kendall,

No. He isn't lonely out there at all. Just more outspoken in a less than receptive arena than most.

Guest Merlin and others,

Mav seems to be an example of a fairly common "type". They start at absolute conviction and then find facts that fit (ignoring those that don't), hide intolerance behind some ideology (religion, patriotism, communism, capitalism, socialism, political correctness, fillintheblank-ism). Demonizing anyone who disagrees. (A time honored technique of the terminally convinced). And it works all too well, as history demonstrates. They don't just go away.

Spaw gets pissed off at them. I find them very scarey because of their absolute conviction of having THE answer. Calling them names doesn't work. It just reenforces their sense of martyrdom. Of course, them calling anyone who doesn't agree with them names is fine, because they, after all, are right and terribly, earnestly, very sincere and their opponents are (by definition)wrong, misguided or evil.

To them, all that name calling does is "prove" that you can't refute their position. And after all, its all for our own good. We're just to dumb to understand the "realities" they see so clearly. They have a nice, neat package that explains the why of all the injustices in the world. They become the victims of "others". LSC, Clinton, Reno...... names don't matter all that much, just that there is a group to blame for why the world doesn't go the way they hope it should.

Mocking someone who sees themselves as a martyr is just reenforcing their sense of rightness. The biggest danger is to underestimate just how far a True Believer is willing to go in support of their 'principals". And how many people will follow along blindly because they need a simple answer to why the world isn't the way they need it to be.

Regards

John