Originally Posted by bpcyclist

Excellent insight. And sort of the whole point of the post was that I, in fact, never, ever, ever engage with these kinds of people. Never. But today,for whatever set of reasons or non-reasons, I did. I violated my own continuous and longstanding advice to others to disengage and move on. This shows, I suspect, that even very cautious and conservative people like me who are completely non-confrontational can, in the right or wrong set of circumstances, actually be provoked. It is possible to provoke a reaction even from me. And I find that an interesting observation about human nature.