#624: Mark Dice

A.k.a. John Conner

Mark Dice is an author, “media analyst”, political activist, founder of the group “The Resistance”, and radically attention seeking extreme, hardcore religious fundamentalist conspiracy theorist who tends to spew (a lot of) garbled nonsense about the New World Order and a vast and a largely incompatible array of (mostly Satanic) secret societies, including (but not limited to) the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, and Bohemian Grove. His favored technique for spreading the word is phone mobbing (“flood the airwaves of call-in radio and television shows”), which does not put him and his followers in a particularly favorable light even with his fellow conspiracy theorists, but Dice is so far removed from this world that he wouldn’t notice (a good example is his anger at Charlie Sheen for not promoting 9/11 conspiracy theories) (if you think Sheen is insane, you’re only proving to Dice that you’re part of the conspiracy and probably a Satanist).

Dice’s first and most well-known book was a 450-page and largely incoherent manifesto, “The Resistance Manifesto,” which consists mainly of unsupported claims, fallacies, rage, confirmation bias and hearsay – the latter being primarily things he has apparently heard himself say; since he trusts himself, this counts as testimony (and since he doesn’t seem to trust anyone else, such testimony is apparently better evidence than anything anyone else might say). The main point of the manifesto is that the Illuminati (“many would say that the illuminati were instrumental in insuring that the 9/11 attacks happened, [and] that they are behind the banking collapse,” which does not constitute evidence even if correct) manipulate political and financial arenas to erode the Constitution and push for a socialist New World (why a secret organization would want a socialist government is anyone’s guess, but you know; socialism is evil, the Illuminati is evil … and so forth. They also promote immorality (e.g. here), selfishness (socialism, you know), materialism, and they purposefully try to keep the population entertained with television to keep them away from politics. They also produce child porn and snuff films (Dice allegedly has evidence that Hunter S. Thompson was a big producer of such), since that’s what socialists do (keep your children away from them), and were behind Occupy Wall Street protests. His other book “The Illuminati: Facts & Fiction” consists primarily if not exclusively of the latter, though Dice does spend some time debunking competing Illuminati conspiracy theories. In particular, he dislikes Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” (calling for his followers to “disrupt” its premiere) since it makes the Illuminati idea look like a mere conspiracy theory. Indeed.

Dice is a regular guest on The Alex Jones Show, as well as Coast to Coast AM, and has appeared on various other shows hosted by various delusional conspiracy theorists, such the Sean Hannity Show, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage. He is also featured in various 9/11 conspiracy documentaries as a reliable source, and his loudness, zeal, persistence and tirelessness in promoting his stuff – making a lot of noise, disrupting events, and pestering people – have managed to garner him some intermittent national attention also without the help of said talkshows – for instance when he attempted to ship DVDs to troops stationed in Iraq to convince them that 9/11 was an inside job (one wonders a little what he wanted them to do with the information). His calls for boycott of VeriChip, claiming that it is the “Mark of the Beast”, received some attention as well, as did his request to have the “Satanic” Georgia Guidestones removed and his call for a boycott of Starbucks because “the Starbucks logo has a naked woman on it with her legs spread like a prostitute.” The socialist Illuminati apparently works in mysterious ways to undermine our civil liberties, but I am sure Dice can connect the dots and get whatever he wants.

Diagnosis: Frothing, hyper-active nonsense factory who could conceivably have done some good if he’d devoted his energy to it (he does have a lot of energy). As it is, his zealous idealism seem to take him toward mindfuck and nowhere in particular. 

#621: Penna Dexter

When you come across something called the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, you can be pretty sure its purpose is not to promote ethics or religious liberty. Penna Dexter is a member of  the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and she used to be a cohost in the fundamentalist radio talkshow “Point of View” (host: Kerby Anderson). Dexter’s main concern – despite what she might, in fact, think herself – is not liberty.

Instead Dexter is extremely concerned about zeh Gays: “It's not politically correct to say so, but the greatest threat to America … today is the advancing homosexual agenda” (also here). The main problem with that statement is not that it is not politically correct; in any case, to remedy the gay situation, Dexter therefore calls on Americans like herself, who are concerned about “so many attempts to silence God's word,” to pave the way for political action with “fervent prayer,” and I suppose it would be a good thing if people like Dexter restricted themselves to prayer as a strategy but you suspect she won’t. She has also been caught blaming the suicide of homosexual teens on themselves.

Dexter’s other main schticks include the obliteration of the separation of church and state, in line with how she and people of her ilk understand “religious liberty” (i.e. not). After all, the First Amendment, the way Dexter has read it (hardly) just means that everyone has the right to be Christian. Then there is the usual anti-healthcare stuff, her admirably unambiguous position in the ongoing War on Christmas, climate change denialism (“Climate doom and gloom is a ruse to empower a world body and to spread the wealth,” case in point: “Climategate”), and exposing the liberal conspiracies that are the U.S education system, in particular universities (I won’t link to her articles on these issues; you’ll have to seek them out herself).

Diagnosis: Completely typical representative of the mass of batshit crazy nuts who makes up the Taliban alliance against reality. I suppose Dexter is not particularly influential, or particularly extreme; she is still a flailingly insane bigot, and as such dangerous.

#615: Eugene Delgaudio

Eugene Delgaudio is the most colorful board member of the Public Advocates of the US, a deeply homophobic organization devopted to spinning gay-related news (and other things) into their own flavor of loon (their president is (or at least was) one Ronald Pearson). The result is the usual stuff, incuding conspiracy theories, hate, and paranoia (and some rather loaded quizzes for the public). Indeed, the organization serves as a backdrop for Delgaudio’s spamming activities (called “fundraising activities”), primarily in the form of requests for money sent to everyone who has ever discussed issues remotely related to homosexuality, regardless of what side the recipient may happen to be on, and selling his mailing lists (do don’t sign up for anything). Delgaudio also represents the Sterling District on the Loudoun County, Virginia, Board of Supervisors, by the way.

As for his anti-gay agenda, Delgaudio has said things like “[a]s homosexuals die off due to AIDS, the remaining AIDS carriers prey on children to replenish the Homosexual Community,” “the Homosexual Lobby and its billionaire donors are flush with cash. When Congressmen and Senators see the power and riches of the radical Homosexuals, they get tempted. You’d be surprised how many politicians are already bought and paid for,” and “I absolutely must find $73,575 before the end of next month to pay for printing, telephones, research, and postage.” The rest of his output consists of variations on those three (there is a completely weird one here), but primarily the latter. Here is a typical fundraising letter.

You can see Delgaudio claim that the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa is infiltrated by “radical homosexuals” seeking to exploit unsuspecting college students here (and here). As for paranoia (well, more paranoia – everything he writes is drenched with paranoia) Delgaudio has claimed that “[i]n the past, the radical homosexuals have attempted to kill me, even threatening and stalking my family;” here is the accompanying fundraising letter.

Indeed, according to Delgaudio the homosexual conspiracy is supporting “anti-discrimination” measures as part of their plan to convert kids to homosexuality. Here is the accompanying fundraising letter.

The problem, according to Delgaudio, is that there are too few left willing to fight against the homosexual propaganda machine. Here is the accompanying fundraising letter.

Among his most famous screeds is his argument against the TSA’s full-body security scans: “It's the federal employee's version of the Gay Bill of Special Rights ... That means the next TSA official that gives you an ‘enhanced pat down’ could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission;” and here is the fundraising letter accompanying his “TSA porn scanner” rant.

Despite his apparent pathological shortage of cash the Public Advocates actually pay Delgaudio in excess of $ 150 000 a year (more here). In 2012 Loudon County actually initiated an investigation of Delgaudio concerning the way he was using his office. Delgaudio’s response to the investigations was actually quite epic (recommended link).

There’s an excellent, if old, portrait of Delgaudio here. And here is another, more recent, spam mail fundraising letter. A grassroots Delgaudio recall movement was formed in 2013 – this guy holds public office, for the sake of anything and everything that is decent upon this Earth!

In a pang of absolutely astonishing self-aggrandazing delusion Delgaudio was audacious enough to take the credit when TSA replaced the scanners in 2012.

Diagnosis: Thoroughly delusional and deeply paranoid bigotbot and spam machine. Probably more of a nuisance than a real threat, but his blind hatred should probably not be completely overlooked.

#608: Avi Davis

Donnie Davies is a spoof, but frighteningly similar to a bunch of completely serious loons you’ll encounter on the wingnut phalanx.

Someone like Avi Davis would at least come close. Davis is executive director of the American Freedom Alliance, which – of course – has nothing to do with freedom, but everything to do with reality denial (though Davis calls it “a non-partisan and non-political organization”). It is, for instance, heavy into global warming denialism. The Alliance is even better known, though, for their promotion of Intelligent Design Creationism, and in particular their ongoing legal struggle with the California Science Center after the latter cancelled a vigorously anti-science event to be held at the center in 2009 (if anyone has any updates, let us know). The plan had been to show Lad Allen’s movie “Darwin’s Dilemma”, which supposedly explores the “Mystery of the Cambrian Explosion in Fossil Records,” and about which Davis said that “[n]ew scientific evidence makes it vital that we take a close look at the numerous inherent scientific problems of the Darwinian theory of evolution,” which is undermined by the fact that Davis had absolutely no new scientific evidence and wouldn’t be able to distinguish scientific evidence from bullshit in any case.

In fact, the AFA is probably best known for their stance on Islam (Robert Spencer is a prominent member). Davis combines his stance on Islam with promoting the kind of support of Israel that only end-time American fundamentalists can provide, and you don’t even want to go there.

Diagnosis: Yup, yet another moron whose criminal lack of critical thinking skills has not prevented him from earning a certain amount of recognition in admittedly already severelly reality-challenged circles.

#590: Kevin Craig

Kevin Craig is a perennial candidate for the House of Representatives from Missouri representing the Libertarian Party (one wonders what kind of persons he would have to beat in the nomination process). More precisely, Craig describes himself as a “Christian Libertarian”, which does not mean Christian and libertarian but that he belongs, in his own eyes, to a particular brand of libertarianism. In fact, Craig seeks to establish what he calls a “Christian libertarian Theocracy”, so his brand sounds like a very, very special brand of libertarianism indeed. He is described here (this one ought to be seen, by the way).

One unusual feature of his “libertarianism” is the view that homosexuality should be criminalized. Craig believes that “Congress should: i) Hate homosexuality and homosexuals; ii) Follow God's Commandments with respect to them,” and his reasoning is that homosexuality is just like embezzlement: “Homosexuals attempt to embezzle sexual satisfaction from God's business. The entire creation is God's enterprise. God is the Boss. Homosexuals are disobedient employees. God hates them.” To emphasize that he is a radical libertarian, however, Craig does say that he doesn’t think child molestation should be illegal and punished by the government, because the government has no business concerning what goes on in people’s bedrooms.

Craig is also a global warming denialist because that seems to fit better with his political position, desperately claiming that “there is no consensus”. In fact, his website is a cesspool of New World Order  conspiracy theories, creationism (yes, Craig deploys all the silliest arguments), altmed peddling, and HIV denialism – according to Craig “The government-approved orthodox HIV-AIDS theory distracts attention from the destructive nature of the homosexual lifestyle. There are many scientists, professors, researchers, even Nobel Prize-winners, who are skeptics, and see the HIV–AIDS religion as effective political lobbying, not effective science.” One wonders whether the putatively respectable skeptics are these. That would be too bad, for the people on that list, whatever else they are, are certainly not respectable.

Diagnosis: Virtually a professional Boolean negation operator. “Craig says p, therefore not-p” seems to be a fairly reliable inference rule for the rest of us.