And why focus on the severely mentally retarded black males?

Your question explains your difficulty in comprehending my point. I’ll spell it out for you: pursuant to basic rules of logic it is fundamentally flawed reasoning to assert that blacks were denied the priesthood due to their alleged equivocation or ambivalence in the premortal war while simultaneously explaining that those born with mental retardation were born with their condition due to their valiant efforts in the war. To so argue is to undermine the very premises upon which the categorical syllogism rests in the first place. Why? Simply because mental retardation unfortunately inflicts males from African descent as well as all other races in the world. In other words, you can’t have it both ways. To put it still another way, one who actually believes this line of reasoning is under a double-dose of cognitive dissonance!

Indeed. How does one who actually ascribes to this line of reasoning explain the status of all the severely mentally retarded black male children throughout the world who lived and died between 1830 and 1978? Perhaps they were so valiant in the premortal battles that God sent them into the world as black males simply to undermine this line of reasoning which is fundamentally flawed (because they would be exalted anyway right)?

No Bob, that is not what theodicy is. It is unreasonable to ever ask someone to describe God’s actual reasons for why any specific evil is allowed. The most that theodicy aspires to is to give a theoretical framework from the perspective of faith in which possibilities as to why God may allow evils to occur or why such things are not evil in further consideration. I assure you that I don’t leave out free will and accident. However, I don’t believe that anything that occurs is outside the scope of God’s plan. You might want to check out my website where I have a paper on theodicy that was published in a Fetschrift in Honor of Truman Madsen. It so happens that we exercise free will in the pre-mortal existence when we consent and agree to undergo certain kinds of experiences. There may be a good deal that is beyond God’s power in LDS thought, but rearranging DNA, stopping speeding cars and curing cancer are not among them.

“Why can’t we just see them as individuals and love them for their individual uniqueness – rather than automatically placing them in am “other / them” category?”

Perhaps the fact that this is a point of debate is an indicator.

In some ways, I think we must attribute this problem to the limited grasp of human understanding. We assure each other that Heavenly Father loves each of His children impartially, is “no respecter of persons”. But, we are not so endowed. The capacity to fully understand and appreciate the multitude of talents and attributes that makes up each individual is far beyond human attainment. With our limited spiritual and intellectual capactity, we do the best we can.

Thus we come up with general rules like eight years old for the “age of accountability”, though everyone can easily see that this rule does not apply, in every specific. In order for general rules to function equitably, there must be an “other” category to handle the exceptions.

Recognizing that there are exceptions does not invalidate the rule. It only underscores the importance of “spirit of the law” considerations.