Palouse whale sightings, pt. 3: the smearbund continues

Not content that I should be smeared only as a racist, Mr. Shou then further upped the ante with this little gem accusing me of anti-Semitism:

To that I responded as follows:

Mr. Schou,

Speaking for myself, I want to try to criticize other people on the basis of positions that they actually hold, rather than attacking straw men. I do not want to violate the ninth commandment when I criticize other people. I don't doubt that I have fallen short of the mark in that department on occasion, but at any rate that is how I try to approach people I disagree with. If you are only interested in insulting and slandering people you dislike, then please feel free to ignore the rest of this post; go ahead and assume whatever you like, putting words into my mouth, misconstruing my statements and my motives, etc. However, if that's not the case -- if you want to actually understand where your opponent is coming from -- then please read on.

1. I acknowledge that in today's world, charges of racism (whatever that might mean) or sexism (whatever that might mean) or even anti-Semitism whatever that might mean) can be hard to refute because subjective feelings of offense held by an offended party virtually constitute proof of the objectively offensive nature of the behavior. The following link provides one recent example, although many more could be cited.
2. Apparently the fact that I read and comment at a Kinist blog is taken as evidence that I am a racist, even though I explicitly reject Kinism. According to that sort of logic it would make just as much sense to lump me together with Keely Emerine-Mix. For the record, I visit that site primarily to ask questions and try to understand their whole system, without embracing it. Let me add that although I strongly disagree with much of what they say, they also not infrequently make some very good points. In my opinion, the sort of treatment that David Thompson was subjected to by EGC (the example in 1. above) is simply crazy. The Kinists can provide a seemingly endless list of examples of such Kafkaesque situations relating to race in America today. If the Kinists are wrong on race-related matters, it does not automatically follow that people who oppose Kinists are correct on race-related matters. The whole subject of race is one of the most difficult areas to discuss rationally in America today; everybody is dragging around so much baggage that it is really rare to find clear, dispassionate thinking on race-related issues. As a Christian, I'm still trying to figure out where "race" fits into God's scheme for things; I am acutely aware of the need to keep an open mind and consider various views on the subject. I'm not going to reject out of hand EVERYTHING a politically incorrect person says simply because some of what they say is wrong or because the source of the information is "tainted."
3. As to the charge that I am a racist, I wonder whether you are aware that I am married to a person of a different race. I have been advised by Kinists that if I ever want to become a Kinist, the first thing I need to do is divorce my wife and send her and the mongrel kids "away."
4. Since I never mentioned it, there is no way you could be aware that in a previous life I operated a shelter in the middle of a poor black neighborhood that took in troubled (mentally ill, destitute, etc.) people referred to me by the city's social care workers. I lived under the same roof and broke bread with black people (along with people of other races), some of them with really serious issues, more or less continually over the course of two years.
5. As to the charge of anti-Semitism, for whatever it might be worth, I should point out that I have close relatives who are Jewish; we get along just fine and I am not aware of harboring any animosity toward Jews on account of their Jewishness. I do have serious misgivings about Zionism, but then so do many Jews. Your accusation that I think "Jews are the enemy of God" is simply false; I emphatically deny thinking that Jews are THE enemy of God. I believe that ALL MEN who have yet to come to faith in Christ are in a condition of enmity with God. That would include Jews but not in any special sense. I view the apostasy of Christians, such as my own mother, with far more concern than I do any Jew.
6. Because of point 1. above, I am aware that points 2. through 5. may mean nothing: I could still be a "racist, sexist anti-Semite" because somebody else took offense at something I said. Frankly, I gave up caring a long time ago. There is no such thing as a right to not be offended.
7. As an example of 6. above, perhaps somebody might have taken offense that I said the Nazis got a bum rap. Please note well, that is not the same as saying the Nazis did not do any of the things they have been accused of. (I made that quite clear in the statement you misquoted.) However, it remains true that the Nazis have been widely accused of things that they never did. For example, for nearly half a century they were accused of having massacred something in the neighborhood of 25,000 Poles in 1940, when in fact that was actually committed by the Soviets. The USA and the U.K. were deliberately complicit in hiding the truth until the Soviets themselves finally admitted the truth in 1990. And that is hardly the only example of lies that have been told, and continue to be told, about the Nazis. I rejoice that Hitler is and shall always be tormented in eternal damnation. He deserves every bit of his eternal punishment. But I fail to see why it is necessary to perpetuate lies and distortions about ANYONE, including the Nazis. They were plenty bad enough for what they actually were, and what they actually did, without any need to paint them as worse than they really were. I also think it is disgusting that some Jews have produced fake Holocaust memoirs that they attempt to pass off as factual, and that some Jews have managed to turn the Holocaust into an industry from which they make a very nice living indeed, thank you. The Nazis were human beings JUST LIKE US and that should scare all of us. One reason why fastidious adherence to the truth, without embellishment or exaggeration, is so important is that failure to do so can play into the hands of genuine haters who want to paint the Nazis as "the good guys" and who think that all the world's problems would somehow just disappear if every last Jew could only be killed.
8. Regarding Qaddafi, I never said that I agree with him. I do not agree with him. However, given that the police work surrounding the JFK assassination was so terrible as to be criminal in its own right, and given that the Warren Commission's investigation was somewhat of a fiasco, we really cannot say with any confidence that JFK was assassinated the way the Warren Report claimed it was. Under the circumstances, Qaddafi's guess is as good as anyone's. We have the U.S. government to thank for that.
9. Regarding Iran's nukes, I was glad to see that Obama got rid of the missile shield over Poland that was ostensibly supposed to be protecting from Iranian missiles. That whole thing was an unwarranted provocation of the Russians and the fact that the shield project was dropped simply proves that it never had anything to do with Iran in the first place. However, I worry that as part of the deal Russia may have agreed to allow Israel to take some sort of military action against Iran in the near future. This prospect really bothers me; I consider the United States and Israel to be the two big trouble-making bullies on the block, not that any other country one might care to mention deserves our praise as a paragon of national virtue. Relatively speaking, however, we can say two things. 1) Iran has been repeatedly shat on by the USA. Considering all the harm that we did to their country, the Iranian people as a whole are remarkably amicably disposed toward the American people. Pat Robertson and his ilk could learn a thing or ten from the Iranians. 2) In matters nuclear, Iran is playing by the rules. It has signed the NPT, has informed the IAEA of its nuclear facilities (which are entirely legal in the context of international law), and is allowing inspections. Contrast that with Israel, which has hundreds of nuclear warheads and the ability to deliver them anywhere in the Mideast, has never signed the NPT, and has refused repeated requests from the IAEA and the United Nations to allow inspections of its nuclear facilities. Iran is playing by the rules and Israel is not.

So if this be racism/sexism/anti-Semitism, then I say make the most of it. Let the people who take offense over words like "niggardly," or over political monkey jokes that have been told for years and suddenly become off limits because we've got a black president in the White House, etc., stew in their own juices. I agree with the sign at the Tea Party: "It doesn't matter what this sign says; you'll call it racism anyway."