is by extension a racist themselves, IF they DO NOT reach his conclusion.

    So in Patterico’s light, I AM A RACIST! Thank You, Patterico. Of course, over the last 40 odd years I have been called a racist countless times. Was it for any act I had committed? Was it because of any oath I uttered? NO! It was I espoused “Conservative Principles”. For almost 60 years I have been called a racist for 2 things I had NO control over, the pigment of my skin AND the location of my birth.

    As to Patterico’s original post. It would have been convenient if Patterico had noted that the Quote in question comes from August 23, 1996. While that does not particularly change the question, IF you are calling a referendum on Mr. McCain’s racist behavior, one would think that a “Flaming racist” might have provided a suitable quote in the current century. BUT, that doesn’t meet Patterico’s needs to make his case.

    As to context, yes Patterico did, in a separate post finally give the whole post of which the supposedly offending paragraph was a part. What Patterico DID NOT feel was context appropriate to provide, was the offending paragraph was in post #114 (16 paragraphs) of 160 posts in a thread, when copied into Microsoft Word is 234 pages long.

    There is a context, and from the parts of the discussion I read attempting to find the racist quote, it is Patterico and his chorus of “Rascist Hunters”, which proved the thread prescient even though it took place 13 years ago. That is at birth Satcy McCain and I, due to the geography of our birth AND the pigmentation of our skin are RACISTS! Most of this 234 page discussion was a free flowing discussion of race in the South, both current and historic. And yes, there was probably some rationalization. And, God Forbid, Regional Pride.

    If Patterico had actually read through the complete discussion (heck, If he had even just read the complete post #114), he might have noted that Mr. McCain asked another racist question in the final paragraph “One final note: I majored in theatre in college. After reading Steffgen, I conceived of a oneact play dealing with this problem a play I’ll probably never write, of course. But the opening scene is of two high school students, a black male and white female. The black teen asks the white girl for a date. When she refuses, the boy answers: “Oh, so you’re a racist?” If this is the test, then, she can refute the accusation in only one way, correct? And, as you probably know, our modern education system is very laudatory of those who “combat racism.” Think about it.”

    Obviously the rantings of a racist, or maybe it’s life. Change the skin pigment of the character’s, the geography, and rather than a knee jerk call of racism, a rational view might be it’s life, a fact of humanity as much as anything, and is duplicated in a miriad of locales around the world. That neither justifies it or excuses it, yet to Patterico and his chorus it is RACIST!

    Patterico, I nominate you for the “James Rainey Award” for the blogger who most closely mirror’s James Rainey’s search for the truth.

    Regards,

    the Dragon (966ad1)

  159. Interesting, “Dragon,” if that’s who you really are, that I don’t see your screeds on a daily or even weekly basis.

    Let me help you out here. First, you have to actually read what you claim to read. Second, to “put words in someone’s mouth” is to claim someone said that which he did not say. It is not to examine what someone actually did say.

    Of course, since you are either a drive-by who has not actually read anything or a sock-puppet, you will either not read what I write or you will not heed my advice: to read what you claimed to have read.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  160. And, as I said elsewhere, “concerned conservative” is neither concerned nor conservative. And I think we can add on top of that, it is uneducated as well. “Do not be unequally yoked” and “do not marry any who are not Jewish” both refer to spiritual faith and have nothing to do with heritage. And any who claim otherwise is, by definition, ignorant. All it takes is a little research from the source to lose that ignorance.

    But Unconcerned Liberal is philosophically incapable of that.

    John Hitchcock (3fd153)

  161. #157 DRJ:

    I would describe this more briefly as people who McCain thinks have drunk the PC Kool-aid. I’m curious who he includes in that group and whether that’s his way of denigrating people who disagree with him.

    I think your capsule description apt, but no, I don’t think it a way of denigrating people but rather a description of the spectrum of views (even inconsistent ones) that can been encountered even in a relatively PC free zone.

    EW1(SG) (edc268)

  162. Stashiu3: Cool, that’s all I was looking for. 🙂

    DRJ: It doesn’t matter. I’ve been conditioned to discount and get pissed off at *everything* the media says.

    As a result, the very first thought I have about *any* media report is ‘those bloody wankers are lying again’. Even if they actually put on a fair and balanced report. My forebrain may kick in about two seconds later, but right at first? No.

    Is it ‘natural’ as in genetic? No. But it is a natural response from me now. Very much like Pavlov’s experiments with the dogs. Is it ‘natural’ for dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell? No, but it is natural for the dogs who have been conditioned. Or perhaps the better word is internalised.

    Again, it all depends on the usage of the word ‘natural’. But I would argue that it was viscerally at some level for me to be revolted at President BHOmbastic as being portrayed as a Messiah, and so on and so forth.

    Also, DRJ, whether it is right or not, your skin colour may or may not matter, but your ethnic descent *does* matter. All over the world. It’s reality. Ethnic descent matters in my part of the world; it matters in Australia; it matters in the USA. But this is neither here nor there.

    As for who’s drunk the kool-aid and whatnot, alas, I have no comment to make in that direction. McCain may or may not be wrong, he may or may not be overly paranoid. Those are separate issues from the one at hand, which is “are those statements racist?”.

    Gregory (f7735e)

  163. Eep. viscerally *natural*, I meant.

    Gregory (f7735e)

  164. So in Patterico’s light, I AM A RACIST! Thank You, Patterico. Of course, over the last 40 odd years I have been called a racist countless times. Was it for any act I had committed? Was it because of any oath I uttered? NO! It was I espoused “Conservative Principles”. For almost 60 years I have been called a racist for 2 things I had NO control over, the pigment of my skin AND the location of my birth.

    If you think I think any white Southerner is racist then you’re an idiot. I’m a white guy from Texas. I never said any such thing and you’re just making that up. I don’t even believe you read me daily.

    Patterico (64318f)

  165. John Hitchcock said;”159.Interesting, “Dragon,” if that’s who you really are, that I don’t see your screeds on a daily or even weekly basis.”

    I have posted over the last 2/3 years less then 10 times, probably 4 or 5. IF Patterico can search posts by e-mail address, this can be confirmed.

    I generally do not post, generally because I agree with Patterico, or someone else has already posted what I belive and thus there is nothing I can add to the discussion.

    OR, because you disagree, just dismiss the poster…and yes I am well aware that claims made by anonymous posters are rightfully suspect.

    Regards,

    the Dragon (966ad1)

  166. Patterico,

    My e-mail address is attached to this post (as required), you can search (if you have that capability in your software) and will find I have posted here, I’m guessing 4/5 times probably back to 2006.

    You dismiss that I am a daily reader because it is an easy way to dismiss my thoughts, I DO read daily, AND this post is somewhat outside your regular standard. I did not post immediately, quite frankly, because I deemed the post best explained by an alien taking over Patterico’s body.

    I lived in Texas in 1960-1965 (4th grade-7th grade), in Jefferson and Pasadena. While I was aware at that young age of racial tensions in Virginia, I do not remember the white/black dynamic as obvious in Texas, that doesn’t mean much, based my age at the time.

    You protest that I have not accurately read your words. Fair enough, and your words said to me what I have written. I am well aware of how one trained in the use of words can leave implications or inferences while not directly stating/addressing anything specific. Your profession is based in words, I work in the venue of numbers.

    For the record, I did not know that a discrete individual named Stacy McCain existed until 3 months or so ago, even though I have subscribed to the Washington Times for most of it’s existance, the Washington Star before that. I found out about Stacy McCain the individual from a rant by “Ace” over McCain’s shameless self-promotion (I think McCain’s guilty as charged in that instance), later I read McCain in his coverage of NY-23.

    One thing that might be interesting in this debate is something John Thompson (former basketball coach of Georgetown University) has discussed on his Sports Talk Radio show here in the DC area, he draws a distinction between matters being “racial” vs. “racist”.

    He was offended by the “You Lie” comment, and a day or two of discussion of was that comment “Racist”. While Coach Thompson’s line between racial and racist IS NOT bright, yet I agree that there is or should be a distinction.

    Regards,

    the Dragon (966ad1)


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