He knows his message is not embraced here, and he's well aware that his partisans here are, either too uncomfortable to adopt his tactics or an embarassment to his cause. But I believe he is engaged in deliberate and calculated propaganda. He has a mission, a plan. His message is not aimed at the regular posters, but at the part-timers, non-political types, and especially the lurkers. He knows that, rightly or wrongly, this board is a "science board", and has a wide readership among those involved in issues of interest to him, and probably to many others of above-average intelligence, education and curiosity on political and scientific topics. There is a multiplier effect by posting his views here he would not get by contributing to a predominantly left- or right- oriented political site. The former would not listen, the latter are already convinced. Here he gets untouched minds to mold at his leisure.

These boards allow him to reach this unseen (and normally non-participating) audience who may not often hear him day after day the way we do, droning and whining on the same old themes with monotonous regularity. To them, they give the impression that TB's views are new and refreshing, not at all on the fringe, and that they represent a viable alternative, an "other side", that carries equal weight and legitimacy to what he perceives (and tediously characterizes) as the dominant and oppressive left wing elite.

The rest of us won't fall for this, but we aren't the targets of his posts. He knows perfectly well he is not persuading, much less convincing, any of the regulars. It is only those who do not hear him every day who miss his blatant provocations, his sneers and snarks, his tiresome vetting of every post for political correctness, and his downright insults and bad manners. It also has the side effect of effectively shutting down all conversation except on political topics. In essence, he has monopolized the conversation, seized the dialogue, hijacked the entire board for his own purposes.

The irony is that much of what TB says is NOT nonsense. He could play a useful role in countering the excesses of the left and promoting what is of value in conservative philosophy. At the very least he could play a role in diminishing his party's reputation for sowing discord and replacing it with a genuine and wholesome exchange of views. And of course, his wit and research skills and ability to articulate his ideas should make him an asset to any group he chose to participate in, on any topic. But he is, after all, a zealot, and as such he cannot resist allowing his emotions to cloud his judgement and his sense of common courtesy.

The result is that anything of value he may have to contribute is ignored by the victims of his verbal abuse, and the damage he has done to his cause as a result is incalculable; in fact, from a purely propagandist's point of view, he has failed because he has mobilized his opposition from a state of mild enthusiasm for their side to one of outrage and indignation against his. And as I can personally testify, he has effectively silenced those who occasionally may agree with him by refusing to compromise, meet halfway, and by pouncing on any attempt at dialogue or disengagement or even agreement as if it were weakness or cowardice. He has forgotten the first rule of the propagandist: the whole point of the exercise is to persuade and convince, at least plant a seed of doubt in his audience. He has only succeeded in alienating them by refusing any relationship to others except "victor".

He continues talking as if the rest of us weren't even here, as if our feelings and convictions and reasoning, our very moral values, were irrelevant or illegitimate; which is why I feel no compunction about doing the same to him with these remarks.