A commenter at Truth Before Dishonor explains what he believes the motivations of the Leftist trolls to be:
There are a couple of substantive things to bear in mind when dealing with the manner in which modern liberals or progressives interact with political opponents.
First of all, as we all realize, their view of “truth” is radically different from the traditional western viewpoint of what constitutes a true statement and what metaphysical meaning the term truth has. This incontestable relativism of theirs has several implications: one of which is that for the progressive, rhetoric becomes the means by which truth is shaped and brought into existence, rather than truth being a propositional description of the world or some portion of it, as it really is, and which is then rhetorically presented.
This relativism then, tends to devalue logical analysis and careful exposition as tools of debate in favor of other kinds of verbal acts intended to influence social relations. Chief among these replacements for truth are the tools of ridicule and disruption. Talk, is conceived of as warfare – not figurative, but literal – by means other than overt physical violence. As such, all of the techniques and deceptions employed in all-out war are considered by leftists and progressives as properly pertaining to political argument.
For the political progressive, silencing you through disruptive or annoying tactics, or discomfiting you emotionally, is just as good if not better than winning an argument on facts: since facts are always conceived as mere data points forensically ready to be deployed in the service of the world as they will dream it.
The goal of the socialist or progressive is after all, not to arrive at the point of truth – which they think is impossible in life and meaningless in an ultimate sense – but, at solidarity, which they think is attainable with the proper methods of social pruning and affect management.
I dropped off of Dana’s site because I was being dragged into interminable squabbles with persons whose hash I had already settled logically or historically time and time again. It was like playing whack-a-mole long after that game has lost its novelty. Their notion of victory, lies in congratulating themselves on summoning the energy to pop up again as a fresh annoyance no matter how humiliating of discrediting their performance would have been for a person of normal sensibilities.
Sound familiar? It should. Because some of the trolls are even the same people. Consider: “New Zealand Socialist book putter backer…. Phoenician in a Time of Romans, banned by multiple Conservative sites
and disdained by multiple other sites, is definitely disdain-worthy….”
That’s from 2011, months before Phony made his first appearance here. And here I thought he was just a particularly freakish PZ/Scalzi fan, but apparently he is something even more political and obsessive. Although wouldn’t it be hilarious if Phony turned out to be Athol exhibiting his dark side?