Yup, I am "me" all the time. This is probably why I do some pretty dumb things in here that don't produce the desired effect.
In real life I have people upset with me every single day. I learned long ago a few skills in conflict resolution. I very often "take it upon myself" in an argument and accept blame or fault even if it is not justifiably mine in order to resolve the conflict. In most cases this works, sometimes it doesn't. Every now and then you run across someone who doesn't care about the right or wrong of a situation, they only desire the conflict itself. In my encounters with our recently departed brother I found that either I completely misunderstood him or he seemed to thrive on conflict, or both.
I have tried to communicate with anyone that I ever had an argument with in AH. In this particular case I did not sense that I made any headway. Again, that may be as much my fault as anyone else's but I, like Yeager, felt that he wanted me to dislike him. Once I had drawn that conclusion I no longer attempted rational conversation beyond occasional rebuttals to obviously inane, flame-inducing hypebole.
I don't even like discussing this person in this manner, and in most cases would deem it entirely inappropriate. The danger I see here is that some may be attempting to make a martyr out of this person, and that is definitely not just. That point should be clearly made right away- this person chose his path and knew full well what he was doing. He knew he was pushing the boundaries of allowable behavior and basically dared Pyro to take whatever action he did.
So, for those standing on Towd's shoulders to make some statement about censorship, allowable behavior, or whatever else be careful. Towd is not a good poster boy for those of us who got to know his online personna.
