Tom, are you really convinced that the world is filed with otherwise intelligent and responsible people who are completely deluded and misguided because they don't agree with you on everything? Not only are they wrong, but because they are they deserve to be humiliated and insulted because they have the audacity to see the world differently than you do? Listen to yourself, man, you will not tolerate even the slightest deviation from your orthodoxy, you are always right, about everything, and the fools and villains who aren't need to be crushed and scattered to the wind. You will accept no compromise, meet no one halfway, make no effort to even show the courtesy of acknowledging that those who speak with you might have good reasons to believe the way they do and that perhaps they have wrestled with these issues in an honest effort to come to grips with them. You talk to others who oppose you, consistently, the way I would not dare talk to religious fundamentalists, or anomalists, I have strong emotional responses to those positions too.

Instead you pounce on every deviation, assault all dissent, question every remark that you suspect may threaten your world view. You prowl the boards like an avenging angel dispensing justice with a silver truncheon, like the dark hero of "The Iron Dream". And if you find no conflict, you provoke it. Is it any wonder that people constantly challenge you, and that they are even adopting your own tactics? Mind you, I'm not talking about the content of your remarks, that's why we have discussion boards, it's the style of your rhetoric. I suppose you feel it's justified because we're so wrong, but to me, at least, it's patronizing.

Have you ever considered how you would come across to a neutral observer with no knowledge or interest in these issues, just access to your words? I believe (because I'm not as sure of anything as much as you seem to be about everything) that you would come across as doctrinaire and unforgiving, brutal and cruel. Don't you feel uncomfortable about writing to strangers in a voice which you would never employ with someone face-to-face? Especially if he had a couple of beers in him.

Tom, I think I could really get to like you; you're smart, articulate, well informed, and a gentle man; and when not campaigning, you have a terrific sense of humor. But it's getting to the point where you're just no fun anymore.