There have been requests to have an Editor Log to comment on the TA situation. There are a number of reasons that I am not doing that, not the least of which is that a full treatment of the situation is boring, confusing, and pointless. I very nearly decided not to do this post, simply because it is a comment on an ongoing conflict among multiple sides, and the person it most concerns, TA, is not here to ask questions or defend himself.
So to start with, the first question TA might have is simply: "why was I blocked?"
This is one of the complex parts, but in short, TA was blocked because he consistently showed a lack of common sense, self-awareness, and self-control. If you are reading this because you want to know under what conditions we block users, you are out of luck. TA was blocked because there was a mostly-consensus that he was not willing to make and stick to a commitment to get along with people most of the time.
Which brings us to TA's next likely question: "So why weren't others blocked?"
TA has made the argument in the past that others are behaving worse than him. There have been at least two cases where other users have posted strongly worded, clearly inappropriate writeups attacking him. In these cases, whether it was needed or not, the initial change came from an editor stepping in and directly censoring the attacks in question (both editors were me). There have been numerous other cases in which direct and indirect insults have been sniped in the chatbox, and reportedly many more in private messages.
The difference has generally been that when it comes down to the line, other users are willing to back off and let TA have enough rope to hang himself, and TA has been happy to snatch up that rope and start tying. However, TA would have a point: he picks at groups, others pick at him; in blocking him we are making the statement that some groups are more protected than some individuals. I can go into a long and complex justification of this, but the long and short of it is that TA worked himself into a corner where it was no longer apparent to me that it was worth my time to protect him from himself.
From my view, the most important lesson to come from this is that a good benchmark for blocking a user is when they agree to make changes, and then come back and make the same 'mistake' again and again. Unfortunately, this shouldn't be a rule applied immediately, so you will see people behaving badly.
There is a lot of worry about TA making multiple accounts to get around blocks. This is another whole long post, but I can confirm that yes, if you request your account locked and then come back under another name, you are often given a pass. There is a list of users that have requested their accounts locked, and which I hope will come back when they are ready. TA is not on that list, and does not have a pass.
May 6th, Addendum: TheAnglican's and RoadScholar's writeups have been removed, at his request.