"What's So Great About Blaming The Democrats For September 11th?"

[Note: The post title is basically a spoiler happy alternate title for book D'Souza's book "The Enemy at Home." Which (gasp) he shamelessly plugs by reiterating! ]

This little blog post by Dinesh is a frantic, grasping attempt to try to justify his opinion that exposure to liberal Western media and values is what caused those terrorists to get so angry at us a few years back. He uses the book "Who Speaks for Islam?" to lend credence to this idea of his, although, the ultimate conclusion of the book is that our foreign policy and perceived disrespect of their religion is the key reason for anger, rather than perceived immorality. But the facts have never stopped Dinesh before....

In the seven years since 9/11, we have been subjected to all kinds of ignorant pontification--much of it from the left, but some also from the right--on "why they hate us."

Quoted for irony.

Esposito and Mogahed argue that traditional Muslims, who make up the bulk of Muslims in every Muslim country, strongly identify with the Western principles of rule of law, self-government, and religious toleration. In fact, their main critique of America is that, as they see it, America backs secular dictators in the Muslim world who deny to Muslims the rights that are taken for granted by Americans.

Yes. Their main critique of America has to do with foreign policy. You see that clearly in this book. You are acknowledging it in this very paragraph. And yet...

They reject the shamelessness and frequent depravity of American popular culture. They reject the type of feminism that relinquishes the home in favor of careers. They are resolutely anti-abortion. They consider homosexual marriage to be an abomination.

Oh noes! They are arch-conservative prudes on top of that! Obviously, this must mean one, and only one thing: they hate us for our freedoms!!!1!!1!

But when conservative and religious Europeans and Americans are polled, it turns out that the percentage of people who are fine with homosexuality is about the same as that of the traditional Muslims.

Yes. This is true. Dinesh will be engaging in "push under the rug" mode in three...two....

First, that the values of the cultural left are an important source in alienating Muslims worldwide. Second, that Muslims don't reject modernity or the West: rather, they embrace what may be termed "1950s America" while rejecting the libertine values of the 1960s. Third, America can build alliances with traditional Muslims by showing them the face of traditional America, so that they see that Hollywood values aren't necessarily American values. Finally, left-wing groups like International Planned Parenthod and Amnesty International should stop pushing feminism, gay marriage and libertine values in the Muslim world.

Holy f@#%$&*@$#burger! What a change! The entire article up to this point was basically "here are some facts and conclusions. Neat, I know. But, look away for a minute, because this is what is really going on". I sincerely do not know why Dinesh thinks that the "values of the cultural left", which are basically equal rights for gays, women, and people of all races and religions should be so offensive as to be the only reason that Muslims are pissed off. You'd think, you know, the violence thing would be a bigger factor. Especially when the book you are citing to support your own reaches that conclusion. I also cannot begin to fathom how we could abandon those values, I do not know why we would want to do so just to appease some people who are willing to kill us over being free and equal, and I cannot believe that Dinesh is making an appeal to "the good ol' days" as the assumed perspective of over one billion people (who are hopefully not as naive.)
And I seriously doubt that we are pushing for gay marriage in Islamic countries. "Feminism" maybe. Gay marriage...well...they have other problems to address before that (you know...like not executing people for being gay...).
Also: "Parenthod"?

Pundits like Chalmers Johnson love to say that American intervention in Iraq and
elsewhere has produced a "blowback" of terrorism from the House of Islam. Wrong!
It is in Iraq that America is allowing an elected Muslim government to rule
according to Muslim interests and Muslim values. Iraq is the only country in the
Middle East where the Muslim population actually chose its own rulers. Iraq is
not the problem. Rather, it is the values of the cultural left, and the cultural
imperialism that seeks to impose those values on reluctant Muslims, that is the
real source of Muslim rage, and the best recruiting tool of the radical Muslims

And now I can conclude, after months of reading Dinesh's articles and suspecting it all along, that Dinesh D'Souza is a certifiable moron. Either his head so far up his own ass that he is currently engaged in a boxing match with his own brain, or he is just functionally braindead, and merely types messages on his computer when a precisely applied electric shock causes him to spasm and slam his face on the keybard. He just doesn't have any idea how we noble Americans went about giving that democracy to those appreciative Iraqi Muslims, does he? Doesn't think that terrorists could possibly be perturbed by our toppling governments on false pretenses and insisting that we impose a new one on them? Everyone in Iraq and the entire world is hunky-dory because we gave them a nice, sparkly democratic government, built on the corpses of over 100,000 civilians. Hell of a world you live in, Dinesh.
Here's just one tiny bit of advice: it doesn't matter if you can decide who your leaders are, if there is nothing to lead or if the leadership is crappy. We are making strides, but their democracy is still fledgling, and I doubt that everyone is of the impression that it is the best thing since sliced bread yet. It is disgusting that you are trying to blame terrorism on short-skirts and gay rights. It is even more disgusting that you do so in such an underhanded, yet gleefully confident fashion.
The idea that anyone refers to you as an intellectual, a scholar, or as anything but the right-wing tabloid writer you really are amuses me greatly. I honestly hope that people will wake up and smell the bullshit real soon. Until then, I offer a toast to the arrival of your latest truckload of fail.

When Opinions Suck

How can you miss the point so thoroughly, and show your prejudices at the same time? Write an opinion column about a group of people you clearly don't like and most likely know nothing about!

He definitely starts out on the right foot:

A few atheists have their panties in a twist once again, this time fussing that an atheist leader wasn't invited to speak at an Aug. 24 interfaith service that's part of the Democratic National Convention.

The service will feature Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist speakers. The official reason for the interfaith services is "to honor the diverse faith traditions inside the Democratic Party," which could easily include atheists. If they aren't welcome, it's probably because they're rude

The irony of suggesting that a diverse group of people is universally "rude" while beginning the column on that subject with a phrase such as "have their panties in a twist" is just so incredibly delicious.

This column has advocated religious liberties for atheists, citing case law that defines atheism as just another religion - as in just another unproven and forever unprovable belief.

Le sigh. How is lack of belief in an unproven and unprovable assertion an unproven and unprovable belief? How is lack of religion a religion? Under what condition could a person be said to not have any religion at all?

Therefore a belief in creation - or an original intelligence, Jesus, Buddha, or the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" - is no more valid in the eyes of the law than the odd belief that nothing could possibly exist beyond what our embryonic state of scientific discovery has seen in our relatively primitive microscopes and telescopes.

Attacking materialism, are we? Well, I've got to say, seeing as how we can say absolutely nothing with certainty about those things beyond our current realm of scientific understanding, saying that such things are essentially irrelevant to us for now is perfectly valid. It is definitely foolish to say that there is nothing at all that exists beyond our current scientific understanding, but that is only a straw man. The point is that we can only work with the things that we know, and those things are physical. Anything outside of that is just speculation, especially when you claim detailed knowledge. Belief in a specific kind of creative intelligence is infinitely more specific and much more unfounded than such assertions.

To rational thinkers, atheism seems a sad and shallow belief. That's because great scientists understand that, metaphorically, they've discovered little more than the drawings on the walls of a cave. They don't know what's beyond the cave or how it began.

And once we discover more, we will be ready to accept that. But, the thing is, once again, anything positted at this point about such subjects is just speculation. If atheism is a sad and shallow belief, I cannot imagine how to describe those who state with utter conviction that they know how the world came to be, and that an unproven and unprovable entity is behind it, of which they have exact details of what his demands are. Even the boldest atheism is humble by comparison.

They pretend that atheist beliefs are proven true, while others are proven false.

Since atheism is lack of beliefs, and there is no proof either way, that is pretty much true. If not, please complain about the unfounded beliefs of a-fairyists, a-bigfootists, and a-UFOists as well.

Their approach to ministry is overbearing and rude. They engage in confrontation, with disregard for persuasion

Every challenge to your religion would be considered "overbearing and rude" no matter how polite the demeanor and tame the content. The mere act of questioning religious authority is deemed "rude" by most people. And, as for "confrontation", do you seriously think that you can call the attempts of those within your own religion to persuade other people to "see the light" only less confrontational than atheists? The only reason you see it as confrontation is because it is calling you on bullshit that you've place up on a pedestal and that is just not very polite, is it?

In other words, if I'm not invited to your party then you're bad.

Excellent straw man. She was not judging the character of the DNC, only saying that supporting faith is turning its back on those who do not have faith. No value judgments, just an attempt to show them that they are embracing one group at the expense of another in the name of unity.

You simply weren't invited to a private party for "believers.

It's not a private party for believers: it is an event sponsorred by the Democratic Party during their national convention in order to express their support of people of various faiths. But, the issue is not that we simply were not invited, it is that the event itself was designed specifically to exclude us, by, as you said, being "for 'believers'". It should be for EVERYONE, be they Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, or nothing at all. Because these are all the faiths and non-faiths that make up the Democratic party. By making it just about the religious people, they are excluding a segment of the Democrats as well as perturbing the religious moderates that make up a significant amount of the party base.

Boulder atheist Marvin Straus accused Democrats of "pandering" for the religious vote. How dare they reach out to people who believe in God? There oughta be a law!

Sigh. Did anyone suggest that they SHOULDN'T do it? No. Is anyone suggesting that they should make sure to include those who are not religious as well? I would assume so....

Hitler imagined a world without Jews. The Freedom From Religion Foundation rented a billboard near the Colorado Convention Center that says: "Imagine No Religion."

That Godwin came outta nowhere. Anyone aside from this putz think that the sign suggests genocide? Anyone? Anyone else think that Hitler killed the Jews out of hatred for religion, rather than just out of simple religiously supported antisemitism? Anyone? Bueller?

Imagine a world with no religion and one sees a world without the Golden Rule, devoid of most charities, hospitals and great universities.

Really? The "without religion, there is no morals" gambit? There is a reason why almost every religion on Earth has some variation on the Golden Rule. It is because it is a self-evident description of how basic human empathy forces us to behave. As for charities, hospitals, and universities having religious origins: that is merely because such a large portion of our population (and almost every person in a position of power) happen to be religious. One could hardly assert that their religion had anything to do with the existence of such institutions, however.

Imagine no religion and one sees a world ruled by atheist tyrants - Pol Pot, Albania's Enver Hoxha, Stalin and Mao, to name a few - who have murdered tens of millions in modern efforts to cleanse society of religion.

This crap will never die, will it?

American Muslims, Baptists, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Mormons, Quakers, Amish, etc., don't erect billboards saying "Imagine No Atheists."

First, "atheists" and "religion" are hardly comparable. Besides, they don't need to. They are able to advertise their religion in every form of media imaginable and use that as a platform to implicitly or explicitly rant about the evils of non-belief just like you are doing here. The bulk is a major issue. A single billboard erected by harmless minority talking about a general institution rather than a specific group is much different then people saying "get rid of this minority group".

They don't advocate theft and desecration of atheist property, even though an atheist hero in Minnesota stole and destroyed the Catholic Eucharist

And I didn't think that you thoroughly established your retardation enough in the former sentences. Thank you for sealing the deal. Deciding to not eat a wafer handed to you is hardly the same thing as "theft". And besides, he only destroyed property that was meant for destruction anyway. He just did it in a manner different than intended. The only comparable thing that they could advocate in retailation is for people to get invited to atheist's house for dinner, and secretly flush a single portion of the meal down the toilet at his own house afterwards instead of eating it.

Besides, do you even know the rabid response that PZ received in response to the very suggestion that he may do such a thing? Advocating theft pales in comparison...

It's likely they didn't invite atheists to their faith service because they didn't want embarrassing guests

Hahahaha...DIAF.

Atheists should fund universities and hospitals. They should feed and clothe starving kids.

Hear of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet? Are you aware that most atheists are not internet trolls? Your presumptions are sickening. I wish that rebutting you didn't play right into your hand, allowing you to point and say "look at how rude and intolerant they are!". But, whatever. I am not a representative of the atheist anymore than you are a representative of whatever idiotic religion turned you into the heavily blinded putz that you are. END.

Correlation Does Not Imply Causation; Case One: Happiness vs. Religiosity

Guess who is at it again?
Go ahead.

Guess.

That's right! Dinesh is back! And this time, his arguments are weaker than ever!

In fact, his regurgitation of data that I have stumbled across before has inspired me to delve into matters of other people leaping to a conclusion regarding causation with only correlationary information. But first, let us deal with the task at hand: Dinesh D'Souza and the Blog of Utterfailure.

In mentioning a variety of studies regarding the happiness of different groups of people, D'Souza says:
"Brooks notes that 'faith is an incredible predictor, and cause, of happiness. Religious people of all faiths are much, much happier on average than secularists.' Specifically, 43 percent of those who attend church weekly or more call themselves "very happy," versus 23 percent who attend seldom or never. Observant Jews and Christians are by Brooks' measure the happiest people in America."

So, what is this? Being a regular church-goer means that you are twice as likely to be "very happy"? Somehow, I don't think so.

It could just be that happy people are more willing to go to chruch regularly, and people who are not happy are unwilling to do anything, with lack of church attendance being indicative of their level of depression rather than their lack of religiosity.

It could just be that people who go to church are exposed to an environment where there is social pressure for them to exhibit happiness, which results in them either being authentically happy, deceiving themselves into believing that they are happy, or feeling unable to express any doubts, sadness, or fears to others, and thus more liable to exaggerate their positive emotions (honestly, though, I don't lend much credence to this thought).

It could just be that attending religious services and happiness are both related to one another through a tertiary variable. In all seriousness, I think that this may be the case, because church attendance is a form of social interaction, and provides one with an extra social network beyond those who do not attend church. If church is used as a social network, to interact with other human beings and build relationships, this will increase happiness just like it would in any other context. Of course, other outside variables aside from extra social networks could be a reduced sense of responsibility due to faith, mitigated stress due to being confident in a second chance at existence, and the mere reassurance of having a controlled routine.

But, let's see what Dinesh thinks!

" So why are secular liberals in general so miserable? I offer two reasons. The first is that liberals are political utopians. They consider human nature to be wonderful, and they expect freedom to be used wonderfully well. So they are always bitterly disappointed when they discover that this is not the case. Conservatives, by contrast, have a dimmer view of human nature. So their expectations are more modest. When things don't turn out half-badly, conservatives are pleasantly surprised. They are happier because it takes less to make them happier."

Political utopians? Human nature is wonderful? And here I thought that I was the pessimist! Apparently, though, I am the idealist with his head in the clouds, and the conservatives are the ones who are deeply disillusioned with humanity. Of course, since he admits that liberal idealists are "always bitterly disappointed" when they see humans do as humans do, would that make both ends of the political spectrum deeply pessimistic, in effect? Or maybe the conservatives only have a "dimmer view" on certain subject matters, (like those involving criminal justice, government influence, and international affairs) but are naively optimistic about others (religion, economy, and environment). Not exactly cut and dried, is it?

"It's not too hard to figure out why religious people are happier. Belief in God gives people a powerful sense of higher purpose in life. It assures people that the universe is in the benign hands of a omnipotent, omniscient, and compassionate higher power. It offers people a code for how to live. It gives us a reason to hope in cosmic justice, which is better than the imperfect justice of our terrestrial world"

Belief in God may give people a sense of purpose, but it probably shouldn't. It is a sense of purpose derived from overconfidence, from unwarranted pride, from the belief that you hold a piece of information that no others hold, and that you are better than them for it. It is a sense of purpose that seems to have no basis in the actual obscure, demeaning purpose that the Bible suggests we have: to serve a tyrannical entity who will only accept us by his side if we happen to accept him first in some sort of celestial guessing game, and do so for the rest of our life. Our supposed purpose is entwined with God's, and God needs no purpose, since He just is; inevitably, our reason for life is lost in that process.

As for believing that an all-powerful, all-good entity is at the controls, and that you have all the rules regarding what you need to do in order to prevent raising his ire; that is reassuring. Unfortunately, as good as that is at relieving stress, it also is a thought process that leads to the development of an external locus of control, a sense that you have no influence over your life. The happiness that shows up in a secure believer could easily turn into a mental breakdown for that same believer who suddenly, despite following all the rules, begins to suffer unduly, and takes as the wrath of God which they can do nothing to fight against.

"By contrast, secular people have little to hope for. They are sure that they came from nowhere--the chance product of random mutation and natural selection--and are going nowhere. They know that terrible things happen, and they don't believe there is any purpose in this. No wonder that secular people have so few children: they have much less reason than religious people to believe in the future."

Does life itself need a divine origin in order to be meaningful to the living? Is an apple tree less beautiful if it came about through natural processes? Is there no reason to live for a young child if they are only allowed to live once? Does explaining away tragedy make it any less tragic?

The answer is no. We are not sure that we came from nowhere, but have no reason to believe that we came from somewhere that is not observably existent. We are the chance product of random mutation and natural selection, and allowing that to depress you is akin to being depressed that you were the chance product of one lucky sperm out of several million and a single egg that leeched itself into becoming a human being over the course of nine months. Knowing that terrible things happen and not positing a reason for it is intellectually honest. Positing a reason for catastrophes comes from and leads to the just world fallacy. And secular people have less children because they are not guilt tripped about using birth control, are not pressured into being fruitful and multiplying, and rationally consider the consequences of having too many children and too little time and/or money. Apparently, one or more of these checks are removed from the faithful, helping them contribute to overpopulation (despite a good portion of these people thinking of the world as corrupt on the verge of apocalypse), and you think that this is a good thing.

And, he ends with "our temperaments are also the consequences of two very different worldviews, one producing the wholesome optimism of What's So Great About Christianity, the other the angry bitterness of The God Delusion. "

And this is the crux of his article: Christians are happy and optimistic due to their religious faith, atheists are bitter and depressed due to their lack of religious faith. And that, of course, despite being a common assumption, is not a logical conclusion from the information he has offered. It follows well enough from his baseless speculation regarding the data, but not from the data itself. Why is it inconsistent? Simply because faith is not necessarily the causal factor for an increased incidence of happiness in the faithful, especially in a culture dominated by the faithful, that attempts to appease their will at every turn, and that is oppressive towards those who are not. That is clear in the nature of the titles that D'Souza is touting. It is not that Dinesh is inherently happier than Dawkins. It is that Dinesh is in a position of being supported by the majority, and being able to appeal to them without fear of significant rebuke. And Dawkins, by contrast, is in a despised, minority position, trying to put an argument forward against a markedly larger group that will most likely ignore him unless he makes his position clear, distinct, and, unfortunately, extreme. Thus, Dinesh gets the privilege of a masturbatory, self-congratulatory title that will attract the proud eyes of believers, and Dawkins gets to help himself to a critical, accusatory title necessary to draw the attention of believers in a similar quantity, though in an incredibly different fashion. It has nothing to do with happiness directly, just as faith may have little to do with happiness as well.

These are Your Morals on the Internet

This is an interesting site. Particularly if you're an atheist. You can get a chance to see how your "morals" stack up compared to the average of test-takers (of course, since the majority of test takers seem to be "non-religious", maybe that is a bit hard to do). It's a quite fun, and addictive for a few hours. Of course, once I dug into some of the later tests, it just got depressing. It is really annoying to compare scores to other people who like to choose extreme answers over realistic, moderate ones. Eh. Anyway, it's a nice, tiny window into your conscience, and it is a worth a shot, all in all.

Releasing the Demonic Liberal Within Me: Guns on Campus

So...you guys hear about that shooting that happened last year? Yeah...it was a pretty low profile event, something about some crazy Vietnamese kid, and some college down in Virginia. I don't remember the exact details, since it was barely covered by the news, like, at all. [/sarcasm]

Well, apparently in the wake of the Virginia Tech Massacre, every campus in America has students looking around with shifty, fearful eyes, wondering if they will be next. It is a wonderful paranoia that flies in the face of reason, and is inspired directly from remembering a single tragic event that is etched in one's memory rather than realizing that such horrific and memorable shootings happen incredibly rarely, and claims relatively few lives compared to almost any other conceivable way of dying. School shootings have resulted in a total of 323 deaths over the course of 40 years, which, in light of the fact that the city of Detroit alone had 418 murder cases in 2006, one should seriously be paranoid of being killed wherever you go if you seriously fear being killed in a schools shooting. It reminds of me when kids in middle school (and some teachers) were seriously concerned with the possibility of a terrorist attack in the wake of 9/11. never realizing for a moment that we were a school of 400 students in the middle of nowhere that was of little concern to anyone.

The basic point is that you can't let a few extreme cases of a psychopath going wild define your perception of reality. Because, if you do, then suddenly there are mafia hitmen, serial killers, and Illuminati members around every corner (or at least, that is what you insist to be the case). But, what are campuses across America trying to do in order to address these fears of a possible school shooting devastating their own university? They're entertaining the idea of letting the students overcome these fears by allowing them carry concealed weapons on campus! Now, I don't know about you, but personally I am far more comfortable with the idea of some random student getting pissed off, going berserk, and killing a few people (because it is incredibly unlikely to happen on any given campus), than letting every other person on campus pack heat as a precaution against such a rare, improbable occurence. The problems of trying to fight paranoia by making students believe that they have to be armed in order to be safe is counter-intuitive to an extent that makes me wonder about how logical it is for grown adults to buy into the same concept.

But, that's just my two cents. Also: take away second ammendment rights! Anarchy! Watch it all burn, burn like a thousand gasoline-fueled forest fires! Yes! Yes!

Ahhh...the Good Ol' Days!

Alright...alright. From the man who has brought us the prestigious website Teens 4 Christ comes a blog of epic proportions! And by that, I mean, a relatively mediocre site filled with the ranting and raving of a fundamentalist two steps out of touch with anything resembling reality.

Of particular interest is this little number: "SCHOOL -- 1957 vs. 2007"

"Scenario: Jack goes quail hunting before school, pulls into school parking lot with shotgun in gun rack.
1957 - Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack's shotgun, goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.
2007 - School goes into lock down, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counsellors called in for traumatized students and teachers."

The only thing that I get out of this is that general high regard for firearms is a good thing, and that paranoia over them is bad. I couldn't agree more...unfortunately, it is more common that paranoia and high regard for weaponry go hand in hand nowadays (and probably to a smaller extent in previous time periods). Besides, on the occasion where a gun was brought on to school property with such fashion, teachers did nothing, and someone died as a result...well...I am sure that if it affected you, you'd be just as pissed as anyone else.

Scenario : Johnny and Mark get into a fistfight after school.
1957 - Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up buddies.
2007 - Police called, SWAT team arrives, arrests Johnny and Mark. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Johnny started it.

Swiggety schwa? So...playing with the idea that fistfights have no potential problems, at all, huh? A kid who lived in my hometown died in a fight in which the losing party decided to elevate the challenge in his desperation, and beat the superior fist-fighter to death with a baseball bat. But, yeah...if it weren't for that, I'm sure they would have become friends...

Scenario: Jeffrey won't be still in class, disrupts other students.
1957 - Jeffrey sent to office and given a good paddling by the Principal. Returns to class, sits still and does not disrupt class again.
2007 - Jeffrey given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. School gets extra money from state because Jeffrey has a disability.

Paddling? Homoerotic, much? Besides, how is it that you think that physically coercing a child into silence out of fear is less harmful than Ritalin (which is not supposed to be taken in large doses, is administered by parents, not as a disciplinary technique, and only calms them down, doesn't make them catatonic). Also, ADD is not a disability that I am aware of.

Scenario: Billy breaks a window in his neighbor's car and his Dad gives him a whipping with his belt.
1957 - Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college, and becomes a successful businessman.
2007 - Billy's dad is arrested for child abuse. Billy removed to foster care and joins a gang. State psychologist tells Billy's sister that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison. Billy's mom has affair with psychologist.

Wow. Just wow. He would only be arrested for child abuse if he were particularly brutal (hell, we barely get to nab the people who put their children through absolute hell in their abusiveness, so I think John Q. Paddling should be fine when it comes to litigation). Corporal punishment is not a surefire means to make children successful, and how the hell does foster care correlate with gang activity?

Scenario: Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.
1957 - Mark shares aspirin with Principal out on the smoking dock.
2007 - Police called, Mark expelled from school for drug violations. Car searched for drugs and weapons.

W. T. F. Yes, some prescriptions are a little too strong to have in school, because for all the faculty knows, you are hocking oxycontin to freshmen in order to pay for gas money. But, aspirin is far from that, and would be allowed for the most part (though, in some schools, the school nurse is a little reluctant to dish aspirin out, but that's a different issue).

Scenario: Pedro fails high school English.
1957 - Pedro goes to summer school, passes English, goes to college.
2007 - Pedro's cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU files class action lawsuit against state school system and Pedro's English teacher. English banned from core curriculum. Pedro given diploma anyway but ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.

This has never happened, ever, and most likely will never happen as long as there are white men in Congress. And probably will not happen, ever, since, as long as English is the predominant language in the country, they cannot allow people to graduate and enter the workforce unless they have a sufficient grasp of it (whether they are white or not), which your schadenfreude drenched conclusion has its underlying premise.

Scenario: Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from 4th of July, puts them in a model airplane paint bottle, blows up a red ant bed.
1957 - Ants die.
2007 - BATF, Homeland Security, FBI called. Johnny charged with domestic terrorism, FBI investigates parents, siblings removed from home, computers confiscated, Johnny's Dad goes on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.

Again, a jab at excessive paranoia regarding our security (this time, in reference to terrorism rather than school shootings). Funny...do happen to take a good look at who it is that actually afraid of terrorist attacks occuring within the confines of their everyday lives. Because...well...they are people with ideologies...err...like yours!

Scenario: Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee. He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.
1957 - In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.
2007 - Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job. She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy .

I don't think anyone has been accused of being a sexual predator for a hug (though they may get filed with sexual harassment if it was unwanted...more common for males hugging females than the reverse, presumably). The teachers who are actually arrested for being sexual predators ARE actually sexual predators, and, in reality, many of the teachers that are actually guilty of having sex with their students are not caught, to say nothing of other authority figures (especially parents). And...people who are actually sexually abused in a fashion outside of your baseless scenario, do often require therapy, whether or not they actually receive it. Others do not need it, but, hey, some people are just stoics.

Anyway, that is all the contrived and ill-informed parody that Brother Randy could muster, so I assume that I do not speak much more on this little gem. I'll admit that he makes a few good points in his deliberate exaggerations, but in many of his other ones, he is mocking and downplaying legitimate concerns that we have for our society and ones that need to be addressed. Paddling your son is not child abuse, in of itself, and hugging a student is not sexual misconduct, but to suggest that accuastions of these crimes are almost entirely limited to an overestimation of harm done to the children is to dismiss the issue entirely.

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he brings up the intentionally weak cases of child abuse and sexual predation to make a critique about jumping to conclusions and rushing into litigation, rather than taking it as a tacit dismissal of a majority of these claims as "not that bad", effectively. But, really...this guy holds his romanticized view of violence in the 1950's in a little too high esteem. Which...is rather telling, actually.

Behold! Unified Conspiracy Theory!

This is classic!

Serial killers, government tyrants, academic liberals, Catholic
priests, politicians, Mormon Church higher-ups, Jewish rabbis, environmental
extremists, communists, religious heretics, mass murderers, occultists, spies,
and the Illuminati share something hideous and grotesque in common. Almost all
are Sodomites. Worse, most of the sick-minded men and women who comprise these
demented social groups are not only homosexual, they practice the most kinky and
perverted forms of sexual licentiousness-pedophilia, Satanic bondage, physical
torture, bisexuality, transvestitism, and even bestiality. God says that Sodomy
is a sin! NAMBLA

Okay...let's go throught this slowly, because otherwise my entire response to this will just be hysterical laughter. Though I do not doubt that there may have been some gay serial killers (John Wayne Gacy for example) it is hardly indicative of the implied evils of homosexuality anymore than it would suggest that Christianity is inherently evil if there happened to be a large number of Christian serial killers (though it is interesting to point that my previous example, Gacy, probably would not have become a serial killer if it weren't for people like the originator of this quote creating a climate in which homosexuality is unacceptable, because most of Gacy's victims were teenage boys that he had slept with...presumably killing them to frantically hide his homosexuality and protect his reputation).

Interestingly, the few "government tyrants" who were found to be gay also happened to be the most fervent in their opposition to homosexuality in public settings and legislation.

I'm not sure if he seriously entertains the idea that all academic liberals are gay, but just because liberals happen to be side of the political spectrum that support homosexuality does not make all of them homosexuals...it just means that most sane and honest "Sodomites" as you call them would not affiliate with conservative politics, unless they had a touch of legislative sado-masochism about them.

The Catholic priest and Mormon thing is a very clever attempt to associate pedophilia with homosexuality (which he does explicitly later on, and which is a common occurrence in such fundamentalist rants). As for "Jewish rabbis"...I have no idea where that comes from, but I bet that it is just rooted in sheer anti-Semitism rather than actual news items. This seems to be the case, because his last two lines of culprits just seems to be a random string of groups that he doesn't like: "communists, religious heretics, mass murderers, occultists, spies, and the Illuminati ." Gotta love that he decided to put the Illuminati on the list...it's the cherry on top of the insanity sundae. He then goes on to smother it with hatred sauce.

He brings up "Satanic bondage" as a sexual perversion that "teh gheys" are into (though "Satanic" is a bit of a leap, and I wouldn't doubt if more heterosexual couples happen to dabble in it than gay ones). I'm not sure if "physical torture" is supposed to be distinct from Satanic bondage, or if he is saying that they are off getting their jollies in Guantanimo Bay. I don't know how one could consider "bisexuality" as a sexual perversion in an attempt of proving how perverse homosexuality is, but by God, circularity has never stopped these people before!

And thus we come to last two sexual perversions. First, is "transvestitism", which, honestly, could not really be considered a sexual perversion because it doesn't have so much to do with actual sexual activity as it does with dressing up as the opposite sex. That's what it literally means. It is not evil, it is not perverted, it is just a challenge to your Puritanical views to how people should dress. And, then there is "bestiality", which has nothing to do with homosexuality, and is done by people in some countries who still hold that homosexuality is evil and worthy of punishment.

And, after looking into all of that, I get to see the original quote again, in its entirety. A long line of ill-founded accusations of almost every group that this person could think of that does not include himself. And I laugh.